Beware of letting the dimwits loose on air
AS ONE who prefers the oval ball to the round one – except while watching the ghastly disaster of England against France last Saturday – I have never seen Match Of The Day. So I cannot comment on the merits of its presenter Gary Lineker.
But his comparison of Britain’s futile (so far) attempts to stem the tide of illegal immigrants pouring on to our southern shores with the horrors of Nazi Germany’s persecution of its Jews through the 1930s was not so much obscene and offensive (which it was) but worryingly stupid.
Which poses a question. Why does our society elevate the dim to icon status? Years ago, Master Lineker was skilful at kicking a football about a field and through a netted rectangle at the end. So what? His grasp of European history is non-existent, and the TV is the dimwits’ principal forum.
Another is Chris Packham who preaches to us about Mother Nature but fails to warn us that the poet got it right – Nature is red in tooth and claw. Virtually nothing in nature dies except in pain.
Most small creatures die torn apart by the claws, teeth and beaks of meateating predators. That is to say, in agony. Even the predators are finally reduced by age to being unable to hunt and kill and die of starvation. The reality of nature is not pretty.
High up the totem pole is Matt Hancock, the arch-fanatic for our ruinous lockdown programme through Covid – though apparently unable to keep his hands in lockdown when the cheeks of Miss Coladangelo were within range.
It was not he who released the devastating Covid files – he simply hoarded the private messages that now reveal what a total botch the Government made of Covid. It was journalist Isabel Oakeshott who did that. Thank you, Miss O.
But if you want serious stupidity switch to TV quiz shows. Line-up after line-up of contestants have two things in common: they have all been thoroughly vetted and only the lowest two per cent IQ of the country get through. This ensures that only minuscule sums in prizes ever leave the budgets of the franchises that own the show.
We would have a far better-run country if the seriously dim were not elevated to stardom and influence and replaced by men and women with good brains.
Then ex-footballers could host football programmes and stick to football. European history is safer in the hands of historians who do not compare immigration checks with genocide.