I enjoyed two minor celeb twitter exchanges yesterday. First up was Paula Jones who was sexually harassed by the rapist Bill Clinton. When she flagged this up Hillary Clinton did not say that all women complaining of this should be taken seriously. Instead Clinton attack dog spokesman James Carville suggested that Jones was trailer park trash. Jones’ testimony was far more powerful than that of Christine Blasey Ford but #Metoo has double standards when it comes to dealing with conservatives and liberals Stateside. Anyhow Jones is a star. And she is a real victim. Next up was Bonnie Greer who being black and female may be seen by some as a more natural victim but as a playwright and media luvvie living in London is very much of the metropolitan elite.
The subject of our exchange was a clip circulating widely on twitter of the journalist Rod Liddle appearing on Question Time last week. Liddle is a lifelong Labour supporter but disagrees with almost everything that the party stands for today. There is nothing that the left hates more than someone perceived as being a traitor to the cause. And thus Liddle is detested and usually described by lefties as a racist, sexist, homophobe and every other insult going. They hate him.
When one goes to Church, not that many on the Godless left will understand this comparison, one mumbles words from a sheet you have no need to read as they have been drummed into you by years of attendance. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. Etc, etc. I imagine that when Lefties meet up they mumble a similar creed. We believe that Rod Liddle is a racist, sexist traitor to the cause. Richard Littlejohn should be sent to Venezuela for re-education too. Donald Trump is the worst President in history. I hate Thatcher. Etc etc.
On Question Time, Liddle was stating what were undeniable facts and they strike at the heart of why the leadership of the left, not just in Britain, but across the West have become detached from what was their core base – the working class. Before Bonnie pipes up not the white working class just the working class. Hence UKIP, Brexit, Trump, Le Pen all garnering massive support from folks who in years gone by would have voted the “right way.”
But Greer does not wish to hear about this tweeting
A basic axiom:
Life is too short to spend time on #RodLiddle
With a link to the clip. When I suggested that this was playing the man not the ball, i.e. refusing to address the valid points Liddle made she tweeted (to numerous RTs from fawning admirers including the Mrs of Alistair “45 minutes dodgy dossier for the war criminal Blair” Campbell)
I don't know. I didn't listen to it, @TomWinnifrith
A general principle of mine.
Have held it for years.
It's called: #LifeIsTooShortToWasteOnRodLiddle 👍
#RodLiddle
Hmmm. The thing is that if you have not listened to what Mr Liddle says how can you be so sure that he is always wrong? I find that reading the Guardian now and again or listening to Today on BBC radio 4 or watching Channel 4 Fake News is instructive, as well as infuriating, in that it challenges my core beliefs. Just now and again I adjust what I think in light of new evidence presented by the dark forces of socialism. But at least I am forced to think.
Folks like American born Greer do not want to think she knows that she is always on the “right side” of everything even if vast numbers of “little people” disagree with her and her chums. She is happy living in a bubble of privilege talking only to like minded folks who, like her, vote Democrat, loathe Brexit and back the left in Britain. And that is why she has missed some of the really good material produced in recent years by Rod Liddle explaining why the working class is so pissed off with the leadership of the left.
As long as folks like Greer refuse to listen to those raising such issues, the left won’t change. It will carry on screaching about Russian meddling in elections, engaging in #MeToo hysteria and banging on about identity politics while ignoring the complete sense of alienation and economic disempowerment felt by large swathes of society. And thus the left will keep losing – unless it is up against someone to whom it cannot lose such as a Nazi (Le Pen) or a wretched joke (May). I cannot say that the left losing all future elections would bother me greatly but I can't help but thinking that having such a closed mind is not terribly healthy.
The debate on free speech and a willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints or indeed to allow others to listen to them is a fascinating one in these dark and censorious times. Here, for Ms Greer, is Liddle in action against a free speech denier from the academic left. I wonder whose side Bonnie is on?