As I have already noted today, The Times has chosen to question whether Chris Packham is really autistic, despite the fact that he has a diagnosis saying that he is. I have already discussed some aspects of this issue. I also think it is worth asking why they have done this.
I stress that question because I cannot know the motivation of those involved. I have no access to the editorial discussions at The Times, and I am not suggesting that I do. But newspapers make choices. They decide whom to feature, what questions to ask, which doubts to amplify and what associations they want their readers to make. So asking why Chris Packham has become a target is entirely reasonable.
There are, I think, several possible explanations, and they obviously overlap, creating a credible explanation as a consequence.
The first is that Chris Packham is becoming an important figure in British public life. He is no longer simply a television presenter who talks about wildlife. Increasingly, he appears to be assuming the mantle that Sir David Attenborough wore for decades.
That matters. Attenborough acquired authority because millions of people trusted him. He could talk about the destruction of the natural world in a way that politicians could not because people did not think of him as a politician. They thought of him as someone who knew what he was talking about.
Packham has some of that authority, but there is an important difference. He is more explicitly political. He does not simply say that a species is disappearing or that an ecosystem is under threat. He asks why that is happening, who is responsible and what we should do about it. That makes him potentially threatening to some powerful interests.
Packham is a prominent advocate of action on climate change. He challenges the fossil fuel economy. He questions environmentally destructive forms of agriculture. He supports environmental protest. More broadly, he challenges the idea that the pursuit of profit should take priority over the survival of the ecosystems on which human beings depend.
Whether that makes him anti-capitalist is open to debate, and I am not sure that the label matters very much. What does matter is that much of what he argues for conflicts with the interests of some businesses and wealthy people. That provides one possible reason for wanting to diminish him.
There is another. Chris Packham is clever. He is knowledgeable. He is articulate. He understands science and is an experienced communicator. It is therefore quite difficult to dismiss him as an ignorant environmental protester who does not understand the issues about which he is talking.
So how do you undermine someone like that? That is the challenge his opponents face, and the possibility is that they have chosen to attack his "otherness". That is a standard technique in the far-right playbook.
The Times might think this all too easy in the case of Chris Packham. He is autistic. He has spoken openly about that fact and has a formal diagnosis. Yet The Times has now provided a platform for questioning whether he should really be considered autistic at all.
I have already written about why I think that argument is profoundly mistaken. It ignores masking, relies on stereotypes of what an autistic person is supposed to look like, and risks turning an autistic person's success in navigating a neurotypical world into supposed evidence that they were never autistic at all.
But that ignores the fact that there may be another purpose served by raising the question. If you can persuade people that Chris Packham is wrong about something as fundamental as himself, you can begin to undermine his credibility more generally.
To achieve that, no one has to say explicitly that if Chris Packham is wrong about being autistic, he must also be wrong about climate change. That would plainly be absurd. The connection can be made much more subtly. Just create doubt about his diagnosis, and you create doubt about his self-understanding. Create doubt about his self-understanding, and you potentially create doubt about his judgement. Once that has been achieved, it becomes easier to discount what he says on other issues.
The tactic embraces an old political technique. If you cannot answer an argument, undermine the person making it instead.
That this possibility might explain what The Times is doing matters particularly as this relates to the case of climate change. The evidence for climate change is now overwhelming, and its consequences are increasingly obvious. For those who dislike what effective climate action would require, attacking the evidence is becoming harder. Attacking those who communicate that evidence may be easier. My question is, does that explain what The Times is really doing?
There is also a broader culture war at work. Autism and ADHD have become subjects of cultural controversy. So has climate change. So has environmental protest. So has almost every serious challenge to the assumption that markets, corporate power and the pursuit of profit should determine the limits of political possibility. It is hard to deny that Chris Packham sits at the intersection of these issues.
He is an environmentalist. He is an activist. He is scientifically literate. He challenges powerful economic interests. He questions conventional assumptions. He is also openly autistic. That combination makes him an unusually useful target for anyone wishing to portray those who challenge the existing order as unreasonable, extreme or simply different from supposedly normal people, and who should be ignored as a result.
