Rod Liddle’s blog on crime and multiculturalism has prompted a fierce reaction on Twitter and in the blogosphere. Here’s the Spectator editor Fraser Nelson’s defence of his errant blogger:
The Spectator stands up for the right to offend; our blogs often say things that people find offensive but that’s part of our right of free expression. Rod is one of the greatest writers in Britain today. His column and blog are loved by readers. It’s a significant part of my job as editor to defend people’s right to be offensive.
No one (as far as I can see) is questioning Liddle’s right to offend. They are questioning the implied causal link between crime and skin colour.
His fellow Speccie blogger Alex Massie issued a rebuttal of Liddle’s claims and revealed he considered resigning in the wake of his diatribe. The former Spectator blogger Clive Davis summed up the affair thus:
Now why does he keep doing this? He’s clearly an intelligent man. Does he really get a kick out of pandering to the bigots who hang around on his blog? It somehow doesn’t seem worth the effort. When I was a blogger with the Speccie, it always puzzled me that the editors didn’t make more of an effort to attract intelligent online readers as opposed to the noisy idiots who had taken up residence.
Meanwhile, Sunder Katwala, writing on the Fabian Society blog Next Left, simply asks:
How much nonsense could one man talk in just 91 words?
As a reminder of what Liddle has “done” before, read his blog on “Muslim savages” in Somalia. The post reacted to the horrific stoning of a 20-year-old woman who had committed adultery, and concluded:
Incidentally, many Somalis have come to Britain as immigrants recently, where they are widely admired for their strong work ethic, respect for the law and keen, piercing, intelligence.
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