I think that this:

I say surprising but
actually it’s not. Nor did the tremendous success of Lynne Truss’s
grammar book leave me reeling with shock at anything beyond the
startling viciousness of my own reaction, which was of course: ‘I could
have done that me me give ME the money ME give it to me I know where
filthy little commas go I could have had the millions and bought fame,
boats, power, influence, friends, ha ha ha’, though perhaps lacking
some of the vital coherence with which I’ve imbued it in hindsight.

My
point is this: just as there was obviously a screaming need for the
British public to feel more confident about grasping the difference
between its and it’s (handy hint: study a pizza menu, a weblog or any
press release from Freud Communications, then do the precise opposite),
there is also everywhere a deep, tired, anger at all the wasted years
spent enduring witless PowerPoint presentations from wet-lipped
middle-management coproliths in Hugo Boss cretin-suits, and so Harry
Frankfurt has crafted a fine little essay debunking it all, and so
we’re all going to rush out and buy it.

rather disproves his final line:

Newspaper columnists are overpaid.

Note to the Editor of The Observer. Give Mr. Ferguson a pay rise. Take it from the money you didn’t have to pay Tony Blair today (note, Ministers may not receive money for articles or other outside business interests).