More hypocrisy on Carol Thatcher

The Carol Thatcher-golliwog rumbles on, with acres of pages in today's papers and their website blogs devoted to it, with much speculation about what was said and how.

Lord Tebbit has spoken out, suggesting the BBC were out for revenge: “It is probably a bit of a way for the BBC to get back at Carol’s mother.”

Which would appear to be a curious point of view, given that Carol has been a roving reporter on The One Show for a quite a while - employing here would seem an odd way to exact 'revenge'. No mention in any of the papers as to how much she has been paid for all her BBC work, another double standard compared to the Ross affair.

The Mail has got on its moral high horse again, with a rambling, hypocritical editorial and a list of all the 'scandalous' jokes that you might fail to be scandalised by.

It says:

"In this digital, multi-channel age, shouldn't we be thinking seriously of preserving the best of the BBC - Radio 4, the World Service and the two main TV stations - and selling the rest to the highest bidders?"

Would the 'two main TV stations' happen to be the ones on which The One Show, Top Gear, Mock The Week, Film 2009 and Tonight With Jonathan Ross are broadcast? You know, all those programmes which have produced 'filth'?

"Every under-75 TV owner in the land is obliged to pay for their filth, on pain of imprisonment."

And there is one other two word phrase in the editorial which they feel so strongly about that they have put it in italics (here in bold):

"On the word of an informant, she is summarily dismissed for a remark she made in private, whose context and tone we cannot judge."

Apart from apparently suggesting racism can be acceptable in the right 'context and tone', the use of the words 'in private' may make Max Mosley chuckle. After all, what he was doing in his orgy was 'in private' but that didn't stop the Mail claiming it was a disgrace and the whole world needed to know about it (see here and here and in lots of other places). But when Carol Thatcher makes her stupid remark 'in private' (albeit in a room of journalists) there's some PC-gone-mad BBC employee to stab her in the back and THAT is now the disgrace.

• More examples of Mail hypocrisy in an excellent article at Five Chinese Crackers