Time and time again, Britain's favourite rent-a-gob Katie Hopkins stirs up controversy by spewing bile on daytime TV or on her Twitter feed. Hopkins can't be overly committed to her business; Katie Hopkins LTD is worth less than £0, so she must use her time in some other manner, primarily, creating controversy for controversy's sake. Much like the Weeping Angels, which cease to exist when you look away, Hopkins too ceases to exist when not in the forefront of the public consciousness; she needs the oxygen of publicity. Her business prowess is obviously limited, otherwise her business might have positive net worth, thus she turns her 'talents' to being Britain's premier caricature of bigotry, her productivity measured in terms of people she offends and groups she belittles.
(Unfortunately,) Hopkins has delusions of being the self-anointed voice of some kind of 'silent majority' comprising of much of Britain's middle class, which obviously gives her the right to lead crusades based on religion, appearance and social background. During her most famous appearance on ITV's This Morning, Hopkins claimed that a child's name was an indicator of social class, and she further decided whether her children should associate with others based upon their name (and hence their perceived class). Name such as Robyn, are apparently indicative of a poor social background, one Hopkins' children shouldn't associate with (let's ignore the fact that someone of that name attends the same Oxford college as me).
Though associating names with social class is horrific, it is Hopkins' opinions of what she perceives as lower classes than her own which is truly shocking. Apparently, if you are from a class below Hopkins herself, your children will never do their homework, always turn up late and be the victim of feckless parenting. Judging whole groups of people by their social class has no place in a modern world, one where people should be judged on their qualities, not their background. Despite claiming to advocate a meritocracy, all Hopkins really favours is an entrenchment of class divisions and the 'lower' classes remaining in their place, whist bigots such as Hopkins continue to sneer at those different to themselves as beneath them. How can we have social mobility when class divisions are being entrenched by snobbery from people like Hopkins? We cannot, all we have is a class of people like Hopkins seeing others as not worth their time, and this group feeling they have no chance to succeed in a society run by people like Hopkins.
Appearance, whether it is one's fault or not, is another superficial way Hopkins will judge a person without ever speaking to them. If you are unfortunate enough to have red hair, then you are harder to love in Hopkins' view. End of. She judges people on their natural hair colour, and expects to be taken seriously as a human being, rather than an automated bile spewing machine. Hilarious.
Tattoos have also suffered the misfortune of being the target of her vitriol. Apparently, tattoos are graffiti and those with tattoos will never be high achievers. Unfortunately for Hopkins, I am a walking counterexample to her ridiculous opinions, (lyrics by the Smiths on my right shoulder, and again, Oxford) as are George Orwell, Teddy Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Maybe this is down to the fact that appearance is not the only thing a person should be judged on, a human being is a complex character beneath a veneer of skin; we cannot judge the whole by the surface. Katie, get down from your high horse, this isn't the 1920s anymore, and your ridiculously conservative attitude to appearance is irrelevant at best, though more likely a mere joke in the 21st Century.
Perhaps most offensive of all were Hopkins' recent tweets about Ramadan. She tweeted a cake in the form of an assault rifle, commenting it was the perfect thing for Muslims to eat when breaking their fast, just days after tweeting another cake with ISIS piped onto the top alongside the following 'Happy Ramadan to the Muslim militia - another juicy cake to help you break the fast.' Katie, are you seriously calling all Muslims militants? It damn well looks like it; it looks like you are once again spewing ill informed bigotry and hatred. Where to start with the corrections? Not all Muslims are militants, in fact it is an infinitesimal percentage of Muslims who are extreme enough to take up arms - it's akin to claiming all people from the South West are serial killers because Fred West was from the same region. Such comments are illogical and exist purely to offend. Offence, to be fair, is probably Hopkins' aim, as it garners her the oxygen of publicity she needs to survive upon. It's also more than mildly misinformed to imply ISIS, an extremist group representing a miniscule portion of one branch of Islam, represent all Muslims, Hopkins might as well have tweeted a photo saying 'I'm a bigot.'
Hopkins' bigoted tweets above & below.
Katie, not all Muslims are terrorists and not all Muslims are spoken for by extremists, in reality, very very few are either involved with or support terror, and your generalisations have a corrosive impact on society. If a (self-proclaimed) voice of a silent middle class is regularly tweeting Islamophobic tweets, how can Britain see any kind of inter-cultural bonding? Rather, your hatred encourages division, mistrust and alienation of minorities, which is not conducive to a well functioning society.
Whether the voice of a silent middle class, or a rent-a-gob making a living off controversy, Hopkins is the personification of the ills of middle class Britain. Class prejudice, superficial judgement and Islamophobia are major problems in our society, and they need to be healed, not exacerbated by the vitriol of a failed businesswoman.