The British Press Gets a Bit Dimmer By the Day

 
The latest news: the Wimp Brigade, better known as the British press, have booted out their best player: Mark Steyn has been cast into the outer darkness. His columns will no longer be carried by The Sunday Telegraph or The Spectator. What a compliment! And two in one day.

Here’s what Lionel Shriver of the Guardian has to say:

[L]et me rue the passing of Mark Steyn’s syndication in Britain, for his column has now been dropped by both the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. I don’t know the inside story, so I can’t be certain that the jettisoning of this notoriously conservative Canadian constitutes political self-censorship.

Thus my indignation is solely on account of my own entertainment. Fair enough, few Guardian readers would share his hard-right views. I don’t always agree with him either, but I love Mark Steyn. Even though I write them, I cannot bear most columns, which when light-hearted usually err on the trivial, and when serious usually err on the po-faced. But however you may deplore his opinions, Steyn is funny. How often do you read comment pages and laugh aloud? He writes about big issues with tremendous energy, and he has a sensibility now more pertinent to British politics than ever: a refined sense of the absurd.

Mark Steyn is “hard right”? Hmm… I must look into my Neanderthal leanings, as I am certainly much “righter” than he.

Mark Steyn is consistently the best columnist in the Anglosphere. One can only admire the easy puns, jests, and witticisms lying side-by-side with astute analysis — all in the same sentence.

Poor Britain. If we have dumbed down here in America (and we have), what can you call the dimming of the cortical connections in our foreland?

Catastrophe by baby steps?

Imagine a free country booting out an excellent writer… creepy, or what?

He is surely of more value to the world than, say, UNESCO, or whatever corrupt, crawly group has slid out from underneath the doors at the UN lately. Any monies earmarked for more white SUVs should be diverted instead to The Mark Steyn Fund.

Mr. Steyn, if we have to pass the hat to keep you writing, just let us know.


Hat tip: LGF.