For those of you who fondly imagined Gregg Wallace had gone away – hiding under the rock of shame to consider his many years of fondling, ogling, flashing, trash-talking and bum-grabbing sins against young women – think again.
You know what? None of it was his fault. The erstwhile BBC presenter blames all his failings on a recent medical diagnosis that he has autism and is neurodivergent.
Like many adults who seek late-life labels to explain away their bad behaviour, this oddbod greengrocer-turned-celebrity seems to think this absolves him of any personal responsibility for his actions.
Indeed, he appears to believe that it gives him a free pass, a get-out-of-perv-jail card to the sunlit uplands of acceptance and understanding. He wasn’t handsy, he just needed help! And no one gave it to him, so he carried on dropping his trousers in front of sundry young ladies because that is what autistic people do, isn’t it?
Well, of course it is not. Using neurodivergence and impaired mental health as an excuse for his conduct does a terrible disservice to those who struggle with such conditions without feeling the need to verbally molest pretty girls.
Gregg Wallace, pictured with his wife Anna, blames all his failings on a recent medical diagnosis that he has autism
In November last year, the 60-year-old stepped back from presenting the BBC cooking show MasterChef after accusations he made sexual comments and worse towards staff and celebrity guests on a range of programmes over 17 years.
Now Wallace claims he has been cleared of the most serious charges by a six-month investigation into his alleged misconduct – yet he has still been sacked, so who knows what to believe?
My sympathies tend to be with the 50 or so people who have made fresh claims about him – including allegations that he groped one MasterChef worker and pulled his trousers down in front of another – all of which he denies.
‘I will not go quietly,’ he fumed this week, this great martyr of a costermonger. He claims he has been hung out to dry by the media – just like a pair of the underpants he never wore, apparently because his autism prevented him from doing so. (I wish I were joking.) ‘Nothing was done to investigate my disability,’ he moaned, squarely blaming the BBC for his own behavioural shortcomings.
Citing mental health or other issues as a defence against wrongdoing has become the greatest ruse and cheapest excuse of the modern age. Instead of being accountable for their own actions, it gets too many people off the hook – and diminishes the genuine suffering of real victims.
People like Gregg Wallace, with a prized diagnosis to wave around, often feel they no longer need to take responsibility for their actions or difficulties. Not only are they hostile to perceived criticism, but they feel no obligation to change or try to improve their conduct.
Wallace is convinced that he should be excused for his behaviour because of his mental health issues – but where does that argument begin and end?
In November, Wallace stepped back from presenting MasterChef after accusations he made sexual comments towards staff and celebrity guests. Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, pictured with Wallace on the show, accused him of inappropriate ‘sexualised’ behaviour during filming
During her recent trial in Australia, mushroom killer Erin Patterson told the court that she suffered from a ‘never-ending battle’ with ‘low self-esteem and weight issues’. Does this in any way at all, mitigate killing three people with a poisoned beef wellington?
The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, had mental health issues, too. Should we also forgive him? He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after claiming he heard voices instructing him to kill. The jury at his trial rightfully declared him sane at the time of the murders – but, really, what murderer is not mentally imbalanced in some way?
Perhaps all they need is a hug and a few words of support on Shout, Meghan and Harry’s text messaging helpline for individuals struggling with their mental health.
Think about it. If only Vlad the Impaler had been on Ritalin and had regular sniffs from an organic lavender pomade to calm his anxiety, the entire course of history might have been different. Although Vlad the Inhaler doesn’t have quite the same cachet.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan says the spate of lawlessness overwhelming his city is because too many people with mental health issues who commit violent crimes missed out on treatment as a result of cuts to support services. What rot. That is hardly the problem here.
Even if it were, Ricky the Rolex Robber and Martin Mugger wouldn’t get a mental health appointment. The system is too clogged up, with time-wasting idiots like Gregg Wallace trying to get a useful diagnosis to excuse their behaviour, with whiny adults on waiting lists hoping for an ADHD diagnosis, or with the millions of others hoping for that gorgeous mental health diagnosis that will get them signed off work for years.
Around three million people in the UK are economically inactive due to long-term sickness, with mental health issues the leading reported cause. And the number of sufferers reporting such conditions has risen by more than 70 per cent since 2015.
Using mental health and other disorders as an excuse to escape your past and avoid your future is bad for individuals and for society, but how did we get to this sorry juncture?
I blame all those pious hand-wringers: the professional malingerers and glossy magazine advice practitioners who have made a good living from the mental health racket by encouraging the troubled, the bored, the over-sexualised, the easily distracted, the mildly depressed and the socially gauche to believe they have a serious condition that needs medicalisation.
That is how we have ended up with someone like Gregg Wallace blaming everything and everyone for his terrible fall from grace except the one person who deserves it most: his big bad self.
Has footman Mick been at the sherry?
Mick Jagger, pictured with his fiancee Melanie Hamrick, looked like a dishevelled footman who’d been knocking back bottles in le sherry cupboard at this week’s state banquet
The French state visit was marvellous entertainment. Tres fancy! So chic! The glamour of the state banquet was intoxicating and the sight of Mick Jagger in white tie and tails was simply marvellous. Mick, pictured with his fiancee Melanie Hamrick, looked like a dishevelled footman who’d been knocking back bottles in le sherry cupboard.
