[Updates, two so far, at end of post]
Yesterday, a sad and pathetic nobody called Joshua Bonehill Paine was found guilty at the Old Bailey of what is called “racially aggravated harassment”. He had waged a hate campaign against Labour MP Luciana Berger, who represents Liverpool Wavertree, solely because she is Jewish. The anti-Semitic abuse will not be detailed here; what will be discussed is the way in which one Zelo Street favourite has ignored the case.
Yesterday, a sad and pathetic nobody called Joshua Bonehill Paine was found guilty at the Old Bailey of what is called “racially aggravated harassment”. He had waged a hate campaign against Labour MP Luciana Berger, who represents Liverpool Wavertree, solely because she is Jewish. The anti-Semitic abuse will not be detailed here; what will be discussed is the way in which one Zelo Street favourite has ignored the case.
After Bonehill Paine was found guilty - the jury gave him only enough benefit of the doubt to take 75 minutes to agree a verdict - we learned that he “was on bail awaiting sentence for making claims on Twitter that several people were paedophiles … The jury was not told that the defendant, a former hospice worker, is already serving a jail sentence for posting antisemitic material. He was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in December last year”.
That, too, was anti-Semitic in nature. But it was not just the harassment that concerned Ms Berger, and should concern all of us, but her fears for her safety, because despite the campaign being waged online, as she put it, “what happens online does not always stay online”. She had also received a death threat from another nonentity, John Nimmo, who told her that “You will get it like Jo Cox did”. Nimmo has also got guilty.
Bonehill Paine will be sentenced today, and faces a jail term of as much as two years, a tariff he may get rather close to achieving, given he’s already in the nick, and that he showed zero remorse during the trial, and when the verdict was handed down yesterday. There is no sympathy among the press pack for him - evan the Mail, not the biggest fan of Labour, managed to cover the case - but somebody out there is ignoring it.
Who might that somebody be? Well, to no surprise at all, one alleged media outlet not mentioning the harassment of Ms Berger is that of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who have previously had no problem with mentioning Ms Berger - when they decide to smear her. Staines’ former tame gofer, Master Harry Cole, went after the MP suggesting she was taking dodgy donations. She wasn’t.
The Fawkes folks later smeared Ms Berger once more over the saga of Liverpool councillor Jake Morrison, claiming she had booted him out, which was also totally untrue. Morrison eventually stood down of his own accord. And they weren’t done yet: Staines’ newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham suggested Ms Berger had been telling porkies about how often Young Dave spoke on climate change. She hadn’t.
On top of that, the Fawkes rabble have been hot on any tendency to anti-Semitism, but only when it is alleged to have happened within the Labour Party (the Fawkes blog’s “anti-Semitism archives” are mostly about Labour). But when a Labour MP, whom they have already groundlessly smeared, is the victim of a sustained campaign of anti-Semitic harassment, The Great Guido is quiet as the proverbial mouse.
Staines and his pals are a bunch of stinking hypocrites. Another fine mess, once again.
[UPDATE1 1535 hours: as I intimated, Joshua Bonehill Paine has got very close indeed to the maximum sentence for his crime - close enough for there to be no difference.
As has now been reported, he has been sent back to jail for another two years. This, too, has been left unreported by the Fawkes blog. Anyone might draw the conclusion that The Great Guido was not taking anti-Semitism as seriously as he pretends to]
[UPDATE2 9 December 1325 hours: right on cue, The Great Guido has told his adoring followers "Corbyn Attends Khomeinist Event With Press TV And Israel Hating Extremists", going after the Labour leader for meeting Hatem Bazlan, who "has been involved in numerous anti-Semitism rows".
That's "anti-Semitism rows" as defined by the Fawkes rabble for the purposes of demonising the Labour leadership, of course. But no mention of the vicious anti-Semitism meted out to Luciana Berger. I'm sure it's no more than a coincidence]
[UPDATE1 1535 hours: as I intimated, Joshua Bonehill Paine has got very close indeed to the maximum sentence for his crime - close enough for there to be no difference.
As has now been reported, he has been sent back to jail for another two years. This, too, has been left unreported by the Fawkes blog. Anyone might draw the conclusion that The Great Guido was not taking anti-Semitism as seriously as he pretends to]
[UPDATE2 9 December 1325 hours: right on cue, The Great Guido has told his adoring followers "Corbyn Attends Khomeinist Event With Press TV And Israel Hating Extremists", going after the Labour leader for meeting Hatem Bazlan, who "has been involved in numerous anti-Semitism rows".
That's "anti-Semitism rows" as defined by the Fawkes rabble for the purposes of demonising the Labour leadership, of course. But no mention of the vicious anti-Semitism meted out to Luciana Berger. I'm sure it's no more than a coincidence]
I must say the name Bonehill Paine has a touch of unexpected humour in an otherwise sordid escapade.
ReplyDeleteNot that said Bonehill Paine will be raising much laughter if the stern old man in an even older wig sees it proper to allot said Bonehill Paine another couple of years to contemplate his ways.
And what's a Nazi from the West Country doing verbally assaulting a Liverpool MP? Very odd, to say the least.