McHackey’s Royal Trash

[Update at end of post]

There is a regular requirement at the Daily Mail to produce a column of low grade rubbish that would disgrace the by-line of Phil Space. But the ideal hack is on hand and even occasionally equal to the task: step forward Peter McKay, aka Peter McHackey, aka Peter McLie, aka The World’s Worst Columnist, who has been a faithful servant of the Vagina Monlogue for some years.

Wake up Peter, you've been fired

And how long would that be? Well, ever since he tried and failed to stop Richard Ingrams passing the editor’s chair at Private Eye to Ian Hislop, an exercise which failed dismally, despite he and Nigel Dempster buying Peter Cook a generous lunch, washed down with a yet more generous quantity of drinksh. Hislop demonstrated wisdom beyond his years and sacked the pair of them.

Now, nobody else who scrabbles around the dunghill that is Grubstreet is interested in the witterings of McHackey, so he is stuck with asking how high the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre would like him to jump. And Dacre’s latest response has been to tell him to scribble something about the Royal Family. In an attempt to satisfy his last paymaster is a piece about, er, curtsying.

How sodding tedious is that? If it wasn’t for all the photos of Wills’n’Kate (and other sundry minor Royals like Beatrice and Eugenie), not even the most diehard Mail reader would bother reading past the first line. Order of Precedence? Who cares? Er, hello? Oh, hang on, he’s moving on to Charles. “Given that he was born in 1948, he could be quite old when he does succeed”.

No shit, Sherlock. He’s 64 already, so it’s blindingly obvious that he’s not going to be in the first flush of youth when he succeeds Liz. But this doesn’t deter McKay, who moves on to rabbit aimlessly about the Middletons. “Perhaps William will decide to accord the Middletons the status of members of the Royal Family”. Do some research. It didn’t happen to the Bowes-Lyons. Or the Spencers. Or the Fergusons.

So Peter McKay retains his title of The World’s Worst Columnist with ease, although he has competition at the Mail, and especially on matters Royal. This comes from Olivia Bergin, who is fixated on Kate’s wardrobe, which she estimates (the Mail does a lot of that) cost £35k in the past year. Olivia, I hate to break the bad news to you, but most of the country couldn’t give a flying foxtrot.

There are 2.6 million people without work. Many of the less well off and vulnerable are frightened about being pilloried for claiming even in-work benefits, or worse still losing them altogether in the faux cause of “fairness”. The only folks who are paying attention are all those clothes retailers who have kept staff on and tills ringing solely because Kate wearing something brings the punters in.

And they would rather she keep doing it. Is the message getting through?

[UPDATE 26 June 1100 hours: at least the Mail got its "story" about Kate's wardrobe costs out on the day the information became available - the Express, as is customary with the Desmond press' shoestring approach, has to wait on others publishing before lifting the story.

So Dirty Des' finest are a day late with what is hardly earth shattering news in the first place. Still, it makes a profit for the foul mouthed pornographer, so that's all right, then]