No-one has circumscribed Ms Pearson’s free speech. Nor have all too many of those speaking in support of her bothered to find out what this is all about. One might have thought that all those so-called journalists would have made that their first priority, but that thought would have been misplaced: that’s not how our free and fearless press operates these days.
So what did happen to cause Essex Police to rock up on Ms Pearson’s doorstep? Ah well. It was left to the Guardian to lay out some of those inconvenient things called facts. “Daily Telegraph readers have woken up this week to successive front-page headlines alleging a grave threat to free speech, triggered by a star columnist’s ‘Kafkaesque’ encounter with police”.
Do go on. “The rightwing broadsheet described how Essex police had told Allison Pearson on her doorstep last weekend that she was under investigation for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a tweet last year. The Telegraph and Pearson say they are unaware which post caused two officers to knock on her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday”.
They’re aware now. “It is an alleged retweet by Pearson of a photograph posted several months ago amid heightened tensions over the policing of Gaza protests. It shows a group of people of colour posing with a flag on a British street, flanked by three police officers”. There is more.
And yet more. “The implication that the Muslims pictured are antisemitic and supporting Hamas is undermined by the green and maroon flag they are holding. The flag is used by supporters of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). It also, rather clearly, has the word ‘Pakistan’ written on it”. Ms Pearson eventually deleted the Tweet.
So let’s summarise. She claimed it was the Met. She was wrong. She claimed that those depicted were “Jew Haters”. She was wrong. Moreover, as the complainant pointed out, “Each time an influential person makes negative comments about people of colour I, as a person of colour, see an uptick in racist abuse towards me and the days after that tweet are no different”.
But, as the Guardian points out, “The Telegraph and Pearson castigated police and said the visit was an affront to free speech and freedom of the press. Their disbelief was shared by senior lawyers, the former Telegraph journalist Boris Johnson and other leading Conservatives, as well as Elon Musk”. Bozo and Muskrat. Who can’t bother checking their facts first.
At no time has Allison Pearson had her right to free speech curtailed or otherwise restricted. What she and her pals at the Tel have now discovered is that actions can have consequences, even in the asymmetric world of the media elite, who are all too used to shitting on the little people and getting away with it. This time they got a nasty shock. A shock called reality.
Ms Pearson might just think twice next time. So might her supporters.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
21 comments:
She throws in the fact that is was rememberance Sunday, too.
Words have consequences. Words can convince angry mobs to throw bricks at places of worship and Words can convince angry mobs to torch down hotels.
F*** Alison Pearson.
It's so cynical. " Boo hoo, I am an innocent patriot"
Thank you for covering this. I am soooo sick of seeing her on Youtube and on my MSM homepage perpetrating herself the victim. I tried to access the Telegraph message board, but no luck. Others though have made the point: Well dont make vile tweets then.
Pearson's Wikipedia page documents her many instances of being a nasty piece of work. But of course she is the victim here.
My arguement is that She is being defended by GBeebies, Hate TV etc because she gave into her base instincts and made a racist comment. And their 'journalists' are no doubt scared people are keeping receipts of their nastiness and the police might come knocking on their doors too.
Also the essential truth: All bullies are cowards.
Additionally, when I have looked upon the Comments section of GBeebies etc, it's all about two tier policing, George Orwell and Britain becoming a Leftwing Police state. A bit like that many named huckster and his mob. It's a small world. And the people supporting Alison Pearson have small minds !
Spot on. The logic being used to excuse her bigotry is so out there.
No doubt Lone Skum (anag.) will be using this to bolster his claim that Britain is “a police state”. It’s hardly Gestapo tactics, Elmo. The polis didn’t even smash in her front door…
I was hoping Tim would cover this. I must admit, even by the press, Tory party, and muskrats snake belly low standards, this was low, low, stuff. Its proof of the post truth, 'he (or she) who shouts loudest, establishes the 'truth' of the matter - even if, as is the norm, they're lying their arse off.
Pearson is a deluded right wing moron pleaser, no more, no less.
A Der Telegraaf Beobachter far right propaganda clerk whining and snivelling when exposed for lying?
What's noo in the Gammon Gnome Counties?
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the warmongering US Pentagon has had a financial audit. It can't account for $2 trillion. THAT'S TWO TRILLION DOLLARS. This is the sixth successive audit of similar US military-industrial ripoff. A military which keeps losing its wars.
Der Rothermere Heil has linked up again with Der Telegraaf Beobachter hysterical far right insanity. It is now attacking "woke sandwiches". It really is rabid fascist Through The Looking Glass stuff now.
