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Richard Littlejohn charms the world again

Started by 23 Daves, December 20, 2006, 02:19:37 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

23 Daves

I know, I really shouldn't give Britain's most overpaid troll any forum space, but nonetheless he's really gone hell for leather this time:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=423549&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=322

QuoteLet's get the caveat out of the way from the off. The five women murdered in Ipswich were tragic, lost souls who met a grisly end. I sincerely hope whoever killed them is caught, charged and convicted.


No one with a shred of humanity would wish upon them their ghastly lives and horrible deaths. But Mother Teresa, they weren't.


And I know this might sound frightfully callous in the current hysterical, emotional climate, but we're not all guilty.


We do not share in the responsibility for either their grubby little existences or their murders. Society isn't to blame.


It might not be fashionable, or even acceptable in some quarters, to say so, but in their chosen field of "work'=", death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.


That doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.


They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.


Of course their friends and families are grieving. That's what friends and families do. But they should also be asking themselves if there was anything they could have done to prevent what happened.


If you discovered your daughter had gone on the game to feed her heroin habit, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to get her off it?


Frankly, I'm tired of the lame excuses about how they all fell victim to ruthless pimps who plied them with drugs. These women were on the streets because they wanted to be.


We are all capable of free will. At any time, one or all of them could have sought help from the police, or the church, or a charity, or a government agency specifically established to deal with heroin addicts. They chose not to.


The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.


We've heard the well-rehearsed arguments for legalised and regulated prostitution, as if we were living under the Taliban. The fact is, we've already got de facto legal brothels on every High Street.


They're call saunas or massage parlours.


As I remarked when the Labour MP Joe Ashton was once caught in a Siamese "sauna" in Northampton, he must have been the only man in Britain ever to go to a massage parlour for a massage. It doesn't get much more glamorous than that.


These five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley "sauna" above a kebab shop wouldn't give them house room.


The men who used them were either too mean to fork out whatever a massage parlour charges, or simply weren't fussy. Some men are actually turned on by disgusting, drug-addled street whores. Where there's demand, there'll always be supply.


This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies". That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.


The gormless Guardianistas simply refuse to confront this blindingly obvious reality. They would rather deify celebrity druggies such as Kate Moss and Will Self than face the truth that hard drugs wreck lives.


What I find most objectionable about all this is the attempt to make us all feel responsible for the murders. There is a nasty whiff of Lady Di about the enforced mood of mourning, with even the Old Bill coming across like hand-wringing archbishops.


At Ipswich Town's home game on Saturday, there was a minute's silence. We were supposed to believe that this was a true reflection of the community's sympathy.


I don't buy it. Most people went along with it in the spirit of emotional correctness and through fear of getting their heads kicked in if they didn't.


There was only one thing missing, but don't bet against it.


When Blair gets back from saving the Middle East, don't be surprised if he turns up at the funeral of one of these unfortunate women to deliver a lip-trembling, tear-stained eulogy: "She was the People's Prostitute".

Simplistic isn't the word.  I would pick his comments to pieces one by one, but really, what's the point?  And I love the sympathy he's doling out to their families as well with his "Well, perhaps they should have thought harder about how their daughters were living their lives" routine.

I've pointed out to Mr Littejohn that throughout his career he has proven himself to be something of a whore himself, but the only danger in his line of work is being humiliated by Michael Winner on national television.  Given a choice between the two fates, however, I think I'd probably opt for strangulation.  I doubt they'll print that comment.

Neville Chamberlain

He really is a hateful shit, isn't he?

I think this has been raised in the "Ripper" thread already though...

Felatio Imperative

Quote from: "23 Daves"

Simplistic isn't the word.  I would pick his comments to pieces one by one, but really, what's the point?  


Well, to prove that you can I suppose. Otherwise, what's the point of this thread?

Make me smile

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote from: "23 Daves"

Simplistic isn't the word.  I would pick his comments to pieces one by one, but really, what's the point?  


Well, to prove that you can I suppose. Otherwise, what's the point of this thread?

A thread simply for the purpose of calling Richard Littlejohn a cunt is enough for me....he's a cunt.

Felatio Imperative

Quote
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.



Quote
This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies". That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.



Seems pretty accurate to me..

Brutus Beefcake

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.


Who the fuck's been saying that?

Artemis

I could only get through the first half of that - what an evil little troll Littlejohn is.

