Not just there for the Nazi things in life
Jolly-faced TalkSport presenter Jon Gaunt has been suspended after he called a London councillor a "Nazi" during a live debate. Sony award-winning Gaunt, who writes a column for The Sun, also called the councillor an "ignorant pig" during the discussion about a local authority plan to ban smokers from fostering children. A "number" of complaints were received and he's been relieved of his duties while the "matter is investigated". Soon there really will be nobody left on the radio, and Richard and I will return!To be fair, Gaunt seems to have made a swift on-air apology, which gives him back a bit of the moral advantage, but his frothing, red-faced indignation schtick is hardwired to land him in hot water. He was talking to Redbridge councillor Michael Stark on Friday and says he meant to call him a "health Nazi", which he apparently clarified. (See how much I am using the word "apparently" - it's because I didn't hear the broadcast, and can thus comment on it no further. But I wish somebody would put it up on YouTube.*)
JonGauntMichaelStark
* Here's the interview. He does call Stark a "Nazi". He changes it to "health Nazi" and "health fascist" after Stark's protests. Then he goes back to "Nazi", daring him to take legal action, and accuses him of "bullying". It's a very emotive interview, with Gaunt's background in care, but he loses the moral high ground as soon as he calls the councillor a Nazi. Game over, really. I don't think he should be sacked, or anything, but he does make a tit of himself. He calls Stark an "idiot" and "smug", which is not debate really, is it? He reads out an email/text from someone who says they're offended by the "Nazi" comment as they're "a Jewish man," to which Gaunt replies, "What's it got to do with being Jewish?" He says, "I'd like to apologise to the listeners" for losing his rag, but he doesn't apologise to Stark.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:50 AM
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I think "Gaunty" might just have lots of pent up anger as he hasnt worked out how to do screen caps of his TV appearances like you Andrew.
p.s the word verification on this was "cocti".... very good.
Congrats on the pun
I'm afraid the pun is a quote, from an early 90s issue of Select magazine. My guess is that Andrew Harrison came up with it. I can't remember which band it was for. Anybody?
I can't remember what i had for breakfast this morning let alone a quote from the last century, soz
turns out it was weetabix
Is that a representative photo of him? It looks a little like Paul Putner! Jon Gaunt, son of The Curious Orange!
Ah, Select magazine. I loved that publication. Some brilliant compilations on there - particularly the Creation one with the cover of BMX Bandits' Kylie's Got a Crush on Us as performed by Teenage Fanclub.
As for Gaunt, did he say that on the politician's answerphone? is anyone going to say something funny about Sony awards?
I see the BBC has started getting rid of people for comments made off air now: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7721813.stm.
I suggest, Andrew, that you check this blog for bugging devices.
Hmm, I'm tempted to start a "Bring back Gaunty" Facebook group, but have better things to do with my time so will probably not bother. Plus, I have never actually heard his show or read his column (though that didn't stop 48,000 people complaining about Brand and Ross...!) so I should probably not!
Scary story, Wayne, although I think I'm safe, in that I don't have a programme on the BBC to be sacked from. And after last night's pathetic bid to get a job at the Radio Academy, it doesn't look that likely I'll be getting one!
Hey, I'm happy filling in for other people. It takes the pressure off.
Incidentally, Andrew Harrison claims not to have written the NOT JUST THERE FOR THE NAZI THINGS IN LIFE headline. I'm sure it was for a band who were famously anti-Nazi. Who could it have been?
I loved Select.
Perhaps The Senseless Things? I seem to remember them being associated with the ANL in the early-mid 90s.
Ditto on Select. They made good free tapes.
My partner has been doing a rather extensive family tree and it seems she may be related to someone called Jon Gaunt.
I must say I was deeply worried that I may have inadvertently been 'stepping out' with a relative of this objectionable personage but thankfully it turns out to be John of Gaunt who was the First Duke of Lancaster who departed this mortal coil in 1399.
Phew that was close.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7721813.stm
Another radio sacking that you might be interested in. It's only a matter of time before you're back on the airwaves.
Ah yes - The Senseless Things. Homophobic Asshole was the tune that kickstarted their 'social conscience' stage - I still know all the lyrics. Simplistic but bouncy, and the kids loved it. But not as much as their previous stuff.
It could have been them. I remember there was an ANL gig featuring Manics and maybe the Levellers around that time. It was very cool to be anti-Nazi in those days.
Not that I saw many Nazis wandering around my rural Lincolnshire village but THAT'S NOT THE POINT.
As well as the personal issues, I think Gaunty's going for the Fox News/USA-style right-wing shock jockey angle which basically involves telling people to shut up and insulting them rather than engaging in rational argument. The purveyors of this kind of thing say that they would not stoop to debate with these kind of people but it just masks the fact that they are ignorant of the issues involved and know they would lose if facts somehow intruded upon the discussion.
For more insight on this, see 'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism'.
