Tommy Robinson WILL NOT Stop Panorama

And so, finally, followers of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, were able today to see PanoDrama, his documentary intended to torpedo the BBC’s proposed edition of Panorama about him. The problem for Lennon was that the Beeb had already seen it, and had told him exactly what he would not achieve by going ahead and publishing. The Corporation’s statement tells you all you need to know.

This is what the programme makers have told: “BBC Panorama is investigating Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon. The BBC strongly rejects any accusation that our journalism is ‘faked’ or biased. Any programme we broadcast will adhere to the BBC’s strict editorial guidelines”. And there is more.

“Some of the footage which has been released was recorded without out knowledge during this investigation and John Sweeney made some offensive and inappropriate remarks, for which he apologises … BBC’s Panorama investigation will continue”. And that is that. Lennon’s documentary has failed in its first objective.

There was worse to come. Zelo Street has only seen the first ten minutes or so of what in Roman days might have been termed Tedius Maximus, boredom thresholds being what they are and all that. But that was enough to show that Lennon’s “exposé” was in fact so selectively presented as to be worthless. One example will serve to demonstrate this.

The first specific target Lennon identifies is not the BBC, but Hope Not Hate, and here he claims that a predecessor organisation to HnH had been involved in the Panorama edition Maggie’s Militant Tendency, where the Corporation caved in and settled a libel action brought by then Tory MPs including the disgraced Neil “A Liar And A Cheat” Hamilton.

This claim has a problem: HnH actually split from that predecessor organisation, and many in the BBC - including then Director General Alasdair Milne - believed that the programme should have been defended. But Lennon then came out with another blatant misrepresentation as he introduced a young man called Tom Dupré.

Dupré, so Lennon told his audience, was targeted by HnH, and that their involvement led to his dismissal by his then employer Standard Chartered Bank. But there is a problem here: what Lennon does not tell is that Dupré was co-leader of the UK branch of Generation Identity, which is widely regarded as a neo-Nazi organisation.

As the Independent reported at the time, “Generation Identity furthers a conspiracy theory that ‘indigenous Europeans’ are being replaced by migration and calls for its members to mount a ‘Reconquista’ of the continent”. Dupré left GI, but “defended Generation Identity’s core theory of the ‘great replacement’ of white Europeans”.

The Indy also told that Dupré “was fired from his job as a junior banker at Standard Chartered over his role” [in GI]. Not because of Hope Not Hate.

Ten minutes in, and Stephen Lennon’s documentary has already sprayed its credibility up the wall. And that’s before the lawyers have had a look. More later.

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Arron Banks - Where’s The Beef?

While the National Crime Agency and various Police forces ponder further investigation into the various Leave campaigns from the 2016 EU referendum, Bloomberg has done its own investigation into the finances of Arron Banks, the alleged “man who bankrolled Brexit”. Their analysis can be read as suggesting that his various businesses may not have had sufficient resources to pony up that £8 million he provided.

First, Bloomberg pitches the question. “For a man who told the Financial Times he was worth 100 million pounds ($130 million) in 2015 and made the Sunday Times Rich List two years later with 250 million pounds, his 8 million-pound outlay wasn’t necessarily that striking. But is Banks—who is at the center of a criminal probe into the financing of the campaign to leave the European Union - really that wealthy?”

From that comes the analysis. “Analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his net worth at 25 million pounds from what can be gleaned publicly. It comprises 34 million pounds worth of assets in insurance, financial services and diamond mining. The net figure deducts the amount of his funding to Leave.eu, the pro-Brexit group he co-founded”. Bit of a come down from £250 million, then. And there is more.

Two items in the portfolio considered by Bloomberg may not have the value - at least, not to Banks - that is assumed. First come those diamond mines in South Africa, on which a value of £5 million is placed. However, the article also quotes Peter Major, director of mining at Cadiz Corporate Solutions in Cape Town, who strikes a sceptical note.

“These particular four are very small properties and definitely not mainstream … South Africa has a thousand other small diamond mines similar to them, looking for dreamers and suckers“. Major has “been asked to look at those four mines at least twice in the past 12 years, but declined because diamond mining in South Africa is notoriously risky, hard to value and difficult to raise money for investments”. They could be worthless.

