Chris

You have indeed, but not in the way you think. You’ve actually rather neatly proved the point that lies behind McKenna’s opinion piece.

Yes, it is an opinion piece. Of course it adopts a certain grand polemical style. It stands in a grand British Press tradition of using this literary form to call out hypocrisy and misbehaviour. The point is, as an intelligent reader, you’re supposed to price that in and then engage with the underlying argument. And tellingly, you refused (or are unable) to do so. Ironic, given that the point you are perhaps wilfully missing is that the ‘New Left’ is characterised by an abandonment of intellectual curiosity and a refusal to engage in debate, substituting instead diktat vis a vis acceptable opinions and public behaviour.

I don’t know where you think McKenna is coming from here, but do bear in mind that Scottish public discourse is traditionally ‘Old Left’ to borrow his phrase, and at present that is rubbing hard up against the ‘New Left’ project championed in recent years by the SNP and, while in coalition, the Greens. The fault line has a particular flavour north of the border, but his analysis holds true across the UK. When the (so-called) enlightened, metropolitan left lectures the traditional working class left on how to behave and what to think, it drives votes to the BNP, UKIP, Reform, whoever. McKenna is not a shill for any of these causes by any means.