Nepotism, Meet Hypocrisy

Some of the characterisations routinely wheeled out by the followers of the Vagina Monologue are as unchanging as his hatred for them: anyone from the Lib Dems is fair game for smearing, from Corporal Clegg down. Many in the Labour Party are similarly treated: Peter Mandelson is presently being given a roughing up over the deeply subversive activity of house purchase.

No, you can't borrow my ****ing comb

So it is with Tone, and those who have had the temerity to associate with him, which as I noted recently includes Alastair Campbell. In June, the obedient disciples of the vindictive and bullying Dacre took revenge on Big Al for adverse comment on an edition of The Big Question, starting a hate campaign against him by fans of boy band The Wanted over a series of tackles at a charity football match.

Now, the Mail has discovered – just the nine months after the event – that Campbell’s son Calum is employed in the Labour Party’s fundraising team. This is a clear affront to Dacre. So yesterday came the inevitable hatchet job, with the singularly nasty title “Nepotism row as Campbell son is given a plum job with Labour”.

“Plum job” is the really nasty part: this is saying that Calum Campbell has been given a job that he doesn’t merit, that is more than likely merely a sinecure, that the post is generously and unnecessarily well paid, and that no selection process took place. Not surprisingly, the Dacre hackery does not back any of these suggestions up, because they cannot.

Given it is his first serious job, Calum Campbell will be fortunate if he gets more than a thousand notes a month. A look at w4mp.org shows that many internships and assistant posts are expenses only or attract no more than the minimum wage. That’s a far cry from the overmonied hacks at the Mail, but then, nepotism would surely have no place there, would it?

I wouldn’t be so sure: check out Mail Online’s finest, rabbiting on about The Only Way Is Essex, someone from 90210, Eva Longoria, Lady Gaga, and Halle Berry’s daughter Nahla (plus the obligatory guff about the various Kardashians). All this dubiously meretricious copy has been authored by one person: step forward Georgina Littlejohn.

Georgina? She's family, innit?

Hey, that’s a familiar surname. You don’t think she’s related to Fat Dick, perhaps? Well, yes she is: Georgina is his eldest offspring. And I’m sure she got her job solely on merit, after a suitably rigorous selection procedure, that she works hard, and earns every penny of her salary.

After all, it wouldn’t do to have been “given a plum job” merely because of her Dad, would it? That would be nepotism, wouldn’t it?