'If Liberty Means Anything!'

EDITORIAL STATEMENT: A STATUE of George Orwell stands outside Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the BBC, in London. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with Orwell's words 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'. Although the statue was not unveiled until 7 November 2017, the Northern Voices blog, and before that the magazine of the same name, was established to be a concrete manifestation of that same sentiment. We do not have an alignment with any political party and have a scepticism about the activities of many politicians. It will be apparent to readers that our contributors have left of centre allegiances. This covers a spectrum of libertarians, trades unionists and democratic socialists. We believe that everyone has the right to have a different viewpoint from ourselves and from others, irrespective of who they are, and no one should be prevented from expressing that viewpoint, even if we or others disagree with it. This does not place upon us any obligation to publish material which is abusive, unsubstantiated or merely an assertion. However often an assertion is repeated, it does not make it true. In commenting on the views of others we avoid overused terms like, racist, sexist, homo-phobic, trans-phobic, islamo-phobic, anti-semitic, fascist, nazi etc, and object to their use in contexts where they are little more than abuse intended to intimidate others into remaining silent and so stifle debate on contentious issues. If anyone reading this blog objects to what one of our contributors has to say then we encourage them to write a comment. Unless they can provide some evidence more substantial than their own opinion about the nature of the content, it is unlikely that it will be taken down or altered.

It’s Alright to Persecute Christians!

by Les May

I THOUGHT we had long ago stopped persecuting people for their beliefs in this country. I was wrong.  Saying, ‘I do not believe you can be born gay and I do not believe homosexuality is right’, is enough to get you sacked.   The actress Seyi Omooba was dropped from her role in The Color Purple for tweeting this and backing up her belief with a reference to a passage in the Bible.  As the passage also tells us that, the sexually immoral, the idolaters, the adulterers, the thieves, the the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers and the swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God either, and I’m not aware that any of these groups have complained, it leads me to think that the group who are whingeing are what my dad would have called ‘mard arses’ or in modern parlance ‘snowflakes’.

I should add that I am not a Christian and I think people who treat the Bible as a reliable document or that they know God’s thoughts about what people get up to in the privacy of their bedroom, are a bit gullible.  But that is no reason to persecute them for their beliefs.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/30/actress-seyi-omooba-sues-for-religious-discrimination-after-being-sacked-in-the-color-purple-for-quoting-anti-gay-bible-passage-10834718/

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/christian-actress-sues-hippodrome-after-17007359

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Who Are We Bowing Down To?

by Les May

'THAT’s not my question.'   It’s what Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said when he told the BBC that there was concern among MPs that the Government appeared scared of the reaction of Pakistani mobs, adding that it must ask itself ‘very serious questions about who it was bowing down to’

Tugendhat has said that Asia Bibi was eligible for asylum in the UK ‘on every possible metric’.  He pointed out that the Government had willingly helped persecuted Muslims in the Balkans and defended the rights of homosexuals in countries where they are not tolerated, and added;  ’The idea that we shouldn’t change our policy in Pakistan simply because she is a Christian and simply because we are afraid of the mob strikes me as extremely odd’.

When the judge who freed her, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, visited London last week he told MPs that she was not on an exit control list and was free to leave Pakistan with her family at any time.

Earlier this month Rehman Chishti the Conservative MP for Gillingham and Rainham, who is the son of an imam, quit as Party vice-chairman and trade envoy to Pakistan because of the Government’s refusal to offer refuge to Mrs Bibi and her family.

He has since said:  ‘She is free to leave but she needs a country to come forward, to morally and ethically do the right thing. I say this as clearly as I can – for the United Kingdom to say which other country would Asia Bibi like to go to is completely and utterly unacceptable, irrespective of what any other country may offer.  We have a moral obligation.  Why have we, in God’s name, not done the right thing to say – irrespective of what anyone else offers – we, the UK, will do the right thing in line with our great British values?  It was right for me to step down last week, when you try to get the Government to do the right thing and it would not do the right thing.'

He followed this up by pointing out that the Government willingly gave asylum to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Muslim shot by the Taliban for her work in campaigning for the education of girls, in spite of threats of reprisals.

When Asia Bibi’s husband, Ashiq Mashi, and her youngest daughter, Eisham Ashiq, who is 18, visited London in October, not a single British minister would meet the pair even in private.  To his great credit Rehman Chishti did meet them and has said that Eisham had tears in her eyes when he had to tell her that no one was interested in hearing her story.