Second is Eldon Insurance, which Bloomberg values at £12 million. However, Banks’ share of the company is thought to be between 50% and 75%. So, taking a pessimistic view for Banksy, that’s just £6 million of assets. And if those diamond mines really are worthless, which is not out of the question, his asset base isn’t £34 million.

That asset base would, in those circumstances, be just £23 million. And we are supposed to believe that, potentially being in possession of that amount of ready assets, he managed to find a whole £8 million to throw at the Leave campaign.

And remember, as the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr has pointed out, Banks is so filthy rich that he can’t afford to live in his stately home, which is instead hired out to generate cash. Banks lives in the gatehouse. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.

The National Crime Agency, as Bloomberg points out, “has the investigatory powers to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding Banks’s finances”. They may get a surprise when they get round to doing that. Because Banksy doesn’t look so rich after all.

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Corbyn Biographer Trotskyism Smear BUSTED

Self-appointed Jeremy Corbyn biographer Tom Bower has been putting himself around the media rather a lot recently. First came his lame hatchet job serialised in the Mail on Sunday, which was not even well-received by Jezza’s detractors, and then he was caught using a crude anti-Semitic trope on ITV Good Morning Britain to smear Mike Segalov. Now, all too predictably, the Murdoch press has ridden to his rescue.

Tom Bower - getting desperate

You know an attack line used against a politician is serious when the Murdoch mafiosi gets involved, and they gave Bower full rein to smear in the crudest form possible, as the headline “Tom Bower on Jeremy Corbyn: he left for Jamaica an academic failure and came back a fanatical Marxist” tells you (Jezza has never been a fanatical anything).

The language is crude and indeed hyperbolic at times, as witness “Throughout his career the Labour leader has used tactics learnt from the communist playbook [no citation]. His biographer Tom Bower charts his cultivation of a ‘good guy’ image - and ruthless elimination of moderate rivals”. Does he have a mountain lair and a white cat?

Still, let’s see what Bower can pony up in support of his claim. “Burning buildings, overturned cars and students rampaging through downtown Kingston, Jamaica, in October 1968 spurred Jeremy Corbyn’s switch from traditional Labour Party supporter to a Trotskyist dedicated to transforming Britain into a communist state. After his stay on the island he successfully concealed his past and his prejudices, even from his family and closest friends”. How convenient. So his family didn’t tell him about that.

This is total crap. The idea that Jezza’s family and friends didn’t tell Bower about his past because there was some kind of concealment being practiced is fantasy. But there’s more. “Despite scoring two grade-E A-levels and failing a third, Corbyn had landed a Voluntary Overseas Service (VSO) placement to teach geography at Kingston College, an elite school. Ever since, he has said those ‘two years were really a defining moment in my life’”.

That means what, exactly? It’s all nudge and wink; we should fill in the gaps in the style which Bower finds acceptable. But David Osland was not impressed: “The biggest difficulty with the theory that Jeremy Corbyn became a Trotskyist in Jamaica in 1968 is that there were no Trotskyist organisations in Jamaica until 1975. Do your homework, Bower”.

Next thing you know, Bower will be claiming that’s no big deal because Jezza invented Trotskyism himself. Or something like that. One Tweeter from Liverpool found the idea ridiculous: “Back in the day, the ‘workerists’ of the Trotskyite persuasion had Corbyn marked down as a ‘trendy left’, alongside the likes of Margaret Hodge would you believe! As if he was ever anything more left than democratic socialist!” Quite.

It was left to John Fielder to make the statement of the bleeding obvious: “I think, most people who accuse others of being Trots have absolutely no idea what a Trot is”. Exactly. Bower has been touring the TV studios, rambling on about communism without one gram of fact to back it up. He is just smearing with the objective of delegitimising Corbyn.

Trouble is, he’s not very good at it. Bit like the press which is enabling him, then.

