That the Daily and Sunday Mail, the vomitus of British culture, destroy lives in the name of circulation and profit is a constant of our universe. It goes without saying that, in what they produce, these newspapers are analogous in the body politic as the anus is to the body human.

I have friends who’ve worked for these papers in the past but I rather think they likened the liaison to that with a Victorian three penny whore - cheap, functional and over as quickly as possible. In other words, an ugly lesson in life never to be repeated.

Anyway, enough of the metaphor stew. Even if you don’t care about partisan hackery being used to destroy an undeserving man’s career, Simon Walters’ pointless, vindictive, adolescently prurient and unlettered attack on Owen Barder today should outrage all those with a hankering for the issues of decency and freedom of speech. It’s not the first time words have failed Walters either, if stories are to be believed. A physical as well as a rhetorical thug.

Tim Worstall has the details and a worthy rebuttal to the latest foetid depredations of a newspaper not worthy of the name. I won’t duplicate the saga here - go and read it.

Tim rightly identifies this as an issue of freedom of speech. It will be interesting to see if other right-wing bloggers do the same or drop their libertarian credentials to make a partisan point. I wonder if they’ll be screaming as loud as they did over Inigo Wilson. Some of us will be watching.

I’ll just add a personal note. I first came across Owen a little while ago when I wrote a piece about the Department for International Development and its spending on consultants. In response, Owen handed me my arse, in the nicest and most courteous fashion.

The other Sharpener writers and I invited Owen to write for the blog on the strength of his excellent writing on his own blog (now, hopefully not for too long, gone). He accepted, expressing how flattered he was that he had been asked. It was only later, when we read Owen’s massively impressive CV that we realised it was us that should have been flattered.

One more thing. When I was collating The Blog Digest last year, I asked Owen if I could include two of his posts in the book. He politely refused. I was disappointed but he explained that he was returning from his sabbatical to rejoin the civil service. This is not someone unaware or unmindful of his responsibilities as a civil servant.

Unity (twice), Jim and Alex have more.

Update: Tim and Chris:

I’m sorry to see that the Cutty Sark is on fire, and even sorrier to see that the Mail on Sunday’s offices are not.

Update updated: Oh dear. It looks like the Mail, brave souls that they are have taken the comment facility away from their tawdry dreck. How very proper.

Update updated updated: Comments are now back but none of those posted by bloggers have appeared.

Posted on May 20th, 2007 at 8:06 pm

See also • Guido Fawkes and the BNP UPDATE UPDATED UPDATED UPDATED • Fearless • Barder’s back		Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • •
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