Tuesday 21 July 2015

Class Trip: Should Labour Go After The "Bogan Vote"?

Cries From The Heart: That young working-class males, growing up in the post-1984 era, were often gripped by feelings of extreme frustration, resentment, anger, worthlessness and despair is hardly surprising. Socially, they appeared to have lost all value; politically, they had become invisible – and utterly without champions.
 
CAN LABOUR WIN the “Bogan Vote”? Should it even try? Seriously, if going after the votes of “Waitakere Man” is considered bad, then pursuing the Bogan Vote must, surely, be worse? And yet, at one time, the in-work, well-remunerated, union-dues-paying, domestically-settled, family man – and his sons – constituted the heart and soul of the Labour vote. Indeed, so irrevocably gendered was the New Zealand working-class vote that the poet, James K. Baxter, made humorous reference to it in his otherwise bleak suburban tragedy, Calvary Street:
 
Where two old souls go slowly mad,
National Mum and Labour Dad.
 
In 2015, however, Baxter’s stereotype seems all wrong. Fifty years after the publication of Calvary Street it is Dad who votes for National and Mum who (maybe) votes for Labour. In 2015, the self-employed, well-remunerated, domestically-settled, family man – a.k.a Waitakere Man – is much more likely to vote for the Right than the Left. His children, if they bother to vote at all, probably do the same.
 
Bogans are very different from, and should never be confused with, the offspring of Waitakere Man. Waitakere Man represents working-class New Zealand males on an upward socio-economic trajectory. Bogans, by contrast, represent working-class New Zealand males on the socio-economic skids. They are the blokes – especially the young blokes – who struggle to find and remain in even the most poorly-paid employment. Their domestic situations tend towards the precarious. They rent rooms – not houses – and struggle to both make and retain strong social connections. That’s why mateship is so crucial to the Bogan identity; especially mateship built around sporting allegiances and motor vehicles.
 
The fathers and grandfathers of 21st Century Bogans were the men for whom the fully employed, compulsorily unionised, welfare state was, primarily, constructed. Men of modest educational attainment and limited ambition who were able, nevertheless, live full and rewarding lives under the state’s (and their union’s) protection. These were the men who worked for the state-owned Post Office and Railways; whose families occupied state houses; whose award-wages kept them, if not in luxury, then, at least, in reasonable comfort. They were also the Labour Party’s most loyal supporters. That it was Labour, in the person of Roger Douglas, who destroyed their world and cast them and their families onto the scrapheap, is the defining Bogan betrayal.
 
To the sons of these men, growing up in the 1980s and 90s it must have seemed as if the “new” New Zealand cared about everybody except them and their dads.
 
Maori were in the middle of a “renaissance”. Multi-million-dollar “Treaty Settlements” were being signed. For the coming generations of Maoridom there would be university scholarships and trade-training programmes. New business enterprises were planned, and special housing schemes. Things were looking up – if you were Maori.
 
For women, too, all paths appeared to lead upward and onward. At school, the Bogan boys’ female class mates were constantly being told that “Girls can do anything!” And with the top posts of Governor-General, Chief Justice, Prime Minister and CEO of New Zealand’s largest company all held by women, that inspirational feminist slogan seemed no idle boast.
 
For young, working-class blokes without tertiary qualifications or readily marketable skills, however, inspirational slogans were in short supply. The two great institutions which working-class New Zealanders had constructed to protect and advance their interests: the trade union movement and the Labour Party; were no longer able or willing to do so. Labour had been taken over by Thatcherite ideologues in the early 80s. And, in 1991, the public sector unions had voted down the call for a General Strike against the Employment Contracts Bill. Not that it was the unions of the public servants, teachers and nurses which were about to be decimated by National’s union-busting legislation. That fate was reserved for the unskilled and semi-skilled workers of the private sector. Within a decade, barely one private-sector worker in ten remained unionised.
 
That young working-class males, growing up in the post-1984 era, were often gripped by feelings of extreme frustration, resentment, anger, worthlessness and despair is hardly surprising. Socially, they appeared to have lost all value; politically, they had become invisible – and utterly without champions.
 
Indeed, the opposite appeared to be true. More and more, the Bogans began to hear themselves described in the most derogatory terms. Expressions imported from the USA – like “rednecks” and “white trash” – entered the vocabulary of the Bogans’ middle-class detractors. In a Labour Party almost entirely purged of its working-class membership, the people who had once constituted the very heart of its electoral support were increasingly regarded as the natural enemies of the party’s new, upwardly-mobile, and socially-liberal apparatchiks.
 