I cannot know whether this explains what The Times is doing. Perhaps none of it does. But I think the question has to be asked because questioning Packham's autism potentially achieves something that has nothing to do with autism at all. It can undermine the messenger without ever engaging with the message. And if that is the consequence, whether intended or not, we should recognise what is happening.
Chris Packham's diagnosis tells us nothing about whether he is right about climate change. The evidence on climate change stands or falls on its own merits. If The Times, or anyone else, disagrees with what Packham says about the climate, biodiversity, fossil fuels or the environment, there is an obvious response available to them. They should challenge his arguments. But what they should not do is challenge who he is, or seek to undermine him, and others, by doing so. That is not just unethical, it provokes prejudice to support profit at cost to many.
We should not be surprised that profit is promoted at cost to many. That is what extractive capitalism does. That is not a flaw in its design. It is what it is designed to do. The well-being of millions and maybe billions of people have been sacrificed to that false god over decades and maybe centuries. But should Chris Packham be added to that list, to be discarded by being discredited because he asks awkward questions? I think not. And that is why this case matters.
It is about neurodiversity.
It is about prejudice.
It is about tolerance, understanding and acceptance.
But it is also about the right to free speech to point out the harm that some are choosing to impose on us when the evidence of that harm is so clear they must know what they are doing.
Chris Packham matters. But I do not think he will mind if I say he now represents an issue bigger than himself that also matters. And that is why I am addressing this abuse of him and am making this argument.
Chris Packham fights for life on earth. We all should. But there are those who want to silence him and all those who agree with him, autistic or not, and they will play dirty. They are, after all, used to that. It is up to us to fight back, for Chris, for all people who might be treated as “other”, and for our planet. Our future depends on us winning.
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It is no coincidence that Chris Packham was a prominent speaker at Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s press conference addressing the Prime Minister on climate change last week. Polanski has been under attack for some time from the Myrdoch press.
Agreed.
It can only mean one thing, things are afoot and not in a good way for disabled people come the autumn budget. This level of demonising and programmes like the one proposed by channel 4 that is equally on whether adhd is a myth is usually an omen. Use the propaganda machine to stigmatise and demonise then cut benefit support or implement harsh policies and no one bats an eyelid as the work of the machine has justified the cuts/ harsh policies in the minds of the many. There has been many many attacks on the neurodivergent it seems to be a favorite and I have no idea why, it’s like they are trying to dismiss or rediagnose our issues away saying we are not real and we don’t need help when those who function with hidden disabilities need the most. I do fear greatly for the neurodivergent community the forward motion we’ve had in recent years to acceptance is slow being eroded
I am going to be shouting about this. You are right.
Thanks. Good luck with this fight.
Translated into groups, the neurotypical group is best be portrayed as a wolf pack. Predators who see the world strictly through a black and white predator v prey or winner v loser transactionalist lens. Whereas the neurodivergent individual sees patterns in constant change and play with which they must physically and emotionally engage. A trait socially labelled empathy. One which makes neurodiverse groups act more like a flock of feral cats. How we interact together will always be a case of mutual resistance or the entropic v counter entropic. A powerful force akin to social nuclear fusion if we could only manage it, as both have their strengths and weaknesses.
In the meantime, since it is the presently socially dominant neurotypical wolf pack that have, through their actions, created a climate crisis, they are also the ones who will be least able to mitigate it. Only the neurodiverse can begin to do that.
A classic proverb came to kind writing this. As well as two English translations which one of which I understand as neurotypical, the other neurodiverse.
‘Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis’
Neurotypical translation is: Cometh the hour, cometh the man (or woman)
Neurodiverse translation is: The times change and we change with them
Chris has been attacked before because of his activism – an arson attack on the gates of his home in 2021. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-58861252 and he isn’t too poular in the Med for his campaigns against songbird hunting. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9a85U7ZOYDk
He has been more seriously libelled in the past, sued and won. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Packham-v-Wightman-Judgment-250523.pdf
Attacking him now attempts to kill several birds with one stone (pardon the pun). Here is my list:
Autism activism – alleged “medicalisation” of emotional/character traits – justify current cuts in mental health and SEND budgets (while pretending sympathy for “real” special needs) – fossil fuel activism – climate activism – wokeism generally.
The right are good at smears. Chris has good lawyers, and a LOT of public support.
