I have absolutely no sympathy for liberals who find themselves being called ‘right-wing’

This week I would like you to share the deep pain of a liberal who has been called ‘right-wing’. This is a terrible thing to happen. It is hard to think of anything worse. There you are, being dutifully liberal all over the place and suddenly, perhaps inadvertently, you divest yourself of the opinion that — for example — Islam may, in some way, have some sort of weird, unfathomable connection to the jihadists of the Islamic State and kaboom, your credibility is blown to shreds. All of a sudden people are calling you horrible names online, like ‘right wing’. People who are quite like you calling you this. Nice, bien-pensant people with adorable views.

This has happened to a chap called Tim Lott, a journalist for one of our regional newspapers. Tim expressed his anguish in that national landfill site of educationally challenged, whining liberal anguish, the Guardian. The problem is that whenever Tim dares to venture vague and inchoate doubts about liberal orthodoxy regarding Islam or gender, to take two examples — people are absolutely horrid to him online.