Priti Patel is a bully. She should become a journalist, she’d fit right in.
British journalism is powered by arseholes being arseholes to people who don’t deserve it.
Priti Patel is direct. She will directly scream in your face. She will directly push for deportations despite valid legal challenges. She will directly call professionals “activist lawyers” despite knowing that the rhetoric is putting them at risk of physical harm. Priti Patel apologises for being direct and hates you.
The Times has an exclusive today that claims Boris Johnson asked his advisor on standards in public life, Sir Alex Allan, to tone down the criticisms in his report on Patel and the bullying allegations. Sir Alex declined to do that and has now resigned after the Prime Minister decided to treat the Ministerial Code with the same level of respect he gives demands for child support.
The British political press is now lining up to offer one of two general takes:
Priti Patel is simply a robust Home Secretary dealing with the melting snowflakes of the civil service who faint more easily than a heroine in a bad movie from the 1940s.
Bullying is very bad and it should never be tolerated, and I would never bully anyone and nor would any of my friends.
The first one is par for the course — that’s the right-wing press doing the right-wing press schtick — but the second one is unforgivable. The British media runs on shame, bullying, and petty bullshit. Newsrooms are full of narcissistic maniacs who, given the title of editor, take on the character of Downfall Hitler in his bunker, except they’re raging against a bad picture caption or an insufficiently racist take on a footballer rather than the current location of the 8th Army.
There’s a cliched bit of advice that’s slung at young journalists — “Be professional and kind, and you’ll do well.” — and it’s both true and disproven by countless editors and senior executives who scream, tantrum, and abuse their way up the ladder. The entire culture of tabloid journalism is internally and externally abusive. They scream at politicians, celebrities, and members of the public in print and abuse their own reporters for being too slow, too stupid, and too fucking human. Rupert Murdoch will not be happy until he can get The Sun produced by racist robots with AI based on the deranged rantings of Kelvin MacKenzie.
The Sun, Telegraph, and Daily Mail bully everyone who is anywhere to the left of Benito Mussolini, anyone who dares to not be white and achieve literally anything, and asylum seekers. The Times and Sunday Times are obsessed with bullying and vilifying trans people.
Priti Patel isn’t leaving the Home Office any time soon but she could easily slip into the highest levels of British journalism just as George Osborne did before her. That she muddles her words and writes entirety in cliche would be no impediment to her reaching the heights of British journalism; she’s already got the skill set to reach the top of the ladder at The Telegraph or The Sun — she’s ‘direct’ enough to scream abuse at a subordinate in public. I’m sure The Evening Standard’s headhunters will be in touch.