British Right-Wing Pundits

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british journalism is more frivolous and clubbable than US journalism. all UK hacks know each other. this probably isn't so much the case in the states.

yes ed i know. but the idea that liberalism is the worst the 20th century right has to offer is batshit insane. as is the idea that welfare capitalism was some kind of 'left'. even without factoring in the fact that at the start of the century liberalism was kind of... left-wing.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:24 (nineteen years ago)

outsourcing prisons to eastern european countries in the EC - who will be the first New Labour or Tories?

― djmartian, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

Send 'em all to Botany Bay.

I think for historical reasons the U.S. has this strong libertarian streak (ie right to bear arms etc.) coupled with a strong religious/puritan streak. Put the two together and they coelesce into a very strong, very dynamic right-wing culture that simply doesn't exist in the UK. And that's why rightwing pundits don't have so much sway. I mean David Cameron would be quite a bit to the left of most Democrat candidates.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

I mean David Cameron would be quite a bit to the left of most Democrat candidates.

Not where it matters he isn't

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

Rightwing pundits have an absolute fuckload of sway, party politics is an irrelevence here. Ask White Van Man what he thinks about asylum seekers.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

I would say that liberalism was progressive not left- wing per say. And whether or not you think 'welfare capitalism' is of the left or not, the centre is to the right of even that now.

― Ed, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

xpost to Tom D.

Where it matters? Well for a start I'm guessing Cameron's not going to dismantle the NHS in any fundamental way. Can you imagine a serious Democrat candidate proposing universal, free-at-the-point-of-service healthcare?

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

british reactionary right is xenophobic and defensive rather than on constant attack like the americans?

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

Where it matters? Well for a start I'm guessing Cameron's not going to dismantle the NHS in any fundamental way. Can you imagine a serious Democrat candidate proposing universal, free-at-the-point-of-service healthcare?

We'll see how good that guess is when he wins the next election. Cameron isn't proposing universal, free-at-the-point-of-service healthcare either, we've already got it. Cameron is only "radical" when it comes to wearing a wind turbine on your head or cycling backwards on a bicycle made entirely of radishes

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

You sure you're not mixing up David Cameron with John Otway?

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

And Wild Willie Whitelaw?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

upthread are you dudes talking economic or social liberalism? or both?

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

both

― Ed, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:42 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Sure, Cameron didn't come up with free healthcare! But the political climate is such that he'd have a hard time getting rid of it. Which underlines my point about the political background being skewed more leftwards in the UK, despite years of Thatcher/Blair.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:43 (nineteen years ago)

"Cameron isn't proposing universal, free-at-the-point-of-service healthcare either, we've already got it."

well except for things involving teeth or eyes, ie the only two things i ever go in for...

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

just going to say

― Alan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:45 (nineteen years ago)

We'll see how hard a time he has getting rid of it, it'll be less hard than you think once he persuades the middle classes it's in their interest (xxpost)

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:46 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I think if it were politically possible to get rid of the NHS, it would have already been done. Anyway, doesn't Cameron have a disabled kid or something. He probably uses the NHS more than the average Tory.

― underpants of the gods, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:49 (nineteen years ago)

They are getting rid of it already, piece by piece

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:49 (nineteen years ago)

um guys the nhs is already on the way out...

xpost!

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

BUT immigration is the no 1 concern of uk voters! apprently. maybe my first hypothesis was v v wrong.

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

Not according to the most recent polls.

― Ed, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

Being tough on immigration didn't do Michael Howard much good last time round did it?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:23 (nineteen years ago)

... and wasn't Cameron one of those responsible for that policy?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

parties don't campaign on 'number one concern of voters' in general but the voters who will swing the election, ie middle england blah blah blah.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:25 (nineteen years ago)

Middle england (according to the polls) cares about health and house prices.

― Ed, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:30 (nineteen years ago)

healthy ~~and~~ house prices

fixed

― onimo, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:31 (nineteen years ago)

what on earth could their problem be with house prices!? they are winning that war. it would be interesting to know the nature of middle england's concern w. health -- taking my parents as barometer of same, their problem isn't exactly lack of service but quality of it: hospital bugs etc. a move by the tories towards increased private provision probably wouldn't phase them too much.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

their kids getting on the property ladder?

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

Having to live near poor people?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:52 (nineteen years ago)

are the right wing pundits repping for "middle england" thou? as dom points out Littlejohn is, or at least was, the voice of white van man. all the big scares of recent years have focused on working class fears as much as middle england haven't they?

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

the fact that homeowners who actually rent their houses from the bank think theyre rich overnight and are spending the paper money they dont have?

― 600, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:05 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha, who cares about "working class fears"?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:06 (nineteen years ago)

Difference between white working class fears of immigration and middle England fears of immigration? Straightforward difference of economics vs culture?

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

also theres a sense that rightwing british pundits dont really believe that much in what they right, so it all comes off a bit geezer down the pub, who says one thing one minute and another the next

― 600, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

a decent education system in this country might mean people writing right instead of righting write

― 600, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

If nothing else, the French election campaign makes me feel nostalgic for the days when one party stood for something and another party stood for something else, clearcut with no ambiguity and no chasing after the same limited and overrated floating electorate.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.gosh.org/news/celebrity/comedians/images/al_murray_lrg.jpg

― never acid again, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

perhaps with a decent university system that keeps the poor out, some of them may even write correctly

― 600, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

"the fact that homeowners who actually rent their houses from the bank think theyre rich overnight and are spending the paper money they dont have?

