Right, I blame Andrew Brown for pointing me at Melanie Phillips’s Diary, which is some of the most bonkers stuff I’ve come across in a confined space for absolutely ages.
Take this post, for example, where she lauds Mark Steyn for suggesting that people who are kidnapped in Iraq and feel sure they’re about to die should whip off their hoods and shout, as did an Italian hostage earlier this year, “I’ll show you how a [insert nationality here] dies!” To quote Steyn, who is apparently as rolling-eyed as Phillips, the hostage ruined the movie for his killers. As a snuff video and recruitment tool, it was all but useless, so much so that the Arabic TV stations declined to show it.
Actually, as this article by a journalist who survived being a hostage for five days shows, Steyn’s idea is ludicrous, because when you’re a hostage there are multiple occasions when you think your number is up - and equally many when you think you’re on the verge of being freed. Recall that Ken Bigley, if the reports are accurate, actually did escape. I don’t doubt that his captors, being subtle bastards, constantly told him they were about to release him; then became vicious. It’s the tactics of torture.
I wouldn’t wish being taken hostage even on Steyn or Phillips. But certainly given that all this information is around, they could at least read it and say “oh..”
However like Ann Coulter in the US, Ms Phillips is a breathtakingly right-wing ideologue. For both her and Coulter I think the only way to properly engage them in debate is not to meet their spurious factoids head-on, but instead to incline your head to one side, put a hand to your face, and ask:
“So, Ann/Melanie, when was the last time that you conceded that a debating opponent was actually correct and you were hog-whimperingly wrong?”
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