People have been enjoying again the time Katie Hopkins was tricked into accepting a gloriously NSFW award
There’s a rather fabulous Twitter account called ‘insane moments in british politics’ – or @PoliticsMoments – which, as the name suggests, captures particulaly unbelievable and off the wall moments in the so-called democracy we live in.
And it’s fair to say it’s been pretty busy of late.
But it also enjoys casting its mind back a year or two – in this case four years – and in particular to the day Katie Hopkins was tricked into accepting a gloriously NSFW award.
Far-right commentator Katie Hopkins is tricked by YouTube pranksters into flying to Prague to receive the “Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy” (2020) pic.twitter.com/OVyN4l4OMV
— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) September 17, 2024
And in the unlikely event you haven’t seen it before you are in for a treat. And if you have then it’s odds-on you’ll want to watch it again. Isn’t it?
The work of YouTube pranksters @joshua_pieters and @archiemanners – find them on YouTube over here! – it surely deserves an award all of its own.
Here’s what we said about it back in the day.
If you can only read the big letters, the prize Hopkins travelled to Prague to collect was the Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy, or the C.U.N.T.
The stunt involved an impressively elaborate set-up, with Josh creating a company with the supposed ethos of promoting free speech, and actually registering it at Companies House for cover.
The online faces of the “Cape Town Collective for the Freedom of Speech” were Josh’s dad, the lady who does the announcements on the London Underground, and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan – the Oxford comma being crucial to that sentence.
He engaged the services of some actors to form an audience, booked the expensive Four Seasons Hotel in Prague, had a trophy engraved, and flew out Ms Hopkins to enjoy a top-class meal.
This is how Josh introduced the award.
“We need freedom of speech, from politicians to journalists, campaign groups to creatives, YouTubers to you in this room, without being able to say what we think, without being able to mock other people, without being able to attack other people, we are not free.“
This set her up to feel that she could say anything she wanted, and that’s exactly what she did.
The full video is ten minutes long and her speech near the end is littered with racial and religious slurs, but the whole thing is a masterclass in pisstaking fakery.
And here’s just a few of the comments it prompted today.
This never gets old.
— Angie ️️ (@Angie_RejoinEU) September 18, 2024
It was a classic stitch up. Did she keep the award I wonder?
— Andy (@andyturner) September 17, 2024
Why would they have their campaign to unite the nation awards in another nation?
— Andrew D. Friedrichshain (@dubXBerg) September 17, 2024
The Cape Town Collective for the Freedom of Speech works in mysterious ways
— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) September 17, 2024
Not everyone was applauding.
They flew her to Prague and put her up in a posh hotel for the sake of this one shot. I’m not really sure she lost that one on balance. https://t.co/CBOo6Hxrkf
— Partridge Thornton (@PartridgeToffee) September 18, 2024
It was, it definitely was.
And full credit to these people!
Follow @PoliticsMoments here and Josh and Archie here!
Source @PoliticsMoments