Tuesday 13 October 2009

Littlejohn and Editorial Intelligence - not mutually exclusive shock

Your starter for ten is to fill in the blank:

Richard Littlejohn has won an award. It was ________ of the Year.

Any guesses? Here's a clue: the missing word begins with 'P'.

And no, it doesn't rhyme with 'brick'.

In fact, he's been named Poison Pen: Polemicist of the Year by the Comment Awards run by Editorial Intelligence.

Clearly, there's a limit to their 'intelligence' if they're giving awards to such appalling, ill-informed, repetitive writers as him.

It comes after his unreserved apology for falsely claiming most robberies are committed by Eastern Europeans, making up a dog story, claiming £8 billion could pay off a £800 billion debt many times over, stating there are nearly three times more illegal immigrants in the UK than most academic researchers, knowing no offence was given in a conversation he hasn't heard, knowing better than a jury what the outcome of a trial should be when he hasn't attended any of it, claiming someone has been granted asylum when they haven't, attributing an MP to the wrong party, attributing a town to the wrong county, and - of course - mistaking humans for labradors.

And all that's just since the start of September.

Brilliant.

Today's column begins with a repeat of yesterday's Mail story:

Britain is the worst place to live in Europe, according to a new survey.

Except the survey only took into account very specific factors in 10 western European countries, rather than all of Europe. It was the best bit of free advertising authors uSwitch ever had.

Still that allows Littlejohn to bemoan the state of Britain, with its bins, and speed limits, and fear of paedophiles. Surprisingly, he doesn't blame immigrants, Muslims or the gays, and doesn't mention elf'n'safety or Nazis, but does seem to think global warming is behind it somewhere.

And what is his obsession with polar bears? He seems to mention them every time he writes about global warming.

In fact, he reveals just how lazy he is when he goes through the list of recent 'problems':

Yesterday, for instance, brought a number of prime examples of the onslaught of state interference in our lives...

On the same day it was also revealed...

It also emerged yesterday that...

It was also reported yesterday that...

All within a few paragraphs. Is that really prize winning writing?

He then turns his attention to the sale of government assets announced a day or so ago. You probably won't be surprised where he goes with this...

The Dartford River Crossing is being flogged off to cut Britain's debts.

Let's hope we get a better deal than when Gordon Brown sold our gold reserves at car boot sale prices.

As this blog noted on 2 October, when Littlejohn last used that exact same phrase, it's a phrase he has used repeatedly - namely in June, March and September 2008. He has referred to the gold sale (which was over half, but not all, the reserves) on at least four other occasions too.

Of course, Littlejohn has made his career out of repeating the same old crap over and over ('you couldn't make it up' - although he does - 'mind how you go', 'com-pen-say-shun' etc) but he includes the asset sale story for no other reason that to mention the gold reserves. Again.

The others winners of the Editorial Intelligence awards were probably thinking they had achieved something half-decent. When they found Littlejohn had won one too, they must have been gutted.

(Hat-tip to Anton for news of the award)

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