Whenever broadcaster Emily Maitlis is losing an argument, she reaches deep into her lexicon and always shouts the same word at her opponent. I imagine you can guess that word. Correct. The word is racist.
She first deployed the R word back in 2019 when as a Newsnight presenter she was questioning Rod Liddle about Brexit when, apropos bugger all, she accused him of writing columns containing ‘’consistent casual racism week after week”.
Further, she asked if he would describe himself as a racist. Even the overpaid liberals (overpaid with your money) at the BBC accepted Maitlis had gone too far, formally criticising her for being ‘’persistent and personal’’. Or just plain bloody rude, as we call it.
Remember, the TV presenter has all the cards in these interviews. It’s their wheelhouse, their questions and their ability to make any allegation they like in front of millions of viewers. Or in Newsnight’s case, seven or eight.
Emily Maitlis's take on the grooming gangs reveals everything about the world she inhabits - Kelvin MacKenzie
The News Agents
That criticism, you will be pleased to learn, helped Maitlis out the door at the Corporation and off your payroll. Well, she’s washed up on a podcast. Although a new studio, you won’t be surprised to learn that she’s still trotting out the R word for a living.
This time she used it against Rupert Lowe, the former Reform MP, who is campaigning almost single-handedly to have a national inquiry into the Pakistani grooming gangs.
As things stand Starmer won’t sanction a national investigation, meaning only local areas can hold these inquiries involving the rape of under-age white girls by literally scores and scores of Pakistani men across the country.
They got away with these rapes for years with local politicians, social services and even the police doing nothing either because they feared being accused of racism or worse wanted to cover up the whole scandal.
Local inquiries are a total waste of time. They can’t compel witnesses to attend, nor would they have the money to carry out proper research. The trail had gone dead until Mr Lowe turned up.
In order to garner publicity for his campaign he appeared on the Maitlis podcast. And once again she wheeled out the R bomb.
Instead of saying I share your horror at the Pakistani rape gangs (1,400 children raped in Rotherham alone) she said: ‘’I’m telling you that you are focussing on Pakistani grooming gangs because you are probably a racist.’’
Cunning to add the word ‘’probably’’ because that saved her from either a major apology or a hefty payout in the libel courts.
What world does Maitlis live in? The answer to that is swanky Kensington with her husband, a private equity manager. Not too many Pakistanis (rapists or otherwise) are hanging about in her street I imagine.
Doesn’t she want an MP to keep a spotlight on the greatest sexual scandal of our age, both in terms of numbers and geographical spread?
In her detached world, aren’t groups of Muslim men working together to attack white children serious enough to need constant scrutiny?
Is she saying an MP has to be racist to focus on trying to achieve a national inquiry into what led to these attacks and why nobody in authority raised the alarm?
In that case, Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, will have the R word hung around her neck by Maitlis as she has said ‘’nothing less than a full national inquiry will restore faith in our safeguarding systems".
In order to maintain ‘’relevance’’ and to attract listeners to her podcast, Maitlis has to keep shouting the R word. That’s her game.
My advice to politicians on the Right is not to play it. Just say no. There are plenty of presenters who will give the Right a fair crack of the whip. She’s not one of them.
The reality is that we need more Rupert Lowes in Parliament and rather less Maitlises in the media.