Katie Hopkins Nazi Love-In

Another LBC appearance, another bout of foot-in-mouth, and another Little Local Difficulty for pro-am motormouth and full time paranoid bigot Katie Hopkins came around yesterday, after Hatey Katie got a little too enthusiastic, and not sufficiently discerning, about whom she Re-Tweeted. This time it was no mere rant merchant, or even the EDL, BNP or Britain First, but an unreconstructed Nazi getting her support.

Viewers may want to look away now

Ms Hopkins, who continues to be employed by both broadcaster LBC and Mail Online - and given a platform to spout her prejudices by a variety of other broadcasters from time to time - had decided to riff on the meaning of the word “racist”, a term that others increasingly apply to her, for reasons which escape me at the moment (actually, no they don’t, but sometimes I do have to check that you’re all paying attention).

As she gets called a racist so often, there was only one thing to do: claim that the term no longer had any significant meaning, no shock value, and that it didn’t really have any relevance to Herself Personally Now. “If I'm called racist, it's just the same as someone offering me a tea or a coffee, it's such a mundane word … Racial profiling is a good thing, call me racist. I don’t care, it has lost all meaning” she claimed. Wrongly.

A Twitter account calling itself “Anti Juden SS” then approvingly endorsed Ms Hopkins’ sentiments, asserting “now that is the way it should be told”. But, so what? Hatey Katie gets endorsements from all kinds of nutjobs and whackos. The problem came when she then Re-Tweeted the Nazi. After all, the Tweeter had seriously racist and anti-Semitic form.

For instance, at around the same time Ms Hopkins made her misguided Re-Tweet, “Anti Juden SS” also Tweeted “The chimneys are a blazing over here fellas” and “NS bruders wanna see first major shoah of 2017” [The “Anti Juden SS” Twitter account appears to have been closed this morning]. Ms Hopkins was now in deep trouble.

So out came the excuses, lame though they may be. First, she deleted the Re-Tweet (not quickly enough to stop anyone who wanted to get a screen shot from taking one), and then blithely told “To be fair, I didn’t look at the Twitter handle. I have pulled the retweet”, which is as close to “A big boy did it and ran away” as makes no difference.

And if Hatey Katie thinks that shrugging her shoulders and pulling the Re-Tweet is going to make everyone forget, she has another think coming. Typical of the reaction to this Re-Tweet Too Far has been that from Graham Linehan, who asked “Hey @LBC are you happy to serve London's 236,000+ Jewish community by employing someone who retweets AntiJudenSS?” He didn’t ask Mail Online, but they have past form in that area.

On a lighter note, Matt Lucas suggested “Katie Hopkins probably deleted that Nazi retweet because she realised it wasn't right wing enough for her”. Many a true word spoken in jest, and all that.

The question does have to be asked, though - how much longer do Mail Online and LBC allow their brands to be dragged from gutter to sewer just so they can garner a few more clicks or attract a few more listeners? Decisions will have to be made sooner or later.