Anyone who thought that the inmates at Spiked, so called because it should have been long ago, were at the limit of the wacko fringe needs to think again. Because in this ago of new denialism, with the Coronavirus rampant across the West, Brendan O’Neill and his fellow emitters of low moaning sounds are mere amateurs: the real hardcore off-the-scale batshit brigade are of an order worse. And they are typified by one individual.
"Gay marriage" ... "Global warming" ... "Red meat Conservatism" ... "Libertarian Kool-Aid" ... "Recycling disinformation" ... "Increasing irrelevance"
That individual is James “
saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, who was totally wrong about climate change, and so has decided he might as well be totally wrong about Covid-19 too. To achieve his goal, Del Boy has decided to peddle a series of whoppers about the pandemic that go way beyond irresponsible. Fortunately, no-one cares.
Those whoppers are exemplified by his Retweeting this claim from former Breitbart contributor David Atherton: “
UPDATE: Dr. Zelenko Has Now Treated 699 Coronavirus Patients with 100% SUCCESS RATE - Using Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and Z-Pak”. The claim was made in an article on The Gateway Pundit, which, as its Wikipedia
entry confirms, “
is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes”.
This is not an isolated occurrence: Del Boy has also RTd Chris Loesch - “
A man dedicated to Jesus … his freedom and his country” - slagging off economist Paul Krugman with the claim “
Paul doesn’t understand that we have the highest confirmed cases because we have the most testing, the most accurate testing and the highest rate of testing”. The USA has none of those: Loesch is lying. But he no doubt believes.
Delingpole does not need to believe, and certainly not when it comes to hypocrisy. On the one hand we read “
I'd never have got through World War II, I realise: the Nanny State; the officious directives; the snitches; the recasting of functioning free markets as 'profiteering'; the jobsworthery; the tinpot Hitlers”, while on the other, applauding a snitching, officious recasting of free speech as unacceptable dissent, cos it’s just “
recording which commentators are having a good war and which ones aren't. Here is his Lefty List”.
But what really takes the biscuit in no style at all is Del Boy’s claim to have contracted Covid-19, only to be healed by his very own miracle cure. Praise be! “
I haven't told you all about how I got through coronavirus despite having several underlying health conditions which, I'm convinced, could have led to intensive care. Essentially, it's a high powered zinc formula, created by a friend, which disrupts the cytokine storm”. Do go on.
“
What I'd like more than anything is for this stuff to be available on the open market for everyone. But to mass produce it my friend needs ££££. If I crowdfunded it who'd be interested? (Also interested to hear from potential big money backers)”. Of course you would. James Felton tried to remain charitable: “
Or - hear me out - you’re one of the overwhelming majority of people who get it but don’t need intensive care, are quite gullible and have a quack friend”. Or maybe he thinks everyone else is a bit gullible.
Maybe James Delingpole is just taking the piss and thinks this will lighten the mood. Maybe he truly believes all the lies about miracle cures. Or maybe he’s yet another of those out there on the libertarian right who have just run out of road.
Still, there are plenty of fruit and veg picking opportunities to take up.
Mustn’t grumble.
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Re your penultimate paragraph, Tim.
ReplyDeleteHe's none of those.
He's a far right tory cunt.
BTW, be careful you don't end up on that McCarthyite List. Remember Newton-Done listed you. And you can be sure some mad Vauxhall Cross gimp is keeping his paranoia active - even though The Friends somehow missed the Chinese coronavirus conspiracy...I mean what do we pay those useless bastards FOR?
He’s hawking brain pills on line. A low rent British Alex Jones in every respect
ReplyDeleteI can't see the author of this diatribe even contracting covid19.
ReplyDeleteThe combined effects of their personal hatred for 'Del Boy' along with hyperactive salt-producing organs, produce a searing briney heat that the pathogen cannot survive in. Well done, well done. Quite the strategy....
You remember the Paul Nurse interview, right? Who doesn't? It's up there with the Andrew Neil interview as one of the more public embarrassments of Delingpole's life when, confronted by someone who had some idea what he was talking about, Delingpole's own hollow ignorance was woefully exposed. This is, remember, a man whose education amounts to a lower second-class English degree from Oxford, which he proudly presents as evidence that he's an authority to speak on any subject he's googled for six minutes.
ReplyDeleteThe really telling moment in the Nurse interview was when Nurse put it to Delingpole that if he were ill, he'd go to a real expert - a doctor. And Delingpole, flailing, protested that it was unfair to compare climate change deniers to cranks who believed in quack cures for cancer.
It's telling because that's exactly what Delingpole is.
He has a long history on this. He published a column praising homeopathy (the gist of which was, I know doctors say it doesn't work, but it works for me, so it's true). He published a column in the Daily Mail saying he had conquered his "chronic fatigue" with something called the "buteyko" breathing technique (actual doctors: "it has not been shown to have any effect"). He told the Daily Mail that he was diagnosed with "manic depression" by an acupuncturist, and that he has successfully treated this with "Neuro Linguistic Programming" (actual psychiatrists: this is pseudoscience. Controlled studies show no benefits). Then, of course, he self-diagnosed with "chronic Lyne disease" (actual doctors: "chronic Lyme disease" does not exist) and crowdfunded himself to a quack treatment in Germany. And in recent weeks, he loudly bleated that chloroquinine was a cure for coronavirus (actual doctors: testing continues, but in the meantime it is not safe to self-administer this drug, which remains in demand for malaria patients).
Now, he's self-diagnosed with covid-19 (why would you trust an actual doctor with something like that?) because he caught a cold after getting into a lift with Chinese people, which manages to combine stupidity and racism in equal measure.
So, in summary, he's a charlatan who has a long history of insisting that people who have actual medical degrees and specialist qualifications aren't as well-placed to judge as he is, because you see, he has a second-class English degree that empowers him to see things that they can't.
Yet publications like the Spectator and Breitbart continue to give him platforms to blare his anti-science bullshit into the world. It wouldn't matter, except for the alarming number of people who buy into his crap. And, in the context of a pandemic, anyone at all is an alarming number. But, of course, that's what epidemiologists say, and what would they know?
The Paul Nurse episode of Horizon in which he schools a bewildered, stuttering Delingpoid is back on iPlayer
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00y4yql/horizon-20102011-10-science-under-attack
That QC he puts after his name "Quack Cures".
ReplyDelete