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Independent Group On Marr Show - POINTLESS

As befits a nascent political party that is to a significant extent playing to the media, whether print or broadcast, the place to try and find out about the so-called Independent Group of MPs is in that media. So it was that two of their MPs, former Tory Heidi Allen and formerly Labour Luciana Berger, fetched up on The Andy Marr Show™ today.

Heidi Allen

And as an exercise in finding out what the group stood for, it could be summed up in one word - pointless. There was rather more soundbite and waffle deployment than such trivia as an actual policy position. Also, Ms Berger took the opportunity to put the boot in on the party she had just departed, claiming “The Labour Party has betrayed its promise to the British people to do everything possible to protect their jobs”.

Wasn’t it the truth, Marr asked, that if there were a by-election in Liverpool Wavertree, that the electorate would vote Labour and therefore not for her? “I can only reflect on the response that I’ve had over the past six days … the multitude of calls that I’ve had, the emails, the response I’ve had …”. It’s a rock solid Labour constituency. She’d be out.

Perhaps Ms Allen would like to say something about her standing in 2017 on a manifesto that asserted she would not “spend precious time resisting Brexit” and that “a second referendum is not what we should be aiming for”. But now all was changed. So why was that? “As politicians we have to deal with the facts that are in front of us right now”.

Was Ms Berger a big fan of George Osborne? She correctly saw this as a giant elephant trap. “We are not going to agree on everything”. That’s most useful: as Marr pointed out, her new colleague Anna Soubry had praised the former austerity Chancellor. But she did have more to say. “What binds us together is our values, and our commitment to doing something different … there’s going to be things that we disagree on”.

Luciana Berger

We weren’t learning much here. But she had more to say. “What we’re seeking to do going forward is that we’re going to operate in an adult way”. Marr tried again: “Members of the public do need to know what you stand for”. So he pitched some specific questions, like what about re-nationalisation of water and the rail operators?

Ms Allen fielded this, but then Ms Berger brought out the catch-all defence which we may hear rather a lot in the coming days. “We’re six days in. We’ve taken the steps to leave our parties. We haven’t even had our inaugural meeting, which we were really looking forward to”. “Tomorrow” confirmed Ms Allen. Then came another new soundbite from Ms Berger.

“You’re asking me through the prism of old politics, and what we’re seeking to do is do this in a very different way”. There was more talk of values. Ms Allen wanted to stress that they were not going to be rushed. They would be doing things properly. There would be a political party. She suggested that it might work like in business - “coalescing around the evidence”. That was about as good as it got. In other words, not very far at all.

The Independent Group is thus far dependent on media outlets, and those media outlets are going to tire of them unless they can tell the world where the beef is.

Flannel and soundbites are not going to cut it. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Julia Hartley Dooda Schengen Muddle

All good things come to an end, and sadly for self-promoting TalkRADIO host Julia Hartley Brewer, this includes her VERY EXPENSIVE and VERY EXCLUSIVE ski-ing holiday somewhere she doesn’t have to put up with the plebs who will suffer most from Britain leaving the EU, an outcome for which she has so fervently advocated.

We know who you are, thanks

So now she is on her way back to the UK, although what the British people have done to deserve her presence is not known. It must have been bad. No matter, though, there are points to score even on the way home, including telling her faithful followers that she is crossing the border between France an Switzerland. Very expensively.

“Just approaching the border between France and Switzerland … and now I’m in Switzerland. I reckon that took all of 20 seconds. #justsaying”. And the point of this was what, exactly? Both countries are part of the Schengen Zone, so unless she was taking a lorry load of goods across - for which there would be a delay - it’s straight through.

This was duly pointed out to Ms Hartley Dooda, prompting this singularly clueless reply: “And, yes, I know Switzerland is in Schengen. But we aren’t now, and we won’t be after Brexit, so why does anything have to change if the British and EU leaders are sensible and agree that it doesn’t need to?”. Something to do with leaving the EU, perchance?

Also, the arrangements for moving goods across that border are, as I suggested, very different, as they are between, say, Sweden and Norway. So what about the Schengen question? “Yes, but Switzerland isn’t in the EU. They came to a mutually convenient solution with the EU. We can also come to a mutually convenient solution. What about that do you find complicated?” Switzerland is indeed not in the EU. But do go on.

