Richard Addis, former Daily Express editor and ex-Daily Mail executive, has launched a passionate defence of Paul Dacre's Society of Editors' speech. He takes on several critics - including Neil Lyndon, Henry Porter, Charlie Beckett, Peter Wilby, Polly Toynbee and several Guardian readers.
Addis writes in his Shake Up Media blog of Dacre's speech:
"Philosophically it belongs to a tradition of emotional populism that has had many champions in the West, from Wesley to Dickens to Philip Roth and the fiercely intellectual contemporary American scholar Martha Nussbaum. It is nothing to be ashamed of and still less to be sneered at...
"The emotional populist, such as Dacre, believes that ordinary people have instincts and reactions which, if properly tapped, will be sufficient to provide guidance and authority to the statesman. He supports the people versus the elites."
I have a feeling that the Addis defence may stimulate yet further heated debate.
