‘One of the people I would consider a public intellectual, for example, is David Coleman. He’s a demographer. And he’s written some very brave analysis of immigration to Britain. Some of his ideas are growing more acceptable to give voice to: asking the hard questions about what is a country, what is a culture? And he was writing about this kind of material when multiculturalism was all the rage.’

It is thoroughly awesome to see one of Britain’s brave top public intellectuals bigging up another. Discussing this brave man, cowardly so-called commentators in the lamestream media & so-called academics & such like typically get all oooh, leader-of an-indefatigably-right-wing-organisation this; all aaaah, methodological-bullshit that; all eeeeh, not-so-covert-racist-tropes-&-myths the other; all uuuuh, keen-to-use-libel-laws-to-punish-critics the rest. At least one brave novelist & political commentator, herself bravely prepared to bravely recite the sort of predictable political-correctness-mocking benefits-layabout-baiting Muslim-population-growth-phobic Cameronianism that terrifies cowards into suicidal weeping in the back of taxis driven by the bravest taxi-drivers, is bravely prepared to laud the bravery of David Coleman. 

Brave public intellectualism in Britain is brave.