I’m on Andrew Doyle’s side – for now

I’ve agreed to interview the author and journalist Andrew Doyle about his new book at the Conservative party conference – on stage, no less – so I thought I’d better read it. It’s about the inexorable rise of the social justice warriors, whom he regards as a danger to the survival of free speech and, by extension, the institutions and traditions that our liberal democracy depends on.

My first reaction was one of irritation. The book is called The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World and it’s annoyingly similar to the title of a book I’ve been working on – Salem 2.0:the Return of the Religious Police to the Public Square. I’m not accusing Andrew of nicking the idea of comparing woke zealots to the witch-hunters of 17th-century Massachusetts – it’s pretty bleedin’ obvious – and fair play to him for actually writing his book. I’ve been working on mine since 2018 and I’ll probably never finish it. But I was irritated nonetheless.

Then it got worse. The book is very, very good. If someone’s going to beat you to the punch with a great book idea, the least they can do is write something crap. Not Andrew. Which shouldn’t really come as a surprise, since the little bastard is prodigiously talented. As many Spectator readers will know, he created the sublime Titania McGrath character on Twitter and, along with Andy Shaw, set up Comedy Unleashed, which gives a platform to politically incorrect comedians. He’s also a gifted stand-up in his own right and presents a weekly two-hour show on GB News called Free Speech Nation. Oh, and he has a PhD from Oxford in romantic poetry.