Julie Burchill in trouble again.

Last year she was dropped by her publisher and her forthcoming book was cancelled after she had a spat with irritating communist and Muslim journalist Ashna (Ash) Sarkar. I posted about it here in December. 

Now Miss Burchill has bee sacked from her weekly column in the Telegraph newspaper for a tweet about the naming of the new Sussex daughter. As you may well know the child is to be called Lili as a short form of her full name Lilibet Diana. Diana after her grandmother the late Diana Princess of Wales. Lilibet after Her Majesty the Queen, that being her pet childhood name used within her immediate family.  Whether the use of the pet name is a tribute to the Queen or a liberty is a private matter for that family in my opinion.  I’m just glad I wasn’t named after my grandmother’s nickname (not one anybody used to her face).  Old Battleaxe, to be called Bati would have been a burden I would not have relished. 

Miss Burchill, mindful of the Duke and Dutchess of Sussex’s championship of ‘woke’ causes, in particular BLM tweeted (now deleted)  “‘What a missed opportunity! They could have called it Georgina Floydina!” 

Joanna Toch an experienced barrister who founded the law firm Family Law cafe tweeted back “No Doria? Don’t black names matter?” 

Miss Burchill replied “I was hoping for Doria Oprah” in reference to Oprah Winfrey, the television presenter who conducted an interview with the couple in March.

Miss Toch then suggested “Doprah?

Miss Toch has now been suspended from her own business. Whoever she appointed to run it day to day says he/she/they/it

 considered its founder’s comments “as offensive, unacceptable and highly contradictory to the inclusive manner in which FLC has always and will continue to work with members of all the communities in managing the challenges of matrimonial and family disputes”.

The Family Law Bar Association also condemned Toch. It said that it had written to the barrister and had referred the exchanges to the Bar Standards Board and the Bar Council. 

Thankfully Spiked on line has come forward with support here

Ash Sarkar is seething that The Telegraph didn’t sack her earlier after their exchange. “The Telegraph will sack a columnist after aiming racist tweets at a member of the royal family, but ignore a barrage of defamatory, and – by her own admission – racist and misogynist posts…”

The tweet that upset her merely pointed out that Mohammed’s marriage and sexual activity with  Aisha at such a young age was ‘iffy’. But one must not point out unpalatable truths about their prophet. 

Meanwhile the portrait of the Queen hanging in the middle common room at Magdalen College has been removed after a student vote because she is a symbol of colonial history. The print was bought by students to brighten the common room less than 10 years ago. But that was then, this is now. 

I don’t really follow cricket but I understand that the Sussex County cricketer Ollie Robinson who made his test debut for England this week has not been suspended as somebody (who waited until he reached such a momentous stage of his career, ie playing for his country to do this) has publicised some tweets he made a decade ago while a teenager. In very bad taste, but when were teenage boys ever models of rectitude?  He has apologised and says he has grown up now and put childish hurtfulness behind him. But that isn’t enough. 

More tweets made by another player who was 15 at the time and has not been named are also being looked at. According to the Daily Mail today the English Cricket Board are looking at the teenage banter of other, now experienced, players. It is almost as if somebody is trying to undermine the selection of a swathe of (white ethnic English) cricketers. 

This isn’t reminding me of Geore Orwell anymore; It’s reminding me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his descriptions of the Soviet Union of the 1950s.