It seems the way to virtue signal that you are a Tory-hating lefty in 2018 is to jump on the outrage bus about Toby Young’s appointment to the Office for Students board. Some of the abuse and whinging from Corbynistas upset that someone with right-of-centre views has got the job is just unhinged. Paul Mason for example is claiming Toby “despises working class kids”. Not a great attack line given he has helped set up four state schools educating 2,000 children, with more than a third at his secondary school eligible for the pupil premium. What has Paul Mason done to help working class kids?

The next moan is that Toby isn’t qualified for the job and that he is unsuitable because he is of the right. Danny Blanchflower, the economist who always gets everything wrong, has even suggested universities should refuse to have anything to do with the Office for Students until he is fired. Guido supposes he is entirely unqualified apart from having worked at Harvard and Cambridge, being a visiting fellow of the University of Buckingham, a Fulbright Commissioner, co-founder of four free schools and director of the New Schools Network.

And as for being political, lefty tweeters don’t seem to have a problem with the chair of the Office for Students Michael Barber being a former adviser to the last Labour government. Quangos are stuffed with lefties and Labour supporters across the board, it is just hypocritical for them to oppose a mainstream centre-right educationalist taking a position. Philip Blond makes a sensible point:

Most systems should not be regulated by those wholly immersed in them – we need hybrid regulators who are half in and half out of the sector – otherwise the self-interested status quo prevails – hence I think appointing @toadmeister is a good thing https://t.co/W97X3Hrred

— Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond) January 2, 2018

Almost as if it’s all faux outrage just so Owen Jones, Paul Mason et al can get some retweets…