As predicted, the controversial "Stew" blogger finds open debate tougher than he bargained for, and runs for the hills - but credit where it's due, he held out for ten days longer than expected

 

Well, let's face it, Stew doesn't really do open debate.  He's much more of a fan of monologues in which he gets to call people "c**ts" without them being able to answer back.  In fact he almost certainly regretted issuing his 'challenge' to me before I'd even had time to accept it.  Believe it or not, I didn't even manage to get an answer out of him to the very first and extremely straightforward question I asked him - which was whether he accepted he had got his sums wrong in claiming that the East Lothian constituency will be a guaranteed SNP hold next year.  In the immortal words of Kate Winslet, "well I guess we'll never know..."

But credit where it's due, Stew - as you can see, I expected you to go into a tailspin as a result of someone actually being able to answer back and to revert to type by hitting the block button within mere hours.  Ten days of resisting that overwhelming temptation is a hell of an effort by your standards, and we salute you.

Fascinating to learn, by the way, that the notorious Wings blocklist (in which Stew tries to get his cult members to auto-block all of the same people on Twitter that he's blocked) is still going strong after nine years or whatever it is.  That all sounds totally normal and well-adjusted.

Tragically, it looks like I'll have to go back to reading through Stew's seven hundred and forty-eight daily tweets about the trans issue without being able to reply.  But, on the plus side, that'll leave me more time for breakfast.