Rolling In The Cess Pit by Les May

IN an article on the NV blog a couple of weeks ago I referred to something I wrote at the end of June 2020. I commented that having read some of the abusive posts directed at Priyamvada Gopal, who had posted a ‘tweet’ which said “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives”, I thought you would meet nicer turds in a slurry pit.

A long article by Brendan O’Neill on the Spiked Online website graphically describes the vile abuse directed at author J. K. Rowling. From the context it appears that it came via her Twitter account, which of course means the brave authors could remain anonymous.

My own experience of anonymous communications is somewhat limited. I had one letter from an unknown ‘Christian’ in 1970 after I wrote to the local paper saying that I did not think that the Muslim children at the school I worked at should be made to attend what was in effect a Christian oriented morning assembly. I had another in 2010 after I had the temerity to point out in the same paper that Canada Geese were in a nearby park because their staple diet was grass which they got from the lawns and not the bread which they got to the visitors. Short of blocking my letter box there was nothing I could do to prevent them being delivered.

One of O’Neill’s concerns is the almost complete absence of people willing to publicly defend J. K. Rowling. He also took a few well aimed potshots at ‘Cancel Culture’ and ‘Identity Politics’. But it seemed to me that he was somewhat missing the point. If Rowling was distressed at what was being said about her on Twitter, the remedy was in her own hands, literally. All she had to do was switch off her smartphone or if that was too radical, delete the ‘app’.

Rowling, the footballers, Priyamvada Gopal and Sajid Javid are all in their own way ‘commodities’ where image matters. Keeping their names before the public is how they can both relish their present fame and make sure there they are putting something in the metaphorical bank for the future. Rowling may yet write another book; the footballers may think of taking a leaf out of the book of Lionel Messi and launch a premium fashion brand; judging by the Twitter post which led to the abuse Gopal evidently likes to be seen as ‘controversial’, and Sajid Javid is a politician who wants to be seen as ‘just like us’. He has learned the hard way that that there’s always someone who will make a grab the moral high ground if you dare use a word they don’t like.

It’s no use waiting for the government to solve the problems raised by social media by banning so called ‘hate speech’. If you find it unpleasant just stop it being delivered to your smartphone, because it will only hurt you if you let it and no one is forcing you to read it. This isn’t a ‘freedom of speech’ matter. None of the individuals I have used as examples would have the slightest difficulty in getting their voices heard in the UK media, something that cannot be said of the people who resort to vulgar abuse. I doubt the NV editors would turn down a piece on ‘transphilia’ by Ms Rowling.

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'Free speech for presidents' by Philip Dickens

by Philip Dickens Comment, on the FREEDOM PRESS WEBSITE Jan 12th

Editorial Note: We are publishing below a post by Philip Dickens from the anarchist Freedom Website. In it Phil Dickens mocks the blog 'Spiked' edited by Brendan O'Neill as representing the 'reactionary fringes of the mainstream discourse'. It is worth noting that not only the American Civil Liberties Union has warned about the unchecked power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook to remove people from the forum of everyday discourse. I say 'everday discourse', but of course many people, including me, do not use either.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Mr. Dickens sneeringly jumps up and down announcing: 'Predictably, this led to #thisis1984 trending on Twitter, with the right decrying the ban as Orwellian.'

And yet Dickens is right to argue that there is a 'legitimate debate about the impact of corporations on freedom of speech and expression, but it doesn’t rest on the right of a US President to Tweet'.

Nor is this a novel problem of the internet era. Indeed, Orwell noted in 1946 in his essay 'The Prevention of Literature' that: 'Any writer or journalist who wants to retain his [sic] integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than by active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the conceration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio and the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nealy every writer to earn part of his living by hack work, the encroachment of official bodies like the Ministry of Information and the British Council, which help the writer to keep alive but also waste his time and dictate his opinions... Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed to him from above and never telling the whole of the truth.'

