i’ll also note that these two things come together with satisfying results given the context:

1) robert - “Hmm, most of them weren’t debates, so much as messages of either a) support or b) vilification. It certainly don’t think it was a post that anyone [who'd dissagree] could engage with. The sneering tone would preclude someone like me from making a comment.”

2) “Jon Stewart knows what I’m talking about. “

PG has pointed out that there is a problem with the way language is used to stifle objections, and the way people abuse certain ideas and policies. If Wilson had posted something more constructive, teasing out the absuses and abusers from the genuine concerns of the moderate left (c.f. my Political Correctness posts). Then it would have been a helluva lot more interesting, and he would have convinced members of the moderate left that the current political language is in need of change. It would have certainly been more beneficial to Cameron’s wider agenda. Instead, he just reinforces prejudice.

Jon Stewart knows what I’m talking about.

grant you, blog commenting gets a low rank as ‘debate’

be well

As ever, the Avian Comestible deploys the best prose on it, Harry’s Place and Pickled Politics have long discussion threads on it, Robert Sharp is thoughtful, Nosemonkey is erudite, Guido and Iain are on the case and no doubt there…

But it is also disingenuous of the likes of Wilson on the right to propogate that myth. The abuses of concepts like political correctness are an excuse to discredit the entire concept. In a neat symmetry, this in turn provides cover for the Far Right to carry on peddling their bigoted ideas.

I’m afraid that is the point of satire: if the target of satire has sufficient ability to see themselves as others see them and indeed to laugh, the satire would not work. Besides, humourlessness is one of the radical left’s defining features.

“The piece isn’t meant to be debated. The impossibility of engaging with it, on any level, is built into its very construction. Its just a line in the sand for people to dance about, a midweek distraction for the lazy. Why ridicule actual government policies when you can attack a straw-man wrapped in a cliche?”

Because this lampoons the underlying philosophy and principles that underpin the left wing thinking that go on to determine government policy and most actions of the public sector. To challenge the individual policies is pointless (and a sisyphean task and jaw-droppingly boring) if you do not address the woolly thinking at its source.

On that note, it is fascinating that you choose to use the Islamophoic definition at the top of this article. This is apt: when even the likes of Polly Toynbee is declared Islamophobic, you know you have got some problems on your hands. The problem is that no-one on the “mainstream” left appears to want to challenge this ridiculous behaviour. And when you do, you get labelled “racist”.

All of that said, your conclusion is largely correct: “Their words have only served to reinforce the prejudices of those with the opposite viewpoint. “

It’s the people without the prejudices, the swathes of people who voted for Blair in 1997 and may have continued to do so whilst holding their noses ever tighter - “middle England” if you like - to whom this will ring true. Who gives a stuff about the viewpoint of people who really do believe that “Stigmatise” is “what we do to anti-social people if we ask them to stop.”?

And in all of this, the greatest tragedy is the appalling manner in which the word “liberal” has been hijacked in support of some profoundly illiberal ideas.