Matthew Steeples suggests that with new ownership looming, it is time for ‘The Telegraph’ to put Ghislaine Maxwell apologists agony aunt Rachel Johnson and agony uncle Richard Madeley out to pasture
Boris Johnson’s birdbrained sister Rachel Johnson couldn’t help herself finding it “hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell” back in November 2021 in an article for The Spectator. Prior, in July 2020, Supermarket Sweep style, champagne loving sort Richard Madeley went further of the since convicted “socialite” turned “sex offender” and bizarrely raged in the Daily Express:
“The sharks are circling; they smell blood in the water… Innocent until proven guilty? That honourable credo is in shreds… It would take a heart of stone not to feel empathy for another human being suffering what amounts to mental torture. To coin a phrase: you wouldn’t treat a dog like that… There’s calculated purpose behind this pitiless regime… They’re trying to break her.”
United back then in both being apologists for a wayward, wastrel woman whose pompous, petulant papa plundered over £500 million from Mirror Group pensioners, Johnson and Madeley not only backed the wrong horse, but also showed their truly repugnant colours. Aside from joining the team of victim shamers, these two boring braggarts nailed themselves to #TeamMaxwell and one of the clearly most cretinous creatures to have existed in modern times. Further, they lauded her audacity and ignored the barbaric treatment of the very victims Ghislaine Maxwell effectively considered to be pathetic, pointless playthings.
Countering the warped warblings of Johnson and Madeley, of mucky madam Maxwell, one victim, later commented: “Maxwell ruined the lives of countless women and children.” Another added: “You opened the door to hell” whilst another remarked: “As a woman, I think you understood the damage you were causing – you could have put an end to the rapes, the molestation, the sickening manipulation that you witnessed and even took part in.”
Now, several years on, both Johnson and Madeley find themselves on the payroll of The Telegraph, ironically as agony aunt and agony uncle. Tasked with advising readers in each Saturday’s papers, this weekend Madeley – who once asked a bisexual: “Would you prefer to have sex with me or Judy?” – responded to an unnamed man who’d emailed to state: “Years ago, I met a girl in a bar in Thailand. I knew she was a sex worker, but I was captivated… We started a ‘normal relationship’… but we did tend to fudge the question of how we met.” Judy Finnigan’s husband enthused: “I loved your fascinating answer… Be proud of it!”
Elsewhere in the paper, in “Ask Rachel,” equally sex obsessed Johnson dealt with the dilemmas of a man whose question was summed up as: “My wife is unhappy we’re not having sex. After 27 years of not wanting me, isn’t it a bit late now?” Her analysis: “Quite a lot going on her, or should I say not going on… This sounds less like a scene from a modern marriage than something out of a David Attenborough documentary… In fact, I was listening to Farming Today recently and they had an item on llamas and how you know when a female llama is pregnant or not. If she is, and therefore in no need of any more physical attentions, then she’ll spit viciously at any male who tries to approach. It was so interesting I almost sent it to Pick of the Week… but I forgot.”
Now, with the bidding war that will lead to a change of ownership at Telegraph Media Group in its final stages, isn’t it time for a clean sweep? It is surely time that a new proprietor puts the warped warblings of Maxwell’s mouthpieces Johnson and Madeley out to pasture.
Editor’s note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples and watch his shows on YouTube at @mjs2781/streams.
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Quoted in Full – Rachel Johnson and Richard Madeley on Ghislaine Maxwell…
Sister of Boris Johnson and journalist Rachel Johnson (‘The Spectator,’ November 2021)
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell – 500 days and counting in solitary confinement.”
“I intersected briefly with her at Oxford. As a fresher I wandered into Balliol JCR one day in search of its subsidised breakfast granola-and-Nescafé offering and found a shiny glamazon with naughty eyes holding court astride a table, a high-heeled boot resting on my brother Boris’s thigh.”
“She gave me a pitying glance but I did manage to snag an invite to her party in Headington Hill Hall – even though I wasn’t in the same college as her and Boris. I have a memory of her father, Bob, coming out in a towelling robe and telling us all to go home.”
