Herr Hitler again

Have just watched, courtesy of Damian T, another of those rather jolly Hitler videos, this time about the Dawker. Some bits ring quite true; for example, the bit about the sniggers in New College SCR behind the back of "Dr Bonkers". I wonder who has blown the ...

The pedophile business deserves to be put in a broader context. In this country we have just experienced a quite bizarre explosion of visceral hysteria (dittography?) about MPs and their expenses. Not so many years ago when Diana Spencer and one of her blokes got themselves killed in a car crash, Tony Blair was obliged to tell poor Brenda (as she is affectionately called in our Satire Community) that if she didn't hurry back to Buck House and grovel, he couldn't guarantee the survival of the Monarchy (I wonder if she and the Sovereign Pontiff will swop experiences in Holyroodhouse). Is there a technical name for such frightening outbursts.

Rather as in Hitler's Germany, one of the nastier facets of these episodes is the willingness of the literate classes, of academics and intellectuals, to collude in or even to stimulate the irrationality of the mob. I wonder why people whose professional methodology ought to include a scrupulosity about facticity and evidence ...