After the exit poll was revealed following close of voting on Thursday, many decided not to bother with the minutiae of individual results and turned in for the night. But some carried on following the news as it broke, and to no surprise at all, one of those so doing was minor thesp Frances Barber. And when Ms Barber is around late at night, the risk of yet another social media gaffe is at its greatest.
So it came to pass as she somehow forgot what happened during the 2016 EU referendum, when Labour MP Jo Cox was brutally murdered outside her own constituency surgery in the West Yorkshire town of Birstall. Thomas Mair, who is now serving a genuine life sentence for the killing, shot Ms Cox three times.
Why that is relevant is not hard to see: Ms Barber allowed her irrational hatred of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to get the better of her, moving from defamation to delusion and finally to suggestion of killing by use of firearms. The descent began in the early hours of Friday morning as she snapped “I’m loving Corbyn’s demise. He brought Anti Semitism into this country. I hope he hangs his head in shame forever”.
That’s the actionable, and indeed irrational, part. Then came the delusion: “My home town of Wolverhampton where my Tory voting dad said ‘put a pig up on a pole with a red flag & they’ll vote Labour here has gone Blue! What damage has Corbyn done!” Wolverhampton was for many years the stamping ground of one John Enoch Powell, Tory and latterly racist rabble rouser who sat for Wolverhampton South West.
Then it was back to howling at Jezza: “Corbyn says he will stay on. You can never get rid of Trots”. Try Kaolin and Morphine, perhaps. But remember, she’s a proper traditional Labour supporter. Or perhaps not. “Can’t bear [Jo Swinson] has lost her seat. Awful”. I suspect even some Lib Dem supporters will be glad to see the back of Ms Swinson.
After all, the Lib Dems failed to get beyond the kind of seat tally that the then Liberals managed in the 1960s. But then Ms Barber got into a discussion with (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, never a wise move when one wishes to remain grounded in the real world. Would Corbyn resign? “We had a bet he won’t go. Wanna take 100/1?” asked Ms Barber. “I’ve always said he won’t go willingly the twat” replied Ms Mensch.
And then she said it. No-one forced her to say it; it just came spewing out. “I agree. Trots won’t go til they’re shot”. Frantic efforts were made to get her to delete the Tweet, but to no avail. Suggesting someone murder Jezza was apparently fine by Frances Barber. So relaxed was she that, later in the day, she mentioned death threats again.
In a side-swipe at Ash Sarkar of Novara Media, who was also talking about the election aftermath, she snarked “I wouldn’t call death threats annoying”. So what would she call them? After all, she had just effectively made one herself.
Late night Twitter and Frances Barber. Good for entertainment, bad for her reputation.
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5 comments:
Crazy woman, crazy words. Which can lead to crazy actions by like-minded crazy individuals.
Far right Britain, 2019. Jesus wept.
I used to know a bloke on an old Compuserve forum. Mildly dotty by day but as it got into the evening you could practically tell the time by the ferocity of his neo-fascist rants.
I think Ms Barber could have a similar issue
Corbyn brought antisemitism to Britain! Yeah, of course he did.
No one should ever employ this extremely bitter crank ever again.
Have the police been informed? Have Twitter?
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