The ‘not in our name’ card
Peter Whittle, director of some obscure organisation called New Culture Forum writes on Conservative Home:
But I would ask the Baroness [Sayeeda Warsi], why were there no Muslim voices in that crowd angrily denouncing the protesters? Why did there appear to be virtually no Muslims amongst the crowds lining the pavement? Why is there no ‘Not in Our Name’ campaign by moderate Muslims? These are the questions to which we need answers.
This sort of bigoted drivel is still too prevalent in our media unfortunately. Maybe Peter Whittle could let us know the last time he went on a march against the BNP. If he hasn’t been, then one can only assume he sympathises with them. Going by that article I wouldn’t be too surprised either.
Update: No surprise the NCF is supported by this shower of neoconservatives. (via Tom Griffin). Ben joins in.
Fred Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood
Good luck to Martin Salter, who has tabled a motion calling for the forfeiture committee to meet to consider stripping Not-Sir Fred Goodwin of his knighthood. Salter says this to Paul Waugh of the Standard.
Sir Fred Goodwin is a symbol of corporate greed and the honours system is there to reward service not selfishness. There’s clearly a powerful case for his refusal to hand back his knightood to be considered by the Forfeiture Committee in order to preserve the integrity of the honours system.
About which I have only one complaint.
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In defence of the Luton Islamist demo
Al Muhajiroun’s Luton demonstration and the Real IRA/Continuity IRA killings of the last week – although vastly differentiated in terms of degree -are based on broadly similar tactical considerations.
It is a law of politics that actions such as these are designed to provoke equal and opposite reactions.
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Baby P back to being a political football
Lord Laming’s review of child protection ordered after Baby P appears to have been leaked to the News of the World ahead of its official publication on Thursday.
Whether or not the content reported by the paper is genuine (one authoritative source has suggested to Community Care the NotW is merely guessing) it raises the question of the motivation behind the story. A clue could lie in the way the main political parties have used the tabloids for point-scoring over Baby P. Was the “leak” placed by the Tories in yet another attempt to attack Labour’s record on child protection since Victoria Climbie?
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Telegraph.co.uk hacked; hasn’t told users yet
Softpedia reports that the Telegraph.co.uk was compromised by an anonymous hacker, exposing that its security is so lax that details of its 700,000 registered users can be accessed fairly easily. Someone from Trend Micro advised that:
…if you are a Telegraph subscriber and are concerned about the safety of any other online accounts you may have I would encourage you to change your passwords on those other accounts, and of course on the Telegraph web site.
via Schmoo. People usually have similar passwords for their different accounts, so their details may already be compromised. The problem of course is that Telegraph.co.uk haven’t yet, as far as I can see, informed their users and asked them to change their passwords yet. Many of our readers are unlikely to be Telegraph readers but, you know, just saying.
Update: Telegraph technologists post a response.
Identity politics and the internet
I’ve been thinking a lot, over the past few days, with all the shilly-shallying around International Women’s Day and this whole issue of violence against women and whether or not it’s important. I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a feminist writing online, and whether I can hack the amount of abuse I’ve been getting recently. Whether it just depresses me too much to carry on. People have been telling me to shut up and get a real job for a while now. Perhaps I should listen to them.
On the internet, identity is fluid – and so choosing to adopt and pursue a female identity, or indeed any identity which deviates from white heteronormativity, is a statement with which makes a lot of people uncomfortable on a very basic level. Choosing to be proud of an identity that consciously others itself from the white, male consensus with which the internet, like so many other fiefdoms, emerged, is problematic. It can and does draw an horrific quantity of abuse, including on the pages of mainstream debate sites such as Comment Is Free, Lablist and even – sometimes – this site.
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Challenging tabloid lies
After the Sun Lies comes along the new revamped and improved Daily Mail Watch, again masterminded by Tim from Bloggerheads. Do at least go and read Jamie and 5cc’s opening messages: both are great arguments for why challenging tabloid bullshit is worthwhile.
Why is Andrew Gilligan still taken seriously?
I was intrigued by a Londoner’s Diary column in the Evening Standard having a dig yesterday at occasional LC contributor Dave Hill. Could it have anything to do with the fact that Dave Hill keeps exposing Andrew Gilligan’s piss-poor journalism?
Last week Gilligan flew the kite that Sir Alan Sugar had been approached to stand as Mayor. “Complete bollocks,” as Dave Hill soon pointed out. Then, as Adam documents here, the story died as other journalists realised it didn’t stack up either. The Evening Standard story too kept getting revised to fit the facts. Not the first time Andrew “sockpuppet” Gilligan has been left with egg on his face.
On a side note, the Tories are also left with egg on their faces. As Mick Fealty points out here, it’s no surprise blogger Iain Dale has kept silent about Caroline Spelman being caught out: he confidently predicted recently that she’d be cleared of any wrong-doing. It was, of course, part of a half-hearted attempt to influence the parliamentary committee’s decision. Fail.