Dickens knows all of this, as he himself suffers from earning his living as a tax inspector. At one time the left were the main advocates of free speech, but because of the cancel culture campaigns etc. this ground as the novelist Margaret Atwood has recently argued, has been largely surrendered to the right. The FREEDOM WEBSITE despite its anarchist pretentions has in the last two decades fallen short as a defender of liberty or free speech; its current editor in 2016 even put up a blacklist of four people he didn't like who had the audacity to apply for positions on the FRIENDS of FREEDOM PRESS committee. Dickes approach suffers from being too simplistic as shown were he writes that 'private ownership by the capitalist class is protected from dissent by the state and its monopoly on violence.' Dividing politics into a left / right dichotomy is of questionable application today, especially in relation to Trump who was generally recognised to be an unconventional president.

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'FREE SPEECH for PRESIDENTS' by Philip Dickens

FOLLOWING the short-lived occupation of the US Capitol building, Twitter and a number of other social media platforms have banned US President Donald Trump.

Predictably, this led to #thisis1984 trending on Twitter, with the right decrying the ban as Orwellian. Brendan O’Neill of Sp!ked – the publication which leads the advance of terrible opinions from the reactionary fringes into the mainstream discourse – declared this “a chilling sign of tyranny to come.” This is, he says, “a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world” as it sees “exceptionally wealthy and aloof elites determining which elected politicians may engage in online discussion.”

This isn’t a position confined to the right, however. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative counsel has said that “it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier.”

There’s a legitimate debate about the impact of corporations on freedom of speech and expression, but it doesn’t rest on the right of a US President to Tweet.

Yes, a few companies in Silicon Valley control the whole social media landscape and have undue influence as a result. That’s not a unique or historically unprecedented phenomenon though: it reflects the balance of power and ownership in both the traditional media and physical spaces.

What O’Neill calls the “powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era” are mirrors of the media barons who dominate print and broadcast news. However, the almost unmoderated right of reply that exists in social media is absent, and instead the discourse both reflects and directs the ‘Overton Window’ of acceptable opinion – with what is acceptable defined not by popular or democratic will but by who owns the press and by the fact that it doesn’t sell news to an audience but an audience to advertisers. In other words, just as O’Neill says tech companies are doing, media owners and advertisers have long been “exploiting their monopolistic power to dictate what political opinions it is acceptable to hold and express.”

In physical spaces, from the workplace to the public square, private ownership by the capitalist class is protected from dissent by the state and its monopoly on violence. Anti-strike legislation limits the extent to which workers can stand up to their bosses, whilst a tangle of laws serve to restrict the conduct of protests and criminalise protesters in a myriad of ways.

The media commentators who see unprecedented totalitarianism in Trump’s Twitter ban have no qualms over any of the above. Instead, they view any kickback against that monopolisation of discourse as the real threat to free speech. This is why they have been vocal in opposition to the Stop Funding Hate campaign, which seeks to redirect advertising influence towards making (for example) media demonisation of migrants unprofitable. It is why all of the furore around ‘cancel culture’ is centred on the defence of those with a considerable platform and privilege from any consequences for their words yet they will say nothing when Julia Hartley-Brewer, a member of the Free Speech Union’s PR/Media advisory council, threatening to get a man sacked for challenging her Covid-denying propaganda against the NHS.

In other words, they’re concerned about defending the free speech of the powerful from efforts by the powerless to resist that through free association and action.

So it is with Twitter. The platform is genuinely guilty of arbitrary and questionable banning decisions – more often than not against small voices who challenge the powerful or the genuinely dangerous. That, under immense pressure, it is occasionally forced to follow its own rules and look at safeguarding and risks of incitement isn’t the problem. Rather, the fact that under other circumstances the power and influence those accounts hold would protect it and see instead the less influential who challenge them banned is the problem here.

Private monopolisation of what should be public spaces is the key issue. Within that, the fact that (just like in real life) the powerful are protected from the consequences of their actions except in the most extreme circumstances is the crucial point.

Anarchists recognise that genuine liberty and equality go hand in hand, and that we cannot have either if we fail to address questions of power.

