Laurence Fox Ha Ha Ha

Minor actor and even less important musician Laurence Fox has enjoyed his brief period in the limelight recently, being feted by the not-really-racist-honestly right wing because he allegedly tells it like it is, and is not “woke”, not like all those PC types who object to bigotry and prejudice. But populist fame has had unintended consequences.

Fox’s time as a lead player in the ITV detective series Lewis saw him working alongside Rebecca Front, who played his boss. There had been a friendship between the two, but as Fox has become his new, reinvented, populist self of late, it seems she became less than totally enamoured of his new pals. This led to her blocking him on Twitter.

Fox wasn’t having any of that, and as is his wont, he combined playing the victim with sly publication of a direct message exchange with Ms Front which he must have known would instigate a pile-on against her. As a result, he was subjected to much adverse comment and his already declining reputation as a human being took another nose-dive.

Rebecca Front

His Twitter followers were shown the exchange where Ms Front tells Fox “there are many, many things we clearly disagree on and, fond as I am of you, looking at your Twitter feed I just felt uncomfortable about the company you’re keeping … We’ll just have to agree to differ”. He snaps back “It’s OK to disagree. But it’s the right thing to do to talk first before you cancel me”. He then spuriously accuses Ms Front of making a racist comment.

This was Tweeted out alongside the snivelling “This is the most painful cancellation I have had yet. From someone I spent 10 happy years working with, many lovely family dinners and lots and lots of laughs. Someone I thought was a friend #AllLivesMatter”. That’s one hell of a king size onion he’s working there. But only a nanoviolin.

Not for the first time, Fox’s attempt to play the victimhood card while being a sly coward backfired spectacularly: not only was he roundly condemned for precipitating a pile-on against the unfortunate Ms Front, but his “most painful cancellation” soliloquy became a Twitter meme, spawning hundreds of identical comments from those blocked by, well, anyone well-known. All that was left was the non-apology apology.

And so it came to pass that Fox told his followers yesterday afternoon “Earlier I tweeted a private text message. It isn’t true to my values to make a private conversation public just to make a point. I regret it. I would like to apologise to [Rebecca Front] for doing so. I’m going to delete the tweet and try to build bridges rather than burn them”.

If it hadn’t been “true to his values”, why do it in the first place? And why not just apologise, rather than say he would like to? It’s all a bit like the tell-tale of covering the mouth when saying something you don’t want to say, and don’t really mean.

The popularity of Laurence Fox was for a time, but not for all time. Good thing too.

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