Batmanghelidjh: the demonic narrative of the media

As Black Country football-radio legend Tony Butler once said of the Press, "They hunt in packs." Interviewed some time ago, ex-Private Eye's Richard Ingrams reflected that he used to relish going after public figures but now he would read an exposé and think, "Poor old So-and-So's for it this time."

This time, it was the fat lady in a funny dress. And there was Lynn Alleway, doing a Louis Theroux "friendship" number on her. Look at how her old acquaintance from ten (yes, ten!) years ago had let the kids down!

"Camila continued to be the person Annie relied on for absolutely everything. She's vulnerable, and my worry is, what's going to happen to her now? In the world outside, the tabloids were unearthing more damaging stories. Some seemed to be nonsense... others I couldn't ignore..." (49 mins on)

Oh, how the presenter cares! Oh, my! Oh, I!

For of course, this was a story, and a story has to be shaped.

"Camila, what is going on? I... I'm feeling uncomfortable. [...] Could you not have found another house, without a swimming pool?"

There it was, a rented thing the size of a BBC producer's bathtub. Any smaller and the panto princess could scarcely have got in. (Not, by the way, that it was for her: it was a Kids Company facility.)

"Camila has always had her own moral code. She considers herself primarily accountable to the children. But for me personally, everything had changed." (53:53 on.)

Oh, the sadness as the scales fall from a loving pal's eyes!

Mismanagement... But as Camila said, they had always wanted cash reserves.

"But I also, Lynn, don't want to be twisted into a narrative that isn't the real narrative," said the founder.

Yet the programme-maker must speak out, her poor heart is so wrung: "What's so upsetting... is thet... all of this stuff... is just overshadowed now."

Yes, Camila, you may not want your life and your work twisted into a narrative, but that's what you're going to bloody get.

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See the full self-referential investigation here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06zw47r/camilas-kids-company-the-inside-story


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