Alongside formal hierarchies, such as those embedded in the institutions of the state and capital, this includes invisible hierarchies that inevitably grow out of supposedly ‘structureless’ environs. In a group without a formal leadership, those with the most confidence and the loudest voices dominate with no democracy to rein them in. In a meeting without a chairperson, the most brash can speak unhindered – but the consequence is that others in turn are silenced.

That’s why our primary concern isn’t the right of US President to a massive platform and untold influence, including the ability to incite (amateurish, incompetent) coup attempts.

Those whose only demand is that those already with a platform and influence are never deprived of that do not stand for free speech. They stand in defence of a fundamentally unjust status quo in which free expression is directly linked to power.

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Trump And Freedom Of Speech by Les May

A REGULAR THEME of what I have written for Northern Voices is the threat to freedom of speech posed by those who try to prevent people whose views they disagree with from presenting them to others. When this happens in universities and colleges it is commonly called ‘no platforming’. It’s a staple tactic of those who engage in the politics of identity.

It is the antithesis of how George Orwell defined liberty when he said ‘It is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’. So is the decision by Twitter to refuse to allow Donald Trump to post on the social media platform an attack on liberty?

The Twitter decision does not prevent Trump saying whatever he likes. Twitter is under no obligation to provide space on it’s servers for the outpourings of Trump, myself or anyone else. If he wants to use some form of social media to enlighten his followers with his wisdom, he is entirely at liberty to set up his own version of Twitter.

Veteran Trump watchers will recognise the irony of his complaint. There are many instances at his press conferences of his refusing to answer questions he does not like and denigrating accredited journalists.

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The Cambridge Professor & the Burnley Welder

'WHITE LIVES DON'T MATTER'

by Les May

I HAVE been writing pieces for Northern Voices for about five years.  Everything I write I try to make sure is factually accurate and if possible provide links to where further information can be found so that anyone reading what I write can decide for themselves whether I am ‘cherry picking’, rather than presenting a full picture.  I do not guarantee that what I am writing now is factually accurate; however I will try.

The reason for my scepticism is that it involves things being posted on Twitter.   

Looking through these Twitter posts and trying to decide who is attacking or supporting who, has all the allure of wading in a slurry pit in open toed sandals.

On 22 June a recently appointed Cambridge professor, Priyamvada Gopal, posted a ‘tweet’ which said “I’ll say it again.  White Lives Don’t Matter.   As white lives”.  It has been claimed that she did this in response to a banner flown over a football stadium that read "White lives matter Burnley". Following this, abusive messages directed at her, including death threats and rape, were posted on Twitter.  Having read some of these I can only say that you will meet nicer turds in a slurry pit.

A somewhat more rational response has come from those signing an online petition at Change.org which reads:

"Cambridge must move to immediately discontinue their relationship with Ms Gopal in the best interest of all students and the community at large.”
“Her statements are racist and hateful and must not be tolerated by Cambridge University leadership.  Cambridge must move to immediately discontinue their relationship with Ms. Gopal in the best interest of all students and the community at large.”

Her employers, Cambridge University, responded by saying;  ‘The University defends the right of its academics to express their own lawful opinions which others might find controversial and deplores in the strongest terms abuse and personal attacks.   These attacks are totally unacceptable and must cease.’
So what happened to the person behind the airborne banner?  Did his employers rush to issue a statement supporting his right to express his lawful opinion? Not quite!   Jake Hepple was dismissed from his job as a welder by Paradigm Precision.  His girlfriend Megan Rambadt, was also sacked from her job as beautician.  If he is in a union will he get support from that quarter?  I wouldn’t count on it.

One reason I write for Northern Voices is that it makes an effort to implement what George Orwell said:  ‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’.  As I accept this dictum I cannot support either the petition to have this woman dismissed, nor the actions of Paradigm Precision in sacking this man. 
 
What this shows is that privilege in our society is not about what colour your skin happens to be, it manifests itself in what position you hold, what you earn, where you live and who respects your views.  I’ll let you figure out who I think is the privileged one in this case.  Why is it acceptable for Jake to join the ranks of the unemployed and not Priya? 
 
