It is not for nothing that the thought enters, for an increasing number of media observers, that the unwanted sobriquet “World’s worst columnist” should be passed from Peter McKay, last heard of at the Daily Mail’s Ephraim Hardcastle column before retiring last year, to career floor-crosser and Nostradamus impersonator supreme Whinging Dan Hodges, the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste.
He's desperate, Dan
For McKay, also nicknamed McHackey by Private Eye magazine - he was, along with Nigel Dempster, one of the first two to be fired by Ian Hislop when he became editor - the reason for the title was that he was, not to drive it around the houses for too long, a crap columnist. For Desperate Dan Hodges, that is also true, but there is the added bonus of bum steers and jaw-dropping hypocrisy. And today has brought lots of the latter.
So what subject shall we choose? Oh I dunno, I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with B. Bullying! Dan’s got views on bullying, well, he has when it’s someone he dislikes. Like former Commons Speaker John Bercow. “Can someone explain how John Bercow can chair an Urgent Question into his own alledged [sic] bullying” he asked.
The question marks, as ever, weren’t making it. But, as Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. Do go on. “Quite staggering Labour are using the ‘not now, Brexit’ argument in defence of Bercow. Surely the issue of bullying and harassment needs to be examined on its merits. If you say ‘wait till Brexit is over’ that's licence to brush this stuff under the carpet for years”. Bullying is a serious matter. So serious that there was more.
“Margaret Beckett currently up in the House leading push for a second referendum. The same Margaret Beckett who openly said in the chamber Bercow should be allowed to remain in post because Brexit was more important than any bullying allegations … John Bercow's hectoring, bullying and browbeating of Andrew Bridgen on his final day is the perfect end point to his tenure. Forget the sycophantic praise heaped on him over the past 24 hours. He's been a disastrous Speaker who has brought shame on his office”.
So the completely consistent Dan Hodges would have no problem spotting bullying when the Home Secretary was accused of it, right? Well, maybe not. Because his latest offering for the MoS is titled “Why does the Left hate Priti Patel so much? Because she's an Asian woman who dared make a success of herself - without asking their permission”.
Curses! He’s hiding behind Brendan O’Neill’s quote generator! You think I jest? Here we go: "ritualistic, progressive punishment beating … in-house magazine of liberal Britain … liberal Left … the woke brigade … we must ‘check our privilege’ … liberal Britain’s seething resentment … modern missionaries of the liberal Left”. Then he loses it.
Here comes the obligatory Hodges howler: “Patel’s critics are also wrong on a key point. Her parents wouldn’t have been stopped from entering the UK under her new immigration proposals, because they were Indian Ugandans escaping the regime of a man who used to boast about eating the flesh of opponents. They weren’t coming to the UK as economic migrants, but fleeing for their lives”. Bullshit. They came to Britain BEFORE Idi Amin came to power. Christ on a bike, Dan. Basic fact check. Journalism 101, eh?
Dan Hodges, a stinking hypocrite and obscenely overpaid with it. Which you already knew.
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Being "bullied" by Hodges is akin to being attacked by a rabid moth.
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