BUCKLE-UP! It’s time to get controversial and venture into the swamplands.
In a journalism career spanning nearly 50 years, I have often wondered about the stupidity of some members of the population.
An early example came when reporting on a case at Swansea Magistrates’ Court.
Picture the scene: a burglary case, the two defendants (two brothers) are in the dock, handcuffed to each other.
They hatched a plan to escape, climb out of the dock, barge through assorted policemen and court officials and make their way out into Grove Place.
The escape plan started to creak when the duo decided not to race from the court on relatively flat terrain, but, instead, opted for the sharp climb up Mount Pleasant.
Being fit young lads they were, however, still going at a decent sub-Olympic pace as they approached a metal lamp-post.
Yes, you guessed it, one defendant opted to go left, the other decided to go right.
Result? A victory for the lamp-post, two broken wrists and two very sad looking defendants escorted back to the court room.
Recent weeks have seen me pondering the stupidity of various yobs who seem to have been on a nationwide tour of police-baiting, violent disorder, looting anti-Islamic and anti-immigration protests.
The riots and protests bear no connection whatsoever to the tragic deaths in Southport, but many seem to have used that event to light the blue touch paper on disturbances which have horrified most law-abiding citizens in the UK.
One case arising from the ‘protests’ caught my eye – two men who took part in the violent disorder in Plymouth city centre.
John Cann, aged 51, and Ryan Bailey, 41, both pleaded guilty to violent disorder at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court and were jailed.
Judge Robert Linford didn’t hold back in his sentencing remarks.
The Judge told Cann that during police interview he claimed the protests were about “an immigrant that had killed girls”.
Judge Linford noted that the judge in Liverpool who dealt with the alleged perpetrator of the (Southport) attacks “took the unusual step of naming him in an attempt to show people that the person in question was not an immigrant – but they [other rioters] and you didn’t really care about that. It was just an excuse to go out and have a go at people with whose views you disagree.”
Judge Linford rounded on Cann, telling him that according to his police interview he discussed with them “about the better use of taxpayers’ money and why people were having to pay to keep ‘these’ people in this country after committing such heinous crimes.”
Judge Linford added: “So, let’s look at how the taxpayer has been funding your activities over the last 38 years – let’s see what you’ve cost the country . . .
“You’ve got 10 aliases, four fictitious birth dates, you’re 51 years of age, you’ve been convicted of 170 offences, you’ve been convicted of theft, arson, taking cars, handling stolen goods, obtaining by deception, burglary, dangerous driving and possessing bladed articles.
“In all, over the years that you’ve been visiting the criminal justice system, you’ve received sentences totalling 357 months in prison, many of them concurrent. In other words, nearly 30 years.
“That, Mr Cann, is what you’ve been costing this country . . . and you sit there in that interview and saw fit to be critical of others. You have no right whatever to say who should or should not be in this country.”
To Bailey, Judge Linford said he had 29 convictions for 39 offences, including theft, criminal damage, possession of drugs, supply of class A drugs, threatening behaviour, breach of a Domestic Violence Protection Order and robbery “and you were chanting with the rest of that rabble about immigration”.
“You two were in no position to judge anybody.”
Judge Robert Linford sounds like my sort of Judge. Perhaps we need a few more strong speeches from our justices, reported swiftly and accurately by bona fide media up and down the land.
Stupidity will be one factor in recent events. Another factor will be the willingness of some people to believe every conspiracy theory under the sun.
This problem was well described by the much-admired journalist Helen Lewis in the most recent episode of Page 94 – the podcast of the Private Eye magazine.
Helen put the spotlight on misinformation, particularly on social media.
She said: “What’s interesting to me about that is so often the people peddling this misinformation aren’t kind of dispossessed and marginalised people. They’re actually very comfortable little people, often top end of ‘Gen X’, lower end of Baby Boomers, who’ve lived through periods of peace and prosperity and stability in their own lives.
“Actually, in their own day to day lives, you wouldn’t say they’re kind of economically struggling.
“We have to talk about the fact that lots of middle-class, middle-aged people spent a bit too much time online during Covid (pandemic).
“These days, you don’t just end up falling for one of these kind of tropes (conspiracy theories).
“You become a (cornonavirus) lockdown sceptic, which leads into a vaccine sceptic, which leads into you’re worried about the World Economic Forum (WEF), making us all the insects, or you’re worried about ‘15-minute cities’.
“And then you’re worried about MK Ultra and thought experiments. And then you’re worried about contrails. And then you’re worried about whether or not ‘they’ are controlling the weather.”
Helen Lewis added: “What’s interesting is that people end up drifting from one bit to another. All of these kind of different islands of conspiracism are kind of connected to each other.”
It was the American journalist Brian Stelter who said: “You can convince yourself of just about anything when you want to believe a conspiracy theory.”
So, make your mind up – Is 21st century man (or woman, or non-gender specific human, for that matter) being influenced by wild conspiracy theories fuelled by social media?
Or is it just an outbreak of stupidity?
I know what gets my vote.
Twitter: @rlloydpr
Email: robertlloydpr@rlloydpr.co.uk
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