The heretics of Farringdon

Thursday, 25th October 2007

I am not party to what actually provoked the meltdown at Farringdon Road, home of the Guardian and its stablemate the Observer and where the editor of the Observer Roger Alton has suddenly resigned. My own paper, the Daily Mail, carried an account today of what led up to this; it seems it was a combination of vicious ideological warfare and poisonous personal jealousy. Nothing new there, then, at Guardian Newspapers (where I myself worked, on both titles, for two decades). Alton is a brilliant and inspired editor who is almost universally admired for his creativity and independence of spirit which have given the Observer a brio and readability that the Guardian so conspicuously lacks – and which is reflected in the fact that the Observer’s readership has risen while the Guardian’s has declined, which is said to be at the heart of Alton’s difficulty. His brilliance showed up the Guardian’s failure. So he had to go.

One thing in particular struck me from the account of the Farringdon fratricide -- the apparently seismic rupture caused by the fact that two Observer journalists, Nick Cohen and Andrew Anthony, have made a very public personal political journey away from the life-denying orthodoxy of the left, particularly over the Iraq war and associated anti-American hysteria. What leapt out at me was that some Guardianistas believe as a result that that the Observer

..has been hijacked by rightwing war-mongering neo-cons.

There was a time when the left saw itself as in the very front line of the fight against fascism. No longer. Now it vilifies the defence of liberty and liberal values as ‘warmongering’. And because fighting Islamic fascism is not a left-wing position, ergo to the Manicheans of the left it must be right-wing. Of course, the irony that they fail to recognise is that many on the right of British politics (who make a fetish of stability, even where it entrenches a death-dealing tyranny that threatens all of us, and who think that Abroad is a terrifying place full of madmen who will leave us alone as long as we are nice to them) are equally consumed by exactly the same visceral hatred of America and implacable opposition to the Iraq war. Although their starting point is very different from the left, there isn’t a cigarette paper to slide between the views of both camps on these issues. But the left are incapable of grasping such nuances and acknowledging their strange bedfellows because, as can be seen from their treatment of Cohen, Anthony and Alton, only one point of view is permitted on the left -- and those who depart from it by definition become numbered automatically among the damned. Or neo-cons, as they are better known.

There is however a further point. The reason Cohen and Anthony have provoked such apoplexy is because they are apostates of a certain kind. I know this because, despite differences between us, I too have been there. It is not that they were men of the left and have now crossed the political floor to become conservatives. If that were the case, there would not be this fury. No, their crime is that they have not crossed the political floor. They remain radicals, committed to fighting fascism and injustice. They remain apostles of the Enlightenment, committed to reason over obscurantism. And they are saying that their erstwhile colleagues on the left have betrayed all of this, that they have betrayed their own radicalism; and instead they have sided with those who wish to destroy the civilisation of the Enlightenment, with those who want to perpetuate tyranny rather than free the enslaved, and with those who want to run up the white flag to those who are laying siege to the values of which the left so noisily proclaim that they are the champions and guardians.

That is why they will never be forgiven. It’s because the left know that they are right about the bankruptcy of the left's own position. And so they have to be silenced.

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Field

October 25th, 2007 9:28pm

The Observer is alleged to have been "hijacked by rightwing war-mongering neo-cons." Why didn't someone tell me - I might have given it a try! (Joke.) I think your analysis is essentially correct. Deserters are all very well. It's the NCOs who stay on side but query your orders - and in such a rational manner - that are really annoying as far as the Generals of the Left are concerned. Do you think Brown is an Arch-Appeaser by the way? I do. Whatever one might have thought about Blair, his analysis of the threat to Western freedoms and the need for a vigorous response was essentially correct (though whether maintaining an alliance with the Wahaabis is the best way to go about protecting those freedoms is another question). But Brown's eagerness to pose as an apostle of peace, bringing the troops home by Christmas is worrying. Another point - has anyone noticed how we are winning the war in Iraq. You wouldn't believe it from the deafening silence of the Left-Liberal media. They have new fish to fry now - the Kurdish problem and Afghanistan and Iran...

Leo Solomon

October 25th, 2007 10:26pm

The monomaniacal left seem to be motivated almost exclusively by an all consuming hatred for the the country that collapsed their dream of world domination.They can not face the fact that their ideology succeeds only to the extent that it is abandoned.

Kevin

October 25th, 2007 11:16pm

"They remain apostles of the Enlightenment, committed to reason over obscurantism." Surely the Left is rational. This is its syllogism: Cultural relativism undermines the moral certitude of our principal enemy, Catholicism (aka "obscurantism") Mohammedanism is an alternative culture Therefore we must support the equal claim of Mohammedanism to relative truth This is a rational argument - it's the major premiss I have a problem with.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.

For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here