Laurence Fox Meets Brown Person

He is lionised by the Gammonati, is set to launch a new political party - when he and his backers can find a name that doesn’t belong to someone else - and is given a platform by broadcasters, even though some of the appearances are distinctly fringe ones. But all is not well for increasingly minor thesp Laurence Fox.

He is being sued by two of the three people he recently smeared as a “paedophile”. The suspicion of racism, rather than naivety, is ever-present. And as with his appearance on BBC Question Time, whenever he comes up against someone who is not white, he seems to have a problem. So it was when he appeared on Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show.

Yasmin Alibhai Brown

This time it was Yasmin Alibhai Brown in his way. And she, like Rachel Boyle on Question Time, took exception to Fox’s suggestion that he was the victim of racism. “You should actually ask other people whether there is racism, not you. Because … I know it’s very hard for you to be such a privileged white man, it’s a burden, I can see it’s a burden. You hate it being a Fox, but you should actually listen to some of us”. There was more.

“Look at the stuff I get … I am even getting death threats, because I’m a Muslim and a woman and an immigrant, and listen to us. You don’t speak for us”. Fox claimed he had also received death threats. Vine then put it to him: was he open enough to Ms Alibhai Brown, and indeed Ms Boyle, to what they were saying to him?

The answer was that, no, he wasn’t. “I feel that the language is in itself racist, to say you’re a white, privileged male”. Same as on Question Time. Fox isn’t listening, he’s being ignorant and defensive, and as a result, although his fans lap it up and dump on Ms Alibhai Brown (which they duly did), his appeal is only to other people who don’t want to listen.

Reaction varied: one Tweeter was concerned, telling “I’ve seen the latest clip of Laurence Fox. Apart from being an appalling racist idiot and being sued for calling gay men paedophiles, he’s thick as 2 short planks. Why invite him on TV?! Some claim it’s to show him up but under the post his fans are claiming he won the argument … All you do is embolden these people and he gets to play the victim as someone whose free speech is being curtailed. TV producers know this by now. So when someone is battered to death cause of his poisonous rhetoric, I hope the ratings and clicks were worth it”.

But Miffy Buckley was less worried, concluding that Lozza won’t stay the course where he needs to - on social media platforms like Twitter. “Laurence Fox won’t last as long as Katie Hopkins on this platform. Primarily because she was cleverer than he is. And because she had more self control than Laurence Fox has. I doubt his account will be active on here by January”. After Channel 5, there may be no further to go in that downward direction.

The time of Laurence Fox was for a time, but not for all time. Just rejoice at that news.

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