It’s only January 7, but I’ve already gone back on one resolution. I promised I would wean myself off doom-scrolling through Twitter/X, to stop myself getting annoyed at the drivel from Elon Musk and other right-wingers who dominate the platform.
But sitting at my laptop to write this, I find myself sinking into the pointless arguments and downright lies that would be far better ignored.
Like avoiding the Quality Street tin lurking in the corner, it’s easier said than done.
Ten minutes in and already I’ve read an attack on Labour minister Jess Phillips by Musk. He called her a “rape genocide apologist” who should be in prison for not supporting a national public inquiry into a series of child rapes by gangs of Pakistani heritage, in England, some years ago.
It has naturally unleashed a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.
While these were revolting activities, the men responsible were brought before the courts and convicted. There was considerable publicity at the time about these gangs, but Musk has only heard about it now.
Nazir Afzal, a former chief prosecutor, who was central to the successful prosecution of the Rochdale grooming gang, said previous lengthy and expensive inquiries for England and Wales had made recommendations which were subsequently ignored by the previous Conservative government.
But Musk is stirring it up because he is intent on influencing British politics just as he has done in the US, securing a Trump victory, and a role for himself in government.
Now he’s trying to unseat Keir Starmer, with ludicrous demands for King Charles to back a new election.
His pernicious influence – apparently backing Farage’s Reform Party, if not Farage himself – has already unsettled the current Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch. So she has leapt onto this populist inquiry bandwagon.
This is despite the fact that her own party, while in government for the past 14 years, also rejected such an inquiry, saying the issue was best dealt with at local council level.
But hard facts don’t matter on social media. That’s why Trump ignores the truth that the man who killed 14 people in New Orleans was an army veteran, born in Texas, but instead takes to ‘Truth Social’ to blame the attack on Biden’s “open border’s” (note the illiterate apostrophe).
PTSD might be a more likely explanation. The man who killed himself in a vehicle that exploded outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas was also a soldier.
But it’s not only serious political discourse that is poisoned on platforms like X. I was also waylaid by a thread about an angry tall woman who said she was “very offended” at being asked by a shorter person to reach her something off a high shelf, when she was “clearly not a supermarket employee”.
At five feet two, this is personal. When I worked in the shoe department of a well-known big store, I suggested that it was daft for the smallest ladies’ shoes to be on the top shelf, as those who wore threes and fours were more likely to be shorter, so they should be on the lowest shelves.
The supervisor thought for a moment, then said they always did it this way, and anyway, daintier shoes “look nicer”. So they stayed on the top shelf.
On X, the replies started with many tall people saying they quite enjoy the feeling of being helpful.
Us shorties joined in, saying they were grateful for the assistance but wish shops wouldn’t make it necessary by putting things out of our reach.
But because it’s hateful Musk land, the discussion soon degenerated.
Someone commented that the complainant was black, and was insulted at being asked to provide a service, as if she was a menial employee instead of a shopper. And wasn’t this just typical of a certain type of “entitled” person. They probably meant “uppity”.
Yes, 2025 is a time for soul cleansing. So goodbye Twitter/ X. Now where’s that Quality Street?