Reading about Piers Corbyn, brother of Jeremy, at the weekend reminded me that in any contest between conspiracy theorists and cock-up theorists, my money is always on the latter.
I’ve always thought incompetence and ineptitude are more likely explanations for unfortunate events than the result of any secret plotting.
Such scheming generally involves the complicated issue of pairing large numbers of people to participate in something, while also trying to ensure they keep schtum about it.
As a confirmed anti- vaxxer and Covid conspiracy theorist, Corbyn, a well heeled Marxist, harried health workers on a mobile vaccination bus in Brighton.
He was seen shouting “Clear off you scum, clear off you disgusting specimens of humanity, clear off go home” through his megaphone.
As an astrophysicist he’ll be familiar with the study of celestial objects but his vaccine views might have wiser folk thinking he’s also a fully qualified space cadet.
The bold Piers is living proof that academic achievement is no barrier to also being as daft as a brush.
Conspiracy theorists have always existed but social media now allows them a platform to haver any old guff as fact.
Piers Corbyn celebrating driving a vaccination bus away in Hove. "Clear off you scum, clear off you disgusting specimens of humanity, clear off, go home." He is a public health menace. Why is he still on our streets? pic.twitter.com/0JUPS8NpVj
— habibi (@habibi_uk) July 11, 2021
The sane among us have a duty to keep the head while the gullible lose theirs.
Such folk appear to have minds so under occupied that they invent problems to get full value from their worry beads.
Whenever I see Covid deniers propound their wild theories I immediately bracket them alongside the independence supporters who proclaim they’re “Tweeting from an occupied country”.
Into this mix we can also add the fantasists who assert a cover up of flying saucers at Area 51 and at Roswell, and the biology deniers who tell us there are 180-plus genders.
My nerves were jangling after his account, delivered in a very articulate and serious tone, of the two types of aliens he insisted were living among us
In my early days at the BBC when I covered a variety of stories before concentrating on sport, I phoned a bloke who ran the intriguingly named Alien Abduction Service.
I kid you not. Its role was to help folk who believed they’d been interrogated and worse, by interplanetary visitors with malevolent minds.
I thought it might make a good offbeat tale, but my nerves were jangling after his account delivered in a very articulate and serious tone, of the two types of aliens he insisted were living among us.
From sex spooks to Covid crackpots
The species known as Greys, he informed me solemnly had the nasty habit of morphing through your bedroom walls at night to have sex with you.
My curiosity quickly dissipated in the face of such preposterous pap, but his earnest belief in it was unnerving.
The “Great Reset” brigade are another wacky lot who insist the Covid crisis is a plot by faceless world power brokers to radically transform society with their dastardly plan to, er, reset things.
Now when I was a boy growing up in Kirkton, a Great Reset consisted of the much sought after Levi’s and Ben Sherman shirts, which light fingered entrepreneurs relieved from various city stores.
These were then flogged in the boozer at less than retail price to customers who’d placed an order, or were buying on impulse after a win in the 2.30 at Perth.
Information on how this Great reset will actually work is pretty light on detail, but the world abounds with paranoia merchants proclaiming dangerous plots being hatched in plain sight, which the rest of us are too dense to understand
Indy conspiracy theorists abound
The independence movement has provided fertile ground for cabals who believe Westminster and the English are engaged in dark deeds to rob Scotland of its
natural resources.
There are those who believe the nationalist lawyer Willie McRae was bumped off by MI5.
Others insist the British establishment and the SNP leadership and double dealing Scots, posing as Indy supporters, have a cosy deal not to wreck the Union.
They’re proof you don’t have to believe in alien abductions to be a conspiracy theorist and they’re all two sandwiches short of the full picnic.
There’s a fine line between sceptically examining vested interests and wild assertions that some massive cover up is always in play.
Just as natural phenomenon and over-active imaginations can combine to convince some folk that little green men are actually out there, the Covid conspiracy theorists have talked themselves into a parallel belief system, and are similarly convinced some major conspiracy is underway.
Gender warriors’ beliefs don’t stack up
More recently I’ve been tangling with the gender warriors who refute basic biology to inform us folk are chest feeders instead of breast feeders, then rely on bombastic assertion instead of scientific fact when asked to explain their beliefs.
Getting lumbered with these sorts at a party can seriously affect your sanity.
I try to avoid clichés but when it comes to conspiracy theorists of all kinds, I’ve learned to avoid them like the plague.
For the sake of your peace of mind it’s wise to escape these Icke types quicker than an English football pundit changing their mind about Gareth Southgate.
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