Another day, another resignation from the loathsome Toby Young: he has now resigned his position as a Fulbright Commissioner, following departure from the board of the newly-formed Office for Students. His presence at the London Conference on Intelligence last year, alongside white supremacists and the occasional paedophile, was not the only eugenics bash he had attended recently - there had been another in Montreal.
Tobes has been revealed as a truly vile individual, claiming to be all for inclusivity and diversity, while rubbing shoulders with the Whitey Power mob. But he would not have got to where he is today - or rather, where he was before London Student and Private Eye allowed reality to intervene - without the enablers, promoters, excuse merchants and fellow travellers of the Press and Pundit Establishment, all of whom should hang their heads in shame at their having shielded and encouraged him.
So today Zelo Street names the guilty men - and women - who should now consider their positions, but will not. Where to start? Ah yes, Boris Johnson, who claims to be the Foreign Secretary. Bozza told us “Ridiculous outcry over Toby Young. He will bring independence, rigour and caustic wit. Ideal man for job”. Liar backs liar no shock horror.
Jo Johnson, Bozza’s kid brother, who stood before the Commons and defended Tobes, claiming he had been on a “transformational journey”. He hadn’t.
Michael Gove, the Minister for Murdoch, piled in behind Bozza: “Quite right too - how many of Toby Young’s critics have worked night and day to provide great state schools for children of every background?” Tobes worked night and day? Like heck he did.
Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Michael Gove, lent her Lady Macbeth-like support: “If the government fires @toadmeister then there is no point. We might as well just give up on democracy and let Twitter run the country”. It wasn’t about Twitter. And well she knew it.
Piers Morgan, still for some reason the three-days-a-week co-host of ITV breakfast offering Good Morning Britain, who snapped “Few more brilliant educational minds in Britain than @AnthonySeldon. If he’s OK with @toadmeister getting this gig, then I suggest all the shrieking PC-crazed lefty loons pipe down”. It wasn’t about lefties.
Julia Hartley Dooda, she of “If you think Toby Young is unfit to be on the university regulator board because he tweeted about women’s tits but you voted for Jeremy Corbyn to be PM after he took cash from Russia & Iran, and supported Hamas & the IRA, then you’re an idiot”. Journalist fails to do journalism before ranting? Idiot indeed.
Isabel Oakeshott, speaking after Tobes resigned from the OfS but before we discovered why - never a good move - claimed “Political correctness is sapping public life of talented people. It has become utterly corrosive. @toadmeister been v rude to me in the past, but it's time we all got over silly things said in the past. His resignation is a great loss”. Loss to whom? Advocates of eugenics and knee-jerk right-wing conformists, maybe.
Paul Staines - the perpetually thirsty custodian of the Guido Fawkes blog ran a post backing Tobes and claiming it was all about the left. It wasn’t. When Young resigned, the Fawkes rabble demanded everyone “look over there” at Angela Ranyer. Wrong again.
Alex Wickham, teaboy to The Great Guido, also failed to do his homework, claiming “Toby Young, adviser to a quango, apologises, resigns, takes the flak and the story blows up … Jared O'Mara, an actual MP with constituents to represent, doesn't resign, goes missing for four months and gets away with it”. Look over there? No thanks, Billy Liar.
Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator magazine, who went on The Andy Marr Show (tm) last Sunday and told viewers that Tobes’ bad stuff was “historic”. It wasn’t historic enough.
Laura Perrins, tedious and unfunny co-editor of the equally tedious Conservative Woman blog, who dedicated both Tweets and posts to propping up Tobes, notably asking “Do you really, really think Toby Young hates women. Actually hates them? Do you think he believes in eugenics in the classic sense - wiping out the ‘unwanted’?” No comment.
Tony Gallagher, still inexplicably in the editor’s chair at the Murdoch Sun, who dedicated part of yesterday’s editorial to ranting abusively at anyone who had passed adverse comment on Tobes. Many of the insults thrown around sound very hollow right now.
Plus, lest we forget, all those at the BBC, Sky News and elsewhere who have unquestioningly booked Toby Young to appear as a pundit on a variety of shows, the Press Establishment which has given him a platform - notably the Murdoch Sun and Rothermere Mail titles - and the members of the Pundit Establishment who have welcomed Tobes into their ranks and defended him against anyone wanting to shine a little of that daylight into the less appealing parts of his psyche. All should also be ashamed at their conduct.
