the melanie philips moment

I can remember when James Delingpole was a mildly amusing TV critic for the Spectator, and not a bad comic novelist.  But at some point in the last decade he seems to have gone actually mad.  Did you know that climate change initiatives and the nanny state caused the global financial meltdown, and we need more free markets to help? 

Comments

[Nick L]

It is saddening and rage inducing that he gets paid for this kind of drivel, but I laughed at 'Komment Macht Frei'. I'm surprised that 'Brown sold all our gold' didn't make the list though.

[Richard J]

I suppose the warning sign, in retrospect, was that he gave one of the few bad reviews to the Soft Bulletin.

(Funny how this kind of thing sticks in the memory after 13 years.)

[Chris Brooke]

Melanie Phillips, on her blog:

*** This wonderful support underlines what I know already – that the analysis and opinions that I write chime with the experiences and views of millions of decent, rational, balanced people around the world. The reason I attract such support is that, rather than telling people what to think, I manage to reflect and articulate for them what at some level they already know. In other words, my work is cemented into the middle of the centre ground, otherwise known as Planet Reality.

This of course is what my detractors cannot possibly admit -- because it follows that it is they who are wholly detached from reality, and deny and disdain the experiences and view of the mainstream. Their only recourse is therefore to sneer and to smear, to substitute personal abuse for argument and to project onto me the label of extremist which applies to themselves. ***

[bert]

Melanie Phillips, on her blog which doesn't accept comments:

* This wonderful support underlines what I know already.
* The attacks of my critics underline what I know already.
* What I know already is otherwise known as Planet Reality.

She's not leaving her bubble anytime soon.

I'm less impressed by the Komment Macht Frei line. As a rule, you should be careful with your Auschwitz references. Not that anyone should be surprised to see a middle aged ToryBoy tittering about the nazis. Reminds me of Neil Hamilton doing Hitler salutes.

[Alex]

The economic crash of 2007 is apparently due to the Libyan war of 2011. Glad we cleared that up.

Of course, he can't say "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" because he's selling to the torture-fan demographic.

[hellblazer]

I can never decide whether he is a troll proud of being stupid, or a moron with a megaphone. (Having only become aware of him in the last ten years, I will have to take it on trust that he *was* any better in the past.) Can't bring myself to read the linked piece: I guess "jedem das Seine", as various companies have found you *shouldn't* say in Germany.

[Nick L]

@bert: The humour comes from mocking the connection his unhinged mind makes between an online comment board and the deathcamps. Maybe it is bad taste to find amusement in such a gross trivialisation, I take your point there, but it is difficult not mock. I'm not sure that much of the general public realises what a frenzy of lunacy the online right-wing have worked themselves into, how mundane and average Breivik's lunatic rantings would appear when placed alongside a lot of blog comment threads.

[ajay]

Good grief, Delingpole (whom I had not really heard of before) is clearly part of the Transatlantic Nonsense Conduit.

Of course, he can't say "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" because he's selling to the torture-fan demographic.

He does mention Afghanistan; but I am fascinated that Afghanistan and presumably Iraq are now "liberal wars". I wonder how that goes over with his prospective future readers in the US?

[Mordaunt]

He does mention Afghanistan; but I am fascinated that Afghanistan and presumably Iraq are now "liberal wars". I wonder how that goes over with his prospective future readers in the US?

Success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan.

Personally, I was particularly taken by the notion that our economic difficulties have been caused by windfarms. Obviously.

[Mr. Jolly]

Thanks for pointing out how sensible this chap is;

"Or watch the No Pressure video made by that nice Vicar of Dibley man Richard Curtis and his kindly eco chums. Or listen to the new Marcus Brigstocke show in which, hilariously, he wishes a violent death in – ho ho – a yachting accident on Nigel Farage. What all these disparate, angry voices of the liberal-left have in common is this: they don’t believe that those of us on the other side of the debate should be given a voice. Rather than engage with our not exactly unreasonable arguments urging smaller government, lower taxes, more personal responsibility, greater liberty, more rigorous and less politicised science, they prefer to dismiss us as extremists worthy at best of BBC-style censorship, at worst – ho ho, eh, Curtis and Brigstocke and the Twitterer who wished it was me who’d been got by the polar bear? – violent death."

