Pandering to religious tribalism by Chris Sloggett.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Chris Sloggett wrote the opinion piece below on the 2nd, July on the National Secular Society website.

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VOTERS and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should reject the trend of pandering to religious tribalism, says Chris Sloggett.

The recent events at Batley Grammar School are well-documented, but still shocking to recount. A loud group of intolerant Muslims gathered at the gates of a school demanding a teacher's dismissal because they objected to a resource he used in class. The school suspended the teacher and issued a grovelling apology. The teacher faced threats, and soon afterwards two of his colleagues were also suspended.

A local investigation has found that the resource which the teacher showed - a cartoon of Islam's prophet Muhammad - was not used with any ill intent. The teacher was nominally reinstated. But he and his colleagues can't return to work because they fear they could be attacked. Meanwhile the investigation has effectively enforced a blasphemy taboo on the school by saying the cartoon, or similar ones, shouldn't be used again.

The teacher at the centre of the row has been driven out of the area and into hiding. The mob that hounded him has got what it wanted. Other schools around the country will have taken note.

And the politicians have moved on. The Department for Education has called on parents to accept the outcome of the local investigation. The department and others have presented this as if it's some kind of reasonable compromise. But anyone who cares about teachers' freedom to do their jobs without facing intimidation and threats - on this issue or any other - should say what this is: a meek surrender to demands for censorship.

When the protests first broke out many politicians and commentators wrung their hands. Some called for calm, but the message was often that the main concern lay in the minutiae of a handful of teachers' decisions about how to present a particular lesson in one school.

The grubby Batley and Spen by-election, which limped to a close...., helped to highlight the price to be paid for this. When the issue came up during the campaign, mainstream candidates' responses smacked of fear, self-interest and short-termist thinking. They either doggedly avoided it or offered responses which were weak to the point of meaninglessness, as a piece from Batley by Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday highlighted this weekend. Meanwhile George Galloway spotted an opportunity to weaponise the issue to try to win over some reactionary Muslim voters, saying the school had "absolutely no right" to use the cartoon.

Did the politicians think their positions were right, or did they just not want to upset a perceived bloc vote? Either way, this collective wall of silence was alarmingly predictable. It's now a standard tactic to treat large swathes of voters primarily as members of various religious 'communities', and to appeal to them through the gatekeepers who claim to speak for them.

But this approach sends the message that religious identity groups can make increasingly unreasonable demands and nobody will dare to say no to them. In Batley, there seems to have been a widespread unspoken agreement that freedom of expression - the most important freedom which citizens in a democracy enjoy - could be treated as a commodity and signed away for electoral convenience.

Politicians should beware where the multi-communal game leads. If they rely on religious identity politics to shore up their support, they'll come under pressure to extend more privileges to particular religious groups. Others will organise along competing identitarian lines, or grow bewildered that politicians appear uninterested in them. The principle that we all enjoy equal citizenship and that politicians should seek to serve all of our interests will be further frayed.

There will also be fertile ground for bad actors of various stripes. The Batley and Spen campaign was marred by inter-communal tensions and intimidatory tactics, including homophobic intimidation aimed at Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater. More moderate and reasonable voices, such as a group of Muslim women who rejected the authority of a "loud minority" of Muslim men this week, faced an uphill battle to make themselves heard. Several far right candidates also spotted an opportunity to advance their agendas.

This ugly campaign should be a prompt to pause and reconsider. Indulging religious tribalism is risky and unsustainable. Voters and politicians who value social cohesion and basic democratic principles should unite against it.

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George Galloway threatens legal action

BBC REPORT

:

George Galloway has threatened to take legal action against a council in a row over font sizes on his by-election posters.

The adverts for his campaign as the Workers Party candidate in Thursday's Batley and Spen ballot were taken down.

Kirklees Council said the adverts broke election rules but Mr Galloway accused the Labour-run authority of a "blatantly partisan move".

It said the posters "did not meet the standards required".

According to the council, mandatory text, known as an imprint, identifying the source of the campaign material appears too small.

Mr Galloway said the local authority had "used taxpayer money and council staff to remove hundreds of posters" and had not returned them to his campaign headquarters.