We have seen this all too many times throughout history. When the ‘elite’ doesn’t like the message (and all the associated implications and consequences) it tries to shoot the messenger. However, this time the message is about tackling a truly existential issue. When was the last time any Murdoch owned media outlet campaigned for an end to fossil fuels? When has it ever seriously examined the climate collapse? What irks the Times and its ilk is that now the consequences of ignoring the soundly based evidence surrounding the issue (and who is to blame for this) is becoming all too clear to the public. Chris Packham (the environment’s Gary Lineker?) is popular and authoritative and more trusted than main stream media outlets and this poses a threat to the vested interests of the fundamentally undemocratic elite. Incidentally I watched Zack Polanski’s impressive speech last week (with Chris Packham sitting just behind him) calling for urgentGovernment action including a Cobra meeting and what do I see in today’s Guardian – Burnham is going to hold a Cobra meeting today. Using Autism as a means of attack is utterly despicable.
When people are picked upon, it’s usually an attempt to discredit them because the criticisms are weak.
We spend a lot of time in school teaching pupils not be judgmental, and then certain parts of the media undermine it all.
It is Ute Frith who has questioned Chris Packham’s diagnosis in what is actually quite libelist, because he has an official diagnosis. There is a lot of disquiet in the autistic community about Ute Frith who is now in her 80s questioning current autistic diagnostic practice. She has also disparaged the late diagnosis of women who have masked and tried to cope for years saying that if they were really autistic they would have been diagnosed as children. Given a lot of women get diagnosed after their children have been diagnosed and they realise they have similar traits, this is clearly nonsense. The big question is why Ute Frith has come out of retirement to disparage current autistic diagnostic criteria and whether she has been encouraged to stop the growing levels of diagnosis. SEND is a growing issue in education with neurodiversity accounting for much of the need and as you say there are growing attacks on those with autism and ADHD with the implication that they are playing the disability card. In reality our society is becoming less tolerant of difference and the modern school curriculum and open plan offices and hot desking are making it much harder for those with such disabilities to cope.
Why the have chosen Chris Packham I do not know, but if I were him I might consult a solicitor with regard to challenging the assertions as libel. The general attacks on neurodiverse people are bad enough, but attacking individuals is one step too far. I also take issue with the assertion that someone can’t be autistic because they communicate too well. Greta Thunberg communicates very effectively and is open about her autism. However she has also been mute. This has to stop.
Until relatively recently it was denied women could have autism. Of course they are late diagnosed as a result. Thanks for your comment.
The concept of autism is based on a geeky little boy sitting on his own playing with lego or a train set. Girls learn at a very early age they have to conform, so learn to hide their real selves.
I’m looking forward to seeing Carrie Grant at Greenbelt who is fairly recently diagnosed and certainly doesn’t fit the outdated beliefs about autism. They came a few years ago and were wonderfully inspiring in so many ways. In a society that speaks about inclusivity it feels we are going backwards.
Great post Richard.
I think you are right. Deflect and discredit opposing views.
You’ve asked the right question today, as so often. Why pick on Chris Packham? The Times does not waste ink without purpose. Packham has a formal diagnosis. He has spoken openly about his autism. Yet they choose to cast doubt. That is not journalism. It is something else.Packham has stepped into the space once occupied by Attenborough, but with sharper edges. He names the forces destroying nature. He links the loss of species to the pursuit of profit. He supports protest when polite requests fail. Clever, articulate, scientifically grounded: he is hard to dismiss as a crank. So the attack shifts to his “otherness.” If they can make people doubt how he understands himself, they hope the rest of his judgement will look less solid too. Classic tactic. Undermine the messenger when the message is inconvenient. You’ve seen the pattern clearly. This sits at the crossroads of culture-war targets: climate action, environmental challenge to markets, and neurodiversity itself. Portray the awkward truth-teller as extreme or unreliable and the awkward truths become easier to ignore. Autism becomes a weapon rather than a fact. Prejudice serves profit.Packham fights for life on earth. That is no small thing. Questioning his diagnosis does nothing to answer the science of climate breakdown or biodiversity collapse. It only muddies the water. You’re right to call it out. We should not let them discard people who ask the hard questions simply because those questions threaten the usual order of things. The planet needs more commies like Packham, not fewer.
