Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: 6 January
Celebrity Controversies: Andrew Tate's Arrest, Prince Harry's New Book, and the UK Government's Maths Education Plan
Harry's decision to explain and complain may backfire
As the dust settled around Harry and Megan’s Netflix documentary there was a feeling of stalemate; those who thought them attention-seeking Hollywood wannabe egomaniacs found enough dirt to entrench that point of view, and those who thought them innocent victims of outdated, prejudiced hegemony felt there was enough justifiable grievance in there to vindicate that point of view.
The documentary was hagiography and had the clear aim of undermining the monarchy, but Harry and Megan at least came away from that documentary with a shred of dignity intact; they hadn’t lowered the tone and weren’t desperate.
The book excerpts gushing out via the tabloids this week have thrown all of that out the window. This is base-level, lowest common denominator, petty, grubby mudslinging; a complete miscalculation that could, counterintuitively, help the royal family in the long run.
The miscalculations include, variously, the title. Its Harry Potter-esque ‘young adult melodrama’ as a word choice aside, ‘Spare’ does not suggest a guy who wants a normal life or a guy who saw his mum and then wife ostracised by tyrannical medieval elitism, but a little Prince whose salty about not getting to be the next king.
Then there are the salacious stories – cheap, celebrity autobiography fare, the naval-gazing, and the outright attempts to shift blame and revise any previous negative publicity, all dressed inauthentically as a confessional. Not to mention the apparent inconsistencies between the documentary, whether factually or just tonally, and the book.
Finally, the attempted character assassination of William. Whatever the truth of specific accusations, they’re currently being howled into a vacuum in such an extreme, one-sided way that people are questioning their credibility.
Circumstantially we know that things aren’t good between the royal brothers, but William has never criticised Harry publicly, and this lack of opposition, let alone aggression, makes him seem outright reasonable to many people. If you only overhear one side of an argument, you generally assume that that person is the aggressor, the unreasonable party, and in this case that’s Harry.
As a crisis manager, I rarely advocate complete silence, but for the royals it might be the right course in this instance. When your opponent’s criticisms are delivered in a format many believe to be a hysterical tantrum, that in any case is being picked apart by media and commentators, then silence in itself can be imbued with dignity, reason and ultimately the moral high ground.
A Bad Date With Controversy
You’d have thought, just six days into the new year, that we’d struggle to find any patterns or trends to debate. With train, plane and automobile strikes galore, it feels like everyone (besides Harry and Meghan) is just staying home and quiet. But, of course, there is no rest for the wicked.
Instead of spending the festive period enjoying the 33 cars he has at his complex-come-‘university’ in Bucharest, Andrew Tate decided to spend his holiday boasting to 19-year-old girls about how much stuff he has. In a now infamous Twitter exchange with Greta Thunberg, Tate boasted about the size of his ‘enormous emissions’ and carbon footprint. Greta’s response joked that boasting about having big feet likely means you wear small shoes, in a tweet which is now the 4th most liked of all time.
This whole episode could have concluded there and still made it into the Twitter hall of fame, yet it escalated further. Within 24 hours, Romanian police had swooped in to detain Tate on human trafficking charges, seizing cash, guns and cars as they went. Tate remains in jail and faces the prospect of years behind bars.
So, having finished 2022 with a cheap gag about cars to amuse his followers, Tate starts 2023 without said cars nor a phone to tweet from in the first place. Greta really has had the last laugh given prison life is probably quite a green way of living…
Whilst the details are extraordinary, this storyline is something we’ve seen again and again. So when will celebrities learn that courting controversy is a tightrope walk in today's world? How can anyone forget Katie Hopkins’ desperate grapple for infamy when she disparaged children named after places on national TV, only for it to be revealed her daughter is called India? Or Trump’s dogged criticisms of Obama’s tax payments, only for his own tax returns to reveal he was paying less! And must we revisit how Ye’s antisemitic attempts to stay relevant appear to have ended him once and for all?
Through this lens, it becomes clear that Tate’s story is just another episode in the perennial TV show – Celebrity Own Goals. Indeed, as 2023 pans out, it will be interesting to see how much longer Harry and Meghan can keep going on their tightrope.
Rishi's new maths education plan sparks outrage in UK
In his first speech of 2023, Rishi Sunak set out his priorities for the year, including plans to make studying some form of maths compulsory until 18. His reasoning for the new approach to numeracy was partly to raise UK standards to meet those of similar nations and to make people feel “more confident” about their finances by boosting financial literacy.
The pledge, which was sketched out in vague terms, was quick to receive backlash from experts on its feasibility following long-term shortages of maths teachers. It was further mocked as a “dead cat” and a distraction from the ongoing NHS crisis.
The prime minister’s comments raise concerns about the toll this policy could have on other subjects such as humanities and the arts – views that actor Simon Pegg expressed in an Instagram rant that went viral.
“What about the kids that don’t want to do Maths? I hated Maths. I dropped Maths as soon as I could, and I’ve never needed it other than the skillset I acquired at the age of 12. But no. Rishi Sunak wants a f****** drone army of data-entering robots.”
The policy feels out of touch with our current educational reality, with maths remaining one of the most popular A-Level subjects taken by students who go on to university. A blanket policy on post-16 mathematics is perhaps not the best way to encourage pupils to take the subject and could risk putting students who don’t enjoy the subject off altogether.
How the government plans to enforce this plan remains to be seen, with no details about extra funding for six forms and further education and who will ultimately be responsible for enrolling the plan.
With rail strikes causing ongoing disruption, inflation and the NHS on the brink of collapse, Rishi has miscalculated the real numbers that the public is most concerned about.