Labour peer Lord Digby Jones has found himself in the eye of a Twitterstorm. His error? He criticised BBC sports presenter Alex Scott for mispronouncing certain words on the Beeb’s daily Olympics show. Specifically, words ending in G. Scott is a G-dropper, he complained. She says ‘fencin, rowin, boxin, weighliftin and swimmin’, he said, and he can’t stand it anymore. ‘Enough!’, he cried.
Twitter users, as is their wont, went crazy. What a vile elitist, they said. Stephen Fry accused Jones of ‘misplaced snobbery’ and branded him a ‘disgrace [to] the upper house’ (the Lords is famed for being a snob-free zone, of course). Footballer turned pundit Gary Neville took the mick out of Jones’s name. ‘Lord Digby Jones! Just say that name to yourself a few times…! I’m actually starting to see how revolutions occurred!’ Dust down the guillotine — Neville’s ready for action.
Alex Scott herself took to Twitter to express pride in the way she speaks.
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