JAN MOIR: The shimmering hypocrisy of Naomi Campbell, crusader for criminals
When Naomi Campbell campaigns it is usually for Burberry or Versace or Nars or Prada. And boy, is she good at it.
Naomi has been at the top of the supermodel game for over 30 years, as dazzling now as she was when she first appeared on the cover of Elle, one month before her 16th birthday.
She is to be admired for many things, but perhaps not for her campaigning to thwart the Home Office and stop 57 convicted Jamaican offenders from being booted out of the UK and deported back to their homeland.
Naomi as a crusader for criminal justice? Don’t make me laugh.
Not just because she has form herself. The 50-year-old has been convicted of assault on four occasions, including spitting at and assaulting police officers. She has been accused of assault on a total of 11 occasions and was once banned from British Airways for life.
When Naomi Campbell campaigns it is usually for Burberry or Versace or Nars or Prada. And boy, is she good at it. Naomi has been at the top of the supermodel game for over 30 years, as dazzling now as she was when she first appeared on the cover of Elle
Perhaps deportation is a trigger issue for Naomi, for it is a small but gorgeous miracle that she has not been deported back to the UK herself, billed as an undesirable citizen in some foreign part or other.
Yet here she is, one of an oozing fester of luvvies, Left-wing lawyers and Labour politicians who battled to stop Priti Patel from deporting assorted ruffians and bad ’uns back to Jamaica this week.
Their number included murderers, rapists and at least one paedophile, but that didn’t stop the do-gooders.
Joining Miss Campbell in the cause were celebrities including Line Of Duty star Thandie Newton, Bond actress Naomie Harris and historian David Olusoga, who recently approved of the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol ‘because he was a slaver and a murderer’.
But Naomi as a crusader for criminal justice? Don’t make me laugh. Perhaps deportation is a trigger issue for Naomi, for it is a small but gorgeous miracle that she has not been deported back to the UK herself, billed as an undesirable citizen in some foreign part or other
Yet here she is, one of an oozing fester of luvvies, Left-wing lawyers and Labour politicians who battled to stop Priti Patel from deporting assorted ruffians and bad ’uns back to Jamaica this week
Opposition MPs wasted no time in comparing the deportation flight with the Windrush scandal, even though the Caribbean migrants who suffered injustice in that regrettable episode were entirely innocent and had committed no crimes.
Yet all involved still signed a letter demanding that none of the 57 varieties of offenders should be removed.
On the seemingly specious grounds that the UK was now their home, such a removal offended their human rights and one of them — I kid you not — had high blood pressure. Hope there was no one with an ingrowing toenail on board. Captain, reverse thrust now!
All of the convicted criminals were born in Jamaica and none are UK citizens. Of the original number due to leave the UK on the flight, 23 submitted last-minute appeals, 21 were taken off the passenger list due to previous appeals and only 13 were on board when the flight departed.
A Priti tough cookie
Speaking of Priti Patel, I am full of admiration for this tough-as-tungsten Home Secretary; a woman who is not afraid of making unpopular decisions and forcing through unpopular measures.
All those poor diddums Civil Service men who complained of being bullied by her?
One can only imagine all the sexist nonsense she had to endure coming up through the ranks.
Often at the hands of people just like them; complacent, supercilious, sure of themselves and their position in life.
No wonder she shouted at the wretches. Could she please shout at Gavin Williamson, too? His crowing performance yesterday over the vaccine was an utter embarrassment to the nation.
We are better than that.
Addressing the claim that this country was now their home, the Home Secretary argued that it was a privilege and not a right to live in this country. One that they had clearly forfeited by committing serious crimes.
Of course, deportation flights repatriating criminals to their home countries from the UK are nothing new — and what right-minded citizen could possibly argue against them?
It seems it is only when the offenders happen to be black that it becomes a huge issue, freighted with accusations of racism.
These campaigners truffle for prejudice and intolerance where there is none, and forget about the victims of these crimes as they glorify their assailants in the process.
For them, crime seems to be an abstract concept; something hopefully carried out by, let’s say, a far-Right-wing extremist with a Hitler moustache and a Union Jack tattoo on his forehead.
Something perpetrated by evil white men shouting ‘kill all the badgers’ as they help themselves to the family loot.
Naomi Campbell is not a bad person, but to me she absolutely encompasses the shimmering hypocrisy of all this.
Not only has she been convicted of assault, she was the victim of an attempted robbery in Paris eight years ago.
During the nasty incident, a man opened her car door and said: ‘Naomi Campbell, we’re going to kill you.’
In a television interview later, she said: ‘You decide in a very split moment — I don’t know if I’d ever do this again in hindsight — am I going to let this guy take my bag with all my passports, or am I going to fight for it?
‘And my decision was, I am not letting my bag go.’
Hard to imagine her battling for the liberty and rights of those particular thieves, isn’t it?
Years ago I spent a day with Naomi, accompanying her as she did a round of interviews to promote her (short-lived) singing career.
The schedule was thrown into disarray when she discovered she had lost an emerald earring — and went back to her hotel to spend hours looking for it.