“I’m sure fairweather friends would not reveal they went to a Ghislaine Maxwell party: as Barbara Amiel’s brilliant memoir Friends and Enemies proves, you only know who your real chums are when you’re in the gutter.”
‘Dorian Gray of Daytime Telly’ Richard Madeley (‘Daily Express,’ July 2020)
“The sharks are circling; they smell blood in the water… Cynics would say the [FBI] agency is playing a long game, seeking to sway the minds of jurors in advance of Maxwell’s trial next year… Innocent until proven guilty? That honourable credo is in shreds.”
“Firstly, consider the conditions under which Ms Maxwell is being held. They are truly grim… It would take a heart of stone not to feel empathy for another human being suffering what amounts to mental torture. To coin a phrase: you wouldn’t treat a dog like that.”
“But it’s not sadism, or premature punishment ahead of a verdict. No; there’s calculated purpose behind this pitiless regime. But, here’s another prediction… it will. They’re trying to break her.”
‘King of Cringe’ Richard Madeley’s ‘Finest’ Moments…
On his son’s wedding
“There’s been so much angst about it… It’s been so choppy, but, yes, he got married and now we’ve got a daughter-in-law.”
Of his daughter
“Sorry Chloe, but you were an accident and you know it!”
To a member of the victorious England 2022 ‘Lioness’ team named Chloe Kelly
“Chloe or Coco, as I call my daughter, Coco, thank you very much. Thanks for coming in. Right, er, now it’s competition time. We’ve got another one.”
To a male weatherman of his daughter
“My daughter fancies you by the way.”
In conversation with President Clinton
“I know what it’s like to be wronged by the press. I was once accused of shoplifting. Unlike you though, I knew I was innocent.”
Of daubing himself in fake tan and turning a “shade of mahogany”
“What happened was at three in the morning I put my daughter’s fake tan on, I was doing a Donald Trump.”
On going commando
“I don’t wear underwear… 30 per cent of blokes don’t wear underwear, it’s not mad.”
Whilst on the lavatory squatting
“You are not filming me urinating. You can listen.”
To an actor who was playing a bisexual
“Would you prefer to have sex with me or Judy?”
Of his and Judy Finnigan’s sexual activities
“When we were trying to conceive, I would douse my balls in icy water before intercourse.”
“Remember when you had thrush, Judy? You had a terrible time of it.”
On Viagra
“It makes everything much longer and return, you know, swiftly.”
Of sex on television
“I don’t think what we see on television is erotic enough.”
Of women
“I’ve never met a single woman who’s happy with the way she looks, except Jordan, although I’ve never met her.”
“Women lie about sex. It doesn’t matter how many partners she says she’s had before you… She’s lying.”
On elephants
“So, are you telling me elephants are not born evil?”
After a woman remortgaged her house to fund treatment for her dog
“Is there a point where you just say: ‘Too expensive, the dog has to die?’”
To a man crying after paramedics saved his life
“Stop crying! This is supposed to make you happy! Anyway, after the break, the biggest dog in the UK. And he really is big. Don’t miss it!”
Showing ‘sympathy’ for people who died in quicksand in Morecambe Bay
“Yes, what an awful way to die.”
On assisted suicide
“At that point where you just need a little push to go over the edge, I wouldn’t give a two-penny f**k if there was a risk of being prosecuted.”
In Nostradamus-like fashion on coronavirus and lockdowns
“We are being duped… [They are trying to] put the fear of God into the public. A great reckoning is coming.”
“There’s no point in running away and hiding from the virus.”
“We must learn to live with coronavirus.”
“If I had a bell, I would ring it… Only 59 people who have been double vaccinated and without any other serious underlying health problems, died from COVID, out of 50,000 deaths in England, this year.”
“I have to say that the majority of people are surprisingly forgiving [to government representative Steve Barclay], and are actually saying that they understand that the reason for some of the mistakes wasn’t malpractice but scientific ignorance – we didn’t know enough… But on the whole, you seem to be getting away with it – as far as our viewers are concerned.”
