I’m a celebrity...Let me monger fear!

We’ve all been in Amanda Holden’s shoes. One minute, someone’s sending you a petition explicitly linking 5G to Covid-19; the next, you’re accidentally sharing it with 1.9 million Twitter followers.

The butterfingered Britain’s Got Talent judge has since distanced herself from 5G conspiracy theories, but a variety of public figures are still testing positive for having no shame at all, and they read like a TV producer’s old wish list of I’m a Celebrity contestants; starting with the budget-draining marquee name of Woody Harrelson, then stopping by the cash and carry of cap-in-hand reality show stalwarts for Amir Khan, Calum Best and Lee Ryan.

It’s almost as if conspiracy theories attract the unloved. In 1991, David Icke endured the transformative experience of humiliation on a Terry Wogan chat show. Icke had claimed to be the son of God, and when the audience laughed, he said that “2,000 years ago, had a guy called Jesus sat here and said these same things, you’d still be laughing”. That’s an understatement. He was crucified!

Here in 2020, YouTube is removing Icke’s latest videos, where he’s found a more obsequious interviewer to tell that telecoms firms are part of a cult – a cult that can only be defeated without fear. What a crucial flaw in his racket it is, then, that he’s scared of something with a lower radiation frequency than a microwave.