Blumf

QuoteThese five women were on the streets because even the filthiest, most disreputable back-alley "sauna" above a kebab shop wouldn't give them house room.

Ugh! The hateful little shit. Completely unneeded.

Make me smile

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"

Quote
This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies". That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.



Seems pretty accurate to me..

Well, they obviously deserved to be murdered then!

terminallyrelaxed

QuoteThere is a nasty whiff of Lady Di about the enforced mood of mourning

I think thats more to do with the mawkish sentimentality that the kind of papers he writes for glory in.

Felatio Imperative

Quote from: "Make me smile"
Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"

Quote
This wasn't a case of women going on the game to put bread on the table, or to look after their "babies". That's what the welfare state is for. They did it for drugs.



Seems pretty accurate to me..

Well, they obviously deserved to be murdered then!



I don't actually think he's saying that. I read it as a comment on the post-Diana national snivelling that has become the norm in these circumstances.

Quote
What I find most objectionable about all this is the attempt to make us all feel responsible for the murders. There is a nasty whiff of Lady Di about the enforced mood of mourning, with even the Old Bill coming across like hand-wringing archbishops.


At Ipswich Town's home game on Saturday, there was a minute's silence. We were supposed to believe that this was a true reflection of the community's sympathy.


I don't buy it. Most people went along with it in the spirit of emotional correctness and through fear of getting their heads kicked in if they didn't.



Did you see the old bill reading out their names, with a dramatic pause in between for added effect? It just isn't right.

23 Daves

Sorry, this is replicated information, isn't it?  It's also been featured in the Ripper thread, which I must admit was getting a bit too long for me to follow properly over these pre-Christmas evenings.

If you really want me to pick his comments to pieces of course, I can, but it would feel like partaking in a junior debating society at school.  Any simplistic argument he could possibly take he's chosen to do so - believing that the families should have sorted the prostitute's lives out for them, for instance.  If drug addiction could be solved purely by the strength of any family unit, then it could arguably be halved in the UK and the world - the simple fact remains that families, no matter how much they spend on sending their offspring to rehab, and no matter how much they try forcing them to go cold turkey, cannot always resolve the issues no matter how much it tears them apart.  Families can only really do so much.  So his comment of "perhaps they should think about what else they could have done" is beyond offensive.  

There's also the fact that he seems to believe that anyone who takes a wrong turn or makes a mistake in life cannot be sympathised with.  In fact, their lives should instead be found wanting in comparison to Mother Theresa or somebody who has done important work for charity.  Ridiculous.  Using that argument, I'm sure almost all tabloid hacks, and even many posters on here (including myself) would be found wanting and denied access into Littlejohn Heaven.  How many of us have worked for dodgy corporations, taken drugs we could potentially have become addicted to, or made appalling decisions during a bad patch in our lives?

Then there's the "free will" argument.  True, to an extent.  But drug addicts have significantly reduced free will, as we've talked about on this forum before.  Saying to a heroin addict "You could pack this in any time you wanted" is ludicrous - try even saying it to the average twenty a day smoker.

And is there really, honestly any sort of national mourning going on about this?  I've been getting jokey texts about it from my sister, and the odd aside of an "it's terrible what still goes on in society" nature, but that's about all the public commentary noticed.  I think most people just feel slightly embarrassed and ashamed that this kind of thing still goes on - I don't think anyone's weeping nightly about it apart from the families of the victims.  From the way he's waffling on, you'd think we were all leaving bouquets of flowers in our local red light districts as some sort of tribue.

Can somebody please put that Littlejohn V Winner spat up on YouTube?  We need it now more than ever.

Artemis

It's the underlying stench of moral superiority that I think is most ugly about Littlejohn, as if the fact that these poor girl's drug habits or 'choice' of profession should in any way detract from the feeling of sadness or horror that five young women were murdered. I'm always torn as to whether he's dumb enough to believe what he writes or if he's just trying to please the people who buy the kind of paper he writes for. Either way, he's a repugnant excuse for a journalist.

What's this LJ vs Winner thing, then?

Felatio Imperative

Quote from: "Brutus Beefcake"
Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.


Who the fuck's been saying that?



http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1973802,00.html


Took me 2 minutes.

23 Daves

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Did you see the old bill reading out their names, with a dramatic pause in between for added effect? It just isn't right.

I didn't see that, no.