I have already made clear my opinion of the people who are attacking her, rather than attacking her opinions.   But if she is daft, or naive, enough to post deliberately inflammatory comments on Twitter I’m afraid my sympathy for her is not very great and overall she does not come over as a very nice lady.

According to the website below, “she has earlier called for the persecution of Hindus and branded them sickos”.

https://swarajyamag.com/insta/cambridge-professor-priyamvada-gopal-tweets-white-lives-dont-matter-follows-it-up-with-abolish-brahmins-and-upper-castes

But for me the icing on the cake was an item in the Deccan Chronicle from July 2018 which mentioned that she had tweeted that she would no longer supervise students at King’s College because the porters did not address her as ‘Doctor’. Isn’t that what you call a ‘snob’?

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On Being Gutted by Tory Turkey's Xmas Vote

And  Gracious in Defeat!

'Let me be gracious in defeat,' comedian MARK STEEL WROTE ON TWITTER after the exit poll:                     'All the people celebrating now are the most entitled, embittered, sneering nasty selfish racist foul fuckwits.  I'd still rather be with the decent people, however gutted they are , than with you for a second.'

In a more restrained demeanour Dave Smith of the Labour leaning BLACKLIST SUPPORT GROUP, wrote on Facebook:

13 December at 03:37

'This is an awful result for the entire labour movement.
'Whatever people's thoughts on Corbyn or Brexit; the Labour manifesto commitments on workers rights, NHS & public services, renationalisation of rail & utilities, house building and the climate were supported by the majority of the population. All these things are now at risk from a rightwing Johnson government.
'For blacklisted construction workers, our hope for a public inquiry into the Consulting Association scandal now appears to be off the agenda for the next few years at the very least. Blacklist Support Group would like to put on record our thanks to John McDonnell and all those who fought our corner and made both blacklisting and the spycops scandal mainstream political issues.

'But working people should never rely on Westminster politicians to solve our problems for us. The trade union movement is going nowhere. We fought back against other Tory leaders in the past and we'll do it again. We need to stay strong; but we're also allowed to feel gutted.'

Jay McKenna Acting Regional Secretary for the TUC in the North West wrote more soberly:
'Last week was undoubtedly a disappointment for the labour movement and underlines the scale of the challenge we face... And there will be more. More action but more listening about what people want and need from us.'   

To get over being 'gutted' there is even some talk of Jeremy Corbyn becoming like Tony Wegdwood Benn, the son of William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate, a 'National Treasure'*.

* 
Corbyn attended Castle House School, an independent preparatory school near Newport, Shropshire, before, at age 11, becoming a day student at the Adams' Grammar School in the town.

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'We’ve Lost the Keys'

by Les May

I joined Rochdale Young Socialists in August 1960.  A month later, I was outside the Scarborough Conference demonstrating my support for a motion proposing unilateral nuclear disarmament.  Famously Hugh Gaitskell who was leader of the Labour Party at the time said;

‘We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent this, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable.  There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love.  We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party -- with its great past -- may retain its glory and its greatness.’

Labour was deeply divided over the issue, but it is generally accepted that Gaitskell, ‘lost the vote and won the argument’.  When he was challenged for the leadership by Harold Wilson, who presented himself as a ‘unity not civil war’ candidate and who shared Gaitskell’s scepticism about unilateralism, Gaitskell got two thirds of the vote, which at that time was confined to Labour MPs.

Sixty years later the arguments remain the same.   Is it Labour MPs who should determine policy and select the leader, or is it the wider membership of the Labour party?   Speaking today on BB2’s Politics Live programme Angela Smith, one of the ‘Not So Magnificent Seven’ who resigned from the party today, rather gave the game away when she said ‘We’ve lost the keys’.  Like it or not, after 2015 we have seen a power shift within the Labour party, away from MPs and to the members.

Unsurprisingly Labour members like it that way and are ready to be critical of their MP when they feel he or she is being less than supportive of Corbyn’s leadership and/or party policy.   They may have a point.  There are some constituencies which are ‘solid Labour’, but in most it takes a lot of effort by local Labour members to ‘get the vote out’.

