I must be careful what I say about James Delingpole. When he was introduced at a party to the last person who gave him a bad review, he snapped, ‘I don't talk to c***s,’ and cut him dead.

This is the Delingpole trademark – I say what I bloody think, no messing around. It's the technique he uses in his Spectator television column, often avoiding the subject of telly altogether and complaining about his real concern – he's bloody brilliant, so why isn't he living in a Georgian double-fronted house in Islington and why aren't his children at Eton? 

Delingpole's other journalistic calling card is the ‘You Wouldn't Expect Me to Say This’ ploy. Matthew Parris first identified the phenomenon; how he, as a gay man, knew that his most popular articles would always be those attacking gays. It's a popular ruse for headlines – ‘Why I, a black