Julia Hartley Dooda’s Weinstein Meltdown

As if being reduced to a laughing stock after claiming live on air that Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond should be tried for treason were not enough, self-promotion artist Julia Hartley Brewer has decided, of her own volition, to double down and make herself look even worse, such is the insatiable appetite for attention of those who would be best advised not going round and openly seeking to attract it.

We all know who you are, thanks

Ms Hartley Dooda’s schtick is, as with so many of the Pundit Establishment, to first ask what the hot topic du jour may be, and duly declare herself to be an expert in the field. The pitfalls of such an approach should be obvious but, well, if at first you don’t succeed, then just go right ahead and suck some more seed instead.

So it was that she weighed up the situation, assessed the actual evidence to hand, and disregarded most of it in favour of saying something that would bring More And Better Attention Opportunities For Herself Personally Now. “If I were a Hollywood starlet & I didn't have my own sordid story to tell about Harvey Weinstein, I'd probably make one up now” she trilled, thereby pissing off rather more than Hollywood starlets.

Would Madam care to retract and say sorry for that outburst? You jest. After Quartz told their followers “Almost no one has been thanked at the Oscars more than Harvey Weinstein”, Ms Hartley Dooda decided this meant there was a cover-up, asserting “Everyone knew. And everyone joined in the cover up”. The inconvenient fact, that Weinstein had been involved in a lot of successful films, was not allowed to enter.

No, she was sure they all knew. And just to let anyone still awake know that she knew this, we were told “Harvey Weinstein has been expelled from the Academy board because we all now know what they've all known & didn't care about for decades”. So how does she fare on something like, oh I dunno, phone hacking? Is there the same certainty that they all knew it was going on (clue: they all did know what was going on)?

Guess what’s coming. Yes, in an exchange last year with the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, she tried to equate the deeds of Damian McBride to those of Andy Coulson: “but Damian's misdeeds were while he was in Labour govt's employ, Coulson's were for different employer. Different”. Yes, different is the word. McBride may have defamed someone - Coulson got guilty of breaking the law and went to jail.

And before you ask, Leveson was an irrelevance, because she said so. Meanwhile, how to keep on kicking all those who she claimed had covered up for Harvey Weinstein? That was a tricky one, until Ms Hartley Dooda read Piers Morgan’s latest thoughts. “This is the same Academy that happily awarded an Oscar to Roman Polanski, who raped a 13 year old girl”. Yep, blame Roman Polanski. That’ll convince, er, nobody.

Julia Hartley Dooda has offended countless victims of sexual assault and worse. On top of that, she’s made accusations of a cover-up she’ll never be able to prove. But this further display of idiocy means she’s still getting attention. And that’s all that matters.