Further to my post yesterday about the rather odd political perambulations of the UK Telegraph, owned by the  Barclay Brothers, additional evidence of loosening screws at this ostensibly right wing newspaper can be found in the decision to provide a regular platform for Lindy West.
West is, apparently, the Film Editor at The Stranger described by the chaps at the Telegraph as “Seattle’s alternative newsweekly” – hands up those who are immediately thinking pretentious, self important, poseur, rich parents etc etc….

Want a flavour of The Stranger? Two articles will provide the encapsulated essence of it’s core values…..Stop The GOP and F### The South….job done, I fancy….
Add into the mix Ms West and there you have the ultimate Kos cocktail guaranteed to raise smiles at Styrofoam columns everywhere for she has planted her cultural flag squarely in the “conservatives are racist” camp by eviscerating the film “The Stoning of Soraya M”

The film, based on a best selling book written by Freidoune Sahebjam, a French-Iranian journalist , tells the story of a Muslim woman, living in an nameless Arab country whose husband concocts a tale of adultery which leads to her being stoned to death by a mob of villagers encouraged by the local mullah.

For one reviewer the film was beautifully constructed

There’s a lovely elegance to the sparse interiors of these pale-stone houses, painted in glorious shades of turquoise and mustard yellow, which somehow makes the subject matter even more ghastly. Sunflowers grow in the meadows; flocks of birds rise above the nightmare below

Not so for Lindy West

Now, I’m not sure if you know what it looks like when someone is stoned to death, but this movie will inform you: First they tie your hands behind your back. Then they bury you in the ground up to your waist. Then everyone you know (your dad, your kids, your husband, the mayor) throws rocks at your head until you are dead. The stoning scene is long, detailed, bloody, and unforgiving, recalling nothing so directly as The Passion of the Christ. And it’d be no surprise if the same Christian extremists who evangelised Passion attach to this one just as fiercely: it demonises an entire religious group while purporting a message of equality. Gross

So you see, folks it’s all those Christian extremists (clinging to their guns and religion) who are the real villains in this piece by daring..DARING…to use facts to criticise the cultural practice to be found in certain areas of the Muslim world. Stoning is nasty, wails Ms West but Christian extremists alluding to it are even nastier.

Would she say the same thing about “The Crucible” by the left’s favourite writer Arthur Miller where 17th century American Protestants hang (and in one case stone to death) fellow townspeople in a crusade against witchcraft? I wonder….

Why has is the Telegraph paying her thousands of dollars to pump out her meanderings? Who knows – but at least if you look at the comments on her post Telegraph readers are not impressed…indeed the prickly Lindy appears to be one of those pontificating lefties who love to dish it out but who are far less keen to ride the punches when they are thrown back at her.

“Oh, Telegraph commenters. You are like aliens to me.” she tweeted as she banked her five figure cheque from the Telegraph…