Of all those who contribute to the pages of the Murdoch Times, none is more adept at stirring controversy than Giles Coren, who in writing for the paper, continues in the footsteps of his late father Alan, who really was funny and popular. His last effort of 2019 included what looked like a homophobic attack on campaigner and pundit Owen Jones, and from there it seems that matters swiftly got out of hand.
Giles Coren, whose pals ...
Making a “prediction for 2020”, Coren mused “My prediction for next year is Owen Jones getting a peerage in Corbyn’s resignation honours (does he get a go at that?) and becoming a fat old lord getting smashed on Madeira in the morning and chasing young researchers with tight bottoms up and down the corridors all afternoon”. Laugh? I thought I’d never start. Jones, as might be expected, was not impressed.
“Not exactly subtle homophobia being published by [The Times], is it?” He then added “Expect a lot more like this. The election result is being interpreted as a mandate to say anything and everything about minorities - or to end the ‘yoke of the woke’, as one ‘moderate’ columnist put it”. And there it might have ended. But it did not.
... blame Owen Jones for something he didn't advocate ...
Possibly unknown to Jones, a group of people claiming to be his followers found Coren’s address and decided to doorstep him. Coren was not at home. He later wrote about the harassment of his wife and children in a Times column. “Yesterday morning, after eleven mostly unhappy and pointless years, I left Twitter” he told readers.
Coren claimed in his defence that he did not know that Jones was gay, which puts him not only in one of those Very Difficult Situations, but also a very small minority indeed, especially given that the latter was the subject of a homophobic attack recently, an incident which was extensively publicised, and for which a number of men have been arrested.
... then blame Twitter ...
The Media Guido Twitter feed, part of the empire of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, took a dim view. “Giles Coren has left Twitter after a posse of Owen Jones followers turned up at his house to abuse him and instead found only his wife and children to harangue”. That’s most interesting.
... including The Great Guido ...
Quite apart from Coren claiming recently “I’ve got lots of Twitter accounts. None of them secret”, there is the rank hypocrisy of the media establishment when it comes to intimidatory doorstepping. When it’s one of their own, it’s Oh So Terrible. When it’s being done by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, well, Meh.
So those clutching their pearls this morning said nothing when Lennon went mob-handed to a solicitor’s office in Luton, an event that lost a young man his job. No comment when Lennon drove halfway across Britain to put the arm on the family of a student who had taken the piss out of him. No comment when Lennon rocked up in Glasgow to harass an SNP MP at his constituency surgery. Not a peep. No sirree.
... but give this person a free pass
Not a mention when historian and campaigner Mike Stuchbery was harassed in his own home by Lennon (Mike has since left the UK in order to rebuild his life and career). And next to stuff all when Lennon turned up on my doorstep in the dead of night. Twice.
Behold our media class - whining about the left while giving the far right a free pass.
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1 comment:
Coren?
The epitome of a Nastzi tory. And a Murdoch Slimes propaganda clerk to boot.
He can't get much lower but you can bet he'll try.
Well, I did warn matters would get much worse. Here it is - only the beginnings of its rotten inglory.
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