Just what the hell does the Sunday Telegraph hope to achieve by today’s ill-mannered attack on Richard Dawkins?

OK, so the Dawkins family tree has some rotten branches which were involved in the slave trade, but that was more than two centuries ago – and is not relevant to what the man is now. One might just as well suggest that because Conrad Black was imprisoned over Hollinger then the Telegraph stands convicted alongside him. Utter nonsense, of course, but just about as ludicrous a waste of time as Adam Lusher’s article. (You can read Slushie’s dribble of irrelevant piss here, Clicky, and Dawkins’ more reasoned and dignified response here, Clicky.)

It wouldn’t be that difficult for any one of us to find a bad apple in our plethora of ancestors. One of my forefathers, for example, was transported to Australia for stealing a loaf, but that doesn’t mean I should spend the rest of my life wearing a hair shirt or paying compensation to Warburtons!

Seriously, Lusher’s article is the sort of effluvia you expect to see emerging from the back end of the lower portions Murdoch’s empire – although that readership would probably think the slave trade was a heavy metal band. You do not expect such inept, facile junk from what purports to be a serious newspaper.

Lusher is just being shoddy and cheap and we can only hope that someone with more time on their hands delves into his closet to see what skeletons are lurking there.