Julia Hartley Dooda - What A Hypocrite

Once again, the BBC did its efforts to convince the viewing public that it is not booking rather too many right leaning voices on its politics shows no favours at all, as The Andy Marr Show (tm) once again invited appalling self-publicist Julia Hartley Brewer to sit on the paper review sofa, which she duly did with no style whatsoever.

We know who you are, thanks

Fortunately, though, there was some utility to be gained by subjecting the audience to the dubious talents of Ms Hartley Dooda, as this proved to be an excellent example of right-wingers displaying the most remarkable hypocrisy when it comes to misrepresentation, as well as showing that she is remarkably thin skinned.

Butter still wouldn't melt

As well as ensuring viewers who were still viewing realised that today’s paper review was all about Herself Personally Now - and nothing to do with Guardian veteran Polly Toynbee being the sole bringer of intellectual heft to the guest list, no sirree - Ms Hartley Dooda wanted to make sure that she countered Ms Toynbee’s laudable attempt to stick up for her King’s Place colleague Carole Cadwalladr, who had been subjected to a particularly vicious shouting down by the deeply unpleasant Isabel Oakeshott two weeks ago.

Look, don't talk about Meeeeee!

At the mention of Ms Cadwalladr, the Hartley Dooda face lights were cranked up to the max as she claimed that the Observer journalist had left the studio in tears. Yes, someone who claims to be a journalist clearly approves of journalism being shouted down when it is inconvenient to her. Only journalism that does not get shouted down by a dishonest and mercenary hack is worthy of approval. Misrepresentation is fine.

The most irritating thing when she's on is not getting to the off switch quickly enough

It’s all good clean knockabout fun, eh? Well, maybe not, because hardly had Ms Hartley Dooda said her piece, than she was whining about, er, being misrepresented. I mean, don’t some of these press websites know who she is? “Dear @daily_express, I said ‘views’ not ‘ideas’, as your video clip clearly shows, and I’m a Ms not a Mrs. But apart from that... #sortitout”. Isabel Oakeshott lying is fine, the Express calling her a Mrs is not.

I said don't talk about Meeeeee!

And she wasn’t going to leave it there, oh ho. “The most irritating thing about appearing on the telly these days is the wilful determination of some people to put their own spin on something you said (or even something you didn’t say) & then take offence at it. It’s as laughable as it is terrifying”. As if she’d ever do that. Yes, well. And there was more.

“So when I said on #Marr that one of the factors behind teen knife crime was ‘the abject breakdown of the family unit’ & absent fathers, some single mums are now accusing me of ‘blaming single parents’ for the crime wave. Utterly bizarre logic”. Shocking, eh?

But my pals can talk about Meeeeee! [she RTd this]

She clearly hadn’t got over that Express story about her comments on the BBC’s gender pay gap … until the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog posted “@JuliaHB1 Skewers BBC Over Gender Quota [VIDEO]”. Then, it was Retweets all round and she was more than happy with the attention.

And don’t call Talk Radio a station with a small audience, even though it is. Because for Julia Hartley Dooda, her audience is still big. It’s the paper reviews that got small.