By Abigail Pennson, our reasonable, plain-speaking middle-class columnist slightly to the right of Hitler
ONCE in a generation comes a hero. Someone prepared to stand up and say, no matter what the personal consequences, ‘no more.’
An incorruptible who, despite every seduction of money and fame whispered by serpents, resists. Who puts principles first. Who places faith in honesty and probity in public life.
That hero made her stand this week. Her name? Rebekah Vardy. And her battle for freedom of speech is for us all.
What is Vardy’s alleged crime? Lifting the lid on the cesspit that is modern celebrity football. Exposing the misdeeds of the depraved child millionaires who have turned England into a cross between a racetrack and a brothel.
Footballers live outside the law. Do you remember when Kevin de Brunye rammed a bus full of pensioners into the river Irwell, for a bet? Or when Granit Xhaka burned down a primary school by drunkenly lighting his farts?
Or, most damningly, when Morten Gamst Pederson was unmasked as a serial killer with more than 50 victims? And confessed he did it as a lucky pre-match ritual?
No, you don’t. Because those stories were hushed up by a media establishment desperate to preserve the Premier League’s worldwide pull. In cahoots, or course, with arch-Remainer Gary Lineker, who paid off the judges and the police in return for kickbacks.
Somebody needed to expose their crimes. And, bravely, like an embedded reporter in a Humvee invading Iraq, Vardy stepped up.
Week by week she built her dossier. Refusing all offers of payment, guided only by her unwavering moral compass, she brought those walls of silence tumbling down.
And what happened? Predictably, football’s attack dogs were unleashed. She is being sued to within an inch of her life and due to a series of bizarre mishaps – a phone in the North Sea, a lost password, an ill agent – is unable to defend herself.
But she will be remembered. Journalists everywhere owe Rebekah Vardy their very livelihoods for her relentless crusade for free speech and untrammeled truth.
Let’s raise a glass to her. Rebekah, who suffers for our sins. A contemporary Christ in a £1,565 Mugler blazer. The redeemer of us all.
