Iain Dale’s doublespeak

By Mark Day

This post was first featured at Progress Online.

Quite a spat seems to be brewing between stalwarts of the political blogosphere Derek Draper and Iain Dale about the latter’s defense of Carol Thatcher over her sacking from the BBC for her behind the scene’s utterance of the word ‘golliwog’.

This certainly seems to be a bit of a hot button issue for Dale. In response to a blog I posted in January on Prince Harry’s now infamous use of the word ‘paki’ the Tory blogger commented to clarify his remarks about the use of the word being ‘acceptable’ in those terrible 1970s sitcoms such as Mind Your Language, before it was monopolised by the National Front as a term of hate.

I wasn’t entirely convinced by his answer then and I don’t think his defense of Carol Thatcher’s remarks is particularly convincing now. On Sunday Dale wrote an excellent rejoinder to a vile column by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail challenging the casual homophobia that seemed to belie his every word. Why, then, can’t Dale see that the same level of scrutiny ought to apply to the casual bandying about of offensive and racist terminology by overpaid celebrities?