The first in a series. Can you name the following people, all in the top 100 worst barstids in the UK?
I am currently compiling the second installment. There are an astonishing number of barstids in public life.
Exactly as others have said – Jeremy Vine is the Waitrose version of Jeremy Kyle. The cynicism is the same, the modus operandi is the same. At least with the likes of Hartley-Brewer and Mike Graham and all the rest (or even James O'Brien on the 'other' side) there's little doubt they believe in the things they are saying. Vine, I'm not so sure. He specialises in poking the wasps' nests from a safe distance and his living depends on the wasps flying around angrily. Then when they're all settled again, he gives the nest another poke. There's a veneer of respectability – a suggestion that these are 'important debates' or they're getting people talking to each other but really it's just stoking division. There's no actual learning, no minds are changed. It's just pandering to a conveyor belt of outraged people with often very ill-informed views. Vine no doubt thinks he has some sense of authority or gravitas as a 'proper' journalist but he's no different from any of the other culture war ringmasters in their comedy coats. In fact, he's probably worse. He films close passes and near-misses and incidents of angry driving when he's on his bike without acknowledging that he's a big part of the anger machine, whipping people up to see people who do and think different things to them as some sort of opposition. He's a cyclist so he feels vulnerable and victimised from time to time. But he encourages 'debate' about a whole load of issues and groups who consequently find themselves 'othered' and on the receiving end of the lunatics who don't realise they're being put through the anger machine on a daily basis.
I'm not asking you to agree with me! You're entitled to consume or not consume Vine's particular brand of ringmastery. Personally, I think there's an inherent dishonesty to it and the fact that many people are not bothered demonstrates, to me at any rate, just how successful his approach is. Stoking offence without appearing offensive is a skill, and it's one that Vine has mastered.
I never said you were. But I am questioning whether he genuinely deserves to be placed in the same category as Laurence Fox and the Right Said Freds. After all, what you are talking about is essentially him doing his job; not true of them. An admittedly brief internet search also suggests that there are people out there who consider him to be incorrigibly left wing.
I have to say, I don’t see Jeremy Vine in the same category as the others. The defining characteristics of most of those barstids is a willingness to tell untruths on behalf of their position or nativist culture war, to defame others and other cultures and spread doubt about learning and science to render all knowledge into slurry of equal worth. Kyle also exploits people for public amusement. I don’t think that can be levelled at Vine. I mean I’d rather trap my bollox in an escalator than phone a talk show, but Vine isn’t holding people up to ridicule. It’s pretty standard BBC, this person says that, another says something else, what do you say to that? You don’t get to know what Vine believes, he’s not selling that. If you don’t think that’s ok, then probably the UK can’t be trusted to talk to each other publicly at all. A bit smug and overpaid, but don’t waste a space on the Barstids board when Britain is absolutely dripping with the *****.
I've only seen one of these but he engineered the whole situation. He could see a van looking to turn right in front of him from a fair distance and started saying 'oh no, you're not going to turn are you? Oh no, OH NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' or something like that. Van driver was obviously in the wrong but any normal cyclist who'd seen it coming that far off would've just eased up, muttered something under their breath and continued. Instead he carried on cycling at full pelt towards them in an insane game of chicken just to prove a point/get a good video.
Apologies for any repetitions, Lee Hurst, Mahyar Tousi, John Bowe, David Icke, Gareth Icke, Isabel Oakeshott, Camilla Tominey, Ella Whelan, Paul Embery, Aseem Malhotra, Andrew Bridgen, David Cartland, Ian Dunkin Donuts, Gove, Andrea Jenkyns, Kemi Badenoch, George Galloway, Morrissey, Ian Brown, June Slater, Chris Williamson, Charlotte Gill, Sophie Corcoran, Toby Young, J K Rowling, Natalie Elphick for starters.
All good shouts. By the time we're finished we should have a comprehensive list of the biggest barstids in public life in the UK.
Toby Young is actually the very first barstid. Bridgen is in there somewhere. Williamson Icke and Jenkins are already in the work on progress that is Volume 4.
I assume most of these people are primarily active on social media because I have heard of only about half on Moose's list.
There are a couple of prominent anti-vaxxers in there but most of them you must know. Morrissey is a singer.
I have never heard of: Mahyar Tousi, John Bowe, Gareth Icke, Camilla Tominey, Ella Whelan, Paul Embery, Aseem Malhotra, David Cartland, Ian Dunkin Donuts, Chris Williamson, Charlotte Gill, Sophie Corcoran.
Nope, not her either. Strikes me my life is much less full of rage through not engaging with social media.
