Monday 21 April 2008

Who are the real 'defectors' from the left?

I was all set to write a riposte to David Edgar's peculiar article about left-wing 'defectors', but Andrew Anthony has saved me the trouble. Edgar's idiosyncratic list of writers who have supposedly moved to the right (when, of course, it is the left that has moved away from them) includes not only the usual suspects - Christopher Hitchens, Nick Cohen, Anthony himself, but (incredibly) Ed Husain. As Anthony says:

If you can really view someone who leaves an imperialist, anti-semitic, anti-democratic, ultra-religious party like Hizb ut-Tahrir and comes out in favour of democracy and religious tolerance as a defector moving rightwards, then it shows your political - not to mention, moral - compass is in urgent need of repair.

Oliver Kamm joins the fray here.

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