Gary Neville’s demented scapegoating of ‘middle-aged white men’

Sensing that this was a moment for the big beasts of the political arena to come forth and roar, former Manchester United and England right-back Gary Neville shared his views with the world on Sunday about the shocking attack on a Manchester synagogue last week.

Clearly, he’d had a few days to think about it. Gary wanted to get to the bottom of this. Why should such a thing happen, now? And in his hometown?

A lesser pundit, given to route-one analysis and a few stock phrases learned from Alan Hansen, might have fallen into the trap of thinking that blame should fall squarely on the culprit, Jihad Al-Shamie, who was shot dead at the scene. Perhaps a more thoughtful analysis might have mentioned the ongoing demonisation of Jews in Britain among those who hold them collectively responsible for the so-called genocide in Gaza. Taking an even broader perspective, an experienced pundit might even have pointed to the war-like creed of Islamism which has taken root across our island over the past few decades.

But not our Gary. No, in the wake of Thursday’s terrorist attack, he posted a three-minute video claiming the British public is ‘being turned on each other’ by ‘angry middle-aged white men’. He had seemingly gleaned this insight, he said, after someone had had the gall to hang a Union Jack from one of his high-end luxury yet emphatically multicultural building developments in Manchester. He said the Union flag was being used in ‘a negative fashion’. And so from this desecration, this impudence, Gary had glimpsed the source of the violence, the friction, the hate that had driven someone like young Jihad to such incoherent rage – namely, white fellas in their fifties.

This is grotesquely offensive of course. Offensive both to those unfairly blamed and those left unavenged by such a wayward diagnosis. But God, it’s funny, too. It’s such a Christmas tree of nonsense it’s hard to know in what order to start unhooking the baubles.

It’s true, there are some angry middle-aged white men out there. Millions of us, in fact. And we do probably overlap with the flag-waving community, though I imagine those shinning up Gary’s scaffolding, Union flag in hand, are probably a bit younger. But middle-aged white blokes are angry not, as is usually implied, due to sunburn and undigested pork crackling. They are angry, rather, due to being casually blamed for just about everything wrong in Britain today, including, it seems, murderous anti-Semitism.

It seems it’s now open season on middle-aged white blokes, all year round. We are the opposite of a protected species. Scape-gammon, if you will. No one will call Neville out on his bigotry, or indeed hypocrisy, as he forgets who paid for the lifestyle he’s enjoyed since the Major years.

Still, he could have at least waited until middle-aged white blokes were actually there. If he had been complaining about Tommy Robinson’s protest march and the couple of dozen arrests that arose from that, no one would have batted an eyelid. It would have been wearying and predictable, yes. A tired refrain about the false consciousness of the great unwashed, the poor deluded gammon sheeple who have somehow been hoodwinked into thinking dozens of undocumented new arrivals being put up a short skulk away from their kids’ school is somehow a more pressing concern in their lives than climate change or Elon Musk’s yacht. Tired, but safe. But pointing the finger at middle-aged white blokes for an Islamist terrorist attacking Jews on Yom Kippur? That’s a stretch even by pre-match standards.

Of course, the lingering question behind the whole thing is, was Gary just being thick, or is there something more sinister going on?

Even those of us who usually seek alternative entertainment on a Saturday afternoon pay attention to football every four years. And it was during the World Cup in Qatar, three years ago, that Gary achieved his greatest notoriety.

I remember very clearly where I was in December 2010, when FIFA announced that Qatar was to host the event. I was in a writing room at the BBC, workshopping topics and twists for a satirical end-of-year round up. It felt weirdly appropriate, like the news was making its own suggestions.

Giving the hosting rights for a World Cup to Qatar seemed – and still seems – Pythonesque. It was a borderline pariah state, rescued only by the realpolitik of oil. It was less hospitable than Mars and had no footballing traditions whatsoever. There were questions asked about whether the England team should even play at the World Cup should they qualify, especially if they weren’t allowed to wear their rainbow laces. Questions were raised too about whether broadcasters should cover the event. This was even before news filtered through of Qatar’s appalling slave-like treatment of the migrant workers it had used to build the stadiums for the tournament.

Predictably enough, the BBC did send its BEST (the Big Eared Sanctimonious Twat). As did Sky and ITV. But they did at least manage to acknowledge, however briefly, that the regime was problematic.

Gary Neville went a step further. He not only broadcast from Qatar, but also for Qatar. For beIN sports, the Qatar-owned broadcaster. A lunge so amoral, so unseemly that it made a mockery of his prior history of self-righteous posturing on everything from the ‘evil’ Tories to Black Lives Matter.

It’s difficult not to wonder if Gary’s latest intervention wasn’t part of the deal? That in return for taking Qatar’s money, he might be inclined in the future to run cover for murderous Islamists?

I don’t really think that this is the case. It’s just difficult to explain why someone could come up with such an absurd argument in the wake of last week’s synagogue attack. Neville didn’t just raise a few questions – he also took a wild leap into scape-squirrel territory. He blamed flag-waving middle-aged white men for murders committed by a terrorist literally called Jihad.

As Bill Hicks once said of comedians who take money to shill products on TV, you are entitled to do so but nobody should ever take your opinion seriously about anything else ever again. Or, to quote directly: ‘You’re off the artistic roll call, every word you say is suspect. You’re a corporate whore… End of story.’

I am not so dogmatic. This is on a spectrum for me. I personally thought Stewart Lee’s attempted evisceration of fellow comedian Mark Watson for advertising cider was, even if tongue in cheek, unwarranted. Cider and comedy are natural bedfellows in a way that borderline-slave states and footie really shouldn’t be. Neville’s work for beIN sports has certainly made it difficult to take his musings on hate and division after the synagogue attack seriously.

Still, I shouldn’t be surprised. I have never liked him since his brother Phil deputised for him in a game against Israel – of all teams – in 2007, and thus secured their record as the most capped brothers in England history, overtaking Bobby and Jack Charlton. That, frankly, is not the action of a gentleman. And with every passing day it becomes more clear that Gary is not fit to lace the old man’s boots.

Simon Evans is a spiked columnist and stand-up comedian. Tickets for his tour, Have We Met?, are on sale here.