Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Golliwogs and Miss Carol Thatcher: Another Case Of 'Political Correctness Gone Rife'


I have some experience in the matter of political correctness gone rife. My old lady editor at The Hootsmon used this phrase almost as a matter of punctuation to express her disgust at every aspect of modernity; a trick she had learned at that temple of unreasonable ire, the Daily Mail. But the sacking of Miss Carol Thatcher by the BBC is a puzzler. She should have been sacked long ago for being a bumbling halfwit who was only employed because her mother blasted the Argies in the Guerra de las Malvinas. But if - as my friend, the Conservative blogger Mr Iain Dale, attested on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme - she was referring the tennis player Mr Andrew Murray, then she really should have been more careful with her language, and stuck to the received wisdom that he is a tone-faced, whingeing Jock.

4 comments:

Arthur Clewley said...

poor old carol has got herself in a bit of a jam (it's taken me a week to think that one up, I hope you like it). We haven't seen the last of the old girl though - Gardners Question time came from my town the other week and the 'Yorkshiremen are all mean' gags would have made her feel right at home. Of course why people will pay to go and hear themselves stereotyped like this when they can listen to it for free a couple of weeks later I'll never know...

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Anonymous said...

Recently on the Jay Leno show, America's affirmative action president, in an unconvincing attempt at self-deprecation, described his ten-pin bowling skills as being akin to "the Special Olympics". Carol Thatcher's private remark didn't insult a whole group (apart from golliwogs) whereas Obama's public one is perceived to have done so and yet the BBC doubtless consider her to be the greater villain.