Giles Coren And Press Omertà

Whenever Giles Coren performs yet another unfunny act, delivers another not very good column, or brings us the occasional exhibition of Olympic-level wobbler-throwing, those hacks and pundits of A Certain Age shake their heads and recall how Coren’s late father Alan was a genuinely funny man who did not have to indulge in swearing or abuse.

Giles Coren. Claims to be descended from his father

Coren fils hates to be reminded of this, and so I take this opportunity to remind the obnoxious SOB of it at the outset. Equally, he hates the juxtaposition of the idea that he only got where he is because of the family name, with those in journalism who get where they are because they possess actual ability. Which brings us to his latest faux pas.

Last week, writer Dawn Foster died at the shockingly early age of just 33. She had to win a scholarship to study at Warwick University, and wrote later of how she grew up in poverty in an unemployed family. What she did not do was to temper her independent spirit in order to ingratiate herself with the media establishment. She was genuine.

Dawn Foster eye-rolls at a less sensible opponent

Dawn Foster could also spot a poser a satisfyingly long way away, and so Giles Coren found himself rumbled in short order: “Giles Coren a prime example of how the ‘if I’ve heard of yer da, I don’t need to hear from you’ rule holds for almost every man bar Jesus”. Coren took this characteristically badly. Because it was true.

So when Ms Foster died, while others expressed sadness at a life cut short, Coren, who is actually 51 years old, took to his recently restored Twitter account and jeered “When someone dies who has trolled you on Twitter, saying vile and hurtful things about you and your family, is it okay to be like, ‘I am sorry for the people who loved you, and any human death diminishes me, but, you can fuck off on to hell now where you belong’”.

There was a brief respite in the welter of severely adverse comment directed at Coren, as he then deleted that Tweet, only to vomit it out soon afterwards with a different and even less funny ending: “When someone dies who has trolled you on Twitter, saying vile and hurtful things about you and your family, is it okay to be like, ‘I am sorry for the people who loved you, and any human death diminishes me, but, HA HA HA HA HA HA’?”

But not even someone of Coren’s obscenely over-inflated ego is of perfect courage, and this Tweet was, like its predecessor, taken down. What has not been taken down, and what will not be taken down, is Coren fils’ status. He will continue to luxuriate in his berth at the Murdoch press and his show on Times Radio. For him, the world remains excellent.

Indeed, there has been no discernible criticism from those out there on the right at his vicious and petulant attack on Ms Foster’s memory. Only those on the left have called out the attacks for what they were: the whinings of another man-baby forever trapped in the shadow of a more famous, and indeed infinitely more talented, father.

What this episode demonstrates is that Giles Coren, like his fellow right-wing nonentities, can look forward to a future of More And Bigger Paycheques For The Benefit Of Themselves Personally Now, unhindered by such trifling inconveniences as the ability to deport oneself in a manner befitting a paid-up member of polite society.

And those looking in from the outside can do nothing about it. No change there, then.

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