Derek Draper should take some of his own psychotherapy. Having spent yesterday ranting at junior interns at the Taxpayers' Alliance, it seems that his Victim of the Day today is me. This is what he has just twittered...
LabourList has suspended Iain Dale from our blogroll until he clears up remarks he has made about "Golliwog" being an acceptable term.
On his pisspoor website he says this...
10.00 am Ashcroft sock puppet Iain Dale has defended Carol Thatcher and the use of the word "Golliwog". See, even the nice seeming ones are nasty underneath. On the Today programme he said Adrian Chiles must hear worse every day. No, Iain, he doesn't. Because he doesn't make a habit of hanging out with racist Tories. Until Dale thinks again we are suspending his listing on our blogroll. Come on Iain, do the decent thing and admit you got this wrong.
As my readers can imagine, I am truly bovvered. Inconsolable. Bereft. My blog won't be able to survive without the thirty visitors LabourList has sent its way. Believe me, it's his site which loses out if I don't link to it, not t'other way around. And with fewer than a thousand visitors a day, he needs all the links he can get.
There's just one thing that Derek might have to explain. Just where, exactly, have I ever said that the use of the word 'golliwog' is acceptable. Not here, and not on the Today Programme. I have indeed tried to explain why the BBC is guilty of hypocrisy and has overreacted, but that is not the same as saying the word is nowadays 'acceptable'.
The 'R' word is a very easy one to throw around as a diversionary tactic. It is totally inappropriate here, and yet again Draper looks a fool.
What a prat. Every day he devalues his site more and more.
So come on Derek, explain your accusation that I have said 'golliwog' is acceptable. It's you who owes me an apology. Not the other way around.
UPDATE: Apparently it is this sentence which Draper has latched onto, which I wrote last night...
The logic of the BBC's argument is that the very mention of the word 'golliwog' is considered racist. Utterly preposterous.
The key words here are "the very mention of the word". So context doesn't matter. It should be a non word, should it? I studied linguistics at university and one thing I did learn is that you cannot "uninvent" words. You can try to ban them, but it never works. You can make them socially unacceptable and that is what has happened with this word. It's a word I don't use either. But the point of my article was that Carol is not racist, something my co-interviewee accepted on Today, and we are told it was a jocular remark. So I completely stand by that sentence. It doesn't mean that I regard the word is acceptable, it just means that I don't agree that every time it is mentioned it implies the person saying it is racist. Otherwise there were an awful lot of racists on the 5 LivePhone In this morning.
