Campaign on Rod Liddle moves into final stage
Such is the strength of anger against Rod Liddle being appointed editor of the Independent that over 1000 people sent an email to Alexander Lebedev’s official email account this weekend. We also exceeded our fundraising target against Liddle.
The email campaign was organised by 38 Degrees, who recently joined our coalition.
A decision on the sale of the Indy is imminently expected. This is the final stage in our push to let Mr Lebedev know of the strength of feeling against Liddle.
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The hateful bile of Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips has been foaming at the mouth again over ‘Neathergate’:
A covert policy to subvert the makeup of the country and change its national identity, an abuse of democracy, a stupendous swindle of the British people — more, an act of collective treachery to the nation: an enormous story, you might think? You would be wrong. Other than in the Daily Mail, I cannot find any reference to this anywhere else.
Tabloid Watch has done already done a good job debunking the assertion that Migration Watch’s latest ’revelations’ are only being covered in the Daily Mail, by pointing out that they’ve been covered in The Sun, The Express and the Telegraph.
A bit of background. Andrew Neather was previously a government advisor who last year wrote a comment piece claiming New Labour’s immigration policy was: “intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. He later clarified his point, but it was too late – by that time the right had assumed a huge conspiracy.
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Winston Silcott and tabloid rough justice
contribution by Tim Fenton
Tucked away on the Beeb website this week was the news that an arrest has been made in connection with the brutal murder 25 years ago of PC Keith Blakelock, hacked to death at the height of rioting on Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm estate.
Blakelock was a beat bobby in Muswell Hill, but had been drafted in to provide cover for the London Fire Brigade, who had been called out to tackle a fire on the estate. As the rioting intensified, the firefighters withdrew, followed by the police. Blakelock tripped and fell, and was overtaken by a large mob.
A generation ago, the behaviour of the police, and the methods they employed, were rather different to today: put simply, under pressure to solve the murder of one of their own, the Met fitted up three men for the crime: Mark Braithwaite, Engin Raghip and most notoriously Winston Silcott, who was already on bail for murder.
Silcott was effectively convicted on the basis of an unsigned confession, given in the absence of a solicitor.
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The worst journalist in Britain.
contribution by BenSix
Yes, yes, I know I said I’d stop hectoring columnists for effect, so I want to make it clear that when I dub Con Coughlin Britain’s worst journalist it’s not theatre, it’s the result of a rigorous and entirely objective assessment of the facts. The Telegraph “reporter” has been merrily regurgitating MI6 and CIA propaganda for years – distorting news on Libya, Iran and, most notoriously, Iraq.
His 45 minutes of shame were enough to land him in ignominy, but no, he’s still here, and he’s turned his hand to blogging…
Why don’t our judges just come clean and sign up with the Taliban?
Better pay?
Perhaps it’s because me lerned friends are too grand to travel by public transport, but the only reason I can think of to explain their egregious behaviour is that they somehow feel immune from the threat posed by Islamist terror groups.
Then, Mr Coughlin, allow me to aid your imagination!
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Behind the BBC poll on climate change
contribution by Climate Sock
Another week, another shonky poll? On Friday the BBC reported their new survey, which they claimed showed a clear drop in the number of people who believe in climate change or that it’s man-made.
After the BBC’s inaccurate coverage of a climate poll last year, I was ready for this to be another bit of mis-reporting ripe for a take-down.
Yet in both the poll and the way the BBC described the numbers, there’s little to fault: their data do indeed suggest that belief in man-made climate change has fallen since November.
But I’m not convinced that the UEA emails or the glacier controversy were behind these changes, or that the changes in levels of belief are inherently interesting or important.
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US giant sues Tory blogger over domain
This one comes firmly from the the files marked ‘you couldn’t make this up if you tried’, ‘WTF?’ and ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding!’
British Tory blogger, Tory Politico, has received a cease and decist nastygram from lawyers acting for a major US Political news site, Politico.com, which gives them ten days to shut down their blog and turn over the domain name to Politico on the utterly spurious grounds that it claims that the use of the term ‘politico’ will create ‘consumer confusion’ and ‘injure the image and valuable goodwill’ associated with the Politico name.