Only very occasionally, did the Bogans become visible to the rest of New Zealand. Denied anything even remotely resembling the ennobling narratives available to Maori and women, they had become little more than the butt of stand-up comedic humour. With their mullet haircuts and Metallica T-Shirts, the best they could hope for was to be treated as a colourful Kiwi sub-culture – something akin to the outcast “Juggalo” movement in the United States.
 
And then in 2003, Possum Bourne died. The rally-car champion had been a hero to tens-of-thousands of Bogan “petrol heads” and they turned out in vast numbers to bid him farewell. It was a poignant reminder of just how many young New Zealanders lived below the radar of a society obsessed with wealth and “winning”. Like the huge Pasifika turn-out for Jerry Collins, 12 years later, Possum Bourne’s mourners were emblematic of a New Zealand routinely ignored, even denigrated, by those with the power to keep the spotlight aimed exclusively at themselves.
 
So, yes, I believe that Labour should try to win the “Bogan Vote”. Not only because, having ignored them for 30 years, Labour owes them – big time. But also because Neoliberalism will never be defeated by the social groups it lifted up, only by those it cast down.
 
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 20 July 2015.

38 comments:

Richard McGrath said...

Chris, isn't it rather insulting to assume Bogans are so incapable of bettering their lives that they need the Nanny State to hold their hands and put them into dead-end make-work 'employment' that gives them an inflated estimation of their productivity?

jh said...

How do we know how groups think in an environment where expression is so tightly controlled?

jh said...

One aspect you avoid Chris is nationalism. Nationalism is the dirty word, the bad habit, it's proponents well and truly given a thumping by John Campbell's journalists and a stake through the heart in the academic institutions.
The arrival of large numbers of people from a different ethnicity, culture etc can be perceived as competition for resources (national ownership) with nothing in return but assurances that it is "good for the economy"

Would Black Power have given Muldoon a fair well haka today??

Nick J said...

Love it Chris, a cry from the wilderness for those who you say have only mate-ship tying them together. I will look upon boy racers and petrol heads with new eyes, that's the first time I have heard this group of people spoken of with kind understanding. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I believe that Labour should study the National party for inspiration. They should also stop right now their racist ranting. They must stop union control of their leadership elections, They must base their party on merit and not on gender. They should have people who are credible in the portfolios they represent IE Grant Robertson as shadow finance minister is a countrywide LOL appointment. They must stand up to the PPTA and endorse charter schools, that will give them some principle if things are not going well at any of the schools. They need to get rid of old rotting wood entrenched in their framework. They should stop pretending they are socialists and listen more to MPs who have actually WON their seats in Parliament IE Stuart Nash, Damien O'Connor and Kelvin Davis. They should start to realise that they were rorted when they supported the introduction of MMP, Labour does not understand MMP and have never understood it. I stopped voting for Labour two elections ago, I want to go back to Labour but I cannot trust them with running a modern forward job creating and expanding economy, could you?

aberfoyle said...

Dear me Anonymous,are you at heart just a Party hoping undecided voter those that decide not on Party loyalty but just selfish need and the Party with what offers you the most you vote for.How progressive is corporate capitalism Governance that has seen their control of N.Z.and their governing Labour laws return N.Z.back one hundred years.OR when corporation investment demands state tax monied assistance or tax incentives for their investing in N.Z.feudal system comes to mind.

Davo Stevens said...

Think for one minute about the Wage-earners, the people employed on a per hour pro rata basis. It may come as a surprise that they make up the bulk of our workforce.

They are the ones who clean the table after we have had our lattes, they are the ones who stock the shelves in the supermarkets, they are the ones who work the check-outs, they clean the streets, collect our rubbish, clean our offices and make the tea etc. Without them our society would not operate and we would be buried in our own crap! They are the very people who suffer the most when we stuff things up. Yet, whilst they make up the majority of all workers there is no political party that supports them in any way, shape or form. Labour used to do so but not now.

I have said since I arrived here that Labour needs to go back to supporting those people who are so crucial for our society and economy, their grassroots

. Anon above said that Labour didn't know how to work MMP -- WRONG! Helen was adept at it and that's why she stayed in for three terms. She targetted the Academics mostly.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"put them into dead-end make-work 'employment' that gives them an inflated estimation of their productivity? "

As opposed to the situation today, where they have no employment and no sense of self-worth at all?

