I first started stalking Katie Hopkins when I saw her getting out of a cab on Portobello Road. She was wearing a striped shirt and a black, knee-length skirt like she wore on The Apprentice and she had a look on her face that suggested she had just had some disagreeable banter with the cab driver, who was working class and probably some sort of cockney nut-job.
I saw something in her eyes – it was the powerfully erotic combination of metropolitan independence and self-conscious bigotry; it drove me wild and completely overpowered my natural sense of restraint. I felt compelled to follow her home and my heart led my body like a dog on a leash.
It was not difficult to go unnoticed; I put on my official Big Issue salesman’s jacket, which I carry around with me at all times in preparation for such a situation, and I hounded her all the way down the vacant street, begging for spare change and morsels of bread. I got the impression she was too busy mentally composing another outrageous opinion that would get on Holly Willoughby’s tits. I wish I could get on Katie Hopkins’ tits.
When we arrived at her house she went inside while I took refuge in a nearby bush. I wish I could take refuge in Katie Hopkins’ nearby bush. I watched her through her kitchen window while she prepared Duck a l’Orange with the help of her husband, who to be perfectly honest looked like a bit of a twat. There’s no way he loves her financially lucrative brand of media-friendly outrage as much as I do.
Since that first day I have never been more than fifty feet away from Katie Hopkins, except when I have to go to the supermarket to stock up on food and lubricant. I follow her all around London and watch her lady of leisure lifestyle with a voyeuristic relish; I follow her down the aisles of organic delicatessens and through the archways of Michelin-starred Haute cuisine restaurants; I follow her into her on Wednesdays where she pretends to work; I sit beneath her desk and watch her feet dance along to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and struggle to muffle my delight.
The strangest thing about the whole situation is that I am not alone. Katie Hopkins’ front garden is full of people like me, watching her through a multitude of windows while dressed in the garb of traditional 19th century Victorian street urchins, Glaswegian heroin addicts and Venezuelan slum boys. More and more stalkers arrive every day. We’ve constructed row upon row of makeshift shacks, using corrugated iron and the remnants of cardboard boxes, like in the shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro. Desire has thrown us into the cold, poverty-stricken depths of Katie Hopkins’ front garden, but our love keeps us warm at night. We all live out there together; there’s a real community atmosphere at work, and we bond over our confused sexual desires, debating the root of our obscure fetishes.
I think it’s the grace and charm with which she generates nationwide media outrage that stimulates a sort of super-sexual frisson for myself and the other two or three dozen stalkers that she unwittingly hosts in her shrubbery. Many beautiful women have spewed forth reactionary right-wing bile from the gaping bliss betwixt their perfect teeth: Anne Widdecombe, Jan Moir and even the late great succubus of misplaced political sincerity Margaret Thatcher, deceased but existing ceaselessly in her erotic legacy, but none have worn the robes of the icy-hearted hate preacher with the same degree of joie de vivre as Katie Hopkins.
I’ve given up everything to be here. I’ve quit my job and I haven’t seen my wife or my children for six weeks. Part of me wishes I could overcome my twisted fetish for right-wing celebrities, but if the eradication of my politically problematic perversions results in the death of my love for Katie Hopkins, then that’s a price I’m just not willing to pay.
David McIver 