To be fair, though, local communities often rally round in the face of a crisis to show they're ashamed of a regional situation or have sympathies for the families concerned.  It's a fairly natural human response, and I'm sure in Ipswich there's plenty of that sort of thing going on, but beyond the tabloid headlines and the odd enraged Internet thread (like this one) I've not noticed a great deal else that makes me think it's mawkish or being used as a political tool.  As always, I think that kind of thing is going on in Littlejohn's imagination more than anywhere else, along with favouritism for gays in the workplace, illegal immigrants taking over the local police force and Muslims banning Lent, or whatever else he's wittering on about nowadays.

Make me smile

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote from: "Brutus Beefcake"
Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote
The tortuous twistings of the sisterhood over the past week have been a joy to behold. The 30-yearold Spare Rib T-shirts have been brought out of mothballs and we've been treated to the All Men Are Bastards/Rapists/Murderers mantra from assorted Glendas who ought to be old enough to know better.


Who the fuck's been saying that?



http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1973802,00.html


Took me 2 minutes.

I don't see how that article relates to that Littlejohn quote. 5 prostitutes have been murdered and a columnist (a woman as well! Oh, that must be evidence of 'the sisterhood'!) examines the murky world of streetwalking prostitutes, and concludes that it is quite dangerous and that not all men who go to them are blameless service users.

23 Daves

Quote from: "Artemis"
What's this LJ vs Winner thing, then?

Winner appeared on his chat show on one occasion, shortly after Littlejohn had conducted an abusive and incredibly patronising interview with two lesbians.  He declared that he had strongly thought about not coming to talk to Littlejohn at all, and subjected him to a tirade of abuse, highlighting all his shortcomings.

It's documented on Wikipedia:

QuoteOn one episode of Littlejohn's London Weekend Television show Richard Littlejohn Live And Uncut in 1994, two lesbian guests (one of whom was former Lambeth council leader Linda Bellos) argued in favour of lesbians becoming parents. Littlejohn was very critical of the two women, which led to celebrity guest Michael Winner denouncing Littlejohn as an "arsehole" and condemning him as homophobic. Nigella Lawson, who was also present, described Littlejohn's views as "extreme".

Littlejohn recalled this incident in his 1995 book You Couldn't Make It Up, expressing surprise that his "revolutionary opinion" that children should ideally have both a male and a female parent, and that the NHS should not subsidise artificial insemination for women "who can't even abide the thought of becoming pregnant in the natural manner", was condemned so vociferously by his guests. Some people believe it was not the content of Littlejohn's views but his abusive manner towards his lesbian guests that caused offence[citation needed].

You couldn't make it up!

Oscar

Quote from: "Littlejohn"They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.
This is just toss, how does he know what these women might have done. He says "At any time, one or all of them could have sought help from the police, or the church, or a charity, or a government agency specifically established to deal with heroin addicts." but how does he know that that decision mightn't have come tomorrow, or next week or next year. He has no idea what their possible futures were. The horror of murder is because a person's possible future has been taken away, Littlejohn is making out the horror only comes because someone has achieved a set number of goals that makes a person's life worhtwhile.

Godzilla Bankrolls

Quote from: "Felatio Imperative"
Quote from: "Brutus Beefcake"Who the fuck's been saying that?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1973802,00.html

Took me 2 minutes.

Obviously that didn't include the time it takes to read the article, otherwise you'd see it doesn't support Littlejohn's fantastical 'point' at all.

terminallyrelaxed

Personally, I can see no excuse for his continued existence. I'm certain his bigotry serves to inform and encourage that of the mentally challenged people who read and agree with him, and as such I believe he is a tangible source of evil in people's lives.
Printing this kind of thing perpetuates homophobia, racism and hatred and general intolerance, all of which have a detrimental effect on all our lives, and indeed mean the end of some people's.
Much like religious fanatics (we'll allow them their opinions and lifestyles, but they won't allow us ours) the only logical conclusion is that killing him would not  be immoral - the benefit to so many lives outweighs the snuffing out of one.

23 Daves

On the subject of the police making heavy work of announcing the names of the victims at the football match, I would suggest that could be for two reasons:

a/ attempting to drum up guilt to bring people forward who might know something (like what I've seem them do on "Cracker")

b/ because the police force in the area has a particularly bad press with its handling of prostitutes, and they're trying to show a fluffy side to themselves to improve their national PR

or perhaps

c/ both.