Entirely agree. There are many people who have been treated this way by the popular press which is owned almost entirely by shameless wealthy people who hate being challenged. In recent years, Gary Lineker and Carol Vorderman have been attacked for their opinions, without any logical challenge to the opinions, but by criricising their lifestyle, salary etc.
In the US, where fascism and McCarthyism has taken hold, it is much worse. Many established actors, singers and film makers have been cancelled because they lean to the left with their political opinions. I remember Paul Robeson being hounded out of the country in the McCarthy era because he was a genuine socialist, who was very popular and a marvellous singer. He was labelled a communist because he visited the USSR. Oh….. and he was black.
The climate change deniers are in full retreat, running scared from unarguable facts. They will not concede without using all the powers at their disposal, chiefly the media. They must know that science always has the final word; Chris Packham is above all, a scientist.
My view is that it is not his autism that is actually the problem – it is the threat he poses in his opinions about the environment and wildlife to the industries that pollute and scar the earth. His autism is being used against him – now he is being accused of being a ‘fake autistic’ to undermine his other views on the environment etc. He is being undermined – they think they have found a weakness. His autism is his jugular.
They are not going to do that to David Attenborough are they – essentially an old man who seems owned by the nation and whose efforts to show us the wonders of the world have just been turned into entertainment and excellent photography plus film making – you’re not going to see used condoms and turds and other private water company infractions in an English stream when Attenborough is filming Newts because it is done on the studio green screen!
Packham as been even more outspoken and straight to the point (his autism here freeing him of the coded bullshit language of the media and ‘normal’ people).
Autism – I looked up the etymology of the word and could not believe what I found ‘ escaping into an inner world’! I’m sorry – it’s all wrong.
PSR’s own theory is that these people often engage with the world – autistics listen to language very deeply and try to merge reality with language and the fact is that I think they sense things like insincerity acutely. It is a high form of intelligence. In a world where the abuse of language is rampant, and celebrated, they call bullshit. That is why they are feared by liars, especially corporate and political ones.
Thanks Richard and PSR – “autistics listen to language very deeply and try to merge reality with language and the fact is that I think they sense things like insincerity acutely. It is a high form of intelligence. In a world where the abuse of language is rampant, and celebrated, they call bullshit.”
That’s my partner – it takes him ages to process language because he uses it so precisely and straightforwardly himself, and is very impatient when others resort to platitudes, blather and cliches! He talks about some people as living in the “so-called real world” when in fact they appear to be living in a world of second-hand received opinion. He’s not diagnosed but I have long thought of him as super-sensitive to all sorts of stimuli.
I suspect your last sentence is right, and thank you.
Thank you, Richard.
I’ve met a couple of people who used to work at the BBC. The pair say David Attenborough learnt from his brother Richard and was very careful to avoid politics, including to the point that, at meetings at the BBC around the turn of the century, he rejected that climate change was a political issue.
Thank you Colonel – my thoughts turned to Attenborough too.
Excellent article.
As an autistic person who has a post graduate qualification in autism I can say Uta Firth has questionable opinions on autism. Many in the autistic field agree, Richard if you wish to seek expert opinion see prof Luke Beardon at Sheffield Uni or Damian Milton . It’s funny why Uta Firth is being wheeled out of retirement while current experts like these are suppressed.
This a brilliant article, I enjoy watching Chris packham, I may not agree with everything he says regarding climate change, but that does not take away his enthusiasm and knowledge of nature around the world, but when the media starts throwing accusations like this about his autism it shows their ignorance about the condition. Thank you for such an interesting and thoughtful read, if only more of the media was like this.
After my children were identified as being outside the normal range on an autism test, I ran through the test and found the same was true for me – I had just never been tested as a child.
I’ve had success in work, but only much later realised areas where it had held me back. For example, I’d mostly assumed people put as much store on objective truth as me, such that I only expected to need to do a good job to get promoted.
It was more than 20 years before I realised I’d never had an in-work promotion and had never specifically asked for one. So I asked, and got one almost immediately.
Plenty of other opportunities have passed because of social challenges. I only understood why 20 years late, and the solution is doing things that don’t come naturally by analysing and imitating.
