Talk that talk

Brian Clough once said that if he was given a magic wand and wanted to improve the standard of UK life overnight, he would have Rupert Murdoch removed from this planet. For 12 hours on Tuesday 5 January 2021, YouTube tried the next best thing.

Murdoch reportedly took action himself to reinstate his house of obtuse marionettes after Talkradio was fleetingly banned from Google’s video-sharing platform, seemingly due to repeatedly breaching community guidelines with coronavirus disinformation.

And so our short-lived euphoria gave way to an unwelcome bedtime fright, preceding nightmares of edgy promos celebrating Talkradio’s sublime return: Rihanna’s Talk that talk booming over slow-motion footage of a scantily clad Mike Graham lathering up cars with a bucket of his own respiratory droplets. Julia Hartley-Brewer necking a hired Captain Tom lookalike. That twat from Balls of steel snipping up an entire packet of face masks this time.

But in reality it just meant they had nothing to rally against the next day, because this once again proves that ultimately most people can still say whatever they like online unless it actually challenges one of these right-wing sorts.

It also means that when you search YouTube for “Dan Wootton Talkradio”, the top result is still Chris Bryant calling him a dangerous nutcase.