What a week for old angry fragile men.

The first example is Nigel Farage (Britain’s most famous coastal watcher) took on the RNLI and tried to shame them for saving drowning people, which is actually the reason they exist, only to result in the RNLI to have a surge in donations. His anger was visible at the crews pulling petrified people out of the water, so he baited them on his new TV show, sat back and expected the nation to agree.

Now, the RNLI, instead of buckling down and ignoring Farage’s blatant attack on one of the UK’s most respected volunteer groups, came out all boats blazing and produced a very high-quality video explaining the humanity of their work.

It was great PR: these people put their lives on the line as they man the coastal waters round our island. It warmed my heart to see the outpouring of support they received. Farage tried to back down, but the job was done. The RNLI came out of this issue not as ‘immigrant taxis’ as Farage called them, but heroes who more than deserved national pride in their work. Good on them and their purse bulged with donations as the good people of Britain signed up to donate more than ever before.

Now onto fragile man Piers Morgan (Britain’s most famous man for running out of an interview under pressure). He took on Olympic gymnastics hopeful Simone Biles, because according to the man who can’t take the pressure of a weather man asking him tough questions, she “let down her team, fans and country”. He basically belittled the emotional struggle of a woman who left the competition by tweeting to his millions of followers: “Are mental health issues now the go to excuse for any poor performance?”.

Then to top it all we had Lord Digby Jones (the man who said Brexit wouldn’t result in ONE job being lost, so he must know everything) publicly slate BBC’s Alex Scott’s working-class accent. He took to twitter to say “Enough, I can’t stand it anymore! Alex Scott spoils a good presentational job on BBC Olympics Team with her noticeable inability to pronounce her ‘g’s at the end of a word. Competitors are NOT taking part, Alex in the fencin, rowin, boxin, kayakin, weightlifting & swimming”. He then got dragged on social media like a chamois cloot over a dirty celin’.

On Twitter many comments cited snobbery, racism and classism. The audacity of a woman using her own tongue to do her own job, how dare she. Apparently using language properly is everything to Lords and their likes.

And as a tasty side salad to toffy nosed attitudes, Tory education secretary Gavin Williamson wants to pump 4M to teach Latin in 40 state schools in England, the same week many Scottish Tory supporters argued about money being spent on Gaelic projects in Scotland, it seems ancient languages are only viable if Boris speaks them. Badly. The hypocrisy trundles on.

There is something icky about these men who want to prey on the fear, insecurity and shame surrounding mental health, the ambitiousness of the working classes and folk who are literally drowning to find a better life. They find the need to put them down and vilify them.

Lord Digby wanted Alex Scott to feel ‘less than’ because she used her own accent on the telly, in fact, she got her own back as the night after he went for her publicly, she went live on BBC and repeated all the words Digby said she was ‘mispronouncing’ and smiled down the lens. Good on her. That’s how you do it.

The bold Alex Scott also hit back on twitter saying “I am proud to be from a working-class family in East London”.

Lord Digby retaliated by saying it wasn’t about her class, of course it was you angry buffoon. It’s always about class, and if it wasn’t who are you tell a woman to get elocution lessons, you latter day Professor Higgins. 

Why do regional accents bother old rich men? I’ll never understand why it upsets them, I have been trolled by the likes of George Galloway on twitter for speaking ‘slang’ and this is a man who speaks cat. It’s baffling. We know it’s a way of keeping ‘people in their place’ and to me that’s basically racism.

As with Piers Morgan, he seems to have a life long fight with anyone who has mental health problems, which is astounding, as during this pandemic I genuinely don’t know anyone who hasn’t been mentally battered by the stresses it caused. Mind you, I once stood in a Glasgow pub with a baby on my hip and stopped a fight, Piers ran out when a bloke asked him a question, so maybe he has more issues than I am aware. ‘His petted lip’ as we say in Scotland could be seen from Govan. 

At least he was giving Meghan Markle a break, when he was verbally attacking another woman about her self-care. That seems to be his ‘go-to’ when he isn’t getting attention.

But, why do these fragile men seem so upset by volunteer life savers and strong women? Who knows?

I believe at the bottom of Farage, Morgan and Lord Digby’s comments is simply this, they don’t like people getting anything they believe belongs to them. Whether that’s public adulation for their work, or refugees getting shelter or working-class people getting good jobs in broadcasting.  As far as they are concerned ‘the working classes’ should know their place, these blokes would all fit perfectly into a Dickens short story, puffed out chests, top hats, tapping their canes on the cobbles as they generously throw pennies at a match girl, who better show her appreciation or they will stamp on her bare feet and shove her up a chimney.

Time to grow up chaps. Carpe Diem.