An Unholy Alliance? Why I won't be speaking alongside Stephen Fry

I have just withdrawn from a Cambridge Union debate, rather than speak on the same side as Stephen Fry.  I can, with an effort, imagine taking the same side as Mr Fry, perhaps over some fundamental issue such as freedom of speech, about which he has said some sensible things. Some matters are so all-embracingly important that you don’t really care who your allies are, as long as they  don’t retreat without warning, leaving your flank exposed.

 

But the subject under discussion (the debate will take place on the evening of Thursday 29th January) is the disestablishment of the Church of England.  I was due to speak against it.  I simply cannot bring myself to accept that Mr Fry, an active and assertive atheist,  is seriously in favour of Establishment. Perhaps he will say that it’s picturesque and antique, much as he says of the monarchy, and that removing it will be a bad aesthetic decision.

 

If he really does seriously favour it, then I can only speculate that I have not considered the matter properly, and that if someone of his general opinions is in favour of it,  there must be severe faults in Establishment which I have not yet discovered.

 

Then there’s the personal problem. I confess it, I do not much like Mr Fry. I have rather enthusiastically repeated Julie Burchill’s remark (I am now pretty sure she first said it)  that Mr Fry is ‘A stupid person’s idea of what an intelligent person is like’, though I have always thought this reflected more on Mr Fry’s large fan club than it does on him. He can’t help it if he has such followers.  I found his portrayal of Jeeves on television unbearable and wrong and have said so. I don’t enjoy his writing style or his acting in general. I disagree with almost every opinion he has ever uttered.  I didn’t like him before I met him, and I like him less now that I have met him. This lone, brief, bleak encounter (after which he called me a 'clod') famously, took place at the memorial gathering for my late brother in New York City  . A full account of this can be read here :

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2012/04/stephen-fry-a-stupid-persons-idea-of-what-an-intelligent-person-is-like.html

 

Revisited here

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2012/04/a-clod-writes-.html

 

and here

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/09/that-stephen-fry-moment-revisited.html

 

Those interested to the point of obsession may also enjoy this

 

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/09/22/stephen-fry-outspoken-attack-shiny-faced-arse-witted-human-cockroach-telegraph

 

And they may also be interested in the later controversy, in which Mr Fry called me a ‘slug’

 

http://www.stephenfry.uk/2014/09/24/writing-selfie/

 

and I replied

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/09/a-slug-asks-stephen-fry-is-it-witty-to-call-someone-a-slug.html

 

The mix-up over which side Mr Fry was on was accidental. When the Cambridge Union invited me, a few weeks ago, they told me Stephen Fry was speaking and both I and the Union officer involved simply assumed that he would be on the opposite side from me. That was why I accepted the invitation.   

 

It was only when the Union term card was published this week that I found he was on the same side. For a long day I considered what to do. I had very much hoped to be able to argue against Mr Fry on a substantial issue in front of an audience. I thought this might be the best possible answer to the various personal insults he has directed at me.  The idea of being his ally, and of being treated by him as an ally, did not appeal in the same way. Rather the reverse.  I tried to imagine all possible permutations of this, and none of them seemed to me to be good. So I’ve withdrawn. I hope very much that there will be another opportunity for us to debate an important matter from opposite sides.