"But it is clear there are no levels to which Labour won't stoop in this by-election." he said.

"Gone is the notion of a free and fair election".

James Giles, Mr Galloway's campaign manager, said it had instructed lawyers and reported the removal to West Yorkshire Police and the Electoral Commission.

Kirklees Council said it had received a complaint about some of the posters and had asked Mr Galloway's campaign to "correct the problem" before taking them down.

Candidates could place posters on street furniture during the election campaign if the posters met certain requirements, said a council statement.

One was "all imprints on these election materials have to have a font size of at least 12".

The size was important as the source of election materials needed to be "clear and transparent", it said.

"These rules are set out in our election campaign policy which all candidates received as part of their nomination pack", the council added.

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Dodgy language and political debate.

George Galloway - Sacked For Alleged Antisemitism

IN a recent posting, Brian Bamford, referred to what he saw as the misuse of language in political debate.  He argued that it is extremely stupid or foolish to equate Tommy Robinson and his 'basket of deplorable's' in the English Defence League - ardent supporters of the state of Israel -  with the political systems of Italy and Nazi Germany, by describing them as Nazi or Fascist.   Likewise, while many find Donald Trump equally deplorable, he's no Fascist either.  The terms have been robbed of their real meaning of totalitarian national socialist dictatorships and are now merely used as  term of abuse. 

The same can also be applied to the term antisemitism - hostility to or prejudice against Jews.  The word is now used to conflate criticism of the state of Israel with anti-semitism and to silence and bring down critics of Israel such as George Galloway, Ken Livingstone and Peter Willsman. 

Galloway was recently sacked by talkRADIO for an allegedly anti-Semitic tweet.  He praised Liverpool's win, before adding:   'No #Israel flags on the cup! - appearing to reference Tottenham's strong links with the Jewish community.  On Monday, talkRadio terminated his weekly show. Galloway later said:  "I love Jews.  I don't like Israel.'

While Galloway holds pro-Palestinian sympathies and refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate state, it is difficult to see how his remarks are anti-Semitic.  Historically, Tottenham Hotspur F.C. has had a significant Jewish following and Tottenham supporters, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, refer to themselves as the 'Yid Army' and have adopted 'Yid' as a badge of pride. The football club accused Galloway of being a racist despite their fans using the term 'Yid'! Are Tottenham fans also Antisemites?  Mr Galloway hit back at his former employer, tweeting:  'See you in Court guys.'

Although Ken Livingstone was accused of antisemitism, he eventually resigned from the Labour Party denying that he was anti-Semitic or had brought the party into disrepute. Livingstone's crime was to have referred to the Haavara agreement signed by the Nazi government and Zionist leadership that aided the relocation of Jews to Israel and to claim that this showed Hitler, supported Zionism.  Livingstone, also held pro-Palestinian sympathies and like Galloway was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn.

The case of Peter Willsman is equally intriguing.  Labour suspended the NEC member over antisemitism when he claimed that the Israeli embassy had 'almost certainly' whipped up the antisemitism row within the Labour Party, which some see as a ploy to bring down the current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.  How this remark can be construed as anti-Semitic strains credulity to the limits.  In 2017, the Labour shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, called on the government to launch an immediate inquiry into 'improper interference in our democratic politics' after the disclosure that an Israeli embassy official had plotted to "take down" UK MPs regarded as hostile.  Yet, Thornberry, was not accused of antisemitism for alleging that the Israel embassy was improperly interfering in the political affairs of this country, only Willsman, who was saying much the same thing.



If Jeremy Corbyn had even a modicum of leadership ability or even a backbone, he could have laid much of this fake antisemitism to rest long ago.  Yet he continues to bend the knee and kowtow to his detractors and those who seek undermine him. Corbyn and the public school school communists who advise and surround him, thought they could draw a line under this, by adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, yet they were totally wrong as many predicted.  If Corbyn wants to be the next Prime Minister, he needs to grow a backbone and show some leadership.

