Conrad Black, Daily Telegraph owner and Canadian immigrant, has been at it again, printing a lengthy tirade against “the greatest menace facing the country” in his rag. What might that be, Connie? Innurnashnal trrism? Global climate change? Economic decline? AIDS? Don’t tell me – the danger of a ban on fox hunting? The lack of compulsory school prayers curdling our precious bodily fluids? Mobile phones?
Apparently it’s the BBC. And their crime is to “destroy and supplant the government as the source of authority in this country”. Since when has it been desirable for us – independent and intelligent citizens – to treat everything the government tells us as gospel, as this implies? And why, if governmental authority is both so sacred and so vulnerable to criticism, does the Telegraph spend so many column inches daily ranting and railing against the government and all its works – indeed, against government on principle? If you or I were to write this shite in a letter to the Torygraph, they’d throw it right in the green ink bin. If we were to call a public meeting to declare it, they’d ship us off to a psychiatric hospital. But Lord Black is sufficiently rich for safety, and has a pet newspaper to ventilate his prejudices. I have to make do with a blog. Of course, it was such a courageous and independent decision for the Torygraph’s letters editor to publish the Canadian hammer of asylum seekers’ animadversions….