ITV suspended Alastair Stewart yesterday over a tweet posted earlier this month quoting Shakespeare. Well known agitator Martin Shapland seemingly successfully convinced the organisation that the quote was a racial attack. Because it included the word “ape”…

“But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d; His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens would all themselves laugh mortal.”

The weak claim completely falls apart when you realise Stewart seemed to regularly tweet the same quote to jumped up people on the internet.

Stewart was undone by an unfortunate curtailed preview by Twitter of the full quote in a quote tweet, and the fact that ITV has seemingly conducted no research as to whether Stewart had used that Shakesperean passage before. All it took was one cancel culture obsessive to pounce and Stewart was out of a job…

Now Shapland has published a statement in which he cryptically refers to “several posts” without mentioning what they said. He goes on to say that “An apology and commitment to be more careful about language was all that I would have asked.”

“In so far as Mr Stewart caused hurt and upset, intentionally or otherwise, in an ex-change earlier this month, there is a wider context. There was not a single post as has been widely reported, but several posts written by Mr Stewart, which have all now been deleted. I understand that Mr Stewart has acknowledged the words he used were misjudged and has expressed regret at what happened. I thank him for that.

No one is perfect. We are all human and we all need to learn from our experiences and mistakes and try to be better people in the wake of them. An apology and commitment to be more careful about language was all that I would have asked. It is regrettable that he has decided to stand down and I take no pleasure in that. He has evidently gone through an ITN and ITV process and I respect his choice.”

Staff within ITV are rapidly organising an internal petition to reinstate the presenter, and there is a real chance they may succeed. Guido encourages you to sign the public petition to reinstate Stewart…