This week MELANIE PHILLIPS, non-believer in evolution and wicked witch of Question Time, shows us her softer side. Well, for a little bit anyway.
Unless you have no head you'll be aware that, but for a leak on an American website, Prince Harry would still be fighting the good fight in the mountains of Afghanistan. What's equally clear to all is that Mel felt “Something deep and long-stifled in the British psyche” stir within her this week as she was finally allowed to write a piece about Harry's exploits.
She begins by gushing about our boy-prince's glorious, caterpillar-like transformation from “Nightclub reveller to heroic soldier”. She even complements Harry on his “exemplary” behaviour in the field (She's been watching a lot of News24 I suppose), and she empathises with HRH over the indignity of someone in his position eating “meagre army rations” with the rest of the grunts.
Surely this isn't the same Melanie Phillips who's on film stating that if Palestinian civilians vote for Hamas they can expect to be bombed to death? Or the same one who derides climate change as “utter garbage”? Or the one branded by an expert as “The MMR (vaccine) critic who just doesn't understand science”?
It's the very same. Now I know it's weird, but she really is talking like a person with a soul. She's congratulating a young man on a job well done and celebrating the fact he's managed to turn his life around. Well done Melanie, we're making progress.
But alas, this illusion of a soul is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, a trick played by a God who created the world in seven days and has now taken the deputy editor's job at The Mail. There's nothing on this planet too sacred for Mel to make political and journalistic capital out of, and Harry's meteoric rise in the public's estimations is no exception.
Apparently Prince Harry is a 6ft ginger metaphor for what's gone wrong with British society. On one hand he encapsulates the Britain we all love: A brave soldier riding into battle in a foreign land, flying the Union Jack all the way without a thought for his own safety. Y'know, Michael Caine in Zulu and all that. On the other hand his boozy nights out in west end cocktail bars show Britain's ever-expanding ugly side. “Libertinism, hedonism and selfishness are the order of the day” wails Mel, served with a side-salad comprised of “rampant drunkenness, drug abuse, and crime”, and washed down with a hefty glass of "decadence".
And this is where it all goes a bit mental. Mel now starts talking about how whichever side of Harry gets the most picture pull-outs in The Sun, Jekyll or Hyde, will “determine which Britain our children and grandchildren will inherit.”
What? It's not 1542 for God's sake. The actions of the bona fide sovereign have about as much influence on the current state of Britain as Mick Hucknall's, let alone the third in line. When Harry becomes too old to order any more air strikes he'll spend the rest of his days opening summer fêtes in Kent and attending sporting events courtesy of the tax-payer. I know The Mail's always banging on about “The golden age” but Tudor times is a bit extreme even for them.
At one point during this half-digested, fur-ball of a polemic Mel even feels compelled to mention Britain's “rampant cynicism”. I can't think of anything more cynical than her article. Getting from one human being putting his life in danger in a seemingly vain attempt to bring freedom to people in a war zone to a cheap, knackered, scaremongering rant pushing your own socially conservative agenda: It requires a special talent.
Let's pray no one else is born with it.
ALSO THIS WEEK...
...Editor Paul Dacre decides he can get a few more column inches out of slagging off Tony 'n' Cherie just for being obscenely rich (doesn't bother him about Lord Ashcroft though). Housewives' favourite Richard Kay is more than happy to oblige...
...Both Peter McKay and Amanda Platell bang on about how Prince Harry's tour of duty was a PR coup for the army. Ring each other before you leave home in future, yeah?...
...Max Hastings dons his mortarboard and gives us another exhilarating lecture, this time on China's "middle class revolution" and how they'll all have toasters soon. Cutting edge commentary!...
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