Even when she’s dead wrong, Julie Burchill is the best.
James Delingpole has a saner view of the hounding of Biggins, which will simply increase the level of anti-Semitism:
Pretty soon Biggins had told a ‘joke’ about the Jews which was so vile that it left a Jewish housemate in tears. So imagine my delight when the foul fool was sent packing – not just for this, but for claiming that bisexual people were responsible for the spread of Aids
In this grisly new world there is really no difference between a cuddly old queen making an unmalicious but possibly ill-judged quip and a Nazi or an Islamist pouring forth vicious anti-Semitic bile. If it involves a Jew and the Holocaust, that’s it, you’re over the line with no defence. (…)
At the time of the Leveson inquiry, there were lots of wise, nicely turned, historically literate articles in civilised journals about the importance of free speech and how defending it must of necessity include protecting the right to offend. The problem is that the only people who read them were clever, sensible, well-balanced types like us.
Unfortunately, we’re not the ones who make the rules.
