The Battle of Ideas

Reflections and gossip.

So it turns out I am incredibly famous within a small segment of SW1, assuming all the right people are there at the right time.

I am talking, of course, about the Battle of Ideas, where I was humbled and blessed to meet many fans of GB News, The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters, and The Weekly Sceptic.

Indeed, upon entering the building I was immediately greeted by a Weekly Sceptic listener who said simply: ‘I love you.’

As someone who grew up an outcast in the brutally conformist world of a northern village in the 1980s, I will accept all the love I can get.

My panel went pretty well. I was discussing dating apps with Madeline Grant, Zoe something, and an algorithmic expert called Keith.

I got lots of good laughs, though couldn’t help but think I was the villain of the piece.

Springing out of the blocks hard with my take on the ‘Pareto distribution of the global sexual marketplace’, I was mocked by some of the other panellists for my highfalutin rhetoric, and remarked that it felt like comprehensive school all over again, getting roasted by the other kids for knowing long words.

The problem is, wherever I go I tend to be smarter, funnier, and more interesting than everyone else. You’d think at the Battle of Ideas I would meet my match, but alas no.

Then it was onto the (free) drinks where I met my many groupies. All intelligent people with exemplary morals. They thanked me for my forthright views during the panel, and especially for bringing up Christianity, a rare and rebellious act in these dog days of spirituality.

I watched Liam Halligan play guitar with his actually very solid Irish band. Good tunes and even better hair.

Claire Fox was there of course, the founder of this excellent event and always great to talk to. I am touched that she invited me, and she also said I was smart despite being right wing (if one believes in such labels).

The Battle represents an extraordinary mix of political views, from pro-life Christians to Marxists, although it looks like someone needs to tell Andy Burnham.

Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM

@dr_shibley @Fox_Claire @toadmeister @acadofideas You need to break it to them, Shibs, that the battle is over. Their mad, ring-wing ideas have lost.😉

Luckily Toby was there to do just that.

Toby Young @toadmeister

@AndyBurnhamGM @dr_shibley @Fox_Claire @acadofideas The main idea behind the Battle of Ideqs is that people should be free to discuss contentious social and political issues in the public square without fear of being cancelled. I don’t think that’s a mad, right-wing idea and one I hope you support @AndyBurnhamGM.

Later—after the post-Battle drinks, and the post-drinks drinks—I was shown some compromising pictures of a prominent media figure, for reasons that remain unclear. I thought perhaps I could use them to blackmail said media figure, but then everything is so openly degenerate now that nothing is really shocking.

Throughout the course of the night I found out all sorts of things I would rather not have known, and suffered many blows to my naive and trusting world view. I am basically a nice boy from a two parent household in the countryside, and as such am continually disturbed by the venal nature of the real world.

But don’t worry, all the best people are still the best, and all were in attendance: Andrew Doyle, Leo Kearse, Winston Marshall, Lewis Schaffer, as well as those already mentioned and too many more to list.

I also met Graham Linehan again and had a good chat. I had met him before at GB News, and had no desire to harass him, but the person I was with at the time did have such a desire, so we ended up talking.

Graham is a good guy, and I found myself suddenly moved by the fact that this writer of comic genius, whose creations were such a memorable influence on my teenage years, has been reduced to fighting a squalid culture war, forced to repeatedly prove that women exist.

In a normal world he would be free to create and delight audiences, but we are not in a normal world anymore.

In other news, it is still absurdly hard to find somewhere to drink in London past 11pm. Our claims to being a ‘global city’ look faintly ridiculous in this light.

So, despite my newfound celebrity (I did the event last year and wasn’t particularly recognised, compared to this year where I was stopped so many times I missed the free food) I wandered home totally alone. Yet isn’t that the very nature of fame? Loved by the masses, but ultimately solitary.

Mainly, I am charmed and surprised by this strange corner of the culture in which I find myself residing.

I am not sure exactly what to call it. It is certainly not conservative or right wing, since many are massive lefties. It is a unique set of people who, for one reason or another, have been attacked or rejected by the mainstream. All they seem to have in common is an openness to ideas, and a refusal to go along with obvious stupidity and evil. Since the culture is so aggressively stupid and evil, this leaves a lot of open ground for reasonable people to come together.

I look forward to next year’s event, though in a way if it still exists that means there is something deficient in the culture.

But if it goes ahead I will be there, and this time I will move a lot faster for the food.