Monday 22 October 2007

Melanie Phillips Joins The Spectator

Apparently.

Phillips is superb on drugs and various other social policy issues, of course. I actually cheered when she told some pro-drugs philosopher on The Moral Maze that we should ignore him because his brain was so addled by the substances he advocated. She has also condemned the evisceration of civil society under the Tories.

But can we now look forward to articles about neoconservatism's links in 1980s Afghanistan, 1990s Bosnia, and today's Kosovo, Chechnya, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the no end of good that it has done in that same cause in Iraq, and is threatening to do in Syria?

For that matter, will the scourge of Jew-hatred be telling us all about the neocons' Nazi connections in Bosnia (the same people as the Islamists), Kosovo (ditto), Denmark, Flanders, and indeed Israel, which the continuation of the Law of Return is flooding with Russian Nazis?

I'm not holding my breath.

And I'm afraid that the addition of Phillips throws into even sharper relief than before the neoconservative takeover of The Spectator. Meanwhile the New Statesman is in thrall to the anti-life, anti-family and anti-British opinions of the pseudo-Left.

We have a new party, with several more to follow, I trust. We also need a new magazine.

1 comment:

  1. You can't be serious when you say that Phillips is 'superb' on the issue of drugs. Her performance on The Moral Maze, whatever your stance on drugs legislation, was highly embarrassing, not least because of her attitude to the pro-drugs philosopher who, with enormous self-control, calmly presented his arguments against a haze of unprovoked invective and bizarre outbursts from Phillips. Whether or not you agree with his stance, his calm reasoning was enough to demonstrate that his brain is far from addled. When Phillips squeeled that he had in effect disqualified himself from the right to be heard because he takes an e now and again, it was a clear demonstration that she simply lacks the maturity and self control (the sanity?) required for grownup debate. The way she spoke to that man was appalling, a fact not lost on the host, who told her off like a naughty school girl. She also reeled off some incredible statistic, clearly an article of propoganda, about the percentage of parents who murder their children as a consequence of crack-cocaine addiction. According to Phillips, the vast majority of mothers who kill their kids are on crack at the same time! It was a genuinely bizarre piece of broadcasting, one that proved once again that Phillips' drift to the right - not a choice I condemn by any means - has led her into the strange backstreets of reactionary conservativism where any issue percieved to be stained by an association with leftist thinking - be it global warming, the relaxation of drugs legislation, even evolution! - is treated with absolute contempt, often without the benefit of proper knowledge or respectable reasoning. It seems that zealotry is a far more potent addler of the mind than a couple of lines and a pill on a Saturday night could ever be.

    ReplyDelete