For most of my life, I’ve lived quite close to Arsenal’s home ground. And although, in an act of childhood folly, I chose to support QPR, the Gunners are my local team. So I was genuinely delighted to see them win their first Premier League title in 24 years.
I caught the tail end of yesterday’s glorious celebrations which were only marred by two things: Arsenal’s narrow defeat by PSG in the Champions League final and Emily Thornberry.
Just look at this awful tweet…
Now I’m sure she wasn’t being deliberately racist by referring to the preponderance of weapons-grade ganja at a principally Caribbean festival. That remark, however, should be sufficient grounds for the Labour party to send Dame Emily for unconscious bias training…
Still, I suppose it’s an improvement on the time when she was forced to resign for displaying some extremely conscious bias.
Because of this, she’ll always be tainted by a sneering dislike of working class people, which is why her disingenuous attempt at identifying with football fans was so misjudged.
Thornberry performatively ‘celebrating’ Arsenal’s triumph typifies what’s gone wrong with the game. Obviously this is not her fault, but season tickets to Arsenal are disgracefully expensive and completely sold out before the team comes out of the tunnel for the first fixture. A wealthy MP with a multi-million pound property portfolio may be able to afford a ticket, but the average Gooner has little chance of ever attending a game.
I spoke to a lot of fans yesterday and most of them had travelled a long way to be there.
Many die-hards had been born and bred around Highbury and Holloway but were pushed out years ago by soaring property prices and the fact that the London Borough of Islington weren’t terribly interested in housing them. So back they came from Borehamwood and Biggleswade, from Luton and Leighton Buzzard, because this was a rare chance to get anywhere near to their team or their stadium.
I’d wager that only a tiny minority were Thornberry’s constituents, so when she proclaimed herself as ‘proud to be your MP’, who was she talking to? And when she said that the event was ‘North London in all it’s [sic] inclusive brilliance’, what did she mean? And the ‘total answer to Tommy Robinson’? What?
The most embarrassing part of the tweet, however, is that the Emirates Stadium isn’t even in her constituency – it’s in Islington North, and its MP is Jeremy Corbyn.
Say what you like about the old duffer, but he’s a proper local MP who’s represented Islington North with distinction since 1983, long before football was gentrified and Arsenal had to suffer faux-fans like Thornberry.
Compare his tweet with hers. Jeremy Corbyn’s simply says: ‘Arsenal – Premier League Champions. Next year, we’re coming back for more’. Simple, dignified, all about the team.
Emily Thornberry’s tweet was all about her. So no matter how much she pretends otherwise, we all know she’s not a Gooner.
Though, politically, isn’t it now time she was a goner?
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