I'm sure that incident alone isn't enough to prove that this is a case of any Dianafication going on, though.

Sovereign

Would it be worth writing a letter of complaint to the Daily Mail, or whoever owns the Daily Mail? I'm not the sort of person who takes Littlejohn seriously enough to be offended by him, but this is one of the most revolting things I've ever read. Describing the murder of 5 innocent women as "not a great deal" is is beyond belief, and really shouldn't be in a mainstream newspaper. Its the sort of thing you'd expect to read on a fundamentalist christian website or a neo-nazi website.

Bill O'Reilly is like George Orwell compared to Littlejohn.

Sheldon Finklestein

QuoteThat doesn't make it justifiable homicide, but in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.


They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car.

Nice pun there, from the heartless bastard. Yes, folks, the murder of these women is no tragedy. After all, they weren't going to do something wonderful, like curing cancer, working in Darfur, or, even better, writing ill-thought out, putrid little columns in the tabloids. Disgraceful.

As is Felatio Imperative's swiftness in defending him. You don't have to justify everything any right-wing fuckwit ever says, you know.

And also, 'that doesn't make it justifiable homicide'? Who the fuck thinks it was? Why would you even make that point? Surely the only people who think like that are the sort of maniacs who do it.

Borboski

There's a point in trying to raise consciousness that prostitution is a hellish existence, and yes, strangulation is one the risks.

However, saying that they are "no great loss" just demonstrates what a hateful little shite Littlejohn is - I do wonder how we calculate the value of human life - I can only assume that in Littlejohn's world he's somewhere at the top.

23 Daves

From what I've heard, a lot of Daily Mail readers have apparently already complained about this, proving that he pushed the issue too far even for them.  I personally am going to leave them to it - the Mail only really seems to give a shit about the views of its own readers.

Mind you, the comments of "Nice one John, this is one of the most intelligent things I've read in a long while" on the website clearly show that there are some people on his side.  How anyone can find anything Littlejohn has written as "intelligent", least of all this, boggles the mind.  Even on the very rare occasions where you find yourself agreeing with him, you do wonder if he could perhaps have stated his case in a more watertight way.  He's one of the  most graceless columnists I've ever read - Bushell seems positively literary in comparison.

Sheldon Finklestein

I don't see how strangulation is 'one of the risks' of being a prostitute. Surely, being murdered by a psychopath is a risk that anyone walking the street at night faces. Why are we talking about it like it's the risk a fireman faces of getting burned?

hencole

Littlejohn is just lazy. Plain and simple. Easy money for no effort whatsoever. Anyone can rant on either side of an argument, as I and other do many a time on here.

Borboski

Quote from: "Sheldon Finklestein"I don't see how strangulation is 'one of the risks' of being a prostitute. Surely, being murdered by a psychopath is a risk that anyone walking the street at night faces. Why are we talking about it like it's the risk a fireman faces of getting burned?

It's clearly a risky business.  Obviously it's hard to see that people are choosing it as a career choice - but I personally don't mind anything that reinforces the image of how horrible a profession it is.

Having said that, I don't think Pretty Woman, for example, is seriously persuading people to become prozzies.

Borboski

QuoteIf you discovered your daughter had gone on the game to feed her heroin habit, wouldn't you move heaven and earth to get her off it?


These women were on the streets because they wanted to be.


We are all capable of free will. At any time, one or all of them could have sought help from the police, or the church, or a charity, or a government agency specifically established to deal with heroin addicts. They chose not to.

Shit, just look at those quotes?  This is what I mean about the distance between some of the lay debate and the public sector.  How can we communicate with people who think like that?

Catalogue Trousers

Cunt Littlejohn also wrote, as a throwaway line:

Quoteemotional correctness

My, what a rugged individual you are, Mr Littlejohn. We're automatically pathetic wimps for feeling upset that people have been murdered by a vicious arsehole.

Fuck off and die painfully.

Edited to add:

More intelligent comment from Littlejohn's readers!

QuoteRichard, you say what most people think but are to afraid to put into words for fear of the politically correct lobby which is small but very vocal.
some of us just gave up and left the country they loved .

- Geoff, thailand

Poor diddums. Good to see that you gave up on the country that you love because of the terrifying power of the PC Brigade. You, sir, are a coward and a cretin, and in some small way my country is improved by your absence.