Another of the MPs who left Labour, Luciana Berger, has successfully managed to conflate two quite separate issues; criticism of Corbyn and anti-semitism. Until they were withdrawn her local party was set to debate two motions;

'The UK is in crisis because of the appalling austerity policies of a government that serves the interests of the rich.  We need a Labour government under the socialist leadership of our twice-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn. Instead of fighting for a Labour government our MP is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be Prime Minister.

'The Tories are deeply divided, but millions are still suffering from their austerity policies.  We desperately need a socialist Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.  Our MP is continually criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories.'

Not by any stretch of the imagination can either of these be described as ‘anti-semitic’.  Nor do they seem to me to justify Chuka Umunna’s comment quoted in the Jewish Chronicle, ‘How about demanding her CLP treats her with the respect she deserves?’  Clearly Chuka still has not yet got used to the idea that Labour MPs are no longer in the driving seat.

That’s not to say that Berger has not been subjected to antisemitic abuse, she has.  But the evidence points to the fact that it is coming from people who have nothing to do with the Labour party.  This is what Wikipedia has to say:

‘In January 2013, it was reported that a Merseyside music promoter, Philip Hayes, had been convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence and fined £120 after an "antisemitic tirade" against Berger at the Liverpool Music Awards.

'In October 2014, Garron Helm, a member of the small neo-Nazi National Action youth group was imprisoned for four weeks after he sent an antisemitic tweet to Berger in August 2014, serving two weeks before being released.  Following the conviction, it was reported that similar messages to her were being posted on Twitter.  According to Berger in December 2014, "[a]t the height of the abuse, the police said I was the subject of 2,500 hate messages in the space of three days" using the same hashtag.

'During the 2015 general election, UK Independence Party parliamentary candidate for West Lancashire Jack Sen was suspended from the party after sending an allegedly antisemitic tweet to Berger.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine , a supporter of Helm, was convicted of racially-aggravated harassment of Berger in December 2016 and sentenced to two years.

'In February 2017, John Nimmo was sentenced to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to nine charges, including the sending of death threats and antisemitic messages to Berger.’

What Wikipedia also tells us it that in March 2018 Berger used Twitter to ask Jeremy Corbyn why he had queried the removal by a local council of an allegedly anti-semitic mural in 2012.   Using Twitter to do this rather than speaking to him directly or writing to him, suggests to me deliberate intent to cause trouble for Corbyn. 

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Another Anarchist Bookfair Drama in Manchester

by Brian Bamford

JUST beyond  the wrestling crowds of the Manchester Xmas Markets and the site of the current play 'The Producers' featuring 'Springtime for Hitler' at the Royal Exchange, in down town Salford on Saturday the 1st, December another knock-about farce took place seemingly provoked by a bunch of political drama-Queens at the Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair.

Based on the info on the Twitter, the website MUMSNET at around teatime on the night of the Manchester Bookfair, set up a thread which opened with the following:

Reports that Helen Steel and another woman were surrounded and physically dragged out of (another) anarchist bookfair for wrongthink

Since the night of the Manchester 'anarchist' bookfair not much else has been in evidence explaining why Helen Steel and the other woman were excluded from this event.  Northern Voices approached the bookfair organisers, and others questioned the Partisan Collective, the managers of the bookfair venue for an explanation, but answers came there none.  What we know of what happened comes mostly from comments on Twitter and MUMSNET.

This year's incident in Manchester follows the series of conflicts at bookfairs that started at the London Anarchist Bookfair in October 2017, when a dispute ensued between certain transexuals and some feminists over the distribution of leaflets criticising proposals in the new legislation on the Gender Recognition Act.  During that case Helen Steel somehow became involved arguing for free speech and the right to debate the issues.

Since that time Helen Steel and others who think like her have been labeled 'TERF's', and it is understood that the Manchester venue 'The Partisan' does not allow space for TERF's.