I will be taking much more notice of him in future.

[Neil]

I'll raise you a Bernard Ingham, still banging on about 'Enemies of the People', as though that phrase carries no baggage.

[guthrie]

Delingpoles a total fuckwit, although I don't know why.
Maybe 3 years ago I had the temerity to leave a comment on his blog pointing out that his disparaging of climate science was totally wrong, and later found a reply from him in my email saying that no, I was wrong. What kind of moron emails blog commentators to make content free assertions via email?

[Matthew]

Today's Private Eye has a nice story about Telegraph bloggers being measured on how many web vists they generate each quarter and those in the bottom 25% are put on warning. Delingpole is always top apparently, because he [quoting a colleague] 'really is batshit mad'.

This presumably explains the whole nature of the site as well.

[Wajahath Dean]

Uh oh! He's started using the term "cultural Marxists" on his twitter feed. The only other place I've seen that used is in Breivik's "manifesto".

[guthrie]

Cultural Marxists as a term also seems popular with some conspiracy theorists posting on the Inspector Gadget blog, make of that what you will.

[JamesP]

"Cultural marxism" is bleed from a particular kind of US crazy-right; I first came across it (as, as far as I can tell, basically code for "New York Jews") in William Lind a decade or so ago.

[jamie]

I never found patient zero for that, but I suspect Irving Kristol or his circle, and sometime round the early nineties after actual (real existing, etc) Marxism ceased to be an issue.

[JamesP]

It's a paleocon thing with anti-semitic overtones, so not likely to be Kristol et al. Buchanan uses it a lot, for instance.

[Barry Freed]

Indeed, LexisNexis traces it to Paul Weyrich so paleo-con with anti-semitic overtones it is.

(HOTLINE PEOPLE: DICK MORRIS TELLS ALL!
The Hotline, November 25, 1996, NATIONAL BRIEFING, 920 words and
Fighting a TV war on Political Correctness
The Washington Times, December 5, 1996, Thursday, Final Edition, Part A; COMMENTARY; OP-ED; Pg. A17, 579 words, Paul M. Weyrich) are some typical early examples - the earliest I found in this sense - and both of which are associated with the launch of Network Empowerment Television or NET a kind of proto-Fox News Channel. Also note the war on "political correctness" being associated with the phrase from the very beginning.

[hellblazer]

Hmm. I like the idea of being a "cultural" Marixst, as opposed to, say, a "genetic" Marxist. Or a "geological" Marxist. Or a "horticultural" Marxist (cont. p. 94)

[ajay]

I am a horticultural Marxist. I haven't actually planted anything; I am leaving my window box to evolve naturally in response to objective historical conditions.

[hmclandress]

On Cultural Marxism and the madheads:

http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2011/08/excerpt-martin-jays-dialectic-of.html

[Chris Williams]

I am a horticultural Marxist-Leninist: I have ruthlessly weeded the window box and added fertilizer (perhaps too much fertilizer...) in order to speed up the inevitable processes of history.

[ajay]

My neighbour, on the other hand, is a horticultural Maoist. She has let a thousand flowers bloom, and then uprooted them all.

[skidmarx]

"Green is the eternal tree of life"

[ejh]

I saw a novel by Delingpole just yesterday, in a warehouse where I buy books.

I gave it a miss.

[ejh]

I'm not sure that much of the general public realises what a frenzy of lunacy the online right-wing have worked themselves into, how mundane and average Breivik's lunatic rantings would appear when placed alongside a lot of blog comment threads.

When I first thought about blogging, a number of years ago, I thought I'd like to pose as some sort of barking-right-wing commentator and see how much I thought I could get away with before I got rumbled. "Why are there no museums dedicated to the Great British Entrepreneur?", that sort of thing.

Then I looked at what was actually online. Christ, I had no idea.

[hellblazer]

I saw a novel by Delingpole just yesterday, in a warehouse where I buy books.

Fahrenheit 451: the temperature at which something written by D*l***p*le starts to transmute into something more valuable and informative