James Delingpole James Delingpole

Spending isn’t the answer. But how do we explain that?

One of the things I love about being a classical liberal is that I’m always on the right side of every argument. I’m pro: freedom, jobs, self-determination, cheap energy, higher living standards, academic excellence, property rights, an even better future, Michael Gove MP, wine, women, song. (So long as the song is not by Maroon 5 or Bruno Mars.)

And I’m anti: arbitrary authority, nanny-statism, money-printing, tyranny, despair, almost all war, poverty, prohibition, disease, squalor, uncleaned-up dog poo, meddling busybodies, crap capital projects based on massive lies (that means you HS2!), corrupt officials, civil war, totalitarianism, hyperinflation, injustice, Tim Yeo MP.

Yet you’d scarcely guess this to read some of the things they say about me on the internet. If you go to Urban Dictionary, for example, and look up ‘Delingpole’ you’ll find these definitions. 1. ‘A stubbornly deluded idiot, one who refuses to acknowledge their errors.’ 2. ‘An individual suffering from delusions of intellectual adequacy.’ Gosh: what exactly is it about my agenda of peace, abundance and liberty that these people find so objectionable?

Well, of course, they almost never say. It’s one of my great frustrations on those rare occasions when I catch sight of the troll comments below my articles: ‘Yes, all right, I know I’ve got horrid, crooked teeth and I’m hideously emaciated like I’ve got Aids and I’m thick and arrogant and wrongheaded and it’s an absolute disgrace that a serious newspaper is paying me to write this rubbish,’ I mutter to myself (in my reedy, whiny, faux-posh, hateful voice). ‘But what exactly is your reason for discounting the argument I’ve just advanced?’

There’s only one plausible one, as far as I can see. I’m not saying I buy it — but superficially it does make a lot of sense.

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