After the disaster of the 2017 London Bookfair and the later conflicts at other 'anarchist' bookfair's like Manchester, Milan Rai the editor of Peace News wrote an editorial in the December-January 2018 issue entitled 'How to destroy our own movements':
'Activists need to find better ways to struggle with each other and to fight with each other, argues Milan Rai

"People ask me how we would defend the bookfair from a fascist attack, but I’m not worried about them out there. I worry about what we might do to each other in here." – one of the organisers of the London Anarchist Bookfair, on 28 October.
'A few hours later, a group of trans rights activists stopped some feminists handing out leaflets that they found oppressive to trans women. A nontrans woman, Helen Steel, objected to this censorship. 'About 30 trans rights activists then surrounded Helen Steel and shouted at her for having stood up for the leafleters.
'The confrontation went on for a long time. Some people (including members of the bookfair collective) surrounded Helen Steel to protect her from possible assault. An unknown person then tripped the fire alarm, leading to an evacuation of the building.'

The consequences of this conflict between trans-rights activists and feminists still prevails as was evident in Manchester earlier this month.  But it is a symptom of a wider problem of the inability of the broader left to communicate owing to a righteous arrogance which has developed within its ranks.  It is inevitably that today an ideology which roots itself in an orthodoxies such as political correctness and identity politics was bound to suffer from the inconsistencies of its own contradictions.

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'Where There’s Muck There’s Brass’

by Les May

THE Financial Times (FT) recently carried an editorial about Facebook which included the following;

‘The platform does not intentionally cause harm to users.  Too often, however, Facebook’s business model allows harm to occur.  The biggest problem is Facebook’s refusal to acknowledge that to a large degree it is a publisher, not just a digital town square.’

The editors of Northern Voices (NV) carry out their job under the guiding principle that freedom of speech is having the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.  But that does not mean that there is any obligation upon them to publish anything and everything that is sent to them.  As editors, they are treated by the law as the publishers of NV if, for example, someone claims they have been defamed or, an article is considered to incite violence or racial hatred. In other words if an article causes harm the actions of the editor are considered intentional.

As the FT article points out these strictures do not apply to Facebook because it claims NOT to be a publisher. In other words blogs like NV are expected to maintain higher standards in policing, and I use the word deliberately, their content for hate promoting or defamatory material, than Facebook.  Indeed Facebook benefits enormously when such material is posted on the platform because it leads to a backlash from people who disagree.  The more extreme the material, the greater the backlash, the more revenue it generates for Facebook.

The eagerness with which some people resort to calling something ‘hate speech’ or ‘hate crime’ whenever something is said or done which they do not like, only serves to obscure the real problem which is that some Facebook groups use the platform to incite hatred of, and violence toward, other ethnic groups. This played a part in the events in Myanmar where Rohingya and other muslims were targeted and the violence at Charlottesville.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html

There’s an expectation that Facebook will act against the white-supremacist and neo-nazi groups which orchestrated the violence at Charlottesville. (In this case I think the use of the word ‘nazi’ is justified.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/25/charlottesville-white-supremacists-big-tech-failure-remove

And who could object if they did take down these posts when and wherever they occurred?  The people posting this stuff are well beyond the pale.  A war was fought to rid the world of ideologies like these.

But wait a minute.  As I have written previously the bar for what constitutes hate speech or a hate crime is constantly being lowered.  Do we really trust a private company to decide what is acceptable?  Do we really trust any government to do it? Here’s why I don’t.

The people who run Twitter have published policies about what constitutes hateful conduct here.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-conduct-policy

Scroll down a bit and you’ll find the line, ‘This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.’

In other words if you genuinely believe that someone with a full set of wedding tackle does not qualify to be considered a woman, just because he says he is, you’ll be contravening Twitter’s policies unless you refer to him as ‘she’.

