THE Reform MP Sarah Pochin is rapidly developing a reputation for speaking first and engaging brain later.
Her first Commons intervention, about banning the burqa, was badly planned and timed and turned into a bomb that probably did more damage to the thrower than the target. At the weekend she attacked the subject of TV advertising.
She said on TalkTV that ‘it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people’, adding that ‘it doesn’t reflect our society’ and ‘your average white person, average white family’ is not represented any more.
It is all the fault of ‘woke liberati’ in the ‘arty-farty world’. Mrs Pochin went on to observe that ‘it might be fine inside the M25, but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country’.
This is all routine talk around the country. According to an analysis published by Channel 4, more than half of all TV commercials feature black actors, while the 2021 census reported that 4 per cent of the population of England and Wales is black. But if a Reform MP says it, you can expect a pile-in.
Spearheading the assault, taking time off from sorting out the prisons following the Epping asylum seeker fiasco, was Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy.
An angry Lammy said: ‘Her statements were mean, were nasty and were racist. Our country is so much better than this. Unbelievably nasty statements.
‘All of us are neighbours in this country. All of us recognise the contribution of the Windrush generation. Black Britons particularly in so many areas of our life. These were terribly racist remarks. Nigel Farage should sack her effectively and certainly say something and apologise for what she has said today,
‘I am disgusted by what she said. Not just on behalf of myself or my family or the people of London but on behalf of our country. We are so much better than this.’
Mr Lammy has long held strong views on the impact of TV advertising. He was Shadow Justice Secretary in 2021 when he spoke to the advertising industry journal Campaign.
He said: ‘When I can spare a moment to watch TV with my wife and kids, it does surprise me the differences in the people that I see on the screen compared with when I was younger. From TV shows to adverts, I grew up thinking the nuclear family was white and middle class. I didn’t fit into that and the older I got, the more I realised that neither did a significant number of people in this country.’
Mr Lammy observed that ‘diversity is central to advertising’. He said that ‘narratives and stereotypes that we have of certain groups’ have undergone drastic changes and ‘many people underestimate the power of the creative sector in playing a large part in that’.
London advertisers, he said, forget people outside London. ‘I think it’s clear that almost all advertising and media industries are guilty of this, as are almost all industries. I think it would be naive to think that communities across Britain haven’t been overlooked.’
Examining these remarks, it seems that Mrs Pochin and Mr Lammy are in agreement, except on one thing. She thinks there are too many black faces, and he thinks there were too many white faces. I would suggest that if Mrs Pochin is racist, so is Mr Lammy.
Mr Lammy has long form in smearing other people as racist. If it’s Tuesday, he’s going to call someone a racist.
My favourite Lammy smear was in 2013. During the election of a new pope, he objected to the BBC speculating about whether the smoke from the Vatican chimney would be black or white. ‘This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary,’ he wrote. ‘Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next pope?’
Lammy’s ignorance – white smoke means a new pope has been chosen while black means the process is still going on – was all the more surprising because one of his early political roles was a seat on the Church of England’s cabinet, the Archbishops’ Council. You would have thought he might have picked up something about Christian traditions.
Following her TalkTV performance, Mrs Pochin backed down and apologised. I would have preferred it if she had stuck it out. It never looks good when a politician runs from the sound of gunfire. But perhaps Nigel Farage stepped on her.
That would be the Nigel Farage recently falsely accused by David Lammy of having ‘once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger’.
Whatever his other flaws, I think David Lammy is a steaming hypocrite. He could make himself look less mean, nasty and racist if he took a brief break from smearing political opponents and got on with doing his own job.
Meanwhile, if anybody doesn’t like TV advertising, there is a straightforward solution. If you don’t like the ad, don’t buy the product. I wouldn’t fly with Virgin Atlantic because I don’t like the way it uses identity politics to sell itself. If enough people do the same, the advertising will change. It’s called the market.
