Not time for Littlejohn

Richard Littlejohn began his column on Tuesday with this eye-catching claim:

To be honest, I've always considered all Liberal MPs to be homosexuals unless furnished with concrete proof to the contrary.

A tiresome attempt to be deliberately controversial? The latest example of his stupidity? Or, more likely, a bit of both.

Two comments on the Guardian site reacted appropriately. Here's scaryduck:

To be honest, I've always considered all Daily Mail columnists to be morons unless furnished with concrete proof to the contrary.

And Spoonface:

To be honest, I've always considered Richard Littlejohn to be a bigoted little halfwit, and he constantly furnishes me with proof that I'm right.

Today, another column, this one carrying the headline This was a tragedy, not time for Plodspeak.

It's not time for Littlejohn's petty attempts at point-scoring against the police either.

He couldn't really avoid writing about the tragic events in Cumbria, but obviously needed a hook. So while most of his comments are rather bland platitudes about the shootings, he added his bit of controversy by launching an attack on the police, which is something he does in his columns all the time anyway.

And he really does have the dirt on the Cumbria force:

I was surprised by the tone of the press conference given by Cumbria's Deputy Chief Constable, Stuart Hyde, at tea-time on Wednesday, in which he kept referring to the man who had just killed 12 people and wounded another 25 as 'Mister' Bird.

Yes. Whether we call the killer 'Mr' Bird, or not - that's the really big issue that comes from Wednesday's shootings, isn't it?

He goes on to criticise the police for their statement which had a few sentences at the end to say Cumbria was going to try to carry on as normal:

"Cumbria prides itself on being a safe place to work, play and visit. Cumbria is a tightly knit community covering some of the most beautiful countryside in the land, its strength is as much its people as its geography.

"It remains one of the safest areas of the UK and is very much open for business and tourism despite the tragic circumstances of the last few hours."

Why is this a problem? Similar sentiments were expressed by the police after the London bombings in 2005.

But that's not good enough for Littlejohn:

He sounded like a junior tourism official...

Did Hyde not realise how tactless and crass it sounded...?

I shuddered to think of the reaction of a bereaved relative who had just been told that a loved one had been shot dead and had turned on the TV to hear a police spokesman banging on about the effects on tourism.

...it struck a jarring, insensitive note at a time of terrible tragedy.

All of which shows what a nasty little hypocrite Littlejohn is. As these two comments point out, it was Littlejohn who, only a few weeks after the murder of five women in Ipswich, dismissed the victims as:

disgusting, drug-addled street whores

And added:

in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.

But today, Littlejohn suddenly pretends to care about people being 'tactless and crass' and striking 'jarring, insensitive' notes that might upset 'bereaved relatives'.

It's doubtful anyone will be convinced.

(Angry Mob has an excellent, thoughtful post on today's Littlejohn column, explaining how he dehumanises his targets to make it easier to attack them. His take on Tuesday's column is here)