Reductio ad Hitlerum: Heffer and Livingstone as bad as each other

August 19, 2011 at 9:03 pm (Champagne Charlie, Daily Mail, Europe, fascism, insanity, Livingstone)

Many readers will be familiar with Godwin’s Law, aka Reductio ad Hitlerum: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%).“ We’ve even been accused of this here at Shiraz, having maintained that certain forms of militant Islamic fundamentalism are, in fact, clerical fascism.

As Dave points out, Simon Heffer must take the Godwin biscuit for his article in Wednesday’s Daily Wail describing the Merkel/Sarkozy plan for dealing with the Eurozone debt crisis, as the “Rise of the Fourth Reich“…”where Hitler failed by force of arms, modern Germany is using the financial crisis to conquer Europe.” Heffer is, of course a crazed right wing Europhobe: but, sadly, his sort of xenophobia is all too common amongst more neanderthal sections of the so-called “left”.

But Heffer does not have a monopoly of outrageous  and offensive Reductio ad Hitlerum comparisons:  Ken Livingstone has just compared his forthcoming battle against Boris Johnson for the Mayoralty of London, with the battle against Hitler in WW2:

“It’s a simple choice between good and evil – I don’t think it’s been so clear since the great struggle between Churchill and Hitler.”

But, of course, this is OK because witty ol’ Ken was only joking, so anyone who finds his comment distasteful just lacks a sense of humour (say Livingstone’s people).

Below: the new Hitler-Stalin pact?

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