Until recently I was aware of Delingpole only as the author of How To Be Right (one of those 'It's cool to be Conservative! The left are the real squares daddio! type books), and as the subject of this Spiked Online piece in which, despite a broadly sympathetic interviewer, he still manages to come across as a horrifying little creep.

Well bliss was it in that dawn to be alive me old muckers, for the bastard has trampled onto my mental landscape again via an evil little article on the travails of Binyam Mohamed.

(For those who don't wish to soil themselves, or who'd like a bit of analysis to go with their shit sandwich, the Back Towards the Locus blog has a nice riposte here.)

To be honest, I'm not sure I don't prefer this upfront 'fuck the prisoners and pass the electrodes' stuff to the more usual, oh so very serious ruminations on the subject which hold that while torture is of course a dreadful thing, it might perhaps be needed in very exceptional circumstances such as...(insert columnists preferred rationalisation, usually involving a scenario thus far encountered nowhere outside 24) here.

At the end of a long day, they're all swine.[/code]

He was one of the reasons I wrote a book debunking 'pc gone mad', I've got a whole chapter devoted to him claiming that bendy buses, hosepipe bans, the Germans and other heterogeneous notions are 'politically correct'.

He is indeed, a cunt/dog interferer.

Yuck. I know the type.

The rich, exuberant young Tories who consider their political orientation an essential part of their 'funky', extravagant lifestyles. The disgusting, urban yuppies proud to be wealthy and who align themselves with the Conservatives due to their belief it is the party of the discerning and urbane, and therefore the trendiest of all the parties; and that anyone who is working-class is a vulgar brute with vulgar customs and crude interests, who no one should wish to associate themselves with. Sadly, this belief is becoming increasingly widespread: most young people hold the view that working-classes are populated entirely by 'chavs', whose apparent unsophistication they strive to overtly express their revulsion at, keen to make clear their intolerance of anyone they consider not to share their supposed social refinement and genteel manner or appearance. It's truly pathetic. Flaunting one's middle-classness has become, whether we like or not, very popular and respectable, with those discinclined to do so being accused of the ultimate teenage sin - aspiring to be a 'chav'. The young (in particular young females) are the most classist demographic, and annoyingly are the most fervid Conservatives.

I actually bought his book a few years back (mine you I was more pro-UKIP at the moment).

This kind of trendiness is what the tabloids want since their readers are usually viewed as whiny old men in a dark pub.

Spiked! and James Delingpole - the most infuriating and frankly unintelligent left- and right-wing alliance since the Molotov-Rippentrop pact.

How the fuck can someone claim that and be serious about it?

The thing with the right (or more to the point, right wing columists) is they always seem to shoot themselves in the foot in the presentation dept. Look at the cover of that book (in Hintons link); Shows a pic of an arm with 'cause' braclets on. Any moderate such as me would see that and think 'heartless tossers, whats wrong with standing up for something you care about, how does that make you a wet Liberal?'

Mad Mels book would probably be quite an interesting read if it wern't for the title 'Londinistan'; WTF! That sort of cover is just going to push swing voters away because they will just view it as another Islamophobic rant by some woman who writes for the Mail.

Ditto with LittleJohns Britain. What the HELL is wrong with recycling, the London Eye & Speed cameras may i ask?

ok i've heard a great deal of people bang on and on about both recycling and speed cameras, so them being there doesn't really surprise me but... the london eye? what the hell does he have against that, it's actually remained in place because of popular demand from the public for chrissake.

Interesting, perhaps, in the way that people used to find those guided tours of the madhouse interesting. Frankly the title and cover of Londonistan are the least of its problems.



What struck me about that Spiked interview was the Nathan Barley reference. I didn't think much of the show but surely the point of it (and Brooker's written version) was that the Barley types are vacuous arseholes, not people to be admired or emulated.

The guy sounds like a professinal troll, much like Anne Coulter. Just looking for attention and money by producing opinionated crap just to get a reaction.

What a superb paragraph: This is a nice man, so he's obviously right, whereas Monbiot is a nasty man, so he's bound to be wrong. Ad hom at it's very best.

It's also an article full of rather elementary errors, as that nasty, nasty man himself points out.

Yeah that's it. Monbiot would like to ban sunny days. Down with the sun! Get rid of it! boo hiss!

There is of course the possibility that Monbiot is just concerned that humans are not taking perfectly feasible actions to reduce the power they use and this is contributing, in a small but nonetheless significant, way to the temperature of the planet which in turn may cause misery to millions in the future.

....

No, obviously that's stupid. It must be that he wants to outlaw sunny days.