The whole right wing World is completely losing it. Millionaire farmers shut down parts of London, and (unlike JSO) are hailed as heros. Bellend Clarkson is promoted as the saviour of UK farming, despite the govts minimal changes affecting only a tiny number of farms and farmers. Meanwhile, the Heil is proclaiming young people are making 'woke' sandwiches. Woke, sodding, sandwiches. The right are forever claiming the Worlds gone mad. For once in their wretched lives they're right - but it's them that's made it that way.
Charges dropped, and Pearson is utterly unrepentant, to the point she repeated the same slurs. Of course she wasn't trying to stir up race hatred, I mean that would never do. Can someone explain how someone clearly makes comments designed to smear and incite, is simply allowed to walk away, and just carry on doing the same thing while others get banged up for less?
22:11.
"Can someone explain how someone clearly makes comments designed to smear and incite, is simply allowed to walk away"
Oh that's easy: Become leader of the"Labour" Party, support mass murder, be a Zionist-without-qualification, become a Yank-owned Chihuahua, and tell everyone "My dad was a toolmaker".
I think the point being missed here is that there were no charges. Pearson was reported to police for a potential hate crime, for the tweet where she got it very wrong, not something to dismiss lightly. Pearson was visited by police, and asked if she would attend an interview to discuss the matter. Presumably she did. CPS advice was that (given the tweet was deleted etc) was not to take it further. No charges to be brought. Investigation closed. By that time Allison Pearson had written her tear-jerker in the Torygraph, presumably for money, claiming police were investigating under regulations which police bodycam apparently shows wasn't the case. The entire conversation at the door was recorded. This is a small but crucial point in this farcical saga. She was apparently told police were investigating her “inciting racial hatred”, an actual crime, not of committing a “non-crime hate incident”, which is not a crime, as she allegedly falsely claimed. Police have made a complaint to IPSO. Is Pearson always this confused?
I see the repugnant (IMO) Toby Young and his Free Speech Union is making hay and claiming the hot shot criminal lawyer hired to defend Pearson intervened & had the matter dropped. Did he? Or was there never anything to drop, and the matter would have remained between Pearson, the police & the CPS if she hadn't decided to tell the world? People are so easy to fool. Now Pearson, who blocks anyone who says boo to her, is a Free Speech Champion, free to smear brown men as Jew Haters with never an apology when she realises she's got it all wrong?
This is worth reading and the updates.
https://www.essex.police.uk/news/essex/news/news/2024/november/update-relating-to-ongoing-investigation/
What concerns me is that she and the GBeebies and Hate TV gammon and Karen's will use this outcome as a victory...and The jailed huckster and his 28 days later zombies in turn further encouraged to engage in intimidation and violence.
Pearson is a nasty piece of work. I hope when Karma catches up with Pearson, she goes full on psycho-bitch.
Exactly. Pearson has smeared those men as 'jew haters' smeared the Police as 'favouring anti Semites', and as with GBnews various smears, ignoring of the law, and conspiring there's, not only got off scott free, but is hailed a hero. Welcome to the post truth World.
Kenan Malik in the Observer has Pearson's measure.
I’ll defend Allison Pearson’s right to be obnoxious – as she should defend mine
Police investigation into writer’s alleged tweet has sparked a debate over free speech, albeit a somewhat selective one
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/24/allison-pearson-right-to-be-obnoxious
In all of this business, has anyone pointed out that Pearson is a publicity director for the Free Speech Union?
F*** Alison Pearson?
Yeuk, hell no.
Unfortunately, few people in the UK could give a shit. It has become a strange, cold society of chancers and creeps. Pearson is only typical.
Indeed. A sad piece on the BBC website by a blind guy shows just how low, and how Americanised we've become. He has spoken out in the past about (unlawfully) being prevented from entering business premises with his guide dog. A sad tale, that, in the past would elicited sympathy and annoyance at his treatment. Not any more.
Instead, for daring to speak out he's been subjected to shocking abuse, including saying his mother deserved to be raped! All because he has been effectively persecuted for being blind.
Anyone who suffers from a disability though, can tell a similar story. People in wheelchairs called 'scroungers', people annoyed that they're 'in the way', people with mental health issues mocked and derided, with politicians accusing them of exaggerating, and dismissing their plight as 'just being a bit down'.
The sad truth is, Trumps victory was neither unexpected, or particularly unusual in the modern World. The far right are either in power, or have a large say in govts all over the World. And what is their attitude? Anyone who isn't wedded to fossil fuels, anti LGBT, anti migrant, not conforming to their idea of the 'norm', can fuck right off.
We, in the UK, like to pretend we 'aren't like that', but we are. Left/LIberal ideology, empathy, care for others, tolerance, have all been tossed out with the bath water, leaving a nation dominated by the Clarksons, and Farages, with their cynical, self serving Worldview. Let's face it, when those two are the poster boys of modern Britain, you know the country is fucked.
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