Guys, if you want to do media hit-jobs, you must learn from the Democrats. Though, I’m not sure there’s any hope for Andrew Gilligan; he’s still running a campaign against Ken Livingstone.
Woolas: the Minister for Invertebrates
Phil Woolas yesterday responded to the recent Daily Mail article in which the paper suggested that British-born descendants of relatively recent immigrants shouldn’t be classified as British, an article that Sunder delightfully skewered only a week or so ago.
Woolas’ full statement can be usefully summarised as ‘nothing to do with me, guv‘ followed by a stream of complaints which amount to the suggestion that the Office of National Statistics is actively politicking on the issue of migration, hence the claim that the statistical data is released on the 24 Feb, on which the Mail’s story appears to have been based, was accompanied by a nine page press release which ‘highlighted the 1 in 9 figure as the main finding’.
Woolas’ unusually strong assertions, set my ‘there’s-something-not-quite-right bump’ itching, for no better reason than the fact that I simply cannot recall a single instance in which the ONS have ever come within a country mile of behaving in the manner that Woolas claims – and when a politician starts claiming that an independent civil service agency is acting in manner that’s completely out of character then I, for one, start looking around for signs of small furry mammals of the genus ‘Rattus‘.
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The strange case of David Aaronovitch’s priorities
In the Times yesterday columnist David Aaronovitch went to work on the popular idea that we as citizens are caught on CCTV camera 300 times a day. He was tenacious, dogged and vociferous in his quest to debunk the misconception.
He should be congratulated on his little scoop. It’s worthy of a blogger, in fact. If only, however, he’d shown the same tenacity, doggedness, and vociferousness in chasing down the facts in 2003 when spurious statistics and misconceptions were left to fester in the public imagination without correction and ended up taking us to war.
If I remember rightly, Aaronovitch was quite happy then to take the peddlers of those spurious statistics and misconceptions at their word. Indeed, he crowed those false assertions from his column in a national newspaper. Afterwards, feeling a little sheepish, he said on the subject of Iraq’s WMDs:
If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again.
Given his propensity to shovel down and regurgitate any amount of government say-so since he said that, we can only assume his promise of future disbelief was also a misconception of some kind. Would anyone care to chase it down with Aaronovitchesque tenacity?
I note the irony that Aaronovitch once won the Orwell Prize for journalism. Can anyone pinpoint the precise moment he went from speak to power to speaking for it?
(Cross posted at Chicken Yoghurt)
Statement from Phil Woolas MP on who ‘is British’
I recently posted a letter to Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, in response to an article that suggested British-born descendants of immigrants shouldn’t classify themselves as ‘British’. I asked immigration minister Phil Woolas if he had any comment and received this:
Dear Sunder
Most people believe that it is the Government who have released these figures in this way. In fact, it was the ONS with no Ministerial involvement and indeed despite my objections. What’s worse is that the press release which ran to nine pages highlighted the 1 in 9 figure as the main finding. So, Government gets the blame by some for whipping up anti-foreign sentiment when it is the independent ONS who are playing politics. The justification from the ONS who had, out of schedule, highlighted the figure two weeks earlier because it was “topical” is, at best, naive or, at worst, sinister.
The fact that 1 in 9 people who are in Britain (for over a year) were born overseas is neither new nor informative. It includes around 370,000 undergraduates who will not stay in this country as well as those British nationals born overseas including around a quarter of a million born to our armed forces personnel serving overseas. The figure of twelve months is arbitrary. Surely the distinction between temporary residence and Indefinite Leave to Remain and full citizenship is more useful in framing a mature debate.
There are times in our history when the numbers of residents born overseas was higher than 1 in 9. Robert Winder’s brilliant history of migration estimates that at the time of the Huguenot migration the figure could have been as high as one in three.
The whole issue highlights the toxic nature of this debate.
Phil Woolas MP
Immigration Minister
The Daily Mail: Still Homophobic and stunningly dishonest
A few hours ago now Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail poured a Molotov Cocktail and sat back, ready to watch the PC brigade scream. Monday’s Daily Mail frontpage has one of those frontpage stories that’ll make you tut and say “typical Mail“. But it’s so typical in fact, that I think it’s worth digging a little deeper into it.
It screams “ANOTHER BLOW TO FATHERHOOD” in that way only the Mail can do. No – it’s not a sympathetic piece supporting say, Fathers 4 Justice and their campaign for father’s rights – the Mail branded those “morons” long ago. It’s in fact some thinly-veiled homophobia, of course. “Now IVF mothers can name ANYONE as ‘father’ on birth certificate – and it doesn’t even have to be a man”, the paper tells us.
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Why did The Times remove Philip Pullman’s article?
