Lefties have got away with feeling superior for too long — let the fightback begin

I was at a debate at the Institute of Economic Affairs last week when the speaker next to me — a preening, prickly chap with a moustache and hugely self-important manner — took it upon himself to apprise the assembled throng of the most extraordinary fact: apparently, James Delingpole is nowhere near as good at delivering Ronald Reagan quotes as Ronald Reagan was.

‘As I can testify from experience,’ he added, impressively, ‘having heard Reagan speak on several occasions.’

‘Gosh!’ I thought to myself. And again ‘Gosh!’ I’m often taken aback when complete strangers decide to have a go at me personally in debates. ‘Hey, you don’t even know me,’ I want to say. ‘For all you know I might be incredibly nice.’ But the thing that shocked me this time wasn’t so much the gratuitousness of his ad hom as its almost cherishably fatuous lameness.

No doubt I would have been even more impressed if he’d accused me of not having as large breasts as Dolly Parton, or of being nowhere near as well-endowed as Seventies porn legend John ‘King Dong’ Holmes, or of being a sight uglier than babesome alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman. But as candidates for the most stunning, blinding, fantabulous statement of the obvious went, I thought his Reagan jibe (I’d just quoted the famous quip about the nine most terrifying words in the English language being ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’) was a more than halfway decent stab. How desperate must he be?

Very, I decided. Very, very, very. And to be honest I didn’t blame him. I too, in his position, would have been grasping at whatever straws I could to distract people from who I was and what I stood for.