Of catarrh
“With men when we get all the catarrh we have it up, like Leo on Titanic… Judy swallows her phlegm.”
Of old women skipping
“There’s not many better things than seeing an older woman skipping.”
Of wanting to be black
“I hope when I’m reincarnated I come back black because you age better.”
To actress Keira Knightley
“Can we get some make up please, get Keira looking like a crack whore, she’d make a good crack whore.”
To singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor
“Where did you get your face?”
To mindreader Derren Brown
“Can we have petroleum and a rope? We are burning you at the end of the show.”
To Sex Pistols singer-songwriter John Lydon
“If we could throw a fishing rod into the corridors of time and reel you in, you’d throttle you wouldn’t you?”
To gay Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant
“How’s your wife?”
To a novelist
“If you were going to write an autobiography, who would it be about?”
Of troubled footballer Paul Gascoigne
“He suffers for us. He bears our pain in the most public way possible… Perhaps this has always been Paul Gasgoine’s destiny.”
To a psychiatric patient
“So, Jane, when did you first realise you were quite clearly mad?”
To a group of dwarves
“Do you find that people patronise you? That means that they talk down to you?”
Of an autistic teenager
“The thing with Daniel [Wakeford, a ‘star’ on Channel 4’s Undateables] is, he has autism but is very intelligent and as we can see extremely talented. Has Daniel always been autistic?”
To an anorexic teenager
“Five stone? Wow, that’s concentration camp thin, that is.”
To a caller
“I understand you have a little lad of 12. Is it a boy or a girl?”
And finally and most insensitively, to a young child with leukemia
“Hello baldy.”
“Very Unkind” Rachel Johnson’s Most Ridiculous Remarks…
Aside from once rightly suggesting her brother, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, used the despatch box of the House of Commons as a “bully pulpit” and once condemned some of his speeches as “highly reprehensible,” journalist Rachel Johnson often gets rather carried away. Amongst her odd most ridiculous remarks are:
On boozy lockdown breaking parties in Downing Street
“I didn’t see much of the Prime Minister and his family during lockdown, but the times I did see him, he was completely compliant: he dotted every ‘I,’ he crossed every ‘T.’”
“If it was rule of six, there were six. And what I didn’t see were all the things you’ve been reading about.”
“To my mind, if he did go out into the Downing Street garden – and he’s told us he did – for him, that would have been work. He may have had a drink, I don’t know. Is that one of the key questions? But that would have been work.”
“For example, at his birthday, it was me, my three brothers, Carrie and Wilf. That was six people. And I have to tell you something about my brother’s character.”
“You’ve been seeing the front pages which couldn’t have been worse: suitcases of booze going into Downing Street from the Co-op.”
“I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that he has never once turned to me or any member of my family and said: ‘I tell you what, let’s have an office party’ or: ‘I tell you what, let’s have a party.’”
“If anything, he would say: ‘Let’s play reading,’ when we were growing up, or even in our twenties, or: ‘Let’s play, who can memorise the most poems from the Oxford book of verse’’ And, of course, it was always him.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I saw over lockdown and what I know of my brother’s character.”
On her own character
“Of course, I’m naughty.”
“Without my Johnson trademark mop of yellow hair, I think I would be nothing.”
On politicians
“If you tell the truth you get into trouble and that’s why politicians are extremely dull.”
On the sex trafficker and daughter of a thieving murderer Ghislaine Maxwell
“It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell.”
On food and coffee
“In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise.”
“I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me ‘a coffee’ they tend to regret it. I’m worse than Mariah Carey and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.”
On her work
“I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of Private Eye and a latte.”
“It’s often discouraging sitting working at home, wondering whether to put the heating on, answering the doorbell to the gas board, feeling it’s all utterly pointless.”
“The Lady [which she was the 9th editor of between 2009 and 2013] is a piddling little magazine that no one cares about or buys.”
On what others think of her
“I’m worried about looking like a bad person… I don’t like the public image I’ve been dressed with and it worries me.”
“When I’m called unkind, that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.”
“I don’t mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.”