One of the nice things about having a column in The Spectator is that I get a chance to reply to all the smears and lies published about me. Which brings me to my wife’s remarks in last week’s magazine. The editor asked the partners of regular contributors to write a few words on what it’s like living with us during lockdown and Caroline was unbelievably rude. Among other things, she accused me of being a ‘complete hypochondriac’, said the pandemic had sent my anxiety levels ‘through the roof’ and ascribed my own life-and-death battle with the virus to a bout of shingles brought on by the stress.
Needless to say, this was manna from heaven for all the haters out there. Alan White, an online journalist who describes himself as ‘Lord Chief Justice of Twitter’, posted a screengrab of Caroline’s piece and the venomous comments came flooding in. ‘Venting about him in public is a service in that it will put other women off ever going near a man like this,’ wrote Liz Tray, a sub-editor at Time Out.
Spectator writers are almost never in earnest, unless it’s after midnight and we’ve been drinking
Someone else tweeted: ‘This reads like the kind of parody someone who hates Toby Young would write.’ ‘Why doesn’t she leave him?’ wondered London Lofty, a QPR fan. ‘Such an awful human being.’ Another person added: ‘Not a court in the land would convict her if…’ Richard Innes, co-host of a podcast for first-time dads, wrote: ‘Do you think “Tobe” realises he’s a laughing stock?’ But the best comment of all was: ‘Forget about the NHS. I’m clapping for Caroline at 8 p.m. next Thursday.’
When people react in this way to a piece of writing that’s obviously intended to be funny, I often wonder whether they’re just pretending to take it literally so they can use it as a stick to beat me with or they really are that tin-eared.
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