Brendan McNeill said...

Chris

That’s brilliant.

Bogans are the one identity group that Labour has failed to embrace, failed to reach out to, failed to bring into the party fold. Just imagine, alongside the Gays, Lesbians, Transgendered, Trade Unionists, Feminists, Pacifica, Maori, Muslim and the Partially Able, will sit Parliament’s newly elected Bogan.

Their first Private Members Bill might be to roll back the repressive ‘boy racer’ legislation introduced by that female bastion of working class oppression ‘crusher Collins’.

Yes there are risks, Bogan speeches may be shorter than Parliament is used to, and may contain words that require translation or recantation. The whips will be kept busy enforcing some semblance of dress code, but the votes Chris, the votes!

It’s a masterstroke, and it may be all Labour needs to secure its place as Parliament’s primary opposition party for a very long time to come.

Your challenge might be to get the chosen Bogan high enough up the party list to ensure their place in the nations legislature. However, by positioning them as the identity group most discriminated against, the one most lacking representation, you might just pull it off, particularly if they were female, Lesbian, Feminist and devoutly Muslim.

Anonymous said...

But Anonymous at 13.49 on 21 July, there is already a party the perfectly fits at least 90% of what you describe, it's called the National Party. And 47% of people voted for it. Why would people not continue to vote for the real thing, than a blue rinse Labour, and what of the voters Labour would then shed?

Chris - provocative. I agree that there is a large group here. I'm a grown up petrol head myself. Labour grew some balls last week, question is whether it can carry through all the way, drop the whole identify politics thing altogether and just get back to class interest, whether you be brown, white, green, male, female, abled or disabled - if you are not one of life's winners, or you are but support a society that makes provision for those who aren't, then a staunch Labour free of the identity baggage, with renewed clarity, would be a breath of fresh air.

pat said...

so you'll be supporting that paragon Trump then Brendan?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Brendan obviously feels that government should be run by and for old white man :-). What a coincidence! Got news for you Brendan. Everyone is entitled to some form of representation. Maybe not so much these days, because the government is run by old white men.

Anonymous said...

Chris, isn't it rather insulting to assume Bogans are so incapable of bettering their lives that they need the Nanny State to hold their hands and put them into dead-end make-work 'employment' that gives them an inflated estimation of their productivity?

A bit less insulting than assuming that actively screwing over an entire class of people (and their kids) in favour of a banking elite is somehow good for them.

Patrick said...

Jeez Chris, Labour left the blue collar workers - or bogans as you call them - behind long long ago. Bogans don't recognise the academics, LGBT and feminists etc that run the Labour Party and Labour don't want them or their unenlightened attitudes or their espousing unreconstructed and uneducated opinions. As an ex bogan (ha once a bogan always a bogan) I thought the article was very condescending and you along with the rest of the left have no idea who they are or how to communicate with them. Chalk and cheese really eh.

Anonymous said...

Patrick , well said and well done.

Nick J said...

Brendon, is that not a little condescending to "bogans"? You quite rightly however blow apart the whole identity group notion. Chris did not go as far as to state that these identities exist on the promotion of the perception of disadvantage. Except once their fight is won they are no longer disadvantaged, (although you would never know as ideologues don't understand ceasefires).

To the neo lib project identity politics is fine and dandy. Its divide and conquer. Labour could counter by just going for the groups with the numbers and bugger the rest. Is that what this reduces to?

Unknown said...

"Stop being racist" is code for "don't interfere with the property industry or " I want to see more people like me here". Does anyone detect ethnic nepotism in the defenders of the Chinese house buyer issue? Un less I missed it I haven't seen "sorry for buying more houses than any other group".

jh said...

Why characterize lost voters as bogans. Why not just put new Zealanders interests first.

SWG Report:
The Government’s role
Clearly, there are serious questions to be asked about New Zealand’s economic policy and how we got into this mess. Why was it not better designed and managed, and more focussed, coordinated and strategic? Did the electorate simply get what it voted for, without realising what was really happening, or have New Zealanders not been well served over the years?
//
- Serious consideration of the impact of the level and variability of immigration on national saving, and the impact that this might have on the living standards of New Zealanders. There are indications that our high immigration rate has pushed up government spending, house prices and business borrowing.

http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/reviews-consultation/savingsworkinggroup/pdfs/swg-report-jan11.pdf

jh said...