It is not reasonable to just look at how successful someone is to say the can’t have autism, because the point is whether it held them back from doing better.
Until the workplace is a genuine meritocracy, those who understand or engage in neurotypical social interaction less will be held back to some degree.
So very much to agree with. Thank you.
My wife has autistic traits as does her eldest granddaughter. Mum of said granddaughter (wife’s daughter) teaches autistic children in a special school, and we’ve had several conversations about this (I have psychology and social work further degrees). It is largely unrecognised in women still. Personally I don’t see it as abnormal, assume it has persisted as it has evolutionary positives.
There is now a growing body of work that shows many women become unmasked at menopause, hence the late diagnosis. The arguments have been explained to me and make sense. But it’s a ‘women’s issue ‘, and society also ignores them.
I can vouch for this. The wheels totally fell off for me, at what I know realise was the start of the menopause and I could no longer overcome the obstacles. I was only diagnosed this year, having previously been very successful the last 15 years have been challenging. As you rightly say women’s issues are not taken seriously and I can only imagine how much research would be happening if men experienced the menopause! It’s sad though that a woman is challenging female autism.
Less than 10% of the population of people with a disability use a wheelchair and yet… the recognised symbol for disability is a wheelchair. I run a group for people with hidden disabilities and at the last count there were over 130 different conditions represented amongst members… but let any one of them walk away from their car parked in a blue badge bay at a supermarket and onlookers often ask the question ‘Who said they are disabled?, or ‘They don’t look disabled to me!’.
This is the danger when we hear major opinion leaders in the media (or anyone else) questioning the diagnosis of a person – the public jump on the bandwagon (often encouraged to) resulting in those with curtains closed at mid-day labelled ‘skivers and scroungers’.
Richard recently mentioned ‘allostatic load’ in one of his articles – look up ‘allostatic load and autism’ and you will learn a little more about the condition and an indication of why so many of those diagnosed go through a complete breakdown in later life because of their constant struggles whilst growing up.
Thanks
I wrote about it for a reason…
I attend reviews for people (adults and children) who have a learning disability or are autistic who are or may be sectioned under the MHA. Since reading your article about allostatic load I’ve researched it quite a lot and now mention it regularly at reviews where it is rarely mentioned or understood until I bring it up. A lot of things fall into place when put into the ‘allostatic load’ context, especially when the stress/tension builds up over a number of years in an individual.
I also include it in a presentation I deliver about sensory issues. It is most definitely an eye opener for those who have never heard of it before (as it was for me). Thank you for mentioning it, it’s a very valuable concept for getting such messages across.
As far as your blog is concerned, I like this aspect of it when you steer away from ‘financial issues’ and discuss topics such as this. They are very important as far as raising awareness is concerned.
Thank you.
“The tactic embraces an old political technique. If you cannot answer an argument, undermine the person making it instead.”
Or as Sir Humphrey says in Yes, Prime Minister: “Play the man instead of the ball.”
Its a surprise that BBC is still using Packham for Springwatch, but he does signal when he could have commented – say about game shooting that he can’t say it.<p>
There are so many similarly knowledgeable experts – especially around climate change / CO2 production/ , renewable energy that are being censored in favour of loud ‘we cant afford net zero ‘ clamour. <p>
We are going to hell in a hand cart – mindless ‘lets enjoy our new Mediterranean weather’ from billionaire press who have been saying for years climate change isnt true – now saying it s too late to bother.. Underling message unchanged – ‘keep pumping oil'<p>
Climate may already be passed a tipping point – and may be now out of control
Much to agree with
He gets bile because he wants people to change their profligate habits..
While Joe Public pretends to be concerned about climate change etc when it comes to them actually getting off their rrrs and doing something about it…
Meanwhile they’re happy to festoon lamp posts with nonsense flags…
100% agree.
We have been subject to undermining comments regarding our two sons both of whom are diagnosed as autistic. ‘They have been to university’, ‘they can get to the cinema’ etc. etc. so how can they be autistic. Just ignorant comments.
As you say, it is designed to undermine neurodiversity and to undermine the fight against climate change. And these must absolutely fail (the undermining that is).
