Why I was wrong to call for Roger Scruton to be sacked

It’s been an interesting week. I was perhaps a little too hasty to jump in the ring and conduct what I thought was a defence of values that Tom Tugendhat and I both share. I saw him condemning what we both thought were anti-Semitic remarks, made by an individual who had previously made offensive comments I could not agree with. In fact, it turned out to be poor journalism from an individual whose social media posts afterwards revealed his motives. I was too quick to respond to partial quotes and partial information spread on social media with (it translated later) malicious intent. To this day we don’t know what he said and in what context, which is the problem.

But the hammering we’ve both had – mine worse, because I stand by my dislike of some of the things Sir Roger Scruton says – from the intellectual high priests of conservatism has been quite something.