The writer wishes to remain anonymous
On the eve of the CoML, writer Philip Pullman wrote an article for The Times newspaper. It was abruptly it was pulled from their website soon after and you can see this discussion on the CoML website asking why.
Then, I was passed an email sent by Mr Pullman himself worrying about what happened and wondering why it had been pulled.
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Girls need real role models
Last year I read a piece by Polly Toynbee about ‘girlification’ and its part in the backlash against feminism. By ‘girlification’ she means the relentless way young girls are targeted from the minute they’re born with pink toys, pink clothes, pink accessories, princesses, Barbies, Bratz, makeup and heels. The way they’re encouraged to judge each other on the way their look and how much they weigh and pick at ‘flaws’ in their own appearances from a progressively younger age.
As I don’t have children of my own I don’t get year-round exposure to this sort of thing but you can’t fail to miss it at Christmas, when the television is filled with adverts for the year’s ‘must-have’ toys and gadgets. Boys get to be superheroes, pirates and soldiers, work with their hands and go on adventures. Girls get to be princesses and learn to be ‘just like mum’ by playing with toy kitchens and home appliances.
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How journalists can get back at PC Plod
In light of news that the public is no longer allowed to take pictures of the police, I’d like to point out a possible scenario which local reporters may have to go through in the future.
I say this as:
a) a crime reporter, who frequently comes into contact with coppers,
b) as a reporter in a city where there is a seriously big presence by both navy and army and
c) as a reporter of some years, who has heard everything in relation to the moral panic over paedophiles and terrorists…
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Alan Sugar to sue The Sun
The Media Guardian reports today that Alan Sugar is suing The Sun newspaper for its recent front-page story that Muslims had issued a ‘Jewish hit-list’ targeting him among others. The story was, of course, pure rubbish. He
…yesterday issued a writ at the high court in London against the Sun’s publisher and News International subsidiary, News Group Newspapers, and its editor, Rebekah Wade. The businessman and TV star is understood to have been angry at the story, which he felt risked his personal security.
Woohoo! There are two issues here.
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Don’t blame the children!
I’m deeply shocked by news reports that DisAbled CBeebies presenter about Cerrie Burnell. Despite already having had small roles in Eastenders, The Bill and Grange Hill, the BBC has received an unbelievable nine formal complaints about Miss Burnell recently.
Why? Simply because Miss Burnell was born with one arm! What difference does that make? Any sensible person living in 21st century England would instantly ask.
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Tech politics: libertarians and the Library
A year ago, I wrote a piece here about the great art of the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and how we owe its existence to the Dead Hand of the (Tuscan) State. But where should we look for actions of slightly more modern government working to enrich our lives? Certainly not in the unending flow of nutty, illiberal laws; nor in the insidious creep of compliance culture (subject of a memorable Stephen Fry podcast). So, here’s an idea: look to the British Library.
More specifically, their Turning the Pages project, 10 years in the developing, that put our national library in the very first rank of learning innovation worldwide. (See the video.) The project’s achievement has been to digitize 15 (so far) of the Library’s most valuable manuscripts, and deliver them inside an interactive online environment that re-creates the experience of handling them in the raw.
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In defence of LabourList
The more the right-wing bloggers attack Derek Draper and LabourList, the more I feel obliged to defend both (an unfortunate position, I know). Let me explain why in a bit. First, no one gives a crap for what you “think” Dizzy. No one pays you much attention either Donal Blaney (a lawyer who spends too much time obsessing over young Labour PPC Clare Hazelgrove). And frankly Iain Dale, if the Labour party was looking towards you for advice on how to take on the Conservatives online I’d be quite worried.
Here’s the reason for my defence. The right-wing blogosphere is full of vindictive tossers who spend all their time screeching, shouting and generally publishing rubbish. ConservativeHome is about the only place I spend time studying because it focuses on strategy, policy and thinks long-term. This situation mirrors the right-wing blogosphere in America, dominated by the likes of Michelle Malkin, LittleGreenFootballs and Ann Coulter. Only a tiny minority, like The Next Right, are actually worth reading. All Derek Draper has done is taken the same culture and style to absurd proportions by picking a fight with all the heavies. It’s the same Westminster culture of being outraged over the most trivial of rubbish that they all inhabit. The right-wingers may bitch and screech and more but Draper must be laughing for the amount of traffic they’re driving over.
All this rock throwing on either side is immensely amusing to watch – but for these rightwingers to suddenly develop scruples is most hypocritical.
Call on The Sun to support social workers
Following the conclusion of the trial of the carers of Baby P, The Sun led a major campaign against the social workers who worked with the child.
In an open letter to the newspaper, Community Care magazine’s Daniel Lombard asks its editor, Rebekah Wade, to rethink its agenda on social work issues, which could ultimately damage child protection efforts and children’s social work overall.
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You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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