More Professionally Offended

Further to John Prescott’s cringe-worthy excuses for Gordon Brown’s gaffe – and this one seems to want to run and run – we now get the Guardian journalists lining up to defend the indefensible or to vilify Gillian Duffy in a feeble attempt to justify Brown’s intemperate remarks. Not least, a professionally offended East European.

I am an eastern European.

Just so’s you know, of course. And, naturally, you can see just where this is leading…

Words fail me.

Going by the verbal diarrhoea that follows; no, they don’t.

Yesterday I stared alternately at my screen and keyboard in complete and utter paralysis, while inside I was raging. At one point I actually genuinely broke down in tears and great heaving sobs.

Oh, good grief. Histrionics or what? So what, precisely, has caused poor Milena to start blubbing like a new born?

I had been watching “bigotgate” unfold – mostly on Twitter, a bit on LiveJournal, a bit in mainstream media – since around lunchtime. Oh, I thought initially, finally someone’s made a gaffe in this election campaign – just what the media have been wanting. Then I actually went and watched the clip – first the short version on the Channel 4 News website which only has the last 30 seconds of the PM’s conversation with Gillian Duffy and his comments in the car; then I watched the full thing, which included Duffy’s comments on the “flocking eastern Europeans”.

Ah, that nasty, wicked Gillian Duffy, asking those naughty questions of the PM – and letting slip that comment about Eastern Europeans. Actually, what she said wasn’t so very bad, it was what many in Britain are thinking. Whether there is a real cause for concern is another matter. I for one am happy with the idea of economic migration – if people wish to move to the UK, work or set up business and contribute to the economy, you won’t find me complaining about it. However, if all they are going to do is become professional whingers in the pages of the Guardian, then perhaps they should bugger off.

But reading my Twitter feed I thought, surely if it was that bad someone there would pick up on her actual comments, and not just go for Brown. Maybe I was being oversensitive.

Yes, you are being over sensitive and no, her comments weren’t that bad.

I did eventually pluck up the courage to tweet a shy, self-deprecating “Flocking eastern European here. Just sayin’.”

Yes? And? So?

No reaction.

Clearly I’m not the only one.

Sod it, I thought, maybe I am just overreacting.

Yes, you are over reacting.

Comments about immigration are inevitable, especially in an election campaign, someone will always make them.

Yup.

Just grow a thicker skin, Mili.

Absolutely. The article could have stopped there, really – everything that needed to be said, having been said. The stupid woman is over reacting and needs to grow a thicker skin. The dawning of self-awareness being a useful bonus that promised so much but delivered so little. Consequently, as expected, this being the Guardian and all that; the paper where the professionally offended get to air their petty little grievances; it doesn’t end there. What we got was a self-pitying rant about Gillian Duffy.

Anger. Anger at Gillian Duffy, anger at all the people who weren’t willing to stand up to her.

There was nothing to stand up to. A woman asked some perfectly predictable questions. She may be ill-informed about immigration, but the concerns are real nonetheless. That does not make her a bigot and if her questions cause such anguish for Milena, then Milena needs to grow that thicker skin and exercise some maturity.

And finally a profound sense of isolation, hurt, and being alone. Tears and huge heaving sobs. I’ve not cried like that in about five years.

Now why am I utterly unmoved by this desperate little display of childish emotion? Because it is cack, I suppose.

That’s how Gillian Duffy made me feel. What did I ever do to her?

Nothing. And she has done nothing to you. Now get over yourself.