" LGBT and feminists etc that run the Labour Party and Labour don't want them or their unenlightened attitudes or their espousing unreconstructed and uneducated opinions"
.......
Vancouver’s experience is probably like Canada’s on the whole. Trudeau brought in multiculturalism by federal directive in the 70s (“Although there are two founding peoples there is no founding culture…” and that mirrored Laurier before him…) Then in 1982, multiculturalism was enshrined in the Charter. Then in the mid-80s a Conservative PM enacted the “Multiculturalism Act”.
Now in Canada’s large cities it’s somewhat amusing to hear people speaking English. Fourth generation Canadians are seen as an amusing relic. Do you eat roasts? Do your parents wear sweaters to dinner and talk about classical music, ha ha ha?
The reality is that in NZ, the hegemony of Anglo Saxon culture refuses to die. The Interfaith dialogue was a fantastic example of that. Also, we never had (much) immigration from Central, Eastern or Southern Europe. We still treat South Africans and Poms as “one of us”.

http://publicaddress.net/speaker/what-diversity-dividend/

Richard McGrath said...

Anonymous at 18:21 said:

Chris, isn't it rather insulting to assume Bogans are so incapable of bettering their lives that they need the Nanny State to hold their hands and put them into dead-end make-work 'employment' that gives them an inflated estimation of their productivity?

A bit less insulting than assuming that actively screwing over an entire class of people (and their kids) in favour of a banking elite is somehow good for them.



So Bogans should keep taking the blue pills?

jh said...

I think the bogans would be the intellectual equal of the multiculturalists and their simplistic "it all boils down to racism" view of the world. just arm them with a bit of a grounding in evolutionary psychology and the flaws in the Standard Social science Model. It isn't any harder to under stand than the working od a PCV valve?

Chris Trotter said...

Well, Patrick, if I've got it wrong, then why don't you set me right?

Or, is it easier to dismiss someone attempting to address an issue which nobody else seems even vaguely interested in addressing as "condescending"?

You tell us you were/are a Bogan. Well then, by all means, fill us in on the socio-political experience of Boganhood.

Unknown said...

Why do residents get the vote that is too generous?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Jesus JH, I keep going to those links you provide in reading spoonly's articles, and I can't see how you get what you do from them. Assuming that I'm correctly interpreting what you get from them which isn't easy as you don't write particularly clearly. That link you sent seems to indicate that Spoonly is desirous of minorities being included more in government and business. So either you're posting random links, or you're completely misunderstanding what he says. I'm tempted to ring him up – being a Massey student – on some excuse or other and ask him about this, because I think you've got the whole thing arse to backwards.

Jigsaw said...

You have those rosy glasses out yet again Chris! Obviously you don't recall anything prior to 1958 when I was 17 - your created memory of that era has little relation to what I recall and it was a very working class area that I grew up in. People were honest and hardworking in general-scarred by the depression and their own lack of education, they clung to jobs that often were beneath their abilities. I don't recall then or even in looking back now that there were more than a few working class families who didn't wish for a better life for their kids and knew that education was the key. Bogans by their very nature don't wish for that for their kids. They don't bother to vote by and large because basically they don't give stuff -about anything like politics and tend to live for the minute-or even out to the next week. Be a great idea to interview some and ask them what they think (in any terms at all) about people like Jacinda Adern or Grant Robertson. Do try. You could print it and use the * where required.

greywarbler said...

Good one Chris. I was vaguely aware that there must be a large group who would still feel bruised by being dropped out of Nanny's elegant pram but you have described them so well, the situation is fully believable.

The better babies have wheeled on, comforted by the invisible hand of the state giving them goodies (but sugar free because that is unhealthy) and expensive medical care, education etc. In short every opportunity they had the wit to take, and the background, and culture of moving up and grasping opportunities has eased their way.

The others who aren't so fast on their feet have wheeled on into cars that roar around streets and parks. The car driving and mechanical interest provides some excitement and generates group-think. They organise engineering lowering the bodies. In the absence of people raving about supporting them as they have about our yachties they generate their own group enthusiasm and are prepared for hostility to their interests, not support. Some paint tags on fences which is annoying to property owners, and has led to murder. So they're unpopular usually in their activities, not lauded as valued citizens.