The saga of Toby Young sums up all that is rotten and corrupt in the Media Establishment today. That so little will change after he was unmasked yesterday tells you all you need to know about the nature of this particular beast. And they wonder why the public is cynical.
After the previous years of tory "sleaze"......predictably, we now endure Sleaze2.
ReplyDeleteFor "sleaze", read: Corrupt, lying, hypocritical, thieving, racist, greedy and conscience-free.
That's quite a thieves kitchen you name there, Tim. But it's still only the tip of a very rotten iceberg. It extends into the New Labour gang too - Remember the Blair/Brown cringe with Murdoch?
It's going to take years to clean out the British stables. There's an awful lot of horse shit to shovel out. Meanwhile, expect various diversions not excepting war and "international tensions" - for classic examples of which, see Miller's far right propaganda bullshit from Korea on Channel 4 TV "news".
You can expect too the immediate victims will be our most vulnerable citizens. But it won't stop there. The most gullible will be next on the list.
These fools should ask if they want the likes of Tones running their kids schools.
ReplyDeleteOne has to ask if these goons are just safeguarding any future prospects of employment when their current jobs/income take a dive.
Character references eh?
Who needs them!
The real problem is that most of this crew probably still think it was "political correctness" that meant TY had to go!
ReplyDeletePiers Morgan is on BBCQT tonight, I believe?
ReplyDeleteWell, Sir Anthony Seldon appears to have realised that he needed to distance himself sharpish from the rat infested sinking not so good ship the Toby Young, and recanted. He claims he had no idea of Tobes past (or present..) when he gave him such vociferous support. Aye, right. We believe you Anthony, sure we do.
Sir Anthony Seldon is vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. Doesn't Tobes have some connection with that seat of learning I ask innocently?
Here is his cry of pain, in the Times Higher Ed no less Jan 10 2018
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/anthony-seldon-why-i-changed-my-mind-about-toby-young
Anthony Seldon: why I changed my mind about Toby Young
Sir Anthony Seldon explains why he was pleased to see Toby Young resign from the Office for Students, despite initially applauding the appointment
"On Tuesday morning last week, the online journal Capex asked me to write a piece defending Toby Young’s appointment to the board of the Office of Students. I was extremely happy to write in support of his appointment.
The reasons were as I gave in the article (and which I still believe): the sector needs outsiders with experience of education if we are to move forward. The lack of robust external thinking has been partly responsible for the poor reputation that higher education had in the eyes of the public last year.
I like the idea that he worked in schools, because I see a wholly unhelpful disconnect between schools and universities. Both sides have much more to learn from the other. I like his trenchant approach on social mobility, access to HE for the least advantaged and free speech.
He’s not just talk. With his West London Free School chain, he’s been striving to raise standards for all. I also said that although our politics are very different, for example on Europe, we need more Tories on public bodies for balance.
On Wednesday evening last week, I appeared on The World Tonight and only then did I learn about the vile things that he’d been saying on Twitter and elsewhere. Maybe I should have known what he’d been writing about but I did not. I was still trying to assimilate this just before going on air, which is why I said "if indeed he’d written these things they were repellent".
On Tuesday this week I was asked to appear on the Today programme. By this time I had read fully in the press what he had been saying and I reached the conclusion, as I said on the programme, that there are two Toby Youngs. The first is a man of passionate commitment to social mobility, free speech and academic education for all. The second is someone who has written degrading comments, seemingly on an industrial scale.
I said on Today that this ruled him out, because you cannot have someone on a public education body who has made grossly offensive comments for so long, even if he has apologised.
In fact, nothing I have done in my career suggests I could possible support his degrading comments. On the contrary, and very visibly on the record, I have tried for many years to champion well-being, kindness, character education and respect for all.
Ironically, few have been as scathing of all I have tried to fight for over 10 and more years than Toby Young himself.
I still think Toby Young (type one) will be a loss to higher education, and I hope the OfS will find someone with a similar robust outsider viewpoint on the sector. But I confess that I simply don’t understand the mindset of someone who could have written the tweets he wrote.
