Melanie Phillips Loses It Completely

Despite her having a column at the Murdoch Times nowadays, one does not hear as much from Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips as when she was in regular screaming batshit mode at the Mail. But today she has made up for the attention shortfall with one Tweet. And what makes that one Tweet even worse than it looks at first glance is that she appears to mean what it says.

Definitely not fair and balanced

Mel has not been the happiest of bunnies over Brexit. She wants it to happen; the Tories have thus far declined to indulge the ideologically pure drive-it-straight-off-the-cliff version that she so passionately desires. To illustrate her dissatisfaction, she has penned “Faithless, craven and cowardly – the British government’s Brexit betrayal”.

But that was a mere hors d’oeuvre for a much more pungent entrée, as this morning she went full alternate fact universe and howled “I’ve said it before: draft Farage. Sack May, give Farage a peerage, make him party leader and PM – at least until UK really does properly leave the EU. Too fanciful? Desperate times need desperate measures; public faith in democratic process now in danger”. Er, WHAT?

Let’s pick the bones out of that. One, former UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has no democratic legitimacy in the UK, and never has had. Two, he isn’t a Tory. Three, he is under investigation by the EC’s OLAF directorate for fraud. Four, he’s already been found to have fiddled his expenses, hence his MEP’s salary is being stopped while the amounts concerned are clawed back. Five, he’s a congenital liar.

There’s more. Six, his record as an MEP shows he does not take the job seriously. Seven, his attendance at the EP Fisheries Committee has been minimal. Eight, he’s also a person of interest to the FBI. Nine, the Tories don’t want him and wouldn’t put up with him. Ten, the likelihood of Brexit being achieved with him in charge is not unadjacent to zero. And eleven, if we’re talking faith in the democratic process, imposing a leader won’t cut it.

And quite apart from the casual imposition of dictatorship, twelve, he’s a lush, thirteen, he’s an unprincipled spiv, fourteen, the country he’s batting for isn’t the UK, and fifteen, he’s a shameless racist bigot of no fixed or even known morality.

Apart from that, though, I’m sure he’s a Wonderful Human Being. But Mel’s idea is still ridiculous. So ridiculous that Graeme Garden responded “Somebody please tell Melanie Phillips her Twitter account has been hacked by a lunatic”. Mic Wright decided that, on reflection, some advice was in order. “Listen kids, never sniff glue”.

William Kedjanyi imagined a spokesman telling “Mrs Phillips has not logged into Twitter today, therefore we are very concerned into how this could have happened and will be asking the appropriate authorities to investigate this urgently. The tweet has been deleted.” And one Tweeter simply mused “Tory backbenchers: Jacob Rees-Mogg is the most ludicrous selection for PM imaginable … Melanie Phillips: Hold my motherfucking beer”.

if Melanie Phillips wants people to think that she is, as they are wont to say on Merseyside, not dealing from a full deck, she’s going the right way about it. Wibble indeed.