The resident RW who perches on your roof and cracks nuts on every new blog needs to understand that all governments support their wealthy citizens, and often those from other countries too. That's not called nanny-stateing though. That's wise investment etc. Well our young people, men and women, need to push past the Complacency Curtain to find an outlet for their energies in a job. That should be one, or even two (with no grinding secondary tax to pay) that they can manage satisfactorily for a useful weekly wage, with opportunities to learn new skills and move to more senior, skilled jobs if they apply themselves. Then NZ will get somewhere worthy of our aspirations as a 'developed' country. Present developments are not moving in positive directions.

As you say Chris, it is Maori hoisting themselves from the doldrums, with effort, while trying to avoid investment crushing traps, who are the truly dynamic game-changers. They have laboured, lobbied and advocated in a long and determined way to achieve recompense and they have only achieved this because they have cohesed as a group to match the government group nose to nose. If the dispossessed young (from their jobs and expected life in a 'developed' country) are to be helped they must too work with advocates to match those disinterested government and wealth leaders sipping lattes and vino behind the Complacency Curtain.

Patrick said...

In my opinion Chris the Labour Party consists mainly of academics and public service workers along with a smattering of the "New Working Class" who are really just the old blue-collar workers now wearing suits and working as cannon fodder on Featherston Street and The Terrace with few prospects and even less hope. Unless they are young of course in which case they will probably support the Greens. Labour has moved so far from its roots that it would need a blacktracker and a bloodhound to find its way back to the "bogan"working class and if they did find their way back they would both despise each other anyway.
The party you love Chris is unfortunately heading in the same direction as RSA's and for the same reason.

pat said...

when discussing "going after the bogan vote" i fear you slip into the trap of simplistic stereotyping....consider "the Maori vote"...if such simplistic stereotyping was valid then before the advent of Mana, the Maori party would have been polling 14 or 15%....and obviously they were not...like most things in life there are more than 50 shades of black jeans.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

In 30+ years of working with working class parents and their kids, I think I've only come across one parent who didn't want something better for their kids. Including gang members. In 10 years of living in Kelston, where I was essentially brought up, I don't think I met any. There might be some. But what I suspect jigsaw does is to take one or two people he sees on television, and extend it to stereotype all those people he doesn't like.

jh said...

@ Guerilla Surgeon

Now in Canada’s large cities it’s somewhat amusing to hear people speaking English. Fourth generation Canadians are seen as an amusing relic. Do you eat roasts? Do your parents wear sweaters to dinner and talk about classical music, ha ha ha?
The reality is that in NZ, the hegemony of Anglo Saxon culture refuses to die.


The quote was from the comments.

I was using the quote in relation to the political beliefs of Labour (?) members.

What I'm saying is that those sort of views are a mile away from what mainstream NZ are likely to approve of (and rightly so) and involve differences over important issues such as population (Spoonley thinks we are in danger of dying out)

Spoonley's linkages are a two edged sword as we are seeing in Auckland where people fiddle on Ipads at Auckland's auctions. Japan has done very well as a trading nation without importing heaps of other cultures.

If you phone Spoonley ask him what his basis is for saying: PAUL – Well, Auckland – there’s an agglomeration effect, so the bigger Auckland becomes, there more attractive it becomes. It becomes more attractive economically, but it also becomes more attractive as a place to live.

Q+A
JESSICA MUTCH INTERVIEWS PAUL SPOONLEY
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1207/S00280/qa-jessica-mutch-interviews-paul-spoonley.htm

also would you ask him how racism came to NZ with British colonization in light of new thinking in evolutionary psychology?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Jesus JH, you've been constantly putting links to Spoonly in your comments and I'm now supposed to believe that you don't believe in what he says? I'm sorry, that's a reflection on your confused mind – or confused way of writing. Or are we just supposed to read the comments? Because normally they're fairly loopy.

Jigsaw said...

