Nobody is safe from savagery – what’s happened to Holly and Phil proves it

What the outrage over ‘Queuegate’ shows, above all else, is that this can happen to anyone

About two weeks ago, Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield were untouchable – the vanilla pairing of breakfast TV, the froth on your morning latte.

They may not have ever inspired great excitement and passion, but they have neverthless been quintessential This Morning perfection – the soothing tonic of a cup of tea, not too much milk, a spoonful of sugar if you’re feeling cheeky. For years they have represented saccharine, everyday familarity; a comfort blanket that’s big enough for two. They have been human hot water bottles, Holly and Phil. Or, they were. Not anymore.

Now, they are outcasts – bastions of “everything that is wrong with this country”, according to The Angry on social media; “smug, self-satisfied and entitled”. “The wave of disgust is going to be hard to come back from,” one person warned. “Hypocrites,” seethed another. “The #queuejumpers plot thickens,” a journalist tweeted. “Holly and Phil’s names weren’t on the media list, This Morning producers’ names were used instead. ITV say it’s because they didn’t want to give their email addresses to the Palace of Westminster press office.” Dun dun duuun!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

If this sudden coup de grâce in the wake of “Queuegate” feels disorientating – even disruptive – well, that’s because it is; because it rips at the fabric of what we know and pride and believe about ourselves. The demonisation of the king and queen of This Morning after they visited Westminster Hall to see Elizabeth II’s coffin without queueing with the general public (they even bypassed the likes of David Beckham and Tilda Swinton, who stood in line like everybody else) – has been intense and vitriolic. Fellow presenters, such as Graham Norton, have shuddered and said they would never have done that. A petition exists calling for them to be “axed” from the daytime show, signed by more than 75,000 people.

What a crashing thump for the achingly safe and beloved; for a nation peculiarly soothed by the classic male-female broadcast duo: Richard and Judy, Eamonn and Ruth, Susanna and Ed, Holly and Phil.

They hitherto contained all of the just-right ingredients, from Holly’s high-wattage grin to “The Schofe’s” cheeky twinkle (and occasional foray into controversy – for every television pairing seems to have a slightly problematic dad vibe to it, too). Still, Holly and Phil have been essential to the way Britain functions as a nation: they are the delayed trains we love to complain about, the moans when you can’t get a GP appointment. They are #OverheardAtWaitrose and they are going round to your nan’s and taking a Bourbon biscuit from the tin. They are Very British Problems, and they are – more than anything – a good, old-fashioned queue. They are living proof that that which defines us can ultimately prove our undoing.

For what this shows – above all else – is that if this can happen to Holly and Phil, this can happen to anyone. Nobody is safe from savagery. It is everything Jon Ronson warned us about when he wrote So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

ITV has backpeddled since Queuegate, tried to exert damage-control. Holly told the world she and TV husband Phil were given official permission to skip the queue to visit the hall “like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists, strictly for the purposes of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK who haven’t been able to visit Westminster in person”. It didn’t work. The ire grew. Then, last Tuesday, the disgraced pair addressed the issue live on the programme, with Holly reduced to pleading with the audience: “Please know that we would never jump a queue. We of course respected those rules, however we realise it may have looked like something else and therefore totally understand the reaction.”

Now, there are questions over whether their names were ever on the “media list” at all.

If you find this all very disheartening – and unbearably tedious, particularly when there are real and devastating problems (mortgage lenders reneging; the value of the pound plummeting into oblivion) all around us – you’re not alone. I wish Queuegate would disappear now that the Queen’s funeral has passed, I really do. And I loved the concept of the Queue at first, I practically wrote a love letter to it. But this controversy has taken on a life of its own, now. It rumbles on and rumbles on and is starting to feel just as long as those who really did wait for 14 hours or more to shuffle past Elizabeth II lying in state.

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To me, the outrage over Holly and Phil feels symptomatic of one key thing: a populist backlash against the very concept of the “haves” and “have nots”; as we’ve seen so baldly this week – our new prime minister and her chancellor have just granted a tax break to the richest in the country, while millions will freeze in their homes and find it hard to feed themselves this winter. Our last government partied during lockdown while the rest of us stayed home to mourn. Britain has always been starkly divided when it comes to wealth and status; we wear class like a cloak we can’t take off. We are angry with those who flaunt privilege while the rest of us struggle; fed up to the back teeth of selective largesse. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more. But this outrage is misdirected.

Don’t be angry at Holly and Phil for skipping a queue, be angry at those with real power who neglect their duty to protect normal people. Don’t sign a petition to get rid of two sugary – but ultimately harmless – TV presenters; instead think about how to bring about change at the heart of Westminster. Vote with your feet at the next election, not with a tweet.

Above all, let what has happened to Holly and Phil be a warning to all of us: no matter how untouchable we feel we are, we are not. The deep crevice of social shame is but a misjudged footstep (or queue-jump) away for us all. We can trip and fall at any time.