I got deleted on the Guardian CIF forum today ...

[non sociopath skin]

... for suggesting that it was time that Julian Glover should be writing for the Mail or the Torygraph.

Am I the only one who sees him as being in the Aaronovitch/Phillips Mode?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

1. No, you're not the only one.

I can't stand the bloke!

Though (going into perhaps too much detail) I think it's almost unfair to Aaronovitch to compare him with Glover, and a bit unfair on Glover to compare him with Phillips. Aaronovitch is a Blairite, a hawkish-neocon type, disgusting on foreign policy, but not so revolting on economic and other domestic issues. He endorsed Labour in May, even if rather grudgingly. Glover clearly has no time for Labour, and is only prepared to tolerate the LibDems as long as their leadership remains up Dave's rear end. Glover unlike Phillips does not seem to be an extreme social conservative or anti-secularist (and the one thing that I could find out about him is that he is in a civil partnership with Matthew Parris - which makes it unlikely that he shares Phillips' homophobia).

But he is an extreme right-libertarian on economic issues, as hawkish in the war on the poor as Aaronovich is on the war in Iraq. While some of his articles are just woffly, some, such as the one recently posted here, exult in the thought of a fanatical ideological 'rolling back of the state' (read 'removal of any protection for the poor or otherwise vulnerable). He makes me ill, to be frank. I'm surprised that he writes for the Guardian - but at one point, my fave (:sarcasm:) Tim Montgomerie was also writing for CiF, needless to say attracting a lot of hostility.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I'd never even noticed him

Perhaps sharing a name with a better-known actor has given him a low profile. According to this, he was The Guardian's chief leader writer until January this year. :shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

3. I thought it was the actor too at first, and was very puzzled

[T_i_B]

6. Same here!

Mind you, I'm not bothering with CiF articles so much these days. You have to wade through reams of dross about irrelevant lifestyle issues before you get anywhere near a halfway decent article I find.

[Nihil]

4. Yeah well that's because you're a disruptive b*st*rd ...

:P

[mackerel]

5. They have to keep the dissenters in line.

[non sociopath skin]

7. Busted!

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

The Skin

[T_i_B]

8. Well today's garbage kinda proves you you're saying

Utter, utter tripe from start to finish.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/10/left-equality-fair-society-rightwing

[fedsron2us]

9. Should have stuck to acting

My mistake this is the Julian Glover who is Matthew Paris' partner not the bloke who played General Maximilian Veers in the Empire Strikes Back. Seems to me Glover the journalist shares Paris Tory views.

nb - I met Glover the actor many years ago through his involvement with a company called Powergirls Ltd ( and before anyone asks they do in store demos and promotions not provide muscly women as Escorts)

http://www.powergirls.co.uk/about-powergirls.asp

[T_i_B]

10. And lo and behold.....

Glover is David Cameron's new speechwriter.

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/36967/cams_new_sam_seaborne_julian_glover.html

[non sociopath skin]

11. Remember you heard it first on Radio Skin

:headbang:

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

12. Not surprised

BTW Tim Montgomerie and the other nutters at Conservative Home are ranting with fury about how Cameron - whom they regard as a wet anyway - has appointed this man from the Evil Guardian, to promote bad things like gay marriage and avoid doing good things like armed revolution against the EU (OK, I'm exaggerating but only slightly).

However, I'd say that Glover is about to fall off the RW side of the world. He fervently demands the cuts and the NHS sell-off, oops, I mean reform. And even wrote an article that was headed: 'Yes, the coalition wants to smash the state. That's good' and approvingly stated 'This is an ideological government with a plan for a smaller, less centralised and more liberal state. The left dreads the obvious fact that spending cuts are central to this plan – and they are. The left senses that the government is staging a cultural revolution against social democracy – and it is. The coalition does not want to make mild adjustments to the old order. It intends to smash it.'

I really really really HATE such people!

[Dutch]

13. That's the irony- Glover is a hardline right-wing Thatcherite shithead

As your quotes illustrate brilliantly, his only supposed "progressive" qualification is having written for the Grauniad- which says far more about the depth of that newspaper's left-leaning credentials than it does about Glover.

Of the Graun-luminaries who brought about the endorsement of Clegg and subsequently contributed towards the election of one of the most right-wing governments in this country's modern history, most acted purely out of stupidity. Martin Kettle acted out of deranged anti-Brown spite. Glover, the only one of them with a brain, did it because he knew it would help put the Tories in power.

But the whole coalition is testament to the fact that Cameron is a master of putting an entirely bogus sheen of moderation over the most crackpot of right-wing policies.