The response of Theresa May and her government shames Britain.  It presents it as a weak nation unable to determine what happens within its own borders. Although I am happy to say I had a ‘good Sunday school education’, I am not a Christian, so in supporting Asia Bibi, I have no religious axe to grind.   But as an atheist I think I have something to fear from the feeble response from Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister’s special envoy on freedom of religion and belief, who, speaking in the House of Lords during the launch of a report on global religious persecution defended the government in relation to the Asia Bibi case by saying ’It is entirely appropriate that maybe less is more’.  It was this which prompted Rehman Chishti to make the remarks I have quoted above.   It appears that some religions and (dis)beliefs are more equal than others to Lord Ahmed.

It’s not just this weak kneed government that deserves our censure.   The Labour party has been equally silent on this matter, as have the usually gobby women MPs, women journalists and professional feminists, who never miss any opportunity to parade their stance against ‘male oppression’.  Nor have we heard anything from those preening ‘activists’ who are always so ready to shout loudly about anything they can condemn as ‘Islamophobia’. 

 

How odd that apart from that by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, all the articles that I have read about the Bibi case seem to have been penned by men.

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Say 'No' To Hate Crime

by Les May

ELLA Whelan, author of the book ‘What Women Want: Fun, Freedom and an End to Feminism’, has described the campaign by MP Stella Creasy to have misogyny classified as a hate crime as, ‘a top-down act of virtue-signalling by a handful of MPs and feminists, and an affront to freedom’.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/09/06/stella-creasys-war-on-thoughtcrime/

It’s top down because as she points out women are not marching in the streets for the criminalisation of misogyny.  It’s an affront to freedom because it seeks to punish individuals for what they think, not what they do, i.e. thought crime.

Now whilst I share Ella Whelan’s view on this there is I think a more practical objection.   If you think you’ve witnessed a hate crime, who you gonna call? Certainly not ‘The Ghost Busters’!  It’s the police of course.

The problem is that the police may not understand what constitutes a hate crime and what constitutes free speech.

A week ago it was reported that in Bath city centre a Christian street preacher by the name of Dale McAlpine was threatened with arrest and forced to leave the area.  Police issued a dispersal notice to a group of preachers and ordered them to leave the city centre.   It seems that one of the officers involved claimed they were committing a ‘hate crime’.

The outcome? Avon and Somerset police have contacted all police staff in Bath ‘to ensure they understand the importance of freedom of expression’.

https://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Police-apologise-to-Bath-street-preacher-threatened-with-arrest

It isn’t the first time that McAlpine has been in trouble for expressing unpopular views.   In 2010 was arrested after he told a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) that as a Christian he believed homosexuality was a sin.   As the term ‘hate crime’ was not fashionable then, the PCSO contented himself with having McAlpine arrested for making ‘homophobic remarks’.

The outcome? The charges were dropped and police in Cumbria agreed to pay him £7,000 in compensation as well as his legal costs.  McAlpine responded ‘I hope the police will in future do their duty defending freedom of speech.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339843/Homosexuality-sin-street-preacher-wins-7k-police.html

I may not have any sympathy with McAlpine’s beliefs, but I’m glad that he’s there.  It’s people like him that remind us that freedom of expression applies to people you disagree with as well as those whose views coincide with yours.  The alternative is the echo chamber of social media where you need only listen to views that coincide with your own.

My motivation in writing this is primarily my concern that the eagerness of some people on hearing something they do not like to resort to words like, racist, anti-semitic, islamo-phobic, misogynistic, trans-phobic, homo-phobic, patriarchal or hate speech, prevents reasoned discussion and, if we self censor to avoid being so labelled, effectively denies us freedom of expression.   (It is not without interest that the PCSO who had McAlpine arrested is himself a homosexual.)  But in Stella Creasy’s case there is something else.

Creasy is credited with having championed payday loan fee caps and more recently has urged a crackdown on high cost credit cards. I admire this and say more power to her elbow. I just wish she would not waste her time trying to solve a non-existent problem. Perhaps she is not immune to vanity.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/27/stella-creasy-to-call-for-crackdown-on-high-cost-credit-cards

Matthew Baker Word-Retailer Retreats

MATTHEW Baker, political aide to Simon Danczuk M.P. for Rochdale for the last eight-years, is about to leave his master.  This move follows a series of hectic events involving Simon Danczuk and his wife Karen, culminating last week in Mrs. Danczuk being taken to Court for rent arrears owed to a landlord of a property on The Walk, and a embarrassing interview with Mr. & Mrs. Danczuk for The Sunday Times.   

Yesterday, Rochdale Online described Matthew Baker as follows:

'Mr. Baker's  methods have at times been controversial, during the 2010 election campaign he was exposed as having a number of accounts on internet forums and using those accounts to support Mr. Danczuk and attack his opponents and critics.' 

There have been claims for months that he used a number of aliases together with various addresses to attack local enemies of Danczuk in letters to papers like the Rochdale Observer.  Suggestions exist that Danczuk has visited Kashmir financed by the Azad-Kashmir Government to the tune of over £3,000, and a local Bangladeshi has told Northern Voices that Mr. Danczuk visited Bangladesh to see the opposition leader before the U.K. General Election. 

