Thursday 1 January 2015

Guest Room

Ridiculous though the police pursuit of Katie Hopkins is, it is of course no more ridiculous than she.

Moreover, she seems unaware that the Editor of The Sun is now a Glaswegian. Might a column be about to become vacant?

I have always thought it a great shame, even if understandable at the time, that Maurice Glasman never took up that offer of a column on what was then the new Sun on Sunday.

But The Sun does carry Rod Liddle, who would also make an excellent Guest Editor back on the Today programme next year. As would Maurice, in fact.

Rod this year would have been uproarious stuff, from "Where the hell is the Chilcot Report?", to common sense on Ukraine in general and Crimea in particular, to rural opposition to foxhunting.

If there were indeed to be those local referendums, then there is not a county in England or Wales that would bring it back. A few county councils might, although I wouldn't bet on it. But nowhere would by this means.

There are those who say that I am pro-hunting. I am no more pro-hunting than I am pro-Russian. I am anti-anti-Russian. And I am anti-anti-hunting.

Peter Hitchens made the mistake of applying for the spot in his newspaper column after PJ Harvey had been on. But then, he never had the benefit of a comprehensive education.

He would be good, though, not least on the epidemic of schizophrenia among cannabis users, or on the over-diagnosis of ADHD, with the consequent over-prescription of Ritalin and the like.

Brendan O'Neill, Claire Fox or Mick Hume would certainly get people talking. Bringing on Kevin Yuill to state the secular case against assisted suicide would be hugely significant.

Tim Stanley, David Goodhart or Ed West would be well worth a listen. Peter Oborne would be consummate.

Owen Jones or Mehdi Hasan would be interesting not least - not exclusively, but not least - for the cultural rather than the political items, since each reaches parts that few commentators do.

One tends to suspect the same of Peter Hitchens, who is a very seasoned fiction-reader and cinema-goer of strong tastes and opinions.

Alas, though, I fear that we are on course for a Today programme guest-edited by Katie Hopkins.

2 comments:

  1. I'd love to see you do it. Interesting they have never asked Damian Thompson.

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