Recently a panel of five judges sitting as the Supreme Court gave a ruling which reinforces our right to free speech and ensures that we cannot be forced to express views that we disagree with.  This was a case in which a Christian couple declined to supply a cake decorated with the words ‘Support Gay Marriage’.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/10/let-them-eat-cake.html

Twitter disagrees; if you want to use the platform the price you may have to pay is being forced to express a view you disagree with.  Canadian freelance journalist, Meghan Murphy, has been permanently banned for allegedly ‘deadnaming’ a trans person.  When discussing a story of a trans woman who was taking a bunch of beauticians to court for refusing to wax his balls, she used the phrase ‘yeah it’s him’.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/28/meghan-murphy-and-the-silencing-of-women/

Following the ‘gay wedding cake’ ruling the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said:

‘Freedom of expression – including the right not to express a view – and freedom of belief are rightfully protected in a democratic society and this case demonstrates the need for a more nuanced debate about how we balance competing rights’.

A nuanced debate would lead to something between Twitter’s insistence on telling people what they must think if they want to use the platform and Facebook’s ‘we’re not a publisher’.   I doubt there will be one.

I have no axe to grind on this because I use neither Facebook nor Twitter.  And I don’t think I’m missing much!

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Trump & Greater Manchester Police

by Les May

FORGIVE me for asking, but is it just possible that Donald Trump has taken control of the GMP City Centre Twitter page?   I ask this because yesterday the Rochdale Observer had a story which ran as follows;

Police say ‘99 percent’ of beggars arrested are addicted to drugs or alcohol - including one who ‘commuted’ from Rochdale to Manchester’s Christmas Markets to ‘earn up to £50 an hour.

The story was based on 3, yes that’s three, arrests last Saturday, which hardly seems like a large enough sample to make any kind of generalisation, so where do they get figures like 99% and £50 an hour from?

I thought the times when the police ‘knowing’ someone is guilty was enough to convince a magistrate were long past, at least as far as ‘respectable’ folk like you and I are concerned.  Such courtesies it seems do not extend to people who beg.

Perhaps in the future tweets from GMP can be confined to operational matters, like warning people about pickpockets, street thieves, traffic congestion etc. Opinions are not required and disseminating them via Twitter seems to me to be an improper use of police resources.

And by the way a lot of ‘respectable’ people take drugs and drink too much. 

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Spanish PM praises police

 Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy says police behaved with 'serenity'!

The Associated Press
(@AP)

BREAKING: Spanish PM thanks police, says they acted with "firmness and serenity" to Catalonia's independence referendum.

 

But, Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, was among the few national leaders to denounce the violence, which the Catalan government said had left 465 people injured as police forcibly removed voters from polling stations and on one occasion fired rubber bullets.
“Violence can never be the answer!” Michel said on Twitter.
His Slovenian counterpart, Miro Cerar, also expressed his concern, saying he was “concerned” and calling for “political dialogue, rule of law and peaceful solutions”.

Mossos (Squaddies) close 221 polling booths

Los Mossos d'Esquadra han cerrado en Catalunya un total de 221 colegios electorales del referéndum hasta las 15:10 horas de hoy, ha informado la policía. En su cuenta oficial de Twitter, los Mossos aseguran que están en la calle trabajando "para dar cumplimiento a la orden del TSJC con proporcionalidad", adecuándose a cada situación para garantizar la seguridad.

THE 'Squadies' have closed in Catalonia a total of 221 electoral colleges of the referendum up to 3.15 (Spanish time) this afternoon, claimed the police.  In their official Twitter account the Mossos confirm that they are in the streets working 'to establish order of the TSJC with proportionality', we try in every situation to guarantee security.

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Loose Women Hero Scapegoat's Brother

AIDED by the Murdoch press through The Sun and the local press Karen Danczuk, and occasional panelist on the program 'Loose Women', has claimed that, according to the Rochdale Observer:  'all five of the "targeted" attacks (on her Range Rover) have happened since her brother was jailed for raping her as a child'.
Ms. Danczuk has shown an interest in becoming a member of parliament and since serving as a Labour councillor on Rochdale Council now sees herself as a public figure or minor celebrity.  Hence, she seems to be seizing every opportunity to promote herself, especially since she was the prime witness in a successful case against her own brother for child abuse involving rape.
The latest chance to get noticed was when she Tweeted:
'These attacks are either linked to the trial or a sheer coincidence. They are clearly targeted at me for whatever reason and I can only speculate.' 
It seems the vehicle's paintwork has been scratched and the petrol cap somehow tampered with, the last straw being last Friday when nail were sprinkled before her Range Rover.  The media and TV celebrity has said she has contacted the police.