Gaunt has said in the past that he went to the US and had a light bulb moment when he heard the legion of right wing shockjocks. Since then he has carefully cultivated his reputation as the UK version of those (very rich) morons, and has reaped the Murdoch shilling for it. However, he is not able to keep his cool, and is not articulate enough to argue his way out of the corner he paints himself into. When that happens he resorts to abuse, which is why he gets in trouble every so often. He was suspended before for threatening to come round to a listener's house with a baseball bat. Which is of course, the response to someone who has outsmarted him. He is the classic chip on shoulder type, who believes that there is an 'elite' in the media and government, which of course he fearlessly 'attacks', or hurls abuse at, depending on your point of view. Maybe he'll go the way of Dubya, he seems to have the same debating skills and way of looking at the world.
Gaunt is an arse - but Stark is definitely a Nazi, from the 40s in full regalia, speaking with an abrasive German accent. In black and white.
If you're a topical radio host who has "debates" on their show I think you deserve to be sacked simply for being rubbish at your job if you have to resort to calling someone a "Nazi" when they disagree with you.
The "debate" was essentially a set-up - Gaunt had already let of steam on the issue of smoking foster parents (is it legal to smoke foster parents?), in that day's Sun, for a start, and it was brave of the councillor to agree to be on the show. Gaunt just wanted to call him a Nazi, something he achieved very early on in the discussion, at which the councillor's voice went all high and they shouted over each other for the rest of the item, barely able to disguise their hatred of each other. To be frank, neither would let either get a word in, but since Gaunt was in the studio, with a mic, and the other fella was on a mobile, by the sounds of it, Gaunt had the whip hand throughout. It's a horrible piece of radio. But he shouldn't be sacked.
Was the Nazi pun to do with Kula Shaker possibly?
Stephen
What would a radio presenter paid a good wage to present a radio show without overstepping the boundaries of taste and decency have to do to deserve to be sacked?
I know some people see this as some kind of freedom of speech issue, but that's irrelevant when you've volunteered to be paid to speak by someone else. Being sacked because you're shit at your job is hardly comparable with being "disappeared" in the night by representatives of the state. And I bet Gaunty's all for people who can't do their jobs being accountable.
He works for a shit commercial station, so I don't care whether he's sacked or not. And of course in his case it would merely enhance his reputation in the eyes of some. But if I employed someone to represent my business and he went about calling people Nazis on my time, I'd sack him.
1953 - Reductio ad Hitlerum
1990 - Godwin's Law
2008 - Gaunt's Folly
Could the bepunned headline have related to Morrissey?
Funnily enough, as far as the issue goes, Gaunt may have had a point to make. But his ineptitude and stupidity, with his desire to be a bully and humiliator, completely destroyed any possibility of a discussion. Crass, inflated with a sense of his own importance, no doubt because of his piss poor Sun column, he exemplifies the tabloid mentality of pick a victim and trash them publicly. Gaunt apparently keenly resents the fact that he is on a backwater radio station, not on Radio 5, where he reckons he should be, fancying himself, as he does, as voice of the working classes(!). Can you imagine the Beeb having to deal with him, as well as the Brand and Ross fiasco? Ha
In answer to your question, Mr. Collins, somewhere like boomp3.com will do it for ya.
Thanks for the tip, Some Guy. MP3 just added, for all to hear.
cant get that facking clip to play. i hate facking technology. its a fackking cunt.
Charles Mingles
Head of Speech
BBC Nations & Regions
Richard can't get the clip to play either. It was my first go. No idea what's gone wrong. I played it off my computer this morning, albeit it was a bit stuttery, but it still played.
I think I get the general idea though, Andrew: he's an ignorant, arrogant fuckwit and he's got his commupence.(if thats how you spell it)
Having said that, I'm sure people said the same about Ross and Brand, so all of us wooly-liberals are a bit conflicted.
I think what all three seem to have in common though is a moment of unguarded grandiosity. And considering the amount of egomaniacs on the airwaves - it's frankly surprising this sort of thing doesn't happen every week.
While trawling through YouTube, I came across this: Gaunt explains his common touch...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIiaDK5Qlog
The clip's working fine for me. It is a big file, though, so I did have to wait for it to load.
If you click play, then pause it straight away, go make a cup of tea or something and come back after a couple of minutes, it should be ready and waiting for you.
As for the contents of said clip, I reckon the best thing Mr. Stark could've done was just hang up. You really can't win against people like Mr. Gaunt - a) the fact that it's their show means that they'll always have the last word, and b) their audience usually agrees with them - that's why they're listening to the show to start with.
Hanging up won't stop these points being true, but at least Mr. Stark could've gotten out with a bit more of his dignity.
I (quite literally) nearly bumped into Gaunt today.
He was signing books in Chapelfield shopping centre in Norwich.
Well, he was sat at a table with a pile of books in front of him and a two people forming a very small "queue".
He got very defensive/aggressive when someone took a picture of him on their mobile phone, asking if they were from Talkforum and why they wanted the picture.
Dingbat.
Pete
Could the band in question have been reformed boot boys Blaggers ITA?
Update : He's been sacked.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7736353.stm
Wow. I wasn't expecting that, not even in the current climate of fear.
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