More from the ever expanding file of ludicrous, scary, news stories from Airstrip One (formerly the United Kingdom).
A well established and well liked writer and broadcaster called Danny Baker is currently floating face down in a spreading pool of his own internet blood after being at the centre of a Twitter feeding frenzy, he has also been sacked from his job on BBC Radio Five Live and is under police investigation.
His offence? He posted a picture poking fun at the media fawnathon around the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s first child. Don’t think for a minute that his crime is taking the micky out of the Royal Family. No, his crime is racism.
The picture he chose is from the early 20th century, with a well dressed couple on the steps of a building, with a chimp dressed in posh clothes, bowler, hat, coat, spats and cane.
In the eye of the beholder…
Ironically, Danny Baker fell foul of the Twitter mob, BBC and every self appointed leftist inquisitor from Portsmouth to Perth not because he is racist, but because he genuinely is not. Baker is a leftist himself, a lifelong Labour activist, he supported Corbyn in 2017 and opposes Brexit. He is also one of the very few working class white folk to be seen and heard in the BBC fantasyland. I don’t agree with his politics, but he’s engaging, down to earth and seems a genuine bloke. When he chose the picture he saw a suitably ludicrous image to poke fun at the royal birth. He clearly didn’t make any connection between a simian and a child with 1/4 Afro-Caribbean ancestry. However, many, many other people did.
Surely this says more about them and their perceptions than him and his? As soon as the possibility that he was making comment on Archie’s ethnicity rather than privilege and the media circus he was appalled and deleted the tweet, apologising fulsomely. As a bloke who really doesn’t have a racist bone in his body the tired old racist trope of black people as monkeys and apes never entered his head, but it was well entrenched in the minds of the Tofu eating Torquemadas,
“In attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a Lord and thought, ‘That’s the one!’ Had I kept searching I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a baby in a crown. But I didn’t. God knows I wish [I] had… Minutes later I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was of course mixed race and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me… What had I done?… It was a genuine, naive and catastrophic mistake.”
Despite his evident contrition he is now out of a job and under investigation by the police. Yes, even though it is possible to take in and understand what he did in seconds, he is being investigated by the Metropolitan police. I doubt he will be charged with anything, nevertheless, scarce police time and resources will be used up. More importantly, anyone thinking of writing anything that might upset the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation, the Guardian (of the Holy Places) and the Metropolitan Thought Police will think again.
We will see if Baker’s leftist connections and self abasement will lead to his rehabilitation, or if he will disappear for good from our radios and screens and memories.
“Danny who? No, not here, he went the same way as Polnikov and Trotsky..”
I’m aware I’ve done a lot of 1984/Thoughtcrime type stuff from the UK. There’s a lot to report, terrifyingly so considering we have, so I’m told, a Conservative government at the moment. Do please let me know if it’s just too depressing and/or irrelevant.
4 replies on “Thinkpol investigate man for jokecrime”
The UK has a conservative government? That’s news to me.
Amen
I’d love to claim credit but it comes from Orwell’s 1984 and is a contraction of Thought Police. Rather like the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) and Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) in Nazi Europe.
Is someone monitoring your (as a British Citizen) postings on BW.com? Stay safe Davey. “Tofu eating Torquemada’s” huuummm presents an interesting image.