Seriously, the company behind the US site, Capitol News, genuinely seems to think that its audience is so thick that it won’t be able to tell the difference between a big fuck-off American political news site ranked 246th in the United States in terms of web traffic and a tiny and relatively inconsequential British political blog (no offence intended, BTW, scale is a relative thing).
And this is all seemingly based on ‘evidence’ taken from Alexa’s somewhat dodgy webstats which shows that our Tory Politco gets about 30% of their webtraffic from outside the UK, which Capitol News presumes to mean America.
In that limited sense, they’re probably right – I don’t know how long Tory Politico has been going but 30% foreign traffic is about right for the amount you’d expect to be driven to your site via random Google search, most of which will bounce straight off because the site doesn’t have what they’re looking for.
However, when you consider that Alexa ranks Tory Politico at 1,755,000 or so compared to Politico.com’s overall ranking of 1,221, then I’m guessing that that net impact of Tory Politico scoring a bit of US traffic off Google search could reasonably be classed as ‘the next best thing to fuck all!’
To compound the epic fail that’s already well in progress, it all appears that the President and CEO of Politico.com is Frederick J. Ryan Jr., former Assistant to Ronald Reagan during his time as US President, who also happens to be current chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation.
Jeez, I thought you guys were supposed to be on the same side?
Needless to say, if its the image and goodwill associated with the Politico brand that Capitol News are so concerned about then we should make sure that as many people as possible get to know just how much they care, shouldn’t we?
—-
Couple of pointers for anyone using Twitter.
The short URL for Tory Politico’s own post is http://bit.ly/9D2916 and the #politico hashtag is being used for this issue, so please use it and let’s see if we can get this story trending.
How the media is tricked into ‘balance’ on climate change
contribution by Peter McColl
Sunny pointed out on CiF yesterday that the BBC gave yet more air time to climate change denial on Newsnight the night before. What the mainstream media describe as ‘balance’ has been a matter of concern for some time to me.
The strategy deployed by climate change denialists focuses on two elements. Firstly, problematising the science of climate change, and then appealing to ‘balance’ in the media to ensure coverage of their position.
This is made all the more extraordinary by the lack of coverage for the other conspiracy theories Sunny mentions.
A couple of weeks ago Rod Liddle, the chungwit slated as next editor of ‘The Independent’ was on the radio. He was asked about a range of his more sensationalist opinions. This included his opinions on climate change.
Liddle claims not to be a climate change denier. He is, instead, a climate change ‘moderate’. This, he claims, means he refutes the extremist claims of both climate change deniers, and the extremist climate change believers.
Now this rankles with me.
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Does Simon Jenkins shit in the woods?
I believe that the best response to the careening unexamined prejudice of the esteemed Mr Jenkins’ latest article on Comment Is Free is a line-by line takedown.
The pope is right and Harriet Harman is wrong. I might prefer the opposite to be the case but, on the matter in hand, Voltaire’s principle should apply. The Roman Catholic church may be a hotbed of religious prejudice, indoctrination and, somewhere in the United Kingdom, social division.
…and sexual discrimination, intolerance and ugly homophobic dogma.
But faced with Harriet Harman’s equality bill and her utopian campaign to straighten all the rough timber of mankind, the pope’s right to practise what he preaches needs defending.
Last I heard, it wasn’t Harman who was anxious to straighten out her constituents.
Help us raise money for an ad against Rod Liddle!
The massive interest in the campaign by Indy readers against Rod Liddle as editor of the Independent has raised serious doubts even with Alexander Lebedev.
I’ve been told by several top sources at the Independent that the once-certain appointment is now being considered with greater reservation than before. Hell, the Indy’s own staff are sending out coded messages – they don’t want him there. Lebedev is still considering Liddle, but with greater reservations than before.
We need your help to make Alexander Lebedev’s doubts bigger. We want to place an advert (below) in the Independent, making the case that it would suffer greatly under the editorship of Rod Liddle.
If the Indy refuses the ad, the money raised will go to three charities dealing with Somalian refugees, a women’s rape and sexual abuse support group and a charity campaiging on climate change.
ClimateHate – the new battleground
I thank LeftOutside for introducing me to this topic. I think the following is clearly true:
1. For a great proportion of our scientific beliefs, we have to rely on a long-established consensus. For example, I ‘believe’ that a hydrogen atom has a proton and an electron because I have been told by a huge consensus, it sort of makes sense, and I trust the consensus. For views on evolution, the Holocaust, whether transfats cause cancer, or carbon dioxide causes global warming, no single person can themselves compile enough evidence. You need to rely on scientists who themselves rely on more scientists.
