Delingpole Taunts The Disabled

It is part of the mantra of the Libertarian fringe that the state must be shrunk. So anything the state does, it should either do less or not at all. Nothing, in this analysis, is considered off limits. It therefore should come as no surprise, then, to see James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole turning his sneerpower on the disabled, at least those who have the temerity to speak up for themselves.

Showing that there are no limits to Del Boy’s trolling, he took to Twitter to ask “Is it just me – or do the most warped, bitter people on Twitter all have ‘Spartacus’ embroidered across their picture. What’s it about?” in the style of his favourite media outlet Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Del knows the answer – he’s just using the disabled for sport.

And, to his evident delight, he found kindred spirits out there in the Twittersphere, including one who replied “the woman who wrote Spartacus report thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to threaten women with hammer attack”. He retweeted that one, such was his combination of pleasure and ignorance: the Spartacus Report was authored by nine named people and several others (clue in the name, Del).

Then, having set the bar low by quoting that smear, Delingpole doubles down by trivialising the problems faced by so many disabled people. After being prompted with the information that Spartacus led a slave revolt, he sneers “Ah. That’ll be it. They’re angry about being enslaved by the injustice of free taxpayers’ money. Who wouldn’t, eh?” which is priceless even by his standards.

Having done his groundwork yesterday evening, Del Boy returned to the subject today, exclaiming in mock horror (and singularly unfortunate language) “My timeline is full of froth-mouthed disability rights activists spitting blood. Wow! They make animal rights Nazis look almost reasonable”. The first reply to that Tweet should have told him something, but he clearly wasn’t for listening.

Delingpole admits that he has “just poked a stick in the disability rights wasp nest” but carries on “Among the worst, I find, are ME sufferers”. So he admits that there are people suffering from ME, but expects them to allow him to use them for his personal entertainment, while inferring that they should not leave their opinions on his intellectually pure timeline, thanks very much.

Del also manages to categorise such people as “the shrill victim lobby”. He then asserts that his causing annoyance to ME sufferers clinches his victory: “Thanks for proving my point re ME sufferers”. The pay-off line he garners in reply, though, does not cause him to stop and think. After all, that isn’t the point: Delingpole’s got it into his head that his money is going to someone who shouldn’t get it.

And they get to access Twitter and talk back. What’s Del Boy’s world coming to?