ust before we go on,” said a desperate-to-go-on Eamonn Holmes at the start of today’s edition of This Morning, “I want to clarify some comments that some of you may have misinterpreted from me yesterday morning …” Classy of Eamonn to blame the viewers, but I’m afraid the mistake – suggesting that a link between 5G rollout and coronavirus ought to be considered – was all his, and this quarter-arsed “clarification” is faintly insufficient in the circumstances. Though arguably the biggest Holmes triumph since he concluded an interview with a rape victim with the words: “I hope you take taxis now.” By way of a recap, this conspiracy theory is seeing real-world impact on emergency communications when they are most needed. At last count at least 30 phone towers had been attacked. The figure has since grown. But who was this heaving into view on Monday morning, with a lofty big-picture take? Why, it was television’s Eamonn Holmes, whose recent (sadly unsuccessful) case against HMRC included himself’s assertion that he is “the best live presenter in the country”, and “not there to follow other people’s rules”. Not even the rules of physics, on this latest evidence. Or as Eamonn bullishly interrupted when This Morning’s consumer correspondent, Alice Beer, was explaining that the rumour was not true: “What I don’t accept is mainstream media immediately slapping that down as not true when they don’t know it’s not true.” Two immediate things jump out there. First and foremost, that we do know it’s not true, as any number of simple and vitally important debunkings have shown. The second eyebrow-raiser is Eamonn’s apparent conviction that a man sitting on the This Morning sofa is not “the mainstream media”, but instead part of some plucky samizdat enterprise where you only hear the good shit. “It is very easy to say it is not true because it suits the state narrative,” continued the Václav Havel of daytime interviews with body language experts. “That’s all I would say, as someone with an inquiring mind.” Mmm. Yet again, the question is what Eamonn might have made of himself if only he hadn’t been held back by such chronic self-doubt. As his autobiography remarks of the two men who gave him his first local TV gig: “I can only hope that TV history judges them as men of vision.” While we’re waiting for the judgment of televisual history, it feels like as good a moment as any to mention that 15 hours after Eamonn’s 5G brain-dump, police and six fire engines were called to a mobile phone mast in Huddersfield. Although it’s not yet known what caused the fire, it not only destroyed emergency services kit, but also posed a threat to occupants of the nearby block flats. Inevitably, people who don’t understand free speech are defending Eamonn. But as Oliver Wendell Holmes (not thought to be a relation) famously remarked, you don’t get to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Furthermore, I think we can all live without a defective free-speech defence of a man who once sent a legal letter to the BBC over a recurring Jon Culshaw impression that saw “Eamonn” given to eating everything in sight, from the programme sofa to studio guest Frankie Dettori. As the punchline ran: “I was fierce hungry, so I was.” As for the 5G to-do, he was fierce inquisitive, so he wasn’t. During the course of arguing that he shouldn’t pay any more than 20% tax, Eamonn recently remarked “I am nobody’s slave on This Morning” – and it must be said that the crusading buccaneer is very much part of the Holmes self-image. To assess the gap between man and self-myth, though, consider the hilarious clip of the time the National Lottery Jet Set show was invaded by Fathers4Justice protesters. Eamonn promptly darts behind his 5’1” co-presenter Sarah Cawood, who handles the entire thing like a pro as Eamonn slinks off and the Voice of the Balls remarks: “There’s a gentleman who’s going to disappear rather quickly …” Innit. Back in the present, ITV is declining to comment. But it was only a fortnight ago that Amanda Holden was also pushing a petition based on the 5G conspiracy (her agent later claimed she’d done so by accident). Given two of its highest profile presenters have now been associated with this arrant rubbish, is ITV going to do any better than allowing Eamonn to blame the viewers? Surely the most elegant – and indeed watchable – solution to it all would be to make Eamonn go on that most sacred of ITV broadcasting devices: a journey. As far as what our hero might discover about himself on this quest, I imagine it would be something similar to what Ron Atkinson learned in the supposedly penitential (BBC) documentary Big Ron: Am I a Racist? The answer to that inquiry, given that Ron had recently been overheard describing a player as “a fucking lazy thick n*****”, was patently obvious: yes. Yes, you are. And I imagine we’d arrive at a similar answer for a programme with the working title: Eamonn Holmes: Am I a Tax-Avoiding Irritant So Inflated By Self-Regard That I’ve Actually Gone and Fanned a Lunatic Conspiracy Theory That is Literally Hampering Emergency Communications Right Now, in the Middle of a Fricking Pandemic?