‘Branding one’s political opponents as ‘phobic’ is a sly and illiberal tactic’

Frank Furedi writes:

Poor Stephen Fry. Over the years he has been cavalier about condemning certain people as homophobic. As a consummate practitioner of the art of emotional correctness, he knows that the charge of phobia – whether homophobia, Islamophobia, Judaeophobia, xenophobia and even Europhobia (hatred of the EU) – rings all the right bells.

Yet now he finds himself on the receiving end of the phobia slur – and he isn’t happy about it.