Obsolete: More on the Moorfield.

After this week's Ruth Fowler antics, it's a joy to read Marina Hyde on her usual top form:

At last, a solution to all this bourgeois anxiety about the environmental impact of travel: class tourism. You don't have to leave the house and you always end up feeling better about yourself. It has certainly seemed a viable alternative in recent weeks, as people have been able to observe the denizens of the West Yorkshire estate on which Shannon Matthews lived, and apply all sorts of labels - the most popular referencing Shameless, the television series by the award-winning writer Paul Abbott set on a fictional Manchester estate.
To read the papers since the arrest of Shannon's mother, Karen, has been to see Britain as a nation of Gillian McKeiths - completely ill-qualified to pass judgment, but keen to shriek in horror at how these people do live.

And for those whom have ironically forgiven Fowler because of her appearance - Ms Hyde is more than aesthetically pleasing without having to take photographs of her rump.

Hopi Sen also went through the history books to show that the horror in the press at the Moorfield estate is hardly a new occurrence, regardless of Allison Pearson's shock and romanticising of her own council estate upbringing, while Justin is sardonic as usual about the latest "revelations" concerning how awful Karen Matthews is. Also worth reading is yesterday's Grauniad dispatch which typically went deeper than the superficial disgust elsewhere:

And yesterday the place had its own "conflict tourists" - five women from Huddersfield with a toddler cuddled precariously (and illegally) on their Peugeot's back seat. "We're here for a nosey," said the driver, looking optimistically at the sort of everyday redbrick semis you see on the edge of any town in the north of England. "It is real rough, isn't it?"

Cunts.

Labels: Karen Matthews, Marina Hyde, Moorfield estate, Ruth Fowler, Shannon Matthews