Speaking this week to Rochdale Online, Baker said:

'I've worked with Simon since 2007, and am very proud of what we've achieved together.  I was delighted to have played a part in helping him gain a massively increased majority last month.  But after eight years I feel ready for a new challenge and am looking forward to doing something different.' 

Mr. Baker worked for the Channel Four Dispatches program entitled 'The Paedophile M.P.: How Cyril Smith got away with it' in 2013, and at the same time did leg-work for the book that he later published with Simon Danczuk titled 'Smile for the Camera:  The Double Life of Cyril Smith'.  In the end, according to Rochdale Online 'it was in fact Mr. Baker who researched and wrote the book'.   

And yet, both Baker and Danczuk have been incredible shy about how the research for the book was accumulated, documented and recorded.  Rochdale Online says above that 'Mr Baker's methods have at times been controversial'.  In the writing of the book the methodology has been mysterious in the extreme, and Northern Voices was told Mr. Baker was taken aback when a victim of Smith at Cambridge House, Eddie Sharrock, told him in 2014 following a BBC interview they did together, that he found aspects of the Danczuk and Baker's book on Smith somewhat incredible. 

Neither Simon Danczuk or Matthew Baker attempted to enlighten the audience, when they had the opportunity while addressing the gathering at a book reading last Autumn at the Rochdale Arts and Literature Festival.  Instead, when asked for details about their research and methodology for the book, Mr. Danczuk and Mr. Baker had Karen Danczuk usher the questioner out of the now defunct Danczuk's Deli.  (For more see  www.demotix.com/news/6093696/simon-danczuk-and-matt-baker )

Just over a week ago my son was in his car stuck at the traffic lights near Gordon Riggs' Garden Centre in Newbold, when he glimpsed in the corner of his eye a baseball-cap and beneath it a vaguely familiar plump body with his little legs jogging on the spot waiting for the lights to change to 'GO'.  Unmistakably, it was the M.P. for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk, straining at the leash to get away. 

Matthew Baker has now got away from the seeming eternally lively melodrama that envelopes and drowns the Danczuk family on a daily basis, and even, or so it seems, the endless extended family of Burkes and Taylors et al.   No one is safe in this frenzied folly of allegations and accusations.  A Labour leader of the Council falls and is replaced.  Others are defamed amid allegations of cover-ups.  A black politician is harangued in the Courts for 'homophobia'.   Trash the Trolls!  Blame your brother!  Call for an over-arching enquiry here!  Tease an apology from Theresa May there!   Sink your teeth in a bacon butty!  Take a Selfie or two of Karen's 'Ding Dongs'!  Swig some Cava by the pool on the Costa Blanca while demanding Lord Janner be disrobed in disgrace.   So much righteousness and flowery flannel in this belated demand for justice from Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker, one wonders if it has all become too much for Mr. Baker to keep a straight face.

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in his autobiography 'Chronicles of Wasted Time' in 1972, that the 'quest for justice continues, and the weapons of hatred pile up; but truth was an early casualty.... the lies of advertising, of news, of salesmanship, of politics!  The lies of the priest in his pulpit, the professor at his podium, the journalist at his typewriter!  The lie stuck like a fish-bone in the throat of the microphone, the hand-held lies of the prowling cameraman!'   

Ultimately, I suppose the struggle may become all too much for all of us, even for men with the thickest skins.

Sexuality Attitudes in the Building Trade?

ATTITUDES towards sexuality in the construction industry requires some careful research and a journal in the British building trade, Construction News, is seeking the views of UK contractor and cost consultant employees for a survey on attitudes towards lesbian, gay and bisexual employees in the construction sector.  Take the survey now - all answers are anonymous and treated in strict confidence.


A similar survey by CITB last year , shared with Construction News, found that sexist and homophobic language was regularly heard on sites.   What a surprise!  According to Construction News:  'Almost half (48 per cent) of workers said that they had heard homophobic language in the past year, while 13 per cent had heard it at least once a week.'


Now Construction News has teamed up with sister titles Architects’ Journal and New Civil Engineer, along with gay, lesbian and bisexual charity Stonewall, to explore attitudes towards sexuality, including homophobia and workplace support.


Mark Hansford in an article in Construction News entitled 'Is our industry homophobic?' on the 3rd, February 2015 wrote: 
'Built environment companies do less to promote sexual diversity and tackle homophobia than banking and the armed forces...'


According to Stonewall, a leading gay rights campaigning group, lesbian, gay and bisexual workers' productivity could be at risk as it singled out the construction industry for failing to keep pace in the drive to support sexual diversity.  The British building trade doesn't even figure in the league table of the Workplace Equality Index of 100 leading firms:  in the top 10-ranked companies for workplace equality are the heavyweight consultancy Accenture, closely followed by the Home Office and the computer giant IBM. 