The media which has been fulsome with its praise for her public promotions has only thought fit to send gossip columnists, rather than their crime or political correspondents, to cover the latest story of Karen Danczuk.
The Daily Mail sent Isobel Frodsham some of whose international stories have appeared on /muckrack.com/isobel-frodsham, and include juicy titles like  

Armed raider frogmarched out of shop empty-handed By Isobel Frodsham dailymail.co.uk

 Man storms into restaurant with a meat cleaver in Malaysia By Isobel Frodsham dailymail.co.uk

Jesus gets his cross stuck in metro ceiling in CologneBy Isobel Frodsham dailymail.co.uk

Meanwhile, the journalist Amanda Devlin from The Sun, who last week covered the Karen Danczuk story of damage to her car, has gone on Twitter to express sycophantic tweets about her own employer among other investigative reports below from both Ms. Devlin and Ms. Frodsham.  We leave it to our readers to judge the quality of this journalism:

Round-up of some of my stories in @TheSun this week

8. Amanda Devlin‏Verified account @JournoDevs Feb 21
   

   The Sun overtakes Mirror to be second biggest UK newspaper website

   
   

   Armed raider frogmarched out of shop empty-handed

   By Isobel Frodsham

   dailymail.co.uk — Cashier was filmed ignoring a man who pointed a gun in her face at a shop She carried on working at the Russian supermarket in Serebryanye Prudy Another worker is seen holding his sleeve and forcing him out of the shop The man was arrested and has been charged with attempted armed robbery An armed raider was frogmarched out of a shop empty-handed after a cashier completely ignored his threat to shoot her.
   

   a day ago Who shared?
   

   Wrong byline?

   Man storms into restaurant with a meat cleaver in Malaysia

   By Isobel Frodsham

   dailymail.co.uk — The 37-year-old man was seen waving a meat cleaver in a restaurant in Malaysia He threatened to cause a gas explosion which led to customers running to safety Emergency services were called and the man was eventually taken away A man went on a rampage with a meat cleaver in a restaurant after losing his phone.
   

   a day ago Who shared?
   

   Wrong byline?

   Jesus gets his cross stuck in metro ceiling in Cologne

   By Isobel Frodsham

   dailymail.co.uk — The man was seen carrying the huge crucifix on an escalator in a metro station Suddenly, as he made his way to the top, the cross was jammed into the ceiling 'Jesus' is seen swearing as he tries and successfully removes it from the hole The man was heading over to the annual street carnival in Cologne, Germany A man dressed as Jesus accidentally jammed a large crucifix into a ceiling of a metro station in Germany. a day ago Who shared?

   1 reply . 1 retweet 4 likes
     Amanda Devlin‏Verified account @JournoDevs Feb 20
   

   Amanda Devlin Retweeted Press Awards

   The Sun shortlisted for Website of the Year at the National Press Awards

   Amanda Devlin added,

   
   

   Press Awards @PressAwardsuk

   Shortlists announced for the National Press Awards for 2016 http://pressawards.org.uk/page-view.php?pagename=Shortlists …
10. Amanda Devlin‏Verified account @JournoDevs Feb 20
    
Amanda Devlin Retweeted Press Awards
The Sun shortlisted for Website of the Year at the National Press Awards
Amanda Devlin added,


Press Awards @PressAwardsuk
Shortlists announced for the National Press Awards for 2016 http://pressawards.org.uk/page-view.php?pagename=Shortlists …
0 replies . 1 retweet 2 likes


13. Amanda Devlin‏Verified account @JournoDevs Feb 19
    
Round-up of some of my stories in @TheSun this week





0 replies . 0 retweets 4 likes