“We’ve all made mistakes,” said the paedophile and former pop star Gary Glitter on the right wing TV station GB News, “But the woke left want to bring down anyone who isn’t whiter than white.” This shocked me. I didn’t think GB News could sink any lower, but it turns out they’re the first and only network to interview Glitter following his release from prison. Needless to say, meltdown ensued in cyberspace and people queued up to put the boot in. I admit I was shocked to read this news for as long as it took me to establish that this interview never happened on GB News or anywhere else. Which was about 10 seconds. Yet it still managed to stir up anger from people who seem to think that if something is on the internet, then is must be true. A lesson learned? I doubt it.
The idea that a far right hate channel might interview Glitter probably appealed to a certain demographic, which would certainly include people like me who dislike everything it stands for. How typical, we might say, that in order to stir up further outrage they go out of their way to give air time to a pervert. But it isn’t logical. GB News is a flog ’em, hang ’em channel which would be far more likely to call for Glitter to be executed live on telly, preferably on GB News.
The placing of this story, or rather the lack of a story, was very clever because it played into an agenda where this was something people would want to be true. How good would it be to further condemn GB News by associating with serial wrong ‘uns like Glitter, but surely the gullibility of those who piled into the channel simply plays into its hands. It would not only be easy for GB News to deny the story, it would give them an opportunity to attack the so-called (and non-existent) ‘wokerati’ for making up lies about them. The last thing one would want is for people to feel sorry for this channel.
Gary Glitter hasn’t done an interview with anyone, although given the state of Britain’s gutter press it would be unwise to suggest it would never happen. The real point is that once again people have been fooled into believing something that clearly wasn’t true, no matter how much you’d like it to be.