2. Conspiracy theorists seldom or never have enough data for their views, but rely on a profound belief in the bad faith of their opponents. This is a sort of heroic arrogance – ‘I alone in my living room have worked out how misled thousands of others are’. 99% of the time, they are wrong; 1%, we are talking Galileo
3. However, people often form opinions, or choose which ‘consensus’ to trust, on the basis of feelings. This particularly works in a negative way; if you really hate X and X believes somethingis true and important, then thinking and proclaiming it as untrue gives enormous pleasure. This happens whether X is some braying redfaced foxhunter or sanctimonious good for nothing leftie student.
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What would the Tories say about this?
Yesterday it emerged that a former city worker living in a £500,000 home in East Sussex may have killed her own two children aged 2 and 3. They were found locked in the back of her Nissan and the post-mortem said they asphyxiated.
But the main point is this. According to the Daily Mail, Mrs Donnison and her husband had just split up. In fact, “the couple’s marriage had been falling apart for a long time”, adding extra strains on the woman.
No doubt if Iain Duncan Smith’s tax break for married couples had been already in place the two would still be together. Under the Tories’ proposals, with children under 3 the Donnisons would have been entitled to a tax allowance.
And surely an extra twenty or thirty quid extra a month would have helped them patch their differences and nipped family arguments in the bud.
Yesterday I wrote about a similarly disturbing case.
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Lefties – stop chasing the Chilcot farce
I haven’t been paying too much attention to the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry, largely because I’m cynically assuming it’s going to return a verdict of Whoops, 100% Accidental Bloodbath, Tut-Tut.
I am, however, loving the reactions it’s bringing out around the internet.
Twittering anti-war lefty types seem to veer from cold suspicion to outbursts of wild optimism every time generic civil servant (x) makes a vague admission that yes, the case for war may possibly have been full of bullshit.
Why this should be, I have no idea. Obviously the case for war was crammed to bursting with bullshit, bulging and groaning at the seams. Hilariously though, this inquiry marks at least the third time that the British state has told the anti-war left that the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary, and the third instance of enthusiastic, puppy-eyed lefties saying Really? Surely not, rushing off to check the OED.
I imagine that Chilcot will cast Tony Blair as a shifty, pompous, dishonest twerp who sent the armed forces into a boiling disaster, much as an inquiry into Myra Hindley’s behaviour would probably raise doubts over her suitability for childminding duties. Sadly, the chances of it finding criminal culpability in the former PM’s aggressive warmaking are somewhere between jack and shit, and Jack just nipped into Ladbrokes to put a whopping great bet on a whitewash.
I guess this is my point – the question of the war’s legality is an enticing carrot for anti-war types to chase in perpetuity. I’m working on the assumption that for some, a fiery official condemnation would prove them right once and for all and force the nation to face reality, as if the last seven years weren’t quite real enough.
Whether Chilcot nails Blair’s balls to the floor or not, the war’s defenders are not about to throw up their hands in horror and join in the massive bout of Bodysnatchers-style finger-pointing and howling. There will be no Thank you protestors for being right about this epic clusterfuck after-show party.
A sizeable number of the war’s cheerleaders have cheerfully blown off its horrific consequences, from the Iraqi insurgents’ bloodbaths, through the sectarian death squads and the ensuing civil war and micro-partitioning of the country, by waving their hands and chanting the magical exculpatory incantation, Al-Qaeda terrorists ate our homework!
These people would rather cram their scrotums down their own throats than give an inch to Chilcot, and the odds of say, the Times, running a Sorry we fed you all lies editorial are woeful.
Further, regardless of the outcome, the former PM isn’t going to be clapped in irons, chained to a heavy radiator and thrown into the Thames. He’s going to continue shambling around the world jamming great fistfuls of dollars into his pockets in the full glare of the public eye.
No, the only service the inquiry can perform is to utterly expose the lunacy at the heart of our decision to join the Americans in their deranged Iraq enterprise, and to make sure the lesson is drummed into the public one more time, hard enough to prevent even partial repeats. Here’s a brief recap of exactly how we wound up taking part…
Let’s recall that the Americans invaded Iraq to fend off Iraqi aggression.
