Golli-gate

Who would have thought that the winner of I’m a Celebrity... 2005 and, um, journalist, Carol Thatcher would become the centre of a racism scandal? What next? Racism on Celebrity Big Brother?

Political correctness gone mad

But with all the media hoo-ha where do you go for an objective, balanced well argued appraisal of the situation. Why, that progressive organ of truth, The Daily Telegraph of course.

Columnist and former Telegraph editor Charles Moore writes an impassioned defence of Thatcher’s comments which can neatly be summarised thus:
1) That the term “golliwog” is not racially offensive when Thatcher uses it because they were a popular cultural image when she was growing up.
2) The BBC is engaged in a culture war against white, middle-(to upper)-class English people, the principal weapons in which are a Big Brother-type thought policing of its presenters and Jonathan Ross.

That would be a neat summary... but it’s so much funnier if we look at some of the comments in detail...

“All through Carol Thatcher’s childhood – indeed, until into her thirties – golliwogs were popular toys. Robertson’s jam marketed itself with a golliwog, which appeared on every jar. You could collect golliwog stickers and send them off, and then you got a smart metal golliwog badge.

Carol Thatcher liked the jam and she liked the golliwog.”

Have you spoken to Carol about this, Charles? Do you know she liked the jam? Do you know she liked the golliwog? Do you have any indication that Robertson’s was, in fact, the favoured jam in the Thatcher household? If you haven’t verified this then its pure conjecture Charles, and frankly, sloppy...

“When she said that the mixed-race Jo-Wilfried Tsonga resembled a golly, she was making a friendly joke, rather as someone of the same generation might say, “Ooh, he looks just like Rupert Bear” (or Captain Pugwash, or Noggin the Nog).”

Not really. Rupert the Bear isn’t based on a racially offensive stereotype of bears. And under what possible circumstances, Charles, would you compare someone to any of those figures? Perhaps if they looked like them? What exactly does a gollywog look like? Other than that it’s black? Could it actually be that the only parallel Thatcher was drawing between Tsonga and a golliwog was that they are both coloured?

Which brings us to another point, Rupert, Pugwash and Noggin are distinct personalities; by calling Tsonga a “golly” she consigns him to being an unidentifiable, unindividual, generic “thing”. Or to put it another way “they all look the same to me”.

“Why not antagonise Disgusted of Brixton, as well as Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells?”

I think you’ll find that it’s hard to rile people in Brixton, Charles. They’re usually fairly chilled.

“Even when Ross rang up Andrew Sachs, a 78-year-old Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and left obscene (broadcast) messages about how Russell Brand had slept with his granddaughter, his punishment was a mere three months’ suspension.”

It sounds like he’s implying that Ross and Brand targeted Sachs because he was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. I think there could be an exposé there – are the two of them actually out to get Sachs because they’re neo-fascist agents of darkness trying to finish what Hitler started?

“As bombing campaigns go, the BBC’s culture war is unique in history, because it makes the victims pay for its attacks. Pay £139.50, and Ross is dropped on you from a great height.”

That’s right Charles; only white people pay the licence fee.

It all ends rather brilliantly with Moore suggesting that Thatcher start an ironic “Golliwog Club” as an echo of the “vermin club” started by young Conservatives in the 1940s. Moore says that if she does “I think we should all join”.

I would love it if a bunch of ageing, reactionary, conservatives started calling themselves the “Golliwog Club”. Then you’ll see political correctness go mad...

Meanwhile in Sandringham

The BBC reports that, in response to the whole Golli-gate affair Golliwog toys have now been removed from the gift shop on the Queen’s Sandringham estate.

How the hell did staff there think it was still acceptable to sell them until they were alerted by this happening? Are they so isolated? So completely out of touch with modern culture? Surely not?

Slightly more disturbing is the fact that the article says they had been sold there “for more than a year”. Now, OK, if this means they had been sold there for fifty years. But it does seem to imply that someone thought it was sensible to introduce golliwog toys circa 2007/08.

The mind boggles.