'The WORD' - 'A democratic socialist paper'

by Brian Bamford

LAST night, JOHN Wilkins of the group 'Building Our Local Democracy' (BOLD) sent Northern Voices a pdf form of No.22 of 'THE WORD' - 'Britain's First Democratic Socialist Newspaper'.  It is a rare specimen, in so far as it is a British leftist paper that manages to cover politics with a sense of humour.

THE current June issue of THE WORD No.22  includes coverage of the controversal Jeremy Corbyn interview with Laura Kuenssberg, who attacked the Party’s tax agenda as ‘the politics of envy'.  Elsewhere in the paper (on page 32), it is claimed that Corbyn has been a victim of 'media bias':

David Dimbleby is quoted:

'I don’t think anyone could say that Corbyn has had a fair deal at the hands of the press, in a way that the Labour party did when it was more to the centre, but then we generally have a rightwing press.'

He also suggested the 'Labour leader has more support among the public than he does among the parliamentary Labour party.'

Then on  page 27 THE WORD reprints a post from this Northern Voices' Blog entitled 'Noam Chomsky on Labour', which was an exchange between me and Trevor Hoyle essentially abassaout the reasons for the lack of popularity and political sex appeal of the Labour Party.

On pages 16 and 17 there is an interview by Mara Levenskuhn with George Galloway an independent candidate in Gorton, Manchester, who says that he is the read Labour candidate.   THE WORD reports here that since an earlier interview taken on May15th, Sweden has withdrawn the accusations against Assange, 'making it more obvious that what George Galloway said here about Assange’s case is true and fair'. 

Mr. Galloway responds to a question thus:   'One accusation I keep stumbling against is your so called sexism.  I would like to clear this out for the socialist readers. I BELIEVE SEXISM AND AND IDENTITY POLITICS IS FREQUENTLY USED AS A WEAPON AGAINST DISSIDENTS, SO I’D LIKE TO CLEAR THIS MISCONCEPTION FOR THE “WORD” READERSHIP.'

Page 36 has a report on the 'Miners Pension Scheme' by Leslie Moore, ex Hatfeld Main Colliery (Yorkshire),

Other pages cover Food Banks; Dementia; UK citizens fighting in Syria; Homeless Votes; Privtising Royal Mail;  recipies on 'Baked River Trout on new potatoes and cherry tomatoes with anchovy rub'.

Most interestingly THE WORD has republished an article by Les May originally on this N.V. Blog entitled 'IN ROCHDALE, A LACK ON CURIOUSITY AT THE TOP?'   This last piece has been somewhat ignored by the rest of the local media in Rochdale.  

www.thewordmedia.org.uk/  

 http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/baffling-ballot-box-probe.html 

George Galloway's Bid in Gorton Election

GEORGE Galloway is set to stand in the Manchester Gorton by-election, it has now been announced.  Writing on Aron Banks' new Westminster website Mr. Galloway says: 
'I have decided to enter the race to succeed my friend for thirty years, Sir Gerald Kaufman, as MP for Manchester Gorton.
'The “All-Asian short-list” hand-picked by Keith Vaz is just not good enough for the people of Gorton one of the most deprived constituencies in Britain. The short-listing, which excluded many better candidates, is the latest in a long line of insults delivered by mainstream parties to local communities. I will run as an Independent candidate and will write a regular by-election diary for Westmonster. This is my initial election statement.
'I have a long connection with the Manchester area – two of my children live here – and with the Gorton constituency in particular. The late Sir Gerald Kaufman was a friend of mine for over 30 years. Our friendship began before I was an MP, continued throughout my near 30 years with him in Parliament and afterwards. His appearance on my television show was his last big interview and will stand the test of time.
'Sir Gerald was a big figure in the House of Commons and was known far beyond it from Hollywood to Palestine and Kashmir. When he spoke people listened.
'I have decided to seek election for Manchester Gorton in the forthcoming by-election precisely because of my admiration for its late MP and I hope to persuade voters of every background that I am the best person to try to fill his shoes.
'I want to continue his work on international issues – which are particularly important in Gorton- especially the issues of Palestine and Kashmir but also the broader questions, the dangerous confrontation between the west and the Muslim world which threatens all of us.
'I would like to be the big voice for Manchester Gorton it still needs. Manchester is great, world class. But Gorton can’t be left behind. Whether it’s jobs -proper jobs – wages public services the NHS and schools. The struggle for students has always been a parliamentary preoccupation of mine.'

