I begin with a question. How far up your own arse do you need to be in order to regularly demonise groups of people just to preserve your own position as controversial enough to be deemed worthy of column inches or TV appearances? I suppose it doesn't really matter, providing the pounds keep rolling in and the invitations onto This Morning, This Week or The Wright Stuff keep dropping into that email inbox, eh Katie Hopkins?
Before we go any further, I'm well aware of the irony of dedicating 843 words to criticising a vacuous, self-aggrandising, emotionless hole of a woman. I know it does just as much to promote her as any contrived and nonsensical statement she could make, but sometimes it's impossible to escape it. I'd rather we all just ignored her, but frankly the British press like nothing more than prodding the public's outrage hornet's nest with a stick so lo and behold she keeps getting to paid to be a dick - and that needs addressing.
And, as far as I'm concerned, if you keep being a dick, then you deserve to have people be a dick right back to you. It's not rocket science that people will bite back if you rub them up the wrong way. Play nice and people play nice back.
Hopkins has absolutely nailed the playing of the "it's not my fault if you're offended by what I say" card. Those who want to have no comeuppance frequently use it, often accompanied with the idea that freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like. "Fat people should be forced to pay for all their healthcare - don't blame me, I'm just saying it like it is!"
You could probably put forward an argument for that, but say it as obnoxiously as that and it's completely your fault if an overweight chap decides to snap back. You can't take the pin out of a grenade and then be surprised it explodes.
Take the recent 'chubsters' controversy. The opinion that Hopkins displays - that those who are overweight should be inspired to lose weight and that the Protein World ads are perfectly acceptable - isn't actually that outlandish. That won't keep her in the news, though, especially since branding migrants as cockroaches when they're risking their lives because they see no better option than to make a potentially-fatal journey across the Mediterranean has been swept away now.
It needs to be more emotive, so let's throw in a needless insult for those who are overweight and it upsets people. 'Hello page clicks and wage checks,' Hopkins thinks as she laughs all the way to the bank.
It was the same when she linked children's names to their class. It was the same when she thought Paul Gascoigne should 'crack on' with drinking because she doesn't believe in addiction. It was the same when she accused those with autism as being limited, projecting it onto Labour leader Ed Miliband. It was the same when she branded ginger babies harder to love. It was the same when she called the horrid virus ebola "efficient population control". It was the same when she asked what sort of future you have if you have tattoos.
Ironically, on that last one, she brands those with tattoos as "seeking attention". With that list in mind, who's the one looking for the spotlight?
The very fact that her own website lists where you can see the controversies that she's caused tells you that she isn't vaguely ashamed by how self-serving it is. Every time she shoots her mouth off she's playing a dangerous game of divide and rule, lining her own pocket in the process.
She cares not that she's influencing a significant number of people not to be angry at the banks for irresponsible lending or the corporations that don't pay the tax they should or at the social inequalities that exist. As long as she's in the news and she's getting paid, so what if it drives a wedge between people based on where they're from or what they look like?
What people look like is a big part, too. She's charged in to slam the looks of the likes of Kim Kardashian or Sam Bailey or Lily Allen or Gemma Collins. While it boosts her media presence because it's lapped up by the papers, it reinforces the idea that it's ok to just comment on someone's - usually women's - looks in public. Hey, if they choose to be offended, it's their fault, right?
Hopkins knows exactly what she's doing when she intentionally offends and then plays innocent. She can claim all she likes that she's just being straight and blunt, but a complete lack of tact shows her for a vile, tumour on society.
Normally, we'd say ignore people like her and they go away, but she's so much under the microscope that isn't going to happen. In lieu of a cure, she needs to have her repugnant attitude dissected and torn apart for all to see.