-- 600, Tuesday, April 24, 2007 6:05 PM (4 minutes ago)"

lol 8080

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:11 (nineteen years ago)

There are a lot of rent-a-rightie types on the op ed pages of the Times who you know cynically knock out 500 words of half-hearted spleen on the turn of a dime and really don't give a toss one way or the other - stand up Stephen Pollard, Ross Clark, Mick Hume and Rosemary Righter, which latter name could have come straight out of Kingsley Amis.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:12 (nineteen years ago)

oh i think mick hume cares a lot. he's sinister fucker with a scary team.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

Since when was Mick Hume on Sinister?

Still, never trust an ex-Marxist.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

i think saying they don't actually believe what they're saying is a bit dangerous. cf that thread about melanie phillips and the missing WMDs.

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:53 (nineteen years ago)

I've said this before elsewhere on ILE, but Peter Cook used to write a fervently right-wing column for the Daily Mail in '76-8. He said he didn't agree with a word of it but he thought that was the kind of writing the editor of the Daily Mail wanted, and it paid good money. Most notoriously, he gave a scathing denouncement of punk rock which he'd written with Malcolm McLaren the night before.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:56 (nineteen years ago)

what thread was that?

i know what you mean acrobat. but melanie p means every word of what she says. she is less of a menace than the others, partly because that imo. which sounds odd but basically i don't think many guardian writers are really very committed to any kind of politics, they, like their right-wing counterparts, churn out perversely 'reassuring' copy each day, confirming their readers' half-thought out prejudices. polly toynbee and jackie ashley exist solely as government mouthpieces, for example.

crosspost

the cook columns are really funny though!

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

He also mocked the idea that Martin Luther King was a good person because he used to sleep around, some of the columns are in that "I Was Born An Only Twin" collection.

xp

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:00 (nineteen years ago)

Does this guy count as a rightwing pundit? Or is he a bit too button-down for the raving loon aspect?

He's the kind who's exported to america, at least, since he's over here on a book tour.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:01 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=53352#unread

this thread. i flicked through the spectator for the first time ever last week. it was really horrible.

xpost

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:02 (nineteen years ago)

Upper class twit (xp)

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:03 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 1686 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

*draw heat

― glumdalclitch, Wednesday, 28 January 2026 17:04 (four months ago)

other suggested theories I have seen are that he might have been set up by a very clueless officer, who genuinely believed he was an intellectual colossus/respected thought leader of the UK left(LOL) or even that they knew he was a fool but have some devastating kompromat on him. Maybe both of them could be correct.

― calzino, Thursday, 29 January 2026 03:03 (four months ago)

two weeks pass...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/29/brewdogs-open-source-revolution-is-at-the-vanguard-of-postcapitalism

this absolute beyond-self-parody and also genuinely hilarious Paul Mason classic from the archives has become a data point of interest this week, if it didn't already exist someone would have make it up, lol.

― calzino, Sunday, 15 February 2026 12:05 (three months ago)

Daily Mail OTM?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15561617/brewdog-sale-james-watt-considers-bid.html

― The Olde, Old, Very Olde Man. (Tom D.), Sunday, 15 February 2026 12:08 (three months ago)

huh? so they weren't advancing the class struggle?

― calzino, Sunday, 15 February 2026 12:13 (three months ago)

turns out they were sharing their recipes because they were shit

― podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 15 February 2026 12:16 (three months ago)

The first thing the mob kills is its own humanity. Long before they sink their collective claws into the target of their flapping ire, they lay waste to their own decency. We see this in the digital hounding of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Behold the ugly gloating over a man’s… pic.twitter.com/j8kYNtuu9Q
— The Spectator (@spectator) February 20, 2026

also look at the state of O'Neill's byline pic since he had a hair transplant!

― calzino, Saturday, 21 February 2026 15:51 (three months ago)

He's not bald. Don't put it in the paper that he's bald.

― too irrelevant to serve as a load-bearing component (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 21 February 2026 15:52 (three months ago)

Eyebrows lifted to make the forehead look shorter.

― nashwan, Saturday, 21 February 2026 15:52 (three months ago)

He's doing Dreamworks Face

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf), Saturday, 21 February 2026 16:05 (three months ago)

it's sweet when somebody who's dedicated their professional career to cheering for cruelty, bullying and oppressive violence pulls a quick "for shame, the mob" article out of his 20 gallon hat

― podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 21 February 2026 16:16 (three months ago)

On Saturday evening, I’d hotfooted it to the Palm Jumeirah. When my kids told me the Fairmont hotel had been hit, I didn’t believe them.
The idea that the mad mullahs would start lashing out in this direction seemed completely absurd. Though the Emiratis take a far dimmer view of Islamic extremism than our own craven British government, they are careful not to upset ‘brotherly’ neighbours.
✍️ Isabel Oakeshott

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 March 2026 14:12 (three months ago)

She's in Dubai..

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 5 March 2026 14:13 (three months ago)

I trust this view is sufficient to establish the exact coordinates @IRIran_Military https://t.co/hfWojEzZY2
— The Iain Duncan Smiths (@TheIDSmiths) March 1, 2026

― Francis Fuck Coprolalia (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 5 March 2026 14:34 (three months ago)

Can't believe Oakeshott knows fuck all about geopolitics, religion, etc

― podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 5 March 2026 15:00 (three months ago)

one month passes...

Ganesh is a really talented at being as thick as mince man

https://archive.ph/vlCaR

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 23 April 2026 07:42 (one month ago)

I'd forgotten that guy existed.

― Clarinet Cop (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 April 2026 08:16 (one month ago)

"the welfare bill is unsustainable" GTFO

― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Thursday, 23 April 2026 08:21 (one month ago)

a deeply stupid article from a deeply stupid man

― einmal ist keinmal (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 23 April 2026 08:48 (one month ago)

At least he didn’t say “we” can’t afford whatever bit of the welfare state he wants to sell off.

― einstürzende louboutin (suzy), Thursday, 23 April 2026 10:27 (one month ago)

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