Harry and Meghan’s expert: ‘never sell out’

Afua Hirsch sells out

Cockburn is reeling today after a heavy night, but it was the only thing he could do to make him forget the three hours of Whinge and Ginge that he had to watch at 3 a.m.

The Harry & Meghan Netflix documentary wasn’t exactly enlightening: just a rehash of their previous groans of injustice. Although Meghan did go out of her way this time to make fun of Haz’s dear old granny, by doing an overexaggerated curtsy which made even her hapless husband look uncomfortable.

This is the moment that Meghan describes meeting the late Queen Elizabeth for the first time and how she did not understand why she needed to curtsy to Harry‘s grandmother…
He looks a little uncomfortable about the whole thing#HarryandMeghan pic.twitter.com/H9qr7DqwHq

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) December 8, 2022

There were new faces in the mix though, rather than the classic hagiographers. One of the journalists commentating was British journalist Afua Hirsch. Cockburn asked around… and it turns out that Hirsch isn’t exactly, er, well-liked. As one ex-colleague put it, “Ghastly woman. Total hypocrite. Privately-educated barrister who bangs on about elitism while wearing eye-wateringly expensive clothes.”

And one of Cockburn’s nieces once came across Hirsch at college, during a semester abroad at one of Britain’s top universities. Apparently, Hirsch was lecturing students about the importance of morals in journalism and how you should never become a sellout. She also made fun of some of her colleagues for doing reality TV later in their careers.

As one royal source put it, “she must have been paid a shitload to do this with the Sussexes.”

Maybe Hirsch is suffering with Sussex Syndrome: a peculiar affliction that causes you do to the exact opposite of what you say when there’s a paycheck involved.

Pearl-clutching at the Black Man’s Fan Club

Cockburn knew he’d heard Hirsch’s name somewhere before, so he fired up the Google machine. Sure enough, she penned a Guardian story that had caught his eye back in 2018, for which she went to a swingers’ club north of London, Black Man’s Fan Club, where white men came to be cuckolded by black men. Hirsch was horrified, but not for the reason you might expect:

It’s not the sex at the Black Man’s Fan Club that bothers me, it’s the racial stereotyping. It feels as if it’s just the latest chapter in a history of sexual stereotyping towards Africans — a history so long and loaded it stands apart from other contemporary fetishes, such as blondes or particular body types.

Why are black men willing to embrace the myths of hypersexuality and abnormally large endowment?

Why indeed?! What could they possibly have to gain? At one point in the piece, she speaks to one of the black “bulls” to try and get to the heart of the matter:

When I ask if they feel fetishised because of their race, they vigorously deny it. “I come for the sex,” Wayne says. “Where else can you go and have sex as many times as you like?

Blind item: Ritzy-lifestyle

Which somehow-still-employed CNN journalist’s taste for the finer things in life has landed him on the naughty step? Cockburn hears that the network has expressly banned the hack from staying at the Ritz on official sojourns — and that his hospitality expenses are meticulously combed through as a result…

Ms. Truss goes to Washington

Spotted on Capitol Hill this week: former British prime minister Liz Truss, who had meetings with a couple of Republican congressmen and passed through some DC think tanks. Cockburn found the timing of Truss’s visit intriguing. She opted to visit during the lame-duck session, which this Congress lasts for fifty-five days: that’s eleven more than Liz managed as PM…