A Rough Guide to Tyranny

There is an over genteel style in English argument which acts like a sedative. Just when you think that a proper debate is getting going, one of the participants will say, ‘I am not sure that we’re really disagreeing.’ I am afraid I must use this tired line, if only for a moment. Matthew Teller criticises me for writing about the indulgence of dictatorships by his fellow writers in the guidebook game, by saying : ‘Guidebooks exist to help people find a room, have a meal and get a drink, with the added bonus of directions to a quiet beach or a pretty village. A paragraph or two of political background can be diverting, but you’d hardly base a world-view on what you read in your guidebook, would you? Nick Cohen, angry journalist, is savaging a paper tiger.’ That point looks familiar, I thought, and went back to my piece, where I wrote  ‘The millions of readers of Lonely Planet wish for guilt-free holidays.