I don't care if it's factually correct; does it annoy the left?
For a while now it's been clear that Nick Cohen, whilst not just yet prepared to adopt wholesale the Melanie Phillips' view of the world is adopting a kind-of "everything the left does is to be oppose in the name of left" world-view. This is useful in annoying people at Islington dinner parties, apparently, but it also leaves one open to the risk of adopting a view without really thinking it through. And to no-one's surprise he's been caught out over the IMF. I won't bore you with the article and the prevoius letters as you can get the essentials from this letter to the Independent by James Levine.Then Nick Cohen today claims it was "hurtful" for Johann Hari to call him "startlingly dishonest" after Cohen claimed Hillary Benn was with-holding £50m from the World Bank because its new head, Paul Wolfowitz, is "too tough on corruption." Yet Hari was absolutely right. Benn is withholding the money because of the privatisation conditionalities, not corruption. Cohen conspicuously failed to tell his readers about this, and clearly implied that Benn was motivated by anxieties about Wolfowitz’s corruption charges. For Cohen to shed crocodile tears now he has been called on this is a bit much.
posted by Matthew @ 9/27/2006 07:34:00 AM
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