Ad hominem yet again GS but of course you really believe that your arguments are superior. I merely noted that growing up in the 1040's and 1950's working class people in general and in my experience-obviously not as wide and as well observed as your own of course............wanted better for their children and set about getting them a better education-usually be getting them some time at secondary school or as with my mother insisting on a career in the public service. Most people's children did do better. This is hardly apparent with gang members. They might observe casually that they want better for their children but without the necessary sustained effort this has about as much validity as a wish for KFC later. Your observation about my watching TV and making an opinion has about validity as your own opinions and hardly deserve a reply.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Jigsaw, you have to really look up ad hominem. I merely suggested a method by which you might gather information. I'm sorry you take that as a personal attack. To me, it was merely a suggestion that you lack the experience necessary to judge today's poor. But then, you go and make it worse by suggesting you know about gang members. I wonder how many you've come into contact with and asked about their ambitions for their children?
You also ignore the whole economic milieu. People in the 50s knew that their kids could better themselves, people in the 50s had the money to provide resources for the kids so that they could better themselves, and education was essentially free. Nowadays the opposite is true. People have been generationally unemployed, and people have grown fairly cynical, and perhaps less ambitious – but they also don't necessarily have the resources for a "sustained effort". Even so, they still want their kids to do better. I know this because I have talked to hundreds if not thousands of them. Where do you get your evidence from? You see, that's why my ideas on this topic are better than yours.

Jigsaw said...

I have and you do-constantly attack in this way. I doubt that you are sorry that you personally attack and I suggest that you enjoy it in some perverse way. I think that you are well aware of what you do. You are entitled to your opinion just as I am to mine-it is the opinions that should be debated not the persons who make them. You obviously have great trouble making the distinction between what people say they want and what they actually do. Life was never easily on the 1950's but people were prepared to help themselves and their families in all sorts of ways. People still do but I would suggest to a lesser degree than back then. Money was easily as short then as it now -maybe even more so. I see little point in continuing this discussion as you don't want discussion just your opinion to prevail-however wrong!

jh said...

Bryce Edwards demystifies the Labour Party
“Absolutely, there is a wider disconnect between what he said and what the wider public think. Among the Labour Party and liberal left in NZ there are two ideologies that are really important to them and that's this ideology of identity politics and rape culture. Political threat lists or identity politics is where what you are (man or women, gay your ethnicity) is more important than what you say and do. Rape culture holds that collectively there is this misogynist attitude amongst males that enables others to rape and commit crime."
http://www.3news.co.nz/Panel-Willie-Jackson-Bryce-Edwards--Trish-Sherson/tabid/1348/articleID/351457/Default.aspx

What would a bogan think of that?

jh said...

Blogger Guerilla Surgeon said...

Jesus JH, you've been constantly putting links to Spoonly in your comments and I'm now supposed to believe that you don't believe in what he says? I'm sorry, that's a reflection on your confused mind – or confused way of writing. Or are we just supposed to read the comments? Because normally they're fairly loopy.
...
in that case the commenter seemed quite informed.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Jigsaw, you constantly say you have no interest in replying to me, yet you constantly do. I'm pretty much happy either way as long as you make up your mind. I repeat, I have not attacked your character. Your interpretation of ad hominem whatever that is, is wrong. Perhaps it's because your personality is so tied up in your ideas you can't debate them rationally. I have constantly said that you are entitled to your opinion. I have also constantly said that it should be an informed one. Yours usually isn't. Case in point, you have offered absolutely no evidence for your point of view. Except assertion. At least I have some evidence, although it's anecdotal – but I have actually as I said, talked to hundreds if not thousands of working class parents, including those of gang members.
And your ideas about the 1950s – I don't see where you get that from. There was pretty much full employment for a start. How could money have been as short as it is today? I paid a risible sum for my university education, a damn sight less then we're paying for our son's education anyway. And medical treatments were also essentially free. There was the family benefit, which could be capitalised on to buy a house. (Not to mention that benefits of constantly been degraded by various governments.)
Why don't you try replying to the substantive parts of my argument instead of just asserting the opposite.
Incidentally, suggesting that I enjoy "personally attacking" you in some "perverse way" – now that is ad hominem. Because it speaks to my character – about which you know fuck all.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Maybe JH, but sorting out which comment you mean is not at all simple. Why don't you just quote the comments? And maybe explain their context. There's no point in posting a link to a column and expecting us to mind read what you mean. I'm not sorting through dozens of comments to find the one you particularly like. I'm still quite happy to follow your links, but maybe if you provided a bit more information about them it might make it a bit easier. After all, I've mistakenly assumed that you are a fan of Prof Spoonley. And been totally puzzled by that. If you'd been a bit more forthcoming I would have realised that perhaps you aren't. I'm still not sure mind.