Julie Burchill: “What is this alt-hate, this caring, sharing cruelty?”

Julie Burchill writes:

It sounds strange coming from someone who has made a lovely life out of peddling vitriol for pleasure and profit, but I’ve been amazed — and not a little amused, comparing their swivel-eyed social media savagery with their mollycoddling manifestos — at the level of nastiness that the Great and the Good (or, as I think of them, our Betters and Wetters) have displayed over the past year. During my entire career of evil, from 17-year-old enfant terrible to 57-year-old grande dame, I only recall wishing death on one person — well, two: the Eurythmics. But my dad, when he shouted ‘Tory!’ at the TV, was content to leave it at that.

What my dad didn’t do, unlike Alastair Campbell, was compare those who thought differently from him to jihadists. (…)

Brexit — and the wounding of Mrs May — seems to have brought out the beast in the most mild-mannered herbivores. And unlike those of us who have always enjoyed malice and spite as small parts of a balanced emotional diet, those kept in check — castrated even! —by their membership of the Brotherhood of Man seem highly susceptible to getting high on their supply of the new taste-thrill of hatred.