In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
> You have to be very careful with irony. Yours I submit was a failure because it achieved no purpose, and so was misplaced. The target was so false that one had to make the assumption that it was not irony, or only partly irony and partly a reflection of what you yourself really feel about Larkin. Otherwise, why on earth did you post it? You've rather shot yourself in the foot now by admitting that there was no shit storm over his plaque. All your post has done/the only thing it's achieved is to add to a smear campaign that certain reactionaries (a v small minority) have been fostering for many years. You show no hint anywhere of a genuine enthusiasm for, or appreciation of, Larkin's poetry.
My purpose was to draw attention to the ludicrous dual standards that "a certain type of journalist/twiteratti/ media/self righteous pr*cks" apply to their views and reporting and to draw the conclusion that any such self righteous virtue signalling twittery is nonsense. Whether I achieved that is dubious given that many who read it either didn't grasp this or disagreed.
I cannot imagine why you think that I "admitted" there was no shitstorm over his plaque is an "admission". That was the crux of my point in the first place: that if Hunt's speech deserved a shellacking so did Larkin's plaque (and one got a shellacking and the other didn't). In my view neither of them do.
That you still view it as critical of Larkin, at least of his poetry, suggests that you are still barking up the wrong tree. My "point" implicitly assumes that Larkin is a fine poet just as Hunt is a fine scientist (I'm not interested in league tables of "fineness"). The point is to question whether whatever flawed views or characteristics they may have should impact upon their status in their chosen fields and my answer is "no".