I’d planned to do a number on Paul Johnson’s extraordinary rant against Europe, but Mark Kleiman has beaten me to it. I don’t have much to add, except to say that Johnson is a dreadful old fraud, even as superannuated Tory farts go. And his prose style is wretched; the sort of sub-Burkean lugubrious sententiousness that conservatives are liable to mistake for profundity when they’ve overdone the port a bit.
Still, there’s good news for those of you who think that Johnson’s right about Europe’s economic backwardness. Silvio Berlusconi has just launched a new marketing effort, encouraging foreigners to invest in Italy. As Berlusconi describes it:
“Italy is now a great country to invest in… today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one … Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries… superb girls.
It’s a cliche to say that you can’t make this stuff up. But you can’t. You really can’t.
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Ugh. Johnson really doesn’t improve with age, does he? For a little light relief, here is a brilliantly rude smackdown by Christopher Hitchens. It’s from the period before he too began to lurch towards Johnsonhood.
“And his prose style is wretched; the sort of sub-Burkean lugubrious sententiousness that conservatives are liable to mistake for profundity when they’ve overdone the port a bit.” Brilliant! Even almost Burko-Johnsonian-Hitchensian, perhaps. With just a dash of Hazlitt.
I’d actually thought about linking to the Hitchens smackdown (pun intended?), but thought that I was already being mean enough. Ophelia – thanks for the nice words.
Pity the American conservative, though, often a teetotaler on top of everything else, averse even to overdoing the port…
Weeeeellll, as Jeremy Paxman might wheeze, I read both pieces and if you think Kleiman did for Johnson then I can only suppose you also think the French won the battle of Waterloo. If there was any ranting in evidence it came entirely from Kleiman. Johnson’s prose by contrast was a model of clarity and brevity of sentences except for those requiring a list of examples to support his arguement. Johnson is an old man. My guess is that Kleiman is a young man. But I know which one is the windbag! David Duff
Even when Johnson allegedly offers “facts,” he turns out to be all wrong.
You missed the best bit of SB’s speech, the bit where he started boasting about low inheritance taxes with the slogan “come and die in Italy”
Didn’t actually know about that other little nugget. You got a link to it? See Naples and die how are ya.
I shit you not
Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author [arsehole – dd], Lee Kuan Yew, senior minister of Singapore [beneficent and wise father of his country, if perhaps a little inclined to litigation – dd], and Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico [arsehole – dd], in addition to Forbes Chairman Caspar W. Weinberger [arsehole – dd], are now periodically writing this column.
Wow.
“superannuated tory fart” – Brilliant
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