Leftie illiberals

What is a fascist? There seems to be no proper definition of the term. The Oxford English Dictionary declares it squarely to be a member of Mussolini's party formed in 1919, which ruled Italy between 1922 and 1943. It was set up to fight communism.

The matter has come to a head, rather, because of a football manager called Paolo di Canio who has

Paolo di Canio

been appointed manager of Sunderland. The absurd David Miliband resigned in disgust as a director of the club saying the he - di Canio - is a fascist. Of course Miliband's resignation might have been expected by the club since he is going off to live in America.

One of the accusations against di Canio is that he made a Roman Salute to the Lazio fans (Lazio is the district around Rome); another is that he has a fascist tattoo although, as someone on the BBC said, he doesn't wear it on his sleeve.

I have been too busy these last 13 years to read di Canio's autobiography published in 2000. Apparently it reveals him as a sensitive and intelligent man. He likes some aspects of Mussolini but dislikes his 'vile traits' (this is in fact how I think of David Miliband). So, presumably the export of Jews to concentration camps could be described as vile; is it something to do with the trains running on time? Punctual trains and the elimination of communism seem to be admirable political goals depending, of course, on how you go about them.

Dr Lawrence Britt, a leftie political scientist, has identified 14 characteristics of fascism although most of them, such as nationalism, disdain for human rights and symbolically powerful military could apply to any communist state, particularly China and North Korea.

So would there be all this fuss if Mr di Canio had declared himself a communist? Communism has killed many, many times the number of innocent people that fascism has and is certainly a worse system to live under. But there wouldn't have been any trouble, would there?

This is a piece of nonsense got up by the left to disguise their own illiberalism.