George Monbiot: professional trouble-maker, silly little man, or both?
Saturday, July 21, 2012 at 14:26
Simon Clark

Calling yourself a "professional trouble-maker" is a pretty desperate way to sell yourself.

Either that or it's a cry for help.

George Monbiot has been around for many years. He used to work for the BBC. Now he writes for the Guardian.

His name was familiar but until yesterday I had never thought to read anything he has written. (Self-proclaimed "professional trouble-makers" are a bit of a turn-off, if you ask me.)

Anyway, someone mentioned that he had tweeted about Forest's Freedom Dinner featuring James Delingpole, General Sir Mike Jackson and 150 libertarian-minded guests.

Linking to our video of the event, Monbiot tweeted:

Could this be the world's densest concentration of creeps, frauds, LM cultists and astroturfers?

Er, no, but thanks for the plug, George. Now run along, you silly little man.

Note: "LM cultists" refers (I think) to supporters of the defunct Living Marxism magazine whose non-conformist libertarianism lives on in the guise of Spiked and the Institute of Ideas.

Speakers at The Freedom Dinner included Claire Fox (Institute of Ideas) while guests included Dave Bowden and Dolan Cummings (Institute of Ideas), and Rob Lyons and Patrick Hayes (Spiked).

Clare and Patrick are both featured in the video, hence Monbiot's comment.

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