In a recent twitter spat between Jonathan Portes and the Tory MP Stewart Jackson, Douglas Carswell, another Tory MP, tweeted the following:
@SJacksonMP so I wld just ignore. Thanks to internet, we no longer need to have folk like him determine parameters of debate.
— Douglas Carswell MP (@DouglasCarswell)
I thought this was odd. A Tory MP saying that they “no longer need to have folk like” the Director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research “determine parameters of debate”. In other words “Thanks to internet” Tories can ignore people like Jonathan Portes, former Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office, and don’t need to debate them or seriously consider their opinions.
But then I thought this is basically how much of the twitter-left conducts itself today: border-policing, disavowal and ressentiment.