Gordon Hector

3rd Mar 2011

Laurie Penny’s courting controversy when she asks ‘is it crass to compare the protests in Cairo, London, and Wisconsin?’ Unsurprisingly, it’s led to some fairly strong reactions. Have a look at the comment section, or some of the comments on twitter. It’s getting pretty angry.

 It’s certainly easy to criticise the piece. But is it really worth it?

 The question’s worth asking, partly because there are much more sophisticated, less rhetorical attempts to draw comparisons between the UK and middle east to grapple with – such as Paul Mason’s epic post here.

 But there’s a bigger danger in reacting to this sort of post.  It might be a red herring.

 It’s easy for any political group to assume its opponents are deluded. Tribalism runs deep, and so many people (and bloggers) really believe they are on the side of common sense and truth, while their opponents represent some mad minority. Distinguishing between unreasonable and credible critics and picking fights that actually matter to voters is important – as Danny Finkelstein argued today (£) we need to ‘concentrate on kitchen-table issues rather than beltway political gossip.’

 Some protestors might agree with Penny – they really might believe some sort of rich-tory-conspiracy has captured our country, that they are fighting against an oppressive government hell-bent on crushing them. But surely many more may see it in much more everyday, practical terms – a totally different, and much more important, political challenge. 

 Often, attacking something implies it’s authoritative. That’s the risk here: give too much credence to posts like this, and it’s much, much easier to assume everyone with concerns about Coalition policy has lost all sense of perspective.

 It’s easy to pile in on this sort of thing. But overreact, and you get sucked into a spat that has nothing to do with real voter concerns.