Delingpole Scrapes The Misogyny Barrel

[Update at end of post]

One hates to waste too much time on the unhinged “libertarianism” of James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, but today he has excelled himself – and brought down the wrath of Maily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher into the bargain – after a non-accidental excursion onto Twitter in support of his bosom buddy, the loathsome Toby Young, earlier today.

Once again not fair or balanced

Tobes had been carping about the deeply subversive Guardian – no change there, of course – and a Comment Is Free piece by Suzanne Moore, which had taken aim squarely at Michael “Oiky” Gove. “Oiky” is Tobes’ pal, because he let Tobes and his pals open the West London Free School, which is a Very Wonderful Place and better than other schools, though you’ll have to take that on trust for now.

So the Moore article was made the result of a sneering fisk, possibly because Tobes got himself sacked from his berth among Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Sunday Sun recently and has had to return to the humdrum bear pit that is Telegraph blogs, has rather a lot of time on his hands, and as he can’t possibly blame the Murdoch empire, who are pals with “Oiky”, has to kick someone, so the Guardian it is.

Del Boy was plainly ecstatic at his pal’s action, and Tweeted “@toadmeister gives Suzanne Moore such a seeing-to she’ll be walking bow-legged for months”. But almost immediately after Ms Moore challenged Gallagher as to whether he approved came a grovelling climbdown: “I’m sorry, Suzanne, my Tweet was over the top. I’ve used it with ref to men before, but I realise with women it’s wrong”.

It is, let’s be direct about this, wrong period, whoever is the target of such gratuitous unpleasantness. Moreover, it was not an accident: Delingpole had plenty of time to think about what was in that Tweet as he was composing it. And he did himself no favours when, after several Twitter users had passed severely adverse comment on his actions, he showed a distinctly unapologetic streak to one of them.

“Excuse me Ms Eumenides I’ve taken it down and apologised. What more do you want? My bollocks on a platter? Bog off!” he retorted petulantly. Well, his editor might not be answering that one in the way Del Boy might have hoped: Tony Gallagher replied to Suzanne Moore’s challenge “An appalling comment. He is right to have deleted and apologised profusely”.

Problem is, it wasn’t an exactly profuse apology. And Ms Moore is, as those of diplomatic tone might have put it, considering her position as regards any further action she might take. In the meantime, James Delingpole has to hope that when he makes his first appearance on BBC Question Time this evening, news of his less than savoury behaviour has not preceded him north to Lancaster.

That is, of course, in addition to his vicious attack on the disabled earlier. Oh dear.

[UPDATE 5 February 1820 hours: although he did not reveal the fact until Ms Moore had Tweeted about it, it appears that Del Boy has now sent her what she describes as "a heartfelt letter of apology". This is clearly more dignified than his previous scenario of "my bollocks on a platter", and has the added advantage that Ms Moore has accepted it.

Maybe Del enjoyed his appearance on Question Time - he has already decided to revise his earlier assertion that the programme's audiences were selected by raiding the local Labour Party and Trades Union branches to bulk them out - and in that case he will have rightly concluded that indulging in persistent misogyny would not do his chance of a repeat appearance any good. Or perhaps he has also decided to engage brain before Tweeting]