The Observer

What is going on? I don't buy a sunday newspaper for a few months to find that in this time they've all gone crazy. Maybe I've been spending too much time looking at blogs, but the all the columnists in the Observer yesterday came across as right-wing nuts.
Cristina Odone was defending those poor souls who stand up for old-fashioned values: the Muslim fundamentalists may be right, she shrieks (in agreement with some Tory MP writing in the Spectator), Britain is a decadent and immoral society.
In a fantastically illogical move, she goes on to argue that all those right-thinking people who call for "self-restraint" and the rejuvenation of "family life" should not be lumped in with "batty fringe groups", but should instead be heard out.
Well then, if both Al-Muhajiroun and respectable middle England think that Britain is in a "Roman-style moral torpor", all sorts of new possibilities for cross-culture dialogue arise. Just imagine: retired RAF officers lending badly needed technical expertise to the terror bomb-making operation. What better way to demonstrate that we are not living in a divided society, than with torn Bibles and Qu'rans lying side by side in the debris of tube carriages and destroyed bodies.

The other column that I managed to read before being overcome by a suicidal malaise, was something by a bozo named Nick Cohen (strapline: "Without Prejudice"). He was explaining why he has abandoned the "middle-class left" for the happy idiocy of rightwingness.
Although he does point out many problems with the Labour Party and those who still think of themselves as being 'lefty' (eg, that no one actually believes in socialism), his conclusion is inexplicable.
Apart from the fact that the coveted post of such-and-such at the Spectator would be closed to him, why does he not entertain the possibility of becoming more radical?
This is a supremely good example of what might be called 'bad faith'. Cohen sets up the straw man of the 'middle-class left' because he cannot produce such witty and effective arguments against a solid and coherent leftwing position.

He complains that the anti-war movement (ie Respect) aligns itself with militant Muslim groups. There is some truth in this accusation, but I think it is a little childish of him to rely on what others think as a way of guiding his own views.

Premise 1: Those who call themselves lefties believe x and y
Premise 2: x and y are wrong
Conclusion: Therefore being leftwing is wrong
Something is very fishy here...

Party politics in a democracy is all about compromise and cooperation - and this often conflicts with attempts to be true to one's own political beliefs. Respect wouldn't be anywhere on the political map if it didn't try to appeal to one or other large group of voters, but that doesn't mean that anyone who thinks of themself as socialist should agree with this. Just because the Tory party decides to become more liberal, doesn't mean that someone who is conservative should do the same.

I'm probably wasting my breath (or finger muscles). If Cohen can convince himself that 'the left' is only composed of idealistic anti-capitalist students and liberal media-whores, then he'll be able to convince himself of just about anything.