David J Black

One of the more annoying things about the British media in general, and the navel-gazing BBC in particular, is the irritating habit they all have of prioritising so-called news stories which are so trivial and ephemeral they barely deserve to make the inside pages, never mind the main tabloid strapline, or lead the broadcast news bulletins when there are much more important and interesting things happening in the world. 

Happily, Guardian readers would appear to share your scrivener’s view. After a frenzied weekend of froth and fulmination about what a man called Gregg Wallace may, or may not, have said to a dozen or so celebrity women, the 10 most read Guardian articles on the Monday following had no connection whatever with his much publicised misdeeds, real or imagined. Likewise on Friday. A lot of people, it seems, didn’t much care.

By Wednesday the BBC was still wallowing in its obsession. An Emma Barnett Today interview about railways with transport minister Heidi Alexander suddenly lurched off the rails straight into the Gregg Wallace undergrowth. Emma simply had to know what Heidi felt about such a vitally important matter. Immediately afterwards BBC Radio Scotland devoted an entire hour long phone-in to his allegedly off-colour musings. The print and on-air histrionics were showing few signs of abating, though thankfully Sunday morning’s Broadcasting House somehow forgot to mention it.

I enter no plea on Mr Wallace’s behalf if, indeed, he really did make inappropriate remarks to anyone. We are all, male and female alike, entitled to a modicum of respect and freedom from gratuitous comment, his included. I have never met the man, and doubt I ever will, and have never seen his programme, so there’s little point in forming a view of his character. 

I fear I would fail to warm to the man, however, on account of his splenetic posted response to his critics. In this, he bemoaned his adversaries as “middle class women of a certain age”, implying that he was just a gung-ho working class lad being got at by a cabal of wrinkly posh tottie. A curious sociological observation, though his outburst contained at least one shocking faux pas. As the daughter of hereditary Tory peer, the 6th Baron Hinckley (Eton, The Guard’s, chairman of Christie’s, White’s and Pratt’s Clubs) the Hon Kirstie Allsopp, one of his complainants, could only have been incandescent at being classed with the mere middle classes. This social-death demotion was possibly more of a shock to her system than his reported remarks about his wife’s sexual prowess.

There is a much more serious insult inherent in the notion that to qualify as working class one should somehow assume a right to engage in daft banter of a sexualised nature about women. This generalisation is much more offensive to the working class male demographic than any of his other reported utterances. Some may be loutish loud mouthed boors, no doubt, but others – possibly even the majority – are decent law-abiding citizens who would never insult anyone, at least outside the realm of politics; and as for the middle classes, have you ever been in a pub full of claret-flushed Edinburgh young male advocates? Believe me, I have, though admittedly that was a while ago, and standards of behaviour might well have improved since then, at least superficially!

At this point one’s interest in Mr Wallace is piqued, and a little research as to his class status called for. It turns out he was born in demotic Peckham though, as the Duke of Wellington was wont to remark of his Irishness, “being born in a stable does not make one a horse”. He also did a stint as a warehouseman in Covent Garden Market, with its Liza Doolittle class undertones, but soon defected to the ranks of the trading bourgeoisie by setting up a highly successful greengrocer’s business – its reported annual turnover is £7.5 million, so poverty is not an issue. 

As far as any persuasive class metric is concerned can we really be sure that a multi-millionaire TV star with a five bedroom/three reception room sprawling house sitting in five Kentish acres, including paddock and stables, who drives a Jaguar XKR convertible (though he apparently craves a Bentley) really is a horny-handed son of toil? Not many in the lesser ranks can aspire to Gregg’s opulent lifestyle, on the whole. Yes, well, there’s working class rich, and there’s working class poor.

As a Millwall supporter, Mr Wallace maintains a superficial tribal affinity with his roots. The fans’ famous terrace chant of “no-one likes us; we don’t care” is sung to the tune of Rod Stewart’s Sailing, which is a bit of a coincidence, seeing as how Mr Stewart’s wife Penny Lancaster made a right bourach of a dish she was cooking on Mr Wallace’s show and he voiced displeasure. For this Mr Stewart savaged him as a “tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully”. It seems none of Ms Lancaster’s humiliation was of a risque nature, but entirely culinary, while Rod’s riposte, a mix of fattism and follicilism, was manifestly meant to wound, offend, and insult its recipient.

It is the vagueness of many of the accusations which weakens this critical mass attack. Sure, it was moronically tasteless, and certainly unacceptable, to shock the Hon Kirstie with an impromptu reference to Mrs Wallace’s sexual agility, as alleged, but the BBC’s penchant for hiring so-called ‘talent’ with such cheeky-chappie modes of expression perpetually hovers over the edge of smut. Who commissioned him, and what did they expect? Prayer for the Day?