Can there be a more irritating columnist that Polly Toynbee? On a one to one basis I have to say she's rather nice, but the self-rightousness that oozes from her keyboard never fails to grate. One of my proudest moments was doing a paper review on Breakfast with Frost with her and completely skewering her on Iraq. She wasn't pleased. Anyway, the reason for all this is to alert you to a new blog dedicated to countering the Toynbee line and checking her facts for her (because Alan Rusbridger is clearly far too busy having tea with Mrs David Mills). So do visit Factchecking Pollyanna. If only to irritate her. You know you want to.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Ways to Irritate Polly Toynbee: No 94
Can there be a more irritating columnist that Polly Toynbee? On a one to one basis I have to say she's rather nice, but the self-rightousness that oozes from her keyboard never fails to grate. One of my proudest moments was doing a paper review on Breakfast with Frost with her and completely skewering her on Iraq. She wasn't pleased. Anyway, the reason for all this is to alert you to a new blog dedicated to countering the Toynbee line and checking her facts for her (because Alan Rusbridger is clearly far too busy having tea with Mrs David Mills). So do visit Factchecking Pollyanna. If only to irritate her. You know you want to.
I can't stand Toynbee, but I feel a degree of sympathy here. If her anonymus stalker is making a point over a couple of weeks or so, then fair enough, but if he or she (nah, it's bound to be a he)keeps this up for any length of time then it's all a bit creepy.
ReplyDeleteShe isn't irritating at all.
ReplyDelete'Can there be a more irritating columnist that Polly Toynbee?'
ReplyDeleteNo.
One of the most sanctimonious lefties on the planet.the book she wrote on life on the minimum wage discovered...wait for it..that life is not so easy when you're on bugger all money.
Revelation of the century,nay,millenium.
Guess what,you live in a crap place where the hoodies and the crackheads rule the roost.the cops are too busy manipulating their statistics to clean the fuckers off the streets and you get the bus to work past the pickets of lecturers demanding more money and a better pension than everyone else cos 12 weeks holiday just ain't enough when you're so stressed.
I would disagree with bebopper,it's not creepy,it's about not letting them get away with passing half truth off as fact.
The thought of La Toynbee being "skewered" has left a rather unpleasant mental image.
ReplyDeleteI may have nightmares.
Thanks Iain, I have added it to my favourites lists. Hope he keeps it up. The woman is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the liberal establishment in this country. Expose her lies I say.
ReplyDeletelast week i corrected her figures on defence spending and to be fair she did respond but she seems to think that all she utters is a self evident truth. The funniest thing is that she was social afairs editor ar the 'impartial' BBC.
ReplyDeletePolly Toynbee is extremely useful. She is the domestic equivalent of the Quai d'Orsay, i.e. if you agree with her then there is something seriously wrong. Luckily, there aren't many times when I do agree with her.
ReplyDeleteSurely its Potty Toynbee
ReplyDeleteI'll go along with Brent - she acts as my reverse political compass. I also find that reading her columns does a fabulous job of keeping my blood pressure up.
ReplyDeletePollyphobes might want to revisit the thread about her at Order-order from a few weeks back.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say she is a nice enough person. I met up with her at the Conservative party conference 1997 in Blackpool; she was staying at the same hotel.
But then she wrote that woeful book with David Walker, Did Things Get Better? (Which I bought out of morbid curiosity, from Politico’s) what a load of s**t!!!!
So more power to “Factchecking Pollyanna” I’ll be visiting that one.
Anyone who believes that taxes in this country are too low is completely mad - ie. Polly, Gordon Brown and the Lib Dems.
ReplyDeleteCan there be a more irritating columnist than Polly Toynbee? Yes, just a few suggestions:
ReplyDeletea) Johann Hari (especially when he's talking utter b*llocks about Northern Ireland, or being taken in by Hugo Chavez) It's time his fellow Indy journalists started a cliche box for every time he uses the phrase 'And yet..And yet' (or even 'And yet. And yet') I loved the way his employer was forced to issue a grovelling apology for Hari's misrepresentation of Peter Oborne re. asylum seekers (at least ones from Zimbabwe).
b) that greasy haired, plummy-voiced, sanctimonious, clever fool, know-it-all Trotskyite sh*tbag Seumas Milne
c) the seriously unfunny Mark Steel, the man whose jokes come from the same laboured midnight oil school as the increasingly sanctimonious Rory Bremner (whose Crouch End dinner party view of the world becomes ever more precious and self-parodying).
d) Melanie Philips, for reasons best summed up by Craig Brown's lovely parody 'It makes you weep' in the Eye a while back
e) Amanda Platell, whose New Statesman column was one long 'kiss up, kick down' exercise, where she tried to suck up to people who could give her a job, while mounting vicious and witless personal attacks on the likes of Wayne Rooney's girlfriend. She was also utterly crap on that 'Crisis command - could you run the country' programme.
But Chris, don't you realise that taxes are still lower than in Sweden and that, if only the UK was more like Sweden, everything would be perfect? So sayeth Polly....
ReplyDelete