In the original article it's good to see that even the Times isn't letting the psychosocial brigade have it all their own way, portraying it as six of one and half a dozen of the other is a significant move in the right direction, although nowhere near far enough of course. When I read the headline I did wonder who had been doing the insulting on our behalf, and of course it would be that liability Coyne. We have now been promoted from "borderline sociopaths" to "Professor Coyne and his allies".
Anyway, Coyne has got his wish of getting "all this backchannel bullshit into the open", and allowed the Times to portray the JHP's special edition as part of a childish academic spat. On the other hand "disgusting old fart neoliberal hypocrite" is a wonderfully attention-grabbing piece of publicity that will appeal to the British public, and if it's true that there's no such thing as bad publicity then his petulant rantings may have inadvertently done us a favour after all - we were never going to get higher level coverage from the Times anyway, what with their place on the board of the SMC and the lazy, spineless journalism we've had from them in the past.
Can't help noticing that 3 JHP board members stropping off in a huff is a newsworthy "mass resignation" whilst the fate of 250,000 UK citizens suffering from ME for decades seems totally unworthy of serious investigation.