This exchange on David Waring's Twitter page caught my eye:
Nick Dancer is a student, and like most students is feeling his way in social media forums and trying to engage with others (in this case political activists). Foolish you might say, but harmless and innocent. He is also, at this moment in his life, a UKIP supporter - again foolish (in my opinion) but again harmless and innocent (another few months he will be trying out the Socialist Workers and a few months after that renouncing all political activity and telling people he is a citizen of the world and a vegetarian Buddhist).
Independent journalist Owen Jones responds in a good-natured way to Nick Dancer's gauche remarks.
David Waring, (Write for The Guardian, New Statesman and others. Co-editor of New Left Project) intervenes and tells Owen Jones "Starve this troll".
Appalling bad manners, but no worse than many other Twitter comments (and in any case the New Left will regard manners as a bourgeois affectation).
But I think it is more than just bad manners.
Instead of simply saying "ignore him and he will go away" David Waring chooses to dehumanise the student as a "troll" (a form of monster) and then use the emotive word "starve".
Perhaps I am reading too much into this (I am often accused of over-analysing things).
But is this not a classic hard-left reaction?
The enemies of the left must be dehumanised and starved.
It happened in Russia in the 1920s, it happened in China in the 1950s, it is happening in North Korea today.
That is why socialists like David Waring must never get into positions of power.
But there is a postscript...
Checking Nick Dancer's Twitter site I see that Owen Jones has indeed taken David Waring's advice and blocked the student.
Owen Jones has disappointed me - I thought he was better than this.
And what is the svengali-like influence that David Waring is able to exert over Owen Jones?
If David Waring told him to jump in the Thames would he go and do so?
Nick Dancer is a student, and like most students is feeling his way in social media forums and trying to engage with others (in this case political activists). Foolish you might say, but harmless and innocent. He is also, at this moment in his life, a UKIP supporter - again foolish (in my opinion) but again harmless and innocent (another few months he will be trying out the Socialist Workers and a few months after that renouncing all political activity and telling people he is a citizen of the world and a vegetarian Buddhist).
Independent journalist Owen Jones responds in a good-natured way to Nick Dancer's gauche remarks.
David Waring, (Write for The Guardian, New Statesman and others. Co-editor of New Left Project) intervenes and tells Owen Jones "Starve this troll".
Appalling bad manners, but no worse than many other Twitter comments (and in any case the New Left will regard manners as a bourgeois affectation).
But I think it is more than just bad manners.
Instead of simply saying "ignore him and he will go away" David Waring chooses to dehumanise the student as a "troll" (a form of monster) and then use the emotive word "starve".
Perhaps I am reading too much into this (I am often accused of over-analysing things).
But is this not a classic hard-left reaction?
The enemies of the left must be dehumanised and starved.
It happened in Russia in the 1920s, it happened in China in the 1950s, it is happening in North Korea today.
That is why socialists like David Waring must never get into positions of power.
But there is a postscript...
Checking Nick Dancer's Twitter site I see that Owen Jones has indeed taken David Waring's advice and blocked the student.
Owen Jones has disappointed me - I thought he was better than this.
And what is the svengali-like influence that David Waring is able to exert over Owen Jones?
If David Waring told him to jump in the Thames would he go and do so?
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