I’ll write that again, for clarity. The United States – the world’s only remaining superpower, with a defence budget of five hundred billion dollars per annum – invaded the castrated, two-soldiers-in-a-Fiat-Panda dictatorship of Iraq in self-defence.
Now, I can already hear the objections about Tony Blair’s humanitarian agenda, but none of that matters at all. Tony wasn’t in charge – the US was deploying the most terrifying military machine in history, and made it clear they could squash the Iraqi military like an asthmatic beetle without our help.
This was the Bush White House’s war, and they wouldn’t start babbling about painting schools and helping those poor women vote until the collapse of Iraq had turned the country into the Hammer House of Horror. Their justifications were the terrifying, anthrax-filled model planes that Saddam might use to genocide Dogdick, Alabama and those awful mushroom clouds that would be shaped like smoking guns, or whatever.
And the plan? The plan went like this – Invade Iraq = Freedom!
You know when you’ve got a suitcase that’s so full you can’t shut it, and you wedge everything down and shove a fork through the zipper and pull to no avail, and eventually two of your mates have to sit on the damn thing until you eventually get the bulging, straining case shut?
That is just how full of bullshit the case for war was.
The Americans were standing, pumped-up and raring to dive into the new Vietnam they’ve been looking for ever since they fled the original with their tails between their legs, loudly bellowing that they would totally have kicked those skinny pyjama guys asses, if their buddies hadn’t stopped them…
…And the former Prime Minister looked at this situation and thought, This looks like the kind of ultraviolent dipshit escapade I could really get my teeth into!
So there’s your one and only question for the PM on Friday – What the hell were you thinking, numbnuts?
Of course, we know the answer to that one, but I don’t think it’ll do the country any harm to hear Tony Blair spell out his reasoning, one more time.
The press and impossibility of legal highs
contribution by Left Outside
Last year a girl died following allegedly consuming a mixture of Ketamine and Mephedrone.
A following coroner’s report established that there were no drugs in her system and that she died of broncho-pneumonia following a streptococcal A infection.
The reporting of this at the time should have been described as scandalously irresponsible by any sensible definition of the term.
Kate Silverton farce with Rod Liddle on Five Live
contribution by Scott Dryden
Whatever anyone’s views on Rod Liddle, I believe most people accept that it is reasonably significant for a man who’s in line to become editor of a national newspaper to be accused of racism.
No surprises then that Liddle should appear on a BBC radio programme (On Sunday morning) to answer the allegations. Except rather than an interrogation being conducted, a platform was provided for Liddle to put forward the case that he’s the man for the job.
Alarm bells should have started ringing, really, when it was revealed that Liddle would be interviewed by Kate Silverton, a former colleague who he worked closely with on a disastrous BBC Two political programme.
Astonishingly, at no point did Silverton offer a disclosure of their association.
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Help us better the Press Complaints Commission
The PCC has often come under criticism on LibCon and elsewhere for the way it seems to regulate the press (or not). There are far too many instances to list here where it has not managed to get newspapers to correct even basic mistakes.
But rather than just complaining, a group of bloggers including yours truly are making a submission to the PCC.
A review of the newspaper industry’s Code of Practice is being conducted by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, a separate body that operates independently of the PCC. [slightly updated, see comments]
We have come up with five suggestions for the PCC code:
1. Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).
2. Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).
3. The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.
4. Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.
5. A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.
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Desperately Seeking Bulger
Despite the snarky title, I don’t want to spend too much time raking over the obvious parallels between Cameron’s shameless attempt to gain political capital out of the ongoing trial of two young boys for what is, by any standards, a staggeringly brutal assault on two other children of the same age, and the actions of a certain former shadow Home Secretary who pulled much the same stunt 17 years ago.
The main lesson is all this, such as it is, is that politicians will happily say almost anything if they think there’s an extra vote or two in it.
That said, Cameron’s efforts to jump on this particular bandwagon do serve to reinforce the general impression that both he and his campaign team are desperately inattentive, woefully out of touch and only casually acquainted with real world.
