Saturday, February 21, 2009

Labour List visits my Farm

Earlier this week I discussed the spat and subsequent making up between Alex Hilton of Labourhome and Derek Draper of Labour List.

Recess Monkey tells us that Alex has contracted bacterial meningitis and been admitted to hospital. He is currently in isolation ward but should be moved to a general ward in the next few days.

I wish him a swift recovery.

Meanwhile Labour List has linked to one of my Calder's Comfort Farm columns for the New Statesman. (You may recall it was recently discontinued as part of the magazine's innovative new media strategy of commissioning no blogs or columns for its website.) It was the one where I laughed at the claim by Daniel Kawczynski, Tory MP for Shrewsbury, that Otis Ferry is being held as a political prisoner.

It was nice of them to do so. Unfortunately, Tom Guise, the author of the Labour List post, combines sententiousness with the sort of prefabricated phrases that George Orwell complained about to say:

Daniel Kawczynski belittles the struggle of hundreds of thousands of oppressed people throughout history by describing Otis Ferry as a ‘political prisoner.’
You can just imagine people in the Gulag saying:
I can bear these sufferings, Alexei Nikolaevich, as long as no one ever compares me with Otis Ferry.

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