For more go to:
 George Galloway enters “Mother of All By-Elections” in Manchester ...
www.westmonster.com/george-galloway-enters-mother-of-all-by-elections-in-manchester    

Where the money is?

Some MPs Make More on Journalism

GEORGE Galloway earned as much money through journalism in the first four months of the year as his annual pay for being an MP.

Overall, Members of Parliament - who currently earn a base rate of £67,000 - have declared just short of £150,000 for journalism work in the first half of 2014, according to the latest register of financial interests.

Galloway, Respect MP for Bradford West, was the highest earning, registering £25,600 from Associated Press for work on the TV station Russia Today, £21,450 from LBP TV (a channel broadcast out of the offices of former Iran-backed station Press TV) and £18,000 from Arab-focused satellite channel Al-Mayadeen TV between January and April (he has yet to declare for May and June).

According to the register, Galloway also presents two weekly television programmes for Press TV on an unpaid basis. He hosts two programmes a month for Al-Mayadeen in Beirut and has his return flights and hotel accommodation paid for.

A spokesman for Galloway said: 'He does believe in spreading his message as widely as he can - not just through the prism of Parliament.'

Labour’s Gisela Stuart and Austin Mitchell, meanwhile, have earned £13,200 and £10,000 respectively for work on MP trade magazine House. 

Diane Abbott, also Labour, has been paid £5,600 for appearances on BBC Two’s This Week. Her appearance on Channel 4’s Fifteen to One, earning her £2,000, has not been included in Press Gazette's total.

Similarly, the BBC’s payments to MPs for appearances on Have I Got News For You – £1,500 for each show – are not included in Press Gazette's tally of journalistic earnings.
Not including Galloway's broadcasting earnings, the BBC is the single biggest payer of MPs for journalism work according to the register, a total of £20,677 in the first six months of this year...

Fleet Street, meanwhile, has shelled out just over £27,000 to MPs over the first half of the year, with the Mail and Telegraph titles the highest payers. The list below does not include London mayor Boris Johnson, a former journalist, who is said to earn around £250,000 annually from the Telegraph for his weekly column.

Some of the money may have been donated to charity or political parties. Payments made in 2014 that specifically state they are for work in 2013 have not been included.  Payments made in 2014 without a specified work date attached to them have been assumed to be for work in 2014.

Copyright Kid: The One That Got Away in 2006

'Baptism of Ire':

'With the aid of ... hindsight it seems obvious that any event bringing together Britain's most litigous MP and the countries most writ-happy photographer would be fraught with possibilities' 

(EPUK Editorial Photographers UK & Ireland:  20th, July 2006)

FREELANCE photographer David Hoffman has failed to win his business dispute against MP George Galloway, after he refused to pay for blurry pictures.  Mr Galloway failed to pay Mr Hoffman his £715 fee for photographs taken at the christening of the MP's granddaughter last year, claiming that the quality of the pictures was so bad that they left a 'scar on the memory' of the special occasion.  The 61-year-old photographer argued at Central London County Court that one of Mr Galloway's assistants had employed him with the brief of producing images purely to be used for public relations purposes.  Yet, Mr Galloway countered that it was 'inconceivable' that he would hire a photographer not to record the event as a cherished family memento.

Judge Margaret Langley ruled that Mr Hoffman had been in breach of contract, as he had admitted that, if his pictures were taken in response to a commission to cover a family christening, 'then they are inadequate, I accept that'.

Outside the courthouse, Mr Galloway said:  'Never can so much court time have been wasted on a vexatious claim.  Mr Hoffman should be ashamed of himself.  We are relying on throw-away cameras and pictures taken on mobile phones because of the inadequacy of Mr Hoffman's work.'

Businesses in Britain and Northern Ireland should make sure that any contracts they undertake are clearly set out, otherwise they may face a trip to the solicitors, which could be a waste of time if they have no written contract to make up their claim.  (From website of Wilson Nesbitt Solicitors, Belfast)

Julian Assange: The Withdrawal Method or a season ticket?