Craig
I’m glad you picked this up and was wondering if you would when my wife read the article last night. We had a chuckle telling our son his diagnosis was apparently wrong as he can understand irony and is a good public speaker. Autistic people think differently, and that is a threat when you need everyone to accept the status quo.
Agreed.
A very welcome diversion from macroeconomics, all of which I have read properly, including the comments (not skip read).
A friend was filling in a form for a friend of his about ADHD, and realised that a lot of it applied to him. So I did the test too, and it certainly wasn’t me, but I then went on to do an autism test which did show that I am 70% on that spectrum. The important thing to realise is that it is more nuanced than, as you suggest, Richard, Type 1, 2 or 3. It is very much a spectrum. And just like colour blindness, the particular point or points on the spectrum varies from person to person. For example, someone with a blue deficiency is different from someone with a green one. Same goes for autism, and one autistic may be deficient in communication, whereas another isn’t. And, as you point out, one can learn to mask the deficiency, which is why I now realise why I had to learn communication skills in order to work effectively as a car salesman.
Well done for politicising the argument. It’s akin to smearing Corbin as an antisemite.
The saying in the autistic/ADHD community is that once you have met one neurodiverse person, you have met one neurodiverse person: they are all different.
I work in the IT world where there is a very high proportion of neurodiverse people.
What you say is very evident Richard.
Some find Zoom meetings intolerable; some just need their own camera off so they do not feel “seen”.
Some need access to a “quiet room” during the day. Others space their work over a longer day (where possible) to accomodate a preference to work intensely then rest.
Some need routine and struggle with “life happens…” Some thrive with constant change.
We now encourage teams to ask people to write “how I like to work” pieces so everyone is aware of differences.
Our people are highly -paid professionals and what the client needs come first.
But being aware of how people work best comes next and allows the maximum to be achieved.
Wow!
That sounds very enlightened and so wise.
Thank you for sharing.
The perfect pub walks episode with Alexander Armstrong and Chris Packham (C4) is worth a watch if you have not seen it.
I have
It was good.
To be fair, Chris Packham came up in an interview with a retired psychologist although the interviewer was the one who asked about him. I don’t think the Times is having a go at him.
The interviewer also writes:
(I later email Packham to warn him about Frith’s comments. He thanks me for the “heads-up”.)
I disagree…just look at the framing
And they did not ask Packham to comment.
Have they given him a right to reply?
90% of the people I come in contact with would qustion Chris Packham’s autistic condition for the simple reason that 905 of the people I come in contact with don’t know and do not understand what autistic and autism really is.
The people I come in contact with seem to believe it is a politically correct term for what we called “retarded” 30 years ago.
I have viewed several TV programs (i.e…Chelsea Detective and Patience) featuring actors who are hearing impaired or autistic. The people viewing these programs with me did not believe that the actors were really hearing impaired or autistic. My co-viewers thoroughly believed the actors were only portraying people who are hearing impaired and autistic.
FYI: Both Bill Gates and Steve jobs were diagnosed as being on the autism scale. Donald Trump suffers from ADHA but everybody knows this as they see it with there own eyes.
I am also ADHD
Well you have the ability to string together more than three coherent sentences and can read more than three pages in one sitting which puts you 6+ up on Donald Trump.
That is a low bar….
The problem with Autistic People is a tendency to tell the truth
Greta Thunberg being the obvious example
Me to middle son ‘Dol you want to learn to drive?’ ‘No its silly having cars weighing over a ton to move just one person everyone should use public transport or walk’
There is an interesting article here
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/201912/diagnosing-public-figures-is-risky-and-very-controversial
which mentions ‘The Goldwater Rule’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule
namely that
On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.
So any ‘qualified’ person who comments in the way that Ute Frith has done leaves themselves open to a complaint to their professional regulator.
I suggest looking across the Atlantic. That is where events play out, exhibiting intolerance and to me they are examples of where we very definitely do not want to go. Picking on people, just because they are in some way different (and also because usually they have no easy way of responding) is abhorrent and dehumanizing.
As an “AuDHD” person myself with a diagnosis (though self diagnosis is valid), Chris is definitely autistic, the way he behaves and talks, its clear to me he is one of us!