So why did I change my mind? Because the evidence presented to me changed. These are the facts that I’ve decided to put on the record. People are free to condemn me or not but I’d like them to do so not on the basis of conjecture, but on the truth of what I did."
As for the wonderfulness of that free school chain, doesn't it receive a great deal of public cash, per student, with less than outstanding results? Perhaps it's time there was more scrutiny of the claims about Toby being a great educationalist. It's as though teachers up and down the land were 'enemies of promise' (M Gove) and not also busting guts to do the best for their students for far less reward than Tobes has received for doing... what exactly?
ReplyDeletehttps://disidealist.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/west-london-free-school-a-bog-standard-non-comprehensive/
First rule of Pundit Club, never criticise another pundit. They're all mates together, sticking up for each other, getting each other jobs, covering up for each other. I am sure they knew about Tobes far-right views, Young wasn't actually quiet about his enthusiasm for eugenics and controlling the breeding habits of lesser peoples.
ReplyDeleteOnce you start scratching the surface, the belief in the natural superiority of our betters and the need to stop the breeding of the unwashed might be a common belief among the commentariat
Take Fraser Nelson, he's assembled a roster of far-right cranks at the Spectator. Surprised he hasn't had Britain First writing for him, although they might be a bit plebian for his upper, middle class tastes.
West London Free School, founded by Toby Young with a pledge to attract and retain outstanding teachers, has recently appointed its fourth permanent head in its short six-year history. 'To lose one parent, Mr Worthington, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.'
ReplyDeleteYou have omitted the pro-life MP Maria Caulfield, now Vice-chair for conservative women from your list Tim.
ReplyDeleteReason for her endorsement of the odious creep?......" I went to school in the socialist borough of Lambeth, where more kids ended up in prison than went to university. [I guess she missed out on both careers] er ...... the toadmolester set up some free schools and helped some poor kids by showing them how to get money for nothing from the state. Which is a far better scam than having to rely on benefits? Every child should have equal life chances after all. I trained as a nurse at the taxpayer's expense to further my career in speaking up for women's rights. This is why I voted for abolishing the nurse training grant and pay rises for NHS staff. These kids need to learn (in the free school) how to get things for free from the state. If they can't afford to pay back their loans for training they can always get jobs as carers. The pays good, £8:50/hr so I have heard from the nursing home owners. They have got to learn ( in their free school) that they can't sponge of the state all their lives, unless they are members of the Tory party or MP's like me who also happen to be members of the meritocracy. Thats what free enterprise is all about after all. Well that and telling other women what they shoud do with their own bodies, otherwise we would have a shortage of diadvantaged children to keep the food banks open. Jacob Reeks-Bog would be very sad.
I may of added a few bits but I am sure you will get the point of what Ms Caulfield is saying.
Those panting in expectoration for this week's Speccie will know there was a dirty job to do, and someone had to do it.
ReplyDeleteThe lot fell on Lara Prendergast, who has penned "The digital inquisition" to tell the lot of yous that you are to blame, you are "frenetically outraged".
Beyond that "Social media companies have tricked us all ... They have coaxed us into blurring personal and private words in the name of free speech."
An odd definition of personal and private that extends to a column in a national newspaper.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, when will they realise that:
A. Freedom of speech includes freedom to take the consequences. It is not freedom from criticism.
B. When your only defence of someone is "Oh go on, he's a mate", just stop.
C. It's best not to say anything online that you'd not be comfortable saying to a cellmate.
How many of Tobes rightwing pundit pals would allow themselves to have future children screened for his 'thicko' gene or if anyone of them had a,child with a learning or physical disability or mental illness to be excluded from education?
ReplyDeleteYeah none, because they all believe in one rule for them and rule for the rest of us.
I suspect a significant number of the Tory PLP believe in the same bat-shit pseudo -science as Tobes.
It's become blatantly obvious that Theresa May is not PM but Boris Johnson is and whatever he says goes.
Excellent, painstaking work exposing'Toady'Young! I wonder where that 'educator' will turn up next, maybe his Nazi-Eugenicist colleague, old Dicky Lynn, can sind him some shady Herrenvolk appointment? Possibly out of sight and just Right of the Bell Curve..
ReplyDeleteGo raibh maith agat!