LAST week, Louise Mensch, Tory MP, wrote in the Daily Telegraph challenging George Galloway for saying:   'Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion'.  Mr. Galloway, the Bradford MP, had reasoned:  'Some people believe that when you go to bed with someone, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.'  Ms Mensch wrote:  'While we were mentally vomiting at the term "sex game" used by Mr. Galloway in any context, he made matters worse' for Madam Mensch, by saying 'It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Do you mind if I do it again?' It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.'

Louise Mensch then argues:  'Sexual consent is not football; you can't buy a season ticket.'   The participant inserter must clock-in, it seems, on each separate occasion.  And Ms. Mensch concludes her piece entitled 'Still Getting it Wrong on Rape' by arguing:  'This week shows us what so many male politicians really think about consent and sex, and the rights of a woman to withold it, or attach conditions to it (my bold italics)... There is still a long way to go.'

I recent read E.L James long popular porn book 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and was struck by the endless pages relating to negotiation of the sexual act and by the contractual nature of the content covering health and safety, butt plugs and nipple clamps etc.  At the same time I was reading Mary Midgley 'Evolution as a Religion' and came across this quote by Fredrich  Nietzsche:  'From a doctorate exam. - "What is the task of all higher education?" - To turn a man into a machine - "By what means?"  He has to learn how to feel bored.  "How is this achieved?" - Through the concept of duty....  "Who is the perfect man?"  The civil servant.'

This triumph of the civil servant in the post-post-modern society is indeed curious and perplexing.  I recently encountered a version of it while helping a member of my UNITE Branch - a binman - fight a claim that he was guilty under Bury MBC's 'Dignity at Work Policy', because he had raised his voice and engaged in an altercation; a charge which would have been laughable only ten years ago.  Now the bureaucracy has come of age in all its stupefying glory even in the bedroom as well as on the shopfloor.

In August 1936, George Orwell wrote a letter to Henry Miller telling him how he liked his book Tropic of Cancer:  '... first of all (I liked) a peculiar rhythmic quality in your English, secondly the fact that you dealt with facts well known to everybody but never mentioned in print (e.g. when the chap is supposed to be making love to the woman but is dying for a piss all the while),'.  Now Orwell raises the problem of withdrawal or when to clock-out of an encounter or close the contractual participation.  Decades ago, I'm sure that I used to clock-out far to early for the other party to the process, and what if the bloke is dying for a piss, does then have to ask for consent before disengaging?  How does Madam Mensch suggest we get our lady love to give us permission to leave the room in an emergency?

Bradford: 'The traditional parties have failed this city!'

George Galloway has won a convincing victory in the Bradford West Bye-Election. Last Sunday, Soledad Gallego-Diaz in the influential Spanish daily EL PAIS asked in its Domingo supplement: 'Hay futuro para la socialdemocracia?' ('Is there a future for Social Democracy?'). The writer, Senor Gallego-Diaz wrote: 'The worst crisis of capitalism had resulted in a problem not for the Right, but for the Left.' He continues: 'European Social Democracy has paid for the economic and financial crisis of 2008 much more than the Right-Wing, and the social democrats must now prepare for the next decisive few months.' Consequently, Gallego-Diaz writes: 'European Social Democracy seeks Green Shoots.'

If this is so, last night's victory for George Galloway must be an ill omen for the British Labour Party which had planned a victory celebration that had to be called off at the last minute. This morning David Blunkett put it down to the 'Bradford effect' claiming that Bradford may be a special case, and the Deputy leader of the Labour Party refused to explain this disappointing Northern outcome from her office in London.

Could it have been Galloway's clever networking and manipulation of the Asian Clan system ('Braderies') in Bradford? Some reports suggest that the rank and file Asians ignored the pleas of their tribal elders to vote Labour, and one Bradford lad this morning said: 'With bad education statistics and high unemployment in Bradford; we needed someone who can think outside the box!' Other commentators see wider symptoms at work in British society as witnessed by Scottish National Party's success over the Labour Party north of the border, and the failure of the Tories to gain an overall majority at the last General Election. Others are arguing that people are disillusioned with the main stream parties and are looking for summat different up North.