Your first thoughts on Katie Hopkins could be that she's a poisonous attention-seeker. On greater depth you can see that Hopkins raises some valid points and thoughts but phrases them in the most insensitive and hurtful ways. Is this the only way to get listeners to pay attention? The problem with Hopkins is that she's like your mother: speaking some sense but in the meanest way possible. It's this that makes people defensive to her views and how she loses a lot of her persuasion over others. In conversation with Emma Kenny the therapist tells Hopkins that it is her lack of compassion that makes her concede her power and authority over issues. Indeed, it seems to be that Hopkins simply wants to be right and prove a point rather than solve any real problems or enlighten us to anything. Nothing Hopkins says is original or particularly insightful, merely blunt and usually said at the most insensitive time.
We like to see people saying controversial things and getting into trouble as it is mildly entertaining, just look at Jeremy Clarkson. Katie Hopkins used to also scratch this itch but now it's just getting sad. Her poor children. I'm so glad my mother has never spent fame criticising people called Brooklyn or brave nurses battling ebola. I'm glad my mother never learnt how to use twitter. Hopkins is smart enough to actually make pithy comments about culture and politics yet she seems comfortable with inappropriate snobbery and unkindness. I believe in you Katie, you can do better!
Now there is news that Hopkins' offensive tweets about Nurse Pauline Cafferkey who contracted ebola having travelled back to Glasgow from Sierra Leone is to be investigated by the police. Although death and violent threats and hate crime violations deserve to be treated seriously, Hopkins seems to be wasting police time and resources. The police have better things to do and I really hope Pauline Cafferkey pulls through, otherwise Hopkins will look awful and it may be a deserving end to her career. We didn't mind her being rude about frivolous things such as people's names and weight but when it comes to a woman's life, especially a nurse who bravely risked her own life to safe others, we rightly offer our condemnation. However, Hopkins could come back from the brink. An apology may be too much to hope for but compassion with her cutting remarks could endear her to some. Jeremy Clarkson has a fanclub as he injects humour into everything. If Hopkins projected some warmth or put her point across in a way to persuade rather than feeling that everyone is against her before she speaks then she may make a better point. It is indeed interesting to ponder would have happened differently to Pauline Cafferkey, if anything at all, if Scotland had gained independence in September. However, even phrasing it matter of factly, it is not a sensitive thing to say, and Hopkins needs to learn some tact and empathy to prevent losing all credibility. Hopkins could become a force for good. Perhaps a resolution for 2015 Katie?