A good feud should be vicious, but never ugly

The late Auberon Waugh used to insist that, if one's enemies do not immediately present themselves, it is necessary to seek them out. For Bron, making enemies seems to have been as essential as breathing: not just as a moral and intellectual workout, one senses, but as a form of entertainment. Who doesn't relish a fight between two public figures?

I was gripped to read in a gossip column this week that a row has developed between two writers I admire. India Knight wrote a column last Sunday defending the wearing of the veil. This seems to have annoyed Julie Burchill, who sent an open letter to her newspaper suggesting India visit a mosque "after covering your filthy female head in the Islamist fashion, of course, and spread your glad tidings that 'Muslims are the new Jews'. You'd be lucky to get out alive."

It didn't stay that high-minded for long. On one side, force-10 hostility; on the other, rising exasperation. Miss Knight is accused of being a "hypocritical snob" and a "stalking cretin", and Miss Burchill of being a "------- loon". "God, you're driving me mad. Go away," wrote Miss Knight. "Why don't you ---- off?" asked Miss Burchill. Naturally, it all ended up in the papers.

Miss Burchill is a serial fight-picker and, as far as I can tell, a little mad. Her long battle with her ex-husband Tony Parsons was the most enjoyable of her excursions into abuse — if only because poor Parsons was so hopelessly outgunned. He would point out that she was fat and lived in Brighton, and she would blithely agree — but maintain that it didn't matter because she was having lots of sex and had been very attractive when she was 17. Then she described him as looking like an "old, sick, balding rhesus monkey". Anyone who had ever seen a photograph of Mr Parsons then laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.

This used to be called "flyting". Skelton and Pope were very good at it. In Holland, I recently learnt, it's called scheldkritieken, or "abusive criticism". But the "feud" — as newspapers invariably label any unresolved public punch-up — has certain rules that must be followed.

In the first place, if any blows land above the belt, the participant is liable to disqualification. Swearing, ad hominem abuse, the childish misrepresentation of your feuding partner's opinions, and remarks about looks, sex lives and mothers are all fair game. Careful engagement with what they say is not: that's not a feud; that's a debate.

Likewise, there must be a certain insouciance about it, and it must be conducted in public. A good feud should be vicious, but it should not be ugly. The McCartney divorce negotiations, conducted through leaks and smears and with no regard for the welfare of their children, is just ugly. It does not give delight to onlookers. Feuds should not exude the raw pain of old friends falling out — rather, a sort of whimsical pleasure in abuse.

Also, you must choose your feuding partner with care. You want to bag someone who will rise, but not someone who will rise above it. I often think it might be nice to have a feud — but fear that my advances would be unrequited. It's embarrassing to pick a fight with someone who has no idea you exist, and couldn't give a hoot that you think they're rubbish.

One adept at choosing feuding partners is the young Independent columnist Johann Hari, who has raised his profile considerably by making intemperate attacks on the grown-ups. He boasts on his website with obvious pride: "Johann has been called 'a Stalinist' and 'beneath contempt' by Noam Chomsky, 'Horrible Hari' by Niall Ferguson, 'an uppity little queer' by Bruce Anderson, 'a drug addict' by George Galloway, 'fat' by the Dalai Lama and 'a ----' by Busted."

We often tut-tut, about certain people, that they "can dish it out but they can't take it". An old friend of mine who is an expert observer of these matters thinks that this is to miss the point. Why should we expect those who can dish it out to be able to take it? Dishing it out and taking it, he argues, are entirely separate disciplines. Any connection between your proficiency in one and your proficiency in the other is entirely accidental.

Consider the evidence. We have, in the likes of Miss Burchill and Miss Knight, a pair of women who can dish it out and take it with equanimity. Then there are those who can dish it out but can't take it — to whose ranks David Blunkett is only the most obvious recent recruit. The late Alan Clark also fell into this category.

Then there are those benign figures who never say boo to a goose, but soak up abuse like a sponge. Richard Whiteley, I think, fell into this category — as do a large number of Radio 2 DJs. Also, my friend Andrew Peaple, who in our long acquaintance only once punched me in the head, and that under extreme provocation. Finally, there are those infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering creatures who can neither dish it out nor take it. Les Dennis springs to mind.