Delingpole Nazi Hypocrisy

When the Breitbart money arrived in London – rumoured to have been secured from at least two venture capitalists by Andrew Breitbart before he died – it should have been obvious to anyone looking to get involved with this new venture that payment was not going to be merely a conflation of gift and status symbol: the new paymasters would require results.

Not even slightly fair and balanced

That meant “leveraging” the talents on offer to bring in plenty of readers. Sadly, those talents extended only to James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole and a few also-rans. So this meant Del Boy had to churn out copy on a daily basis, whether he had media appearances to make, books to write, or domestic stuff to fulfil. It was what Stanley Unwin would have called “nosey grindstone”.

And so we arrive at Del’s rant at an organisation called the Soil Association. Who they? Well, they call themselves “the UK's leading membership charity campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use”, and that what they call “the best food” is “organically grown, minimally processed, fairly traded, fresh and seasonal”. Keep an eye on that word “organic”.

If it’s “organic”, then genetically modified produce is going to be out. You can’t call something “organic” if it’s been modified other than by conventional methods. So no-one should be surprised to see the Soil Association tell “We campaign against the use of genetically modified (GM) ingredients in human and animal food, and against the commercial planting of GM crops in the UK”.

Ready now for the Delingpole spin? Here it comes: under the title “Ein Volk, Ein Führer, Ein Rice!”, Del asks the kind of rhetorical question so beloved of his pals at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): “What kind of nutcase would you have to be to oppose a miracle product which could save the lives of two million children every year and the eyesight of another half a million a year?”

The supposed “miracle product” is called Golden Rice, and it’s genetically modified. It is claimed that it cures Vitamin A deficiency. But it is also not ready for commercial production yet. No matter: Del and the Breitbots are on the case, and have found that one of the Soil Association’s founders may have had far-right views on a number of subjects. This is therefore held to taint the whole organisation.

So an organisation whose founders had far-right sympathies are a no-no. It follows that Delingpole would never go near such bodies. So perhaps he can explain why he has written so extensively for the Daily Mail and its sister Sunday title, when the bloke who owned the paper in the 1930s was such an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis, and ran openly anti-semitic copy in the paper.

After all, we’re talking high principles here, eh Del? What a stinking hypocrite.