2 min read
The New Statesman has a very annoying blogger, James Macintyre - annoying because he is entirely partisan and so never says anything interesting. Anything or anyone Conservative is racist, evil, blah blah blah and any member of the Labour Cabinet is sagacious, decent, etc. I have him on my RSS feeds because - yes, I am a bit odd - I like to get annoyed every so often, and Macintyre annoys me because he is the very antithesis of good political blogging.
But today he has a post which is so hilariously, full-on, smash it out of the park, beyond all reason that I sort of feel sorry for him. And of the 17 comments posted by his New Statesman blog readers at the moment, only one supports him - and that's from a fellow NS writer.
He writes:
I believe the Conservative Party is institutionally racist. I always
have done. I have witnessed too many "jokes" or sideways looks when
talking about immigration with Tories -- and done too much research
into racism in the party over the years -- to think otherwise. But many
would disagree.
I would ask those people to read Daniel Hannan's blog for the Telegraph
(not some dodgy recording at a Monday Club meeting, but words written
down by him), on the question, raised correctly by the former president
Jimmy Carter, of whether the rows in the US over President Obama's
health-care plans are fuelled by an unspoken racism (which they are).
Hannan neatly proves Carter's point by saying:
"Barack Obama has an exotic background and it would be odd if some people weren't unsettled by it."
"[Obama seems to] have family on every continent".
"[I]t could hardly fail to leave a chunk of people feeling that Obama wasn't exactly a regular guy."
...Now I know this post will result in howls of fury and clever-stupid
ridicule from various partisan Conservatives pretending to be neutral
truth-seekers. I will be dismissed -- as I was by Hannan -- as a
"Labour spin doctor". But please, just reread those quotes, take a deep
breath, and think about those words.
Eh? In what world could Daniel Hannan's words be considered racist? As Macintyre asks, "please, just reread those quotes, take a deep
breath, and think about those words." I did. And I repeat: how are they racist? Hannan even writes in his second sentence that "there is an element of racism in some of the hostility to Obama".
As it happens, I think there are racists in the Conservative party. Indeed, one of the reasons I've never called myself a conservative, big or small C, is because that element remains. But Macintyre's 'evidence' shows only the exact opposite in Hannan's case.
Do read the comments, which rip him to shreds. Poor chap.
UPDATE: Well, well. The post has disappeared in a puff of cyber smoke. I wonder why. Really: I wonder.