Toby Young Hits Rock Bottom

When the Mail On Sunday article with Tory London Mayoral hopeful Zac Goldsmith’s name on it appeared, there was revulsion across the board at the crude attempt to link Labour challenger Sadiq Khan to terrorism, and much else. The condemnation of this attempt to wrestle the election from Khan by dog-whistling included many who had previously passed equally adverse comment on Ken Livingstone’s self-destructive idiocy.

Another failed attempt to do grown-up politics

Surely someone out there would speak up for Goldsmith’s right to smear his opponent? Was there anyone ready to make a pointless gesture, provide a measure of useful idiocy? Well, although he scores poorly on utility, the loathsome Toby Young is always ready to dispense a little of his idiocy, for which he was full value as he showed he was prepared to see himself ridiculed even more than usual in the service of the party he supports.

Tobes got off to a bad start as he introduced his shameless support for Goldsmith’s article on Twitter with the accompanying message “Passionate pleas from ZAC GOLDSMITH 4 days before election … Will Jews feel safer in a Labour London?” The article does not single out safety for any one ethnic or religious group. Did Tobes read it first?

David Aaronovitch, no friend of the current Labour leadership, was not convinced, and said so: “Sod that Toby. There’s a line and he’s crossed it”. Tobes was aghast: “Eh? It's Khan who shared platforms with Islamists, defended them, defended Ken and nominated Corbyn. That's crossing the line”. He didn’t defend Livingstone last week. But do go on.

“Absurd suggestion that London Jews will be unsafe if Khan is mayor is rank exploitation. You should stop it” cautioned Aaronovitch. Would Tobes care to dig himself deeper? He certainly would: “It’s the Jewish Mayoral candidate making that claim David, not me. But I think a Khan victory would embolden some extremists”. He’s out to lunch.

It got worse for Tobes, as Aaronovitch responded “As far as I know there isn’t a Mayoral candidate chosen by Jews. I’d quit this now”. Giles Coren concurred: “I think Goldsmith has disgraced himself utterly. Khan would be by far the least racist Mayor we’ve ever had”. And Oliver Kamm simply added “I agree with Giles”.

This left Tobes to limp off, muttering “But I respect you, Hugo, Giles and Oliver and your views on this, so I'll butt out”, as Simon Landau observed “we have a new term - toadsplaining - which means trying to get political advantage through identity politics”.

Toby Young makes the mistake of blindly promoting anything coming out of the Tory Party without subjecting it to any kind of objective or dispassionate analysis. As a result he has ended up covered in rather more than confusion by defending a shockingly nasty and desperate piece of attack dog politics and lost some of the residual respect that others in mainstream journalism were previously prepared to grant him.

There’s one reason Tobes is known as Captain Bellend. And that’s because he’s a bellend.