Burchill's offensive column should have stayed online

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/jan/16/julie-burchill-theobserver

Version 0 of 1.

Several people have emailed me, or called, to ask what I think about the latest Julie Burchill drama.

Her Observer column, in which she insulted transsexuals, was taken down from the website because the editor, John Mulholland, said the paper had "got it wrong."

Now we await the result of an inquiry into the affair by The Observer's readers' editor, Stephen Pritchard. Presumably he will discover how and why it happened.

Without wishing to give yet more ammunition to outraged transsexuals, I do not believe the column should have been withdrawn.

That's not to say I was entirely happy about the original content. The generalised attack on a minority was obviously offensive (and inaccurate). But I admit it didn't strike me as unduly outrageous when I first read it.

One key reason for that is my expectation every time I read a piece by Burchill that she will do exactly what she is hired for - to provoke controversy. Nobody does it better (or should that be worse?)

But her piece could and should have been edited in such a way that she got her central argument across - about the ill-treatment on Twitter of her friend, Suzanne Moore - without being so hateful about people who feel so marginalised.

I explain more of my feelings about the episode in my column in today's London Evening Standard.