Friday, October 15, 2004 AD
"See no more visions! Tell us pleasant things!"
Mark Steyn's column didn't appear in the Telegraph on Tuesday, apparently because he was "away". In fact, it's because it was spiked. Steyn has posted the article, The Quality of Mersey, on his website, and it's well worth a read. Equally, I can see why the Telegraph spiked it. If I were the editor of the Telegraph, I wouldn't have touched it with a barge-pole in the current atmosphere following the murder of Ken Bigley (you'll notice this post does not quote the article at any length).
But while the tone of Steyn's piece is rather intemperate, and the timing suggests that a columnist based in New Hampshire is not best placed to judge the mood among his readers in the UK, much of what Steyn says is probably correct - which is precisely why it would have been so inflammatory to print it. In particular, Steyn's assertion that the jihadists have played the British government and public like a violin, and "will have drawn many useful lessons from the decadence and defeatism on display" in Britain during the past few weeks.
Worth comparing this article with Al's excellent post in February this year on the recent British tendency to indulge in "recreational grief". We all feel sad about the death of Ken Bigley, or anyone else who dies in such horrible circumstances, but it's self-indulgence to pretend that we are "mourning" him in anything like the same way as his family and friends are.
But while the tone of Steyn's piece is rather intemperate, and the timing suggests that a columnist based in New Hampshire is not best placed to judge the mood among his readers in the UK, much of what Steyn says is probably correct - which is precisely why it would have been so inflammatory to print it. In particular, Steyn's assertion that the jihadists have played the British government and public like a violin, and "will have drawn many useful lessons from the decadence and defeatism on display" in Britain during the past few weeks.
Worth comparing this article with Al's excellent post in February this year on the recent British tendency to indulge in "recreational grief". We all feel sad about the death of Ken Bigley, or anyone else who dies in such horrible circumstances, but it's self-indulgence to pretend that we are "mourning" him in anything like the same way as his family and friends are.