All of this proves absolutely nothing, except that justice is an elastic concept for someone like Naomi Campbell. And also that she really, really loves her jewels.
No clemency for any naughty thieves who might try to steal those precious babies, no matter who or what they might be.
It’s time I made a trunk call to Brad
Praise be. Cher has interrupted her Christmas preparations to travel halfway around the world to help rescue Kaavan, the world’s loneliest elephant.
Kaavan has been stuck in poor conditions in Islamabad zoo for years, out of shape and sad.
No wonder: he is the last Asian elephant in Pakistan. Can life get much lonelier? Cher has been part of a campaign to save him for years — and now he has been moved to an elephant sanctuary in Cambodia.
Cher has interrupted her Christmas preparations to travel halfway around the world to help rescue Kaavan, the world’s loneliest elephant
And Cher was waiting there to welcome Kaavan where he will live with 600 other elephants and be expected to mate with some of the females.
‘He’s going to be really happy here,’ said an emotional Cher, adding that this was one of the greatest moments of her life.
Mine, too. Because if a lonely, overweight elephant can make a seven-hour flight to find a new mate, surely there is hope yet for Brad Pitt and me.
‘He’s going to be really happy here,’ said an emotional Cher, adding that this was one of the greatest moments of her life. Pictured: Cher on stage in concert at Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit, MI
Prince of raindrops sounds so wet
I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows. I believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come, to show the way.
For I believe, I believe, I BELIEVE . . . that someone better hurry up to save Prince Harry from himself, before it’s too late.
This week the Californication of the Prince-in-exile continued. His latest speech, in which he urged us all to become raindrops, could have been written by a surfer dude on the back of a chia seed packet on his way to morning meditation.
Prince Harry’s latest speech, in which he urged us all to become raindrops, could have been written by a surfer dude on the back of a chia seed packet on his way to morning meditation
He sounded like a gullible toddler who has been indoctrinated by a powerful boho mummy queen, which is essentially true. What was the Prince going on about this time? Take a second look at his words.
‘Somebody said to me at the beginning of the pandemic,’ began Harry, ‘it’s almost as though Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms for bad behaviour, to really take a moment and think about what we’ve done.’
Well I wonder who that somebody was? No prizes for guessing.
‘It’s certainly reminded me about how interconnected we all are, not just as people but through Nature. We take so much from her and we rarely give a lot back.’ Who is he talking about now? The Queen? ‘Every single raindrop that falls from the sky relieves the parched ground. What if every one of us was a raindrop?’
What indeed? There would be a deluge, Harry, that’s what. We’d all drown. Drown in our own raindrops. Which keep falling on our head.
‘What if every single one of us cared? We do, because we have to, because at the end of the day Nature is our life source.’
We do care. We care about you, Harry. Because what you say doesn’t make sense. If Nature is our life source, where does that leave chia seeds? That’s what I want to know.
Auntie’s serving us festive flops
There have been complaints about the BBC’s offering this Christmas and no wonder. Call The Midwife, EastEnders, Blankety Blank on the evening of the 25th?
It makes one want to self-isolate with a good book instead. There is only so much you can blame on the pandemic. And it does make one hanker for the Beeb’s glory days. Their Christmas Day schedule of 1977 went like this:
- 7.15 Bruce Forsyth And The Generation Game
- 8.20 The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show
- 8.55 The Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show
It was Eric and Ernie’s (pictured) final show for the BBC — they decamped to ITV shortly afterwards — but they went out in style.
The show featured James Hunt, Elton John and Penelope Keith, while the finale had all the BBC news presenters camping it up in a South Pacific spoof that is still funny now.
No wonder 28 million tuned in. If the Beeb get a tenth of that audience this year it will be a miracle.
What do you think of it so far? Rubbish!
Lots of celebrities who are into their 70s and beyond claim to have zingtastic sex lives and marriages that still throb with passion. Dolly Parton is not one of them.
‘My husband and I have been together for 57 years and married for 54, and I’m sick of him and I’m sure he’s sick of me,’ she said with admirable honesty.
Lots of celebrities who are into their 70s and beyond claim to have zingtastic sex lives and marriages that still throb with passion. Dolly Parton is not one of them
Dolly, 74, married Carl Thomas Dean in 1966 — and he has been smart enough to keep out of the public eye throughout most of their long marriage. Which is just how Dolly likes it.
However there is one thing she has an abiding passion for — something she indulges in when she comes here.
Something she has alone in a hotel room: ‘The thing I love the most about the UK, I order it always in room service, is the cream.
‘The scones, the jellies and jams. I have the tea, the afternoon tea and I have it brought to my room.Lord, I can just die over all the cream and the scones.’
She’s clearly not in the mood for a French Fancy.
Seven years after her death, Margaret Thatcher remains a divisive character. There is now going to be a referendum in her home town of Grantham to decide whether they should erect a statue of her.
The plinth has been sitting empty all year, as the debate rages as to whether she should stand alongside statues of other famous denizens, including Sir Isaac Newton and Frederick Tollemache, a 19th-century politician.
Despite what many feel about Mrs T, she was the first woman to become PM in Britain. For this alone, she deserves her place alongside the greats — and Mr Tollemache.
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