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Cameron shamelessly exploits crime for political gain
The Press Association today reports:
Tory leader David Cameron will warn that Britain is in a “social recession” even deeper than its economic one as he steps up pre-election campaigning. And the Tory leader will point to the torture of two young boys as an extreme symptom of what he dubs Labour’s “moral failure” as he launches a raft of social policies.
“When parents are rewarded for splitting up, when professionals are told that it’s better to follow rules than do what they think is best, when single parents find they take home less for working more, when young people learn that it pays not to get a job, when the kind-hearted are discouraged from doing good in their community, is it any wonder our society is broken? We can’t go on like this.”
Mr Cameron will point to the brutal attack on the nine and 11-year-old boys in Edlington, South Yorkshire, by brothers aged 10 and 11 to reinforce his case.
It’s beggars belief that Cameron thinks it is right for a party leader to shamelessly exploit such a brutal crime so he can simply take cheap political swipes. Does he plan to strengthen legislation and provision for domestic violence? Nope, nothing about that in here.
Perhaps he is advocating that every single family in the country is placed under supervision so nothing like this could ever happen? It’s a possibility but the details of any policies are still vague.
Oh wait, the murder of Jamie Bulger took place under a Conservative government. Perhaps that was the start of this “social recession”? I suppose under a Tory government there will no violent crime ever. Right?
Exclusive: EDM against Rod Liddle; admits to nasty comments; more emerges
I’ll try and keep this succinct because the trail is long and interesting. Firstly, it looks like Liddle is being contradicted by the website’s admin (who denies they were hacked) and secondly, he has admitted to some of the comments I highlighted earlier.
Today there will be an Early Day Motion in Parliament against Liddle’s possible appointment as editor of the Indy. It will be tabled by Paul Flynn and Diane Abbott MPs, confirmed here last night, and has been prompted by the comments I published Sunday evening.
Monkeymfc
Let’s start with Liddle’s claim that others were making comments on his behalf. The Mail on Sunday reported:
When first contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Liddle denied writing the BNP message, adding: ‘I often get opposition fans logging in under my name to try to embarrass me. I wouldn’t go near the racist ones.’
…
And he denied writing the comment about racial intelligence, saying the site’s administrator had told him it had been left by someone using a different computer to his.
Yesterday Roy Greenslade reported that Vikram Dodd was told by Rod Liddle that, “he was the victim of hacking due to other users of the site guessing his password.”
I asked in an earlier post when he found out his login was hacked and whether he told others this had happened.
Yesterday evening, a website admin posted this message.
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Did Rod Liddle also post these racist comments?
When the Mail on Sunday first approached Rod Liddle yesterday about comments posted on the MillwallFC site under the pseudonym ‘monkeymfc’, he denied posting some of the inflammatory comments.
He said the comments had been made by a hacker. Later he admitted making some comments, though not all.
I often get opposition fans logging in under my name to try to embarrass me. I wouldn’t go near the racist ones.
It’s worth pointing out that registered members of that messageboard can only post under specific usernames with a login. No one else can pretend to be a specific user unless they know the password.
We’ve done some digging and found very vile comments posted there ‘monkeymfc’, and have some questions for Rod Liddle.
1. He claims these extreme racist comments were put there by “hackers”. How did these hackers get his password to break into his account?
2. I’ve tried to find instances where he complained to moderators about his account being hacked, or distanced himself from messages supposedly posted under his name but couldn’t find any examples. Could he show any? Since Rod Liddle has met people from the messageboard at games, surely he would be concerned about his reputation being besmirched?
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Rod Liddle writes racist msgs on footy website
The Daily Mail reports tonight:
Former Today programme editor Rod Liddle has been accused of racism after writing a series of inflammatory messages on a football supporters’ website.
…
The first message was written in October, when he contributed to a debate about whether the BNP should admit non-white members.
He wrote: ‘There’s thousands of organisations catering exclusively to black and asian minorities. **** ‘em, close them down. Why do blacks need a forum of their own? As a power base and cash cow for ****s and in order to perpetuate the myth of widespread discrimination.’
…
When first contacted by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Liddle denied writing the BNP message, adding: ‘I often get opposition fans logging in under my name to try to embarrass me. I wouldn’t go near the racist ones.’
However, he later admitted writing the post. ‘Yes I did write that, but be fair,’ he said. ‘The language is not something I would put in The Sunday Times or The Spectator. You could do me for that I suppose.’
More on this developing story later…
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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