Agreed
As George Orwell nearly wrote, “Journalism is presenring something that someone does not want presented. Everything else is public relations.”
Might “The Times” be indulging in the common media addiction which seems to be hunting down anyone of prominence/power who might cause regular citizens to question the main stream and multi-political party line?
Yes
As the late Sir Ken Robinson was fond of saying we are all different. That is not to doubt autism or ADHD but to suggest that perhaps it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Any school teacher will tell you that autism and many other divergences are only too real. What is a problem is society trying to fit ever square peg into the same round hole.
For anyone with time and inclination, there’s a lovely hour-long video of Chris Packham walking in the New Forst with the guitarist and song-writer Martin Simpson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XuyUc4umTU
Thank you.
That is my evening sorted!
The Murdoch media empire have form on egregious personal attacks on selected people. Internally it has a name ‘murdoching’*. Journalism should be about holding power to account. Murdoch does the opposite and holds individuals to account. Especially those he does not agree with. Divergent people often have a heightening of right and wrong and the willingness (sometimes compulsion) to call out injustice where they see it. It’s noticeable that many activists are neurdivergent.
Lions not sheep.
* https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jul/01/andrew-dodd-matthew-ricketson-getting-murdoch-book-bullying-factory
A lot of activists are neurodivergent, I agree.
What a lot of well considered comment, I struggle with my own and my families otherness. I come across anti Chris Packham sentiment oftan from the farming community and with unjustified venom. He is seen as a threat to more than capilalism, to lifestyles and ill percieved rural traditions. He holds a mirror up to many to see the missinformed judgements they make and he speaks for those without a human voice, the times article does the cause little harm reigniteing the arguements and getting fresh debate could be the downfall of those who wish to discredit him.
Another brilliant post – you are on fire this week Richard!
Having known and still know numerous children/teens with varying forms of autism, I find it utterly appalling what this lady has said. Although each person I know has different needs, they are articulate, clever, some are high functioning some are shy, introspective. A lot will say it as it is, the truth and not care.
For the majority of us, we learn the social cues growing up – what to say, what not to say etc. We are told ‘dont make waves’ to keep the peace. Well there comes a time when ‘keeping the peace’ leads down a very wrong, dangerous path.
Again, I think this comes back to the powers that be fearing to much truth being told and they will, as you know, besmirch and discredit whoever they see a threat – no matter how feeble their argument.
We really need a more accountable press, that deals with fact not personal opinion.
What a disgrace. The Times used to be a serious newspaper.
They have stooped to a new low.
I hope organisations representing neurodiverse people also expose their prejudice, hypocrisy and bias.
Much as I respect your work in economics, Richard, I think you’re wrong about this. I speak as a clinical psychologist with many years’ experience. The Times isn’t reporting Prof Frith’s comments because they are trying to undermine Chris Packham’s anti-capitalist leanings. They are doing so because ADHD and autism have become hot topics and Uta Frith is – rightly and courageously – prepared to speak out about them. You’ve got it the wrong way round: the rise in prevalence of these diagnoses (and of mental health diagnoses in general) is one of the most predictable and well-documented CONSEQUENCES of capitalism, neoliberalism and inequality. Make life unbearable for most people; persuade them that the fault lies within ‘chemical imbalances’ and ‘neurodevelopmental disorders’ for which, I can assure you, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever; and, having successfully individualised the consequences of socioeconomic problems, turn those same labels into commodities and business opportunities, and persuade everyone they fit the criteria. Don’t fall for it, Richard! (and the other commentators here.) This blog series expands my arguments – please do take a look. https://www.madintheuk.com/2024/12/part-1-neurodiversity-what-exactly-does-it-mean/
I note what you say and fundamentally disagree with it, as I did when I first read your series in late 2024. I have been thinking about this issue for some time.
I do not have the time to address those issues now. They deserve serious attention, precisely because of the scale of your errors and the harm they might cause. I will do so in a blog post. I therefore post this comment to flag that fact, and to prevent you from thinking I was ignoring you: I am not.
Caveat to my response above: there are obviously autistic children who show characteristic signs of severe delay from an early age, need lifelong support and are not able to live independently. My comments obviously do not apply to that group.
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