You wouldn't be able to tell that Littlejohn is a highly-paid journalist

This blog has avoided detailed mention of Richard Littlejohn for a while, but his column on Tuesday was too bone-headed and obnoxious to ignore.

Here's one of his absolutely side-splitting attempts at humour:

Coalition is the new majority. In Australia, where neither of the two main parties won enough seats to form a government, the next Prime Minister is going to have to rely on the support on a handful of eccentrics from the Outback.

The future of Upside Down Land appears to depend on a swagman, Crocodile Dundee and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

Makes the Lib Dems seem almost sensible, doesn't it?

'Upside Down Land' and decades-old cultural references? Cutting edge satire, isn't it?

But his main focus was on a HM Revenue and Customs booklet called 'Taxes and Benefits: Information for our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender customers'. It's not hard to work out why he'd be writing about this.

So which of his (alleged) journalistic skills did he use to find out about this publication? A Freedom of Information request? Hours of detailed research? Err, not quite:

My copy was forwarded by an Essex-based, Daily Mail-reading accountant, who was lost for words when he received it.

Oh.

Littlejohn links the publication of this booklet to the case of Christine Timbrell, thus managing to crowbar in the obligatory use of 'yuman rights'.

He writes:

This was a landmark case, which could affect several hundred people every year and cost taxpayers millions of pounds. It has prompted the Government to overhaul the services it provides not just to transsexuals but also other sexual minorities.

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, in conjunction with the Department of Work and Pensions, has published a glossy guide containing 'information for our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender customers'.

In fact, that ruling and this booklet are not related. If he'd bothered to turn to the back page, he would see it says:

Issued by HM Revenue & Customs
June 2009

Ah. It's not the only time this week the Mail has been writing about year-old 'stories' as if they're new.

Somewhat bizarrely, he admits that such a publication might be necessary:

I can understand the Revenue might want to publish a pamphlet on the tax implications of civil partnerships. That is only right and proper.

It's a strange admission, given he's written over 800 words belittling the booklet, the organisations that produced it and everyone who might find the information useful.

Indeed, only one sentence later he asks:

...why go to all this trouble?...in what other ways do the tax affairs of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered differ from anyone else?

Because there are 'tax implications of civil partnerships', maybe?

If Littlejohn had bothered to actually read the six relevant pages of the book he'd been sent, he'd see information mainly for people in civil partnerships and same sex relationships about tax credits, capital gains tax, pensions, inheritance tax, National Insurance and income tax.

The booklet is doing exactly what Littlejohn thinks is 'right and proper'. So what's the problem?

Well, it's all diversity and political correctness gone mad, innit:

The job of HMRC is to collect taxes. Full stop. It doesn't exist to further the cause of social engineering and 'diversity'.

Actually, the job of HMRC isn't just to collect taxes.

But quite how telling people about inheritance tax thresholds amounts to 'social engineering' isn't clear. Presumably he doesn't think it's 'social engineering' when the same information is giving to people in heterosexual relationships.

Last week, there was an actual new news story about the treatment of minority groups by some staff at HMRC:

Seven Revenue and Customs staff have been sacked for deliberately under-paying benefits to ethnic minorities.

It follows an internal investigation into nine men based at the HM Revenue and Customs call centre in Belfast.

Two resigned after it began and seven were dismissed on Tuesday.

They are believed to have tampered with computer records to ensure ethnic minorities living across the UK did not receive the benefits they were entitled to. All have now been fully reimbursed.

He would have seen this story in the Mail, where 'ethnic minorities' became the rather more inflammatory 'non-nationals' (the Mail's article was churned from PA). But he wouldn't want to talk about that, would he?

He goes on:

Of course, all taxpayers should be treated courteously and efficiently, regardless of their race, gender, religion or sexual proclivity. But that's no excuse for this kind of expensive, time-wasting gesture politics...

So it's gone from 'right and proper' to 'expensive, time-wasting gesture politics' within a few paragraphs. And he's not done yet:

Try to imagine all the time and money wasted - not just in Whitehall but throughout local government, the police and the NHS - on this type of fatuous nonsense...

HMRC had no need to produce this glossy brochure simply to address the sensibilities of transssexuals.

As he well knows, this wasn't 'simply' produced for transsexuals, but by targeting them it makes easier for Littlejohn to rile up his readers.

But his reason for making that last statement was just so he could show what a 'wit' he is with this nasty little gibe:

HMRC had no need to produce this glossy brochure simply to address the sensibilities of transssexuals. All it had to do was ensure that all letters sent out by inspectors continue to be addressed: 'Dear Sir/Madam...'

And it's not just transsexuals he's desperately trying to belittle:

There is also a picture of someone who may or may not be a transsexual. Difficult to tell. Could be bisexual, I suppose. Who knows? It's just been revealed that the actress Vivien Leigh was bisexual, though you wouldn't have been able to tell just from looking at her.

It's also been claimed that Richard Littlejohn is a 'journalist', though you wouldn't be able to tell just from reading the drivel he writes.

You wouldn't know she was bisexual just from looking at her. What an enlightening remark that is.

When he wrote about Chris Huhne's affair with Carina Trimingham in June, he said:

I recognised her from the days we both used to work for Sky News.

Funny, I thought to myself, I always had her marked down as a lesbian....

If you asked a cartoonist to draw a comedy lesbian from central casting, Carina Trimingham is what you'd get - all spiky haircut and Doc Martens.

And he's got another group he wants to use his national newspaper column to pick on too:

Intersex? Nope. Me neither.

Littlejohn clearly thinks this is funny. As he did when he said much the same thing in 2009:

...intersexuals (whatever the hell they are)...

And in July 2010:

...intersexuals - whatever they are...

We know Littlejohn rarely does research, but it's extremely doubtful he doesn't know what an intersexual is.

But, as Angry Mob has written, it's his need to dehumanise people that makes it easier for him to insult them.

Deriding people who aren't like him is Littlejohn's default position. On Tuesday, it was the LGBT community that bore the brunt of his snide remarks, on the basis of a fourteen-month old leaflet he thought was 'right and proper'. Who will it be next time?

(Hat-tip to 5CC)