Ideology, good or bad?

I've just read a rather interesting piece in Total Politics where Douglas Murray, from the Centre for Social Cohesion, and Sunny Hundal from Liberal Conspiracy, debating whether ideology is good or bad. Murray does the good and Sunny does the bad.

Murray's argument is certainly compelling because it points out that the being "non-ideological" is in itself an ideological standpoint. This is certainly correct I think, and it is a paradox that I've often wondered about myself. The person who claims to be non-ideological is often quite dogmatic about it.

One bit that leapt out at me though was when I read Sunny's argument that ideology was bad. He says,

But in reality neither ideology: left-wing government interventionism nor right-wing laissez-faire, works when taken to its extreme. In financial markets we need government intervention to ensure shareholders, consumers and employees get treated fairly, while having a hands-off approach that ensures the government doesn't run private business or tell them how to do their job.

I've highlighted two words there because as I read it all I could think was "fairness is an ideological standpoint". Essentially Sunny is arguing that ideology is bad whilst simultaneously pushing a set of values that he believes ought to be adhered too.

What is interesting about the article as a whole is that Douglas Murray's point about those who favour "non-ideology" is actually proved when you read Sunny's argument. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that Sunny is wrong to want "fairness" per se, just that by noting that it ought to be that way he is actually contradicting his argument against ideology.