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    Reply to Hensher Archived Message

    Posted by scrabb on August 18, 2020, 10:38 pm, in reply to "Re: Who wrote this, Lewis Carrol?"

    I actually replied to Hensher's letter in the LRB but they didn't publish it. Thanks for giving me this opportunity.

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    This has to be a first. I can’t ever recall reading a letter that so completely and comprehensively misses a target the size of an elephant than Philip Hensher’s, ridiculously comparing and offensively equating the treatment of Corbyn with that of Thatcher during her time in office. Hensher trots out a list of leftish intellectuals and writers — Potter, Hare, Bennett, Warnock, Miller, and some forgotten pop tunes with rude lyrics from nobodies — as if their mild criticisms come anywhere near the constant daily onslaught by the combined might of the corporate media, including such so-called allies as the Guardian and the “impartial” BBC, that Corbyn has had to endure over the past five years.

    Oh dear, one’s heart bleeds for poor Maggie, how she must have suffered, being called ‘repellant’ by Potter, ‘leaving nothing but the memory of a funny accent’ from Hare, Bennett’s stinging barb that she was ‘a kind of maiden aunt who knows all about marriage’ and Miller’s ‘loathsome, repulsive in almost every way’ — the latter at least coming within hailing distance of the vilification and personal abuse Corbyn has had thrown at him not only by right-wing political pundits and the Tory tabloid mob, but from his own MPs: Jess Phillips saying gleefully on camera that she wouldn’t stab her leader in the back, she would 'stab him in the front’.

    But even this barrage wasn’t enough. On top of it came the manufactured, bogus and skilfully orchestrated anti-semitism campaign, having no basis in reality. (Remember Dame Hodge calling him ‘a ####ing anti-semite’ to his face?)

    Perhaps Philip Hensher can remind me of Thatcher being smeared in the press as a Soviet dupe, the terrorists’ friend, a threat to national security, a spy for the eastern bloc during the Cold War. Or of senior army officers warning of a coup against her. Thatcher enjoyed the adulation of the establishment, as well as the support of nearly all the print and broadcast media. The most pointed criticism of her came in the form of satire, from Spitting Image and the pages of Private Eye.

    For Hensher to claim the treatment each received was somehow similar or of equal weight and ferocity can only come from a man who's lost touch with reality or has another agenda.

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