Best of all was King Charles kissing Madame Macron’s hand – so gallant. Let’s hope it takes her mind off that nasty business back home, where a blogger and a clairvoyant have just been cleared by the Paris Appeal Court of defamation charges.
The judge said that they had a legal right to make their claims that the French president’s wife was born a man. This is devastating for Madam Macron, who plans to appeal against the appeal.
Oh Rachel, that rictus grin is worse than the tears…
Lots of readers got in touch over my item about Rachel Reeves crying in the House of Commons last week.
Many of you agreed with me: we’re the ones who should be sobbing after all the ineptitude and fiscal harm she has caused and, even if a ‘personal matter’ had overwhelmed poor Rachel, she should have managed to keep herself composed. She is the Chancellor, after all. She works for the Exchequer, not at the checkout.
‘This is the job I’ve always wanted,’ she once said. Well, please prove to the rest of us that you are up to the task.
Others vehemently disagreed with my viewpoint. Patricia Dent sent a note saying, ‘Not all women look weak when they cry’, and that she would not be ‘reading anything [I] write any more’.
Rachel Reeves hasn’t stopped smiling for a week in a doomed attempt to prove to everyone she is happy, she is coping and she is on top of the job
Rob Driscoll got in touch to tell me I was ‘unapologetically screwing the knife in further like a rottweiler – just what is your problem?’ Jenny Longman believed ‘being a columnist doesn’t give you the right to be so vindictive and cruel’.
A yoga and massage therapist called Zuzana said: ‘Your tone felt deeply unsettling – I couldn’t bring myself to finish the article.’
Well, I won’t be booking in with Zuzana for a massage session any time soon, even though it’s Rachel and not me who needs a deep tissue massage.
Perhaps what is even worse is the Waterworksgate aftermath. Rachel Reeves hasn’t stopped smiling for a week in a doomed attempt to prove to everyone she is happy, she is coping and she is on top of the job. Oh yes, life is super-duper, got it?
It is a terrible sight to behold. It is even worse than the tears. Is she going to grin like that for ever, with that ridiculous perky, smirky rictus stuck to her face, like melting clown make-up? I hope not. But then again, I am a vindictive, knife-wielding rottweiler, so what do you expect?
Posh isn’t speaking to her eldest son. Scary just married her hairdresser and Baby was the only one to attend the wedding. Meanwhile, Sporty is tackling women’s rugby and Ginger is coping with a husband engulfed by a sexting scandal who has just been ousted from his role at Formula 1’s Red Bull team without explanation.
Life is not exactly a bowl of sugar for the Spices, whose ages now range from 49 to 52 – all deep in the arid desert of middle age. They are Spice Girls no longer, but being Spice Crones still feels like a long way off.
What is hard to comprehend is that they hit their peak a quarter of a century ago – ancient history!
That first flush of individual solo success after they split in 2001 has long faded and only Posh has continued to triumph in business, reinventing herself as a fashion designer and make-up mogul, selling £1,000 frocks and £37 lipsticks.
I wonder if the girls now regret splitting up at the height of their lucrative fame? Certainly not Posh, with all her dosh.
Walking on broken trust
The tragedy is all the crushed trust from so many people – the readers, the charities, the talk-show hosts – who were duped by Salt Path writers Tim and Sally Walker
The Salt Path scandal is mind-boggling. In this all-seeing media age, how on Earth did Tim and Sally Walker think they could get away with the deception?
Calling themselves Raynor and Moth Winn – I suppose that should have been a clue – they (well, she) wrote a heart-stirring memoir depicting financial hardship, serious illness and redemption through nature, which – it transpires – is not entirely true.
And it makes a mockery of the Hollywood film, in which Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs (left) play the now-shamed couple. How embarrassing for all involved. Raynor/Sally has hit back at the ‘highly misleading’ allegations in the Observer newspaper report – which is a highly misleading thing to say.
She also insisted that her book is ‘the true story of our journey’, even though we now know that is not true. Doubts have been cast on everything – did they even walk the South-West Coast Path in the first place?
The tragedy is all the crushed trust from so many people – the readers, the charities, the talk-show hosts – who were duped by this couple. However, their real story is a better story than the story they spun – and it would make a better film than the film.
Should Paula Vennells and Ed Davey be behind bars? Perhaps it is not too dramatic to say the pair of them arguably have blood on their hands.
Thirteen sub-postmasters and postmistresses killed themselves over the Post Office scandal. At least 59 more considered ending their lives because they were victims of the faulty Horizon accounting computer system and branded thieves – even though they had done nothing wrong.
Just think about all those lives lost and ruined, the ripple effect of all this personal tragedy and the ongoing struggle for proper compensation.
Many victims still have not received the monies owed to them in compensation and refunds – the same shoddy ‘justice’ served to the victims of the contaminated blood scandal.
This deeply shames our country. There always seems to be millions to spend on housing asylum seekers – but nothing for those citizens who have suffered deeply through the faults and failings of others.
