Sunday’s Observer brings an amusing tirade from Jasper Gerard, directed at Simon Jenkins – or rather Simon’s tendency to get rather worked up about the Liberal Democrats. As Gerard writes:
I enjoy a glow of familiarity whenever I read an article by Simon Jenkins on the Liberal Democrats. So last week, he dismissed Nick Clegg, their new leader, much as he had dismissed Ming Campbell and, for all anyone can remember, Archibald Sinclair and Lloyd George…
In all its essentials, the article is the same every year, explaining why Lib Dems are not worth writing about. Sometimes, it proves necessary to dust down this article more frequently if Lib Dems rudely fail to remain quite as irrelevant as he has decreed.
For the rest of the year, he regurgitates Lib Dem policies. He is rightly proud of promoting localism, but might it not remind his fans just what a big man he is if he offered a passing nod to those Liberals who were even more prescient than he? His elegant pen has attacked statist Labourism and laissez faire Toryism, just as it has adventurism in Iraq and the vagaries of transport policy.
And as Gerard points out:
At the risk of causing the great man grave offence, he [Simon Jenkins] can sound alarmingly like a Liberal Democrat.
Any volunteers to break this news to Mr Jenkins?
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Jenkins is just a prize establishment bore who still seems to think that he matters.
Disclaimer: Any resemblance between Jasper’s article and this one are entirely coincidental.
Jenkins is rather too full of himself.Anyway, as he was a great supporter of the dome project, no doubt Vince’s recent comments wound him up.
`In all its essentials, the article is the same every year, explaining why Lib Dems are not worth writing about.`
Reminds me of those homophobes that used to go on about those dreadful homosexuals for column after column. Methinks the man doth protest too much.
Not too long ago Simon Jenkins wrote an article in the Grauniad calling for the abolition of the University of London and the demolition of the 1930s Senate House.
I emailed Simon to point out: (1) the UOL had awarded me two degrees, and that my father had worked for it on a freelance basis for many years; and (2) the Senate House, though oddly brutalist, has more architectural merit than the nearby Centre Point.
Simon replied. He said that Centre Point, too, should be demolished.
We should all wish Simon Jenkins a very happy (as well as self-important)2008. He is a good and amusing writer who preaches many LibDem messages very well. Like Abou ben Adem, he is amongst the just, and does not know it. If ever he comes out of the pantry (a much more appropriate analogy than the closet, don’t you think?)and sees himself as the LibDem he is, Mrs. Clegg can ring up Cherie Blair to ask how to get to mass from Downing Street.
It is absurd that Jenkins thinks we are rubbish but he supports most of our policies.
It looks to me that his ego gets in the way of his reasoning; he likes slagging off the Lib Dems just for the sake of it.