Steve Richards and the nature of progressive identity
One of our most respected commentators spots a right-wing conspiracy
I’ve been writing about the excesses of progressives in the public sphere for more than a decade now but I still get shocked regularly: especially on Twitter, where you often see what people are thinking in the heat of the moment, before they have had time to reflect.
Steve Richards is one of our most distinguished political writers and broadcasters, someone widely employed as an expert in politics – and with some reason too given what he’s achieved over a long career.
So to see him yesterday tweeting in outrage about the conspiracies of right-wing newspapers to undermine Keir Starmer – in response to a tweet from one of the most partial of political journalists in Ian Dunt – made me raise an eyebrow.
On the matter itself, Richards no doubt has a point that right-wingers have made significant effort to make police investigate Starmer’s ‘Beergate’ curry party in Durham. However this follows months of concentrated effort by progressives in the media and politics to get rid of Boris Johnson over the same sort of thing.
Now my point here is not so much about hypocrisy – whether of Richards or Starmer or Dunt or Boris or anyone else.