Katie Hopkins – Stop Digging

Healey’s Dictum is one of the more enduring pieces of advice, not merely for politicians, but for anyone in the public eye. It holds, more or less, that when you find yourself in a hole, then you are best advised to stop digging. Sadly, even decades after it was first codified, there are still those who cannot, or will not, admit its inevitable wisdom. The latest of those is career motormouth Katie Hopkins.

Earplugs at the ready

Ms Hopkins, who is, rather deliberately, carving out a niche for herself as a wilfully opinionated contrarian unwilling to compromise or admit any other point of view than her own, has, as I observed the other day, been a regular occupant of the sofa on ITV’s This Morning. This may test the temperaments of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, but undoubtedly brings ratings in its wake.

And here she met rather more than her match in Peaches Geldof, in what was intended to be a discussion on Attachment Parenting, but which – sadly and predictably – involved Ms Hopkins doing stuff all research and resorting to abuse. This was not a winning strategy. But admitting defeat is clearly not part of the Hopkins Modus Operandi, so some creative reinvention was in order.

Here Ms Hopkins has an advantage: she has been given a regular column in the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, as Rupe’s downmarket troops are also keen on whatever drives up ratings. And, despite putting the content behind a paywall, we know what was in the latest Hopkins missive as the Mail then lifted it and gave it to their own readers for free (see the problem there?).

Not waving but drowning

Ms Geldof was “Mother Nature with a gob attached ... Born into the Geldof dynasty, Peaches has never worked a hard shift in her life ... Some people felt Peaches got an easy ride. She did. Peaches is used to having things her way and we would hate to change the habit of a spoiled child’s lifetime”. And there had been “conditions” attached (like Ms G getting a word in edgeways, perhaps?).

This may make Ms Hopkins feel better about her appearance on This Morning. It may also help the Sun’s sales. But it is, ultimately, just another expression of a selfish refusal to face the real world, and the diversity of opinions and beliefs within it. Other people find that something works for them? Get over it. It doesn’t mean they have to be targets for abuse and others’ self-promotion.

Only in the mind department

“I think I look older than 38” muses Ms Hopkins, and she is partly right: a lot older, but only on the inside. Wilful, uncaring and intolerant, and akin to an anally retentive 1950s schoolmistress, maybe she would get it if someone forced her to listen to Frank Zappa’s What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? on a tape loop. Right now, she is on the road to ever diminishing returns.

Katie Hopkins’ 15 minutes may be about to end. So catch the act while you can.