The league table started in 2005 and is based on a ranking of companies’ efforts to improve sexual orientation equality.  In addition, only four built environment companies are participating in Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme, representing just 0.6% of the 627 participating organisations. 


Now National Construction Enterprises  (NCE) have teamed up with sister titles The Architects Journal and Construction News to conduct an anonymous survey that explores attitudes to sexuality across the whole construction sector.  The survey is targeted at the whole construction industry, and employees of both genders and all sexualities. 

Simon Danczuk: 'Is ..... homophobia at work'?

by Les May

CYRIL Smith was a homosexual.  That means that for all except the last seven years of his life he lived under restrictions as to his sexual activity which did not apply to mixed sex couples.



The Sexual Offences Act 1967, which applied only to England and Wales, partially decriminalised male homosexuality by giving an exemption from prosecution if both men had attained the age of 21.  Outside this exemption, technically speaking, homosexuality continued to be a punishable offence in, and of itself.  In 1994, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act reduced the age of consent to 18.  Finally the Sexual Offences (Amendment ) Act of 2000 equalised the age of consent at 16 for both homosexual and heterosexual behaviours throughout the UK.  It took until 2003 for the offences of gross indecency and buggery, to be deleted from statutory law meaning that sexual activity between more than two men is no longer a crime in the UK.



As a child in the early 1950s, I well remember my father reading out to my mother the reports in the Rochdale Observer of the trials of what he called the 'bum bandits' who were charged with 'gross indecency', which always seemed to involve the police hanging around public urinals.  Such was the attitude of public and police alike.  Roy Jenkins, usually regarded as a liberal and Home Secretary in 1967, said in the debate, 'those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives'. 



Were he alive today if my father spoke like that he would be shouted down, not least by Mr Danczuk's 'metropolitan elite', and Roy Jenkins would have to be more careful how he phrased things.  Just beneath this apparent shift in public perceptions, and attitudes is there a 'closet homophobia' at work?



When I read 'Smile for the Camera' by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker last April, I initially dismissed it as a rehash of a thirty five year old story embedded in a fog of gossip, second and third hand stories and supposition, with little evidence of any systematic research.  But how the authors chose to tell their tale I found disquieting.



One of their stories begins, 'Cyril Smith was into young boys, we all knew that'.  And how did they 'all' know?:   'I distinctly remember conversations in the bar... ' continues their informant.  He goes on to tell them that Smith was detained after he was caught 'in acts of gross indecency with young lads' in toilets which were 'a regular meeting place for homosexuals and young male prostitutes after dark'.



In a few lines we have moved from 'boys' to 'young male prostitutes' and 'acts of gross indecency', an offence that was removed from the statute book in 2003.  So why are they telling us this?  Is it really just a tale of Smith's 'rapacious sexual appetite' or is it intended to awake some latent disgust at Smith's homosexuality? 



What this story does tell us about is the attitude of the police to homosexuals in the 1970s.  It also alerts us to the need to avoid being taken in by vague phrases like 'teenage boys' or 'young boys'.

Another story from the early 1980s involves a Young Liberal who Smith appears to have seduced. In the authors' account he says:  '… I knew his behaviour was wrong.  Very wrong.' and 'In the years that followed, Cyril repeatedly used me to satisfy his perverse cravings.  He treated me like a sex object…'   Now this was a youth not a child so there is not question of paedophilia.  As we read this, would our feelings be the same if it was about a fifty plus Celia Smith with her 'toy boy'?  Are we being subtly invited to a bit of  'queer bashing'?



If you find such an idea offensive or difficult to believe how about this passage taken from the book?: 'Cyril, he said, liked them young with tight sphincter muscles.  When their sphincter became looser as they got older, he would ditch them'.  And: 'I can't forget the graphic detail,' Foulston tells me, 'I was disgusted.'   Was the intention to leave the reader 'disgusted'?  Would the authors have gone into such graphic detail if Smith had not been a homosexual?



None of these stories lend any support to their claim that Cyril Smith was a paedophile in the usually understood meaning of the term.  But all of them involve behaviours which would have been illegal at any time before 1994 or even the year 2000, and would certainly have attracted police attention.

Like many people in Rochdale I have known of Smith's abuse of power at Cambridge House in the 1960s since the story was published in the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) in 1979.  I still need to be convinced that he went on to pursue a career as a paedophile.  The zealousness of the police in pursuing homosexuals in the past, and the gradual changes in the law relating to male homosexuality and the age of consent, need to be borne in mind when we read of police interest in Smith going back to the 1950s, and throughout the 70s and 80s.