Our Wankers this week are the people who complained to BBC Radio 4 about their coverage of the trial and conviction of the gangmaster responsible for the deaths of those Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecombe Bay.
The BBC played - several times in the course of the day - the recording of a phone call one of the victims made on his mobile as the water rushed in and surrounded him. He had only a little English, and all he could say to the helpless operator was "Sinking water! Sinking water!" over and over again.
It was ludicrous, and sad, and tragic. A number of listeners contacted the BBC to complain at being made to hear it (presumably they were paralysed, or had their hands taped to their sides so they couldn't switch the radio off). Their plaint was that it was "tasteless", "insensitive" and "unnecessary" to play the recording.
The drowning of the illegal migrant workers was dreadful. These were people who had come from China to find work, not because they were starving, but because they could earn twice or three times as much here as they could at home, money which they were mostly sending back to their families who used it to build big houses (it must be true - I heard it on the BBC). In order to do so, they did work that few English people would care to do in conditions few English people would tolerate. Worse still, they were doing it illegally, thus putting themselves in the hands of selfish, reckless criminals who didn't care what happened to them. These facts alone make it very necessary that we should all know what happened to them, distasteful as that may be.
They died in a particularly horrible manner - two miles from shore, in darkness and freezing rain, lost and alone, not knowing which way to run as the tide overtook them. All our modern technology - mobile phones, satellite navigation and communications, air-sea rescue helicopters - was fruitless. They couldn't communicate because they didn't speak the language. Even if they had done, they did not know where they were so couldn't have directed the emergency services.
If it is "tasteless" to show us all just how awful this event was, so be it. If it was "insensitive" to expose our delicate sensitivities to the reality of other people's lives (and deaths), tough shit.
But "unnecessary" it was not. It is entirely necessary that we should know what evils our modern society is capable of. As we sit with our feet up in front of the television in our cosy modern centrally-heated cul-de-sacs, after a hard day's work at the cosily-carpeted office and a gruelling commute home in our air-conditioned Japanese cars, we need to know that other people are two miles out to sea with their feet in the mud, surrounded by a freezing flood that can chase them at twenty miles an hour, with nobody who cares to look out for them - just to gather some little seafood delicacies most of us wouldn't care to eat anyway.
It's also completely necessary for us to know that help isn't always just a phone call away, and that there are circumstances where police, fire, ambulance, Trinity House, the lifeboats, the AA, Green Flag, Esther Rantzen and the Samaritans are powerless to rescue us if we can't tell them where we are.
And if it takes one poor little man shouting "Sinking water!" down the phone to a baffled operator who is powerless to assist, to give us a vivid picture of the mess we allow people to get into, or may get into ourselves one day - well, that's what it takes.
I realise there are some wilting couch-potatoes out there in cul-de-sac land who would never dream of going further from home than the nearest Tesco's. They'd think it irresponsible to undertake any activity more strenuous than a little light gardening. And they'd rather not know about anything more stress-inducing than "Coronation Street" or "Who wants to be a millionaire". They think it's not their responsibility to know or think about the darker corners of our society, still less to do anything. Frankly, their own nice-little tight-little lives are beneath contempt. Their prejudices are insignificant. If they don't want to know or experience, they have no right to an opinion. They should shut up. They aren't real people.
They're wankers.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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