by Tim Fenton

Last December, the Mail’s talentless churnalist Richard Littlejohn observed: “Twitter is a playground for vicious trolls and cowardly cyber-bullies who can ruin people’s lives with the most vile threats and smears” – the inference being that he and his fellow pundits are people of the purest and noblest motives who would never sink to such levels.

What you will no longer see in that column, as it has been hastily removed, is The Great Man’s comments on teacher Lucy Meadows. This is because she has just taken her own life. Ms Meadows had previously been Mr Upton, and had transitioned to live as a woman. There was no public interest whatever in this, save the prurience of our wonderful free press. And the subsequent hate mail.

Hence the papers gleefully that reported this as news. Daily Mail Shock at CofE school where Mr Upton will return after Christmas as Miss Meadows. Perhaps the Anglican church is supposed to cast such people out into eternal darkness. But they did find one parent who objected.

The Sun: Sir becomes Miss” was the typically imaginative headline from Rupe’s downmarket troops. At least they talked to a grandparent who was supportive and said it was a very brave thing to do. Sadly, the attempt by local Government staff and councillors to emphasise that this was a personal and private matter went unheeded.

Littlejohn, who as I recently observed takes his prurient interest in transsexual people as far as asking how they take a pee, went on the offensive. “He’s not only in the wrong body, he’s in the wrong job … The school shouldn’t be allowed to elevate its ‘commitment to diversity and equality’ above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents.”

And there was more.

It should be protecting pupils from some of the more, er, challenging realities of adult life, not forcing them down their throats. These are primary school children, for heaven’s sake … he isn’t entitled to project his personal problems on to impressionable young children.

Now, Lucy Meadows is dead, and those impressionable young children are having to deal with one of their teachers no longer being there, as the actions of another fearless pundit cause them to have another of those challenging realities of adult life forced down their throats.

Meanwhile, Littlejohn continues to trouser a million a year.

In the Trans Media Watch (TMW) submission to the Leveson Inquiry, there was concern about the portrayal of Trans people by parts of the media.