“I want the benefits (for both sides) of a free trade deal. I don’t want free movement. But we already have passport controls at our borders so no need for any longer process … Why on earth would the EU do a free trade deal with Japan? Or Canada? Or attempt to do one with the US?”. Time for Ms Hartley Dooda to face reality here.

Switzerland, to take her example, may not be in the EU, but has adopted significant parts of EU law. It is, like Norway, a rule taker, to adopt the phrase so loved by her Brexiteer heroes in Parliament and elsewhere. Moreover, the speed at which one crosses a border by road, or indeed any other form of transport, is not determined by free trade deals. She wouldn’t cross the border into Japan in 20 seconds.

Once again, we have a Brexit fundamentalist who takes one experience and believes that she then knows all about a subject which is totally different. She’s trilling about free movement but doesn’t want it for the UK. She’s banging on about free trade without having the slightest idea how that works. And when she returns to her TalkRADIO berth, she will still be pretending she knows what she’s talking about. Which she doesn’t.

You might care to say that ...

A little knowledge can be dangerous in the wrong hands. In the hands of Julia Hartley Dooda, no knowledge at all can be positively lethal.

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Tommy Robinson Documentary IN TROUBLE

So after Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, summoned his faithful followers to Media City yesterday, only for them to realise he’d loused up and his attack on BBC Panorama wasn’t ready, the combination of excuses and bluster continued apace. Whether his documentary PanoDrama is ready or not is now being overtaken by the realisation that it could land him in legal hot water.

At first, it seemed that it was just about delays. Yesterday afternoon Lennon defiantly told “Full HD expose will be uploaded tonight on my facebook and youtube channel”, which is effectively admitting it wasn’t worth his supporters turning up in the first place. But the deadline passed, and once more there was no PanoDrama. Eventually, after midnight, came “#Panodrama will be uploaded to my facebook page just after lunch time today”.

Why so? Well, before the midnight hour, he had let slip “Panodrama will go live tomorrow lunch time . We have a few small edits to make”. Note that “lunch time” became “just after lunch time” between late night and early morning. His assertion that it would be ready for noon today may be one of his most unwise claims yet.

The reasons for this are straightforward, and concern the potential for Lennon’s attack documentary to generate defamation actions from several of its targets, not least what I’m reliably informed is a claim of sexual assault made by one of Lennon’s pals.

On top of that is the rumour that BBC lawyers are keeping close watch on Lennon’s claims with a view to hitting him with a defamation suit if and when he veers across the dishonesty line with his claims against the Corporation.

Then there is the explicit warning made only this morning by Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate. Lowles does not mince his words, and Lennon would be wise to heed them. “Stephen Lennon should be under no illusion about @hopenothate determination to hold him to account for his lies. He would be wise to remember that in 2016 we successfully sued Nigel Farage for calling us violent and anti-democratic. Lennon has said far worse”.

He certainly has. And there was more. “We warned him that we would sue before the programme. He not only ignored that warning but did not even carry our denial in his nonsense programme … By the time we finish with him, the real story of #Panodrama will be how ‘Tommy Robinson’ is the purveyor of fake news, lies and false moral outrage”.

Moreover, former HnH man Dan Hodges - yes, the Mail on Sunday pundit - has taken an interest, noting “So apparently Tommy Robinson and his supporters have just put up a giant image of me on a screen outside the BBC. I seem to have been singled out as one of the enemies of their movement”. If HnH sue Lennon, will Hodges join the action?

Stephen Lennon already faces legal action after his campaign against a young Syrian refugee and his family over an incident in Huddersfield. If he oversteps the line with his PanoDrama documentary - one wonders if he has had it legalled first, you know, like those real media organisations he keep slagging off - he will be toast.

The endgame may be approaching for Stephen Lennon. Just rejoice at that news.

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Top Six - February 24

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 The Independent Group - On The Way Out The group of initially Labour defectors contained no big hitters, no-one who could hold their seat in a by-election, and it was going nowhere - except the political exit door.

5 Chris Leslie - You’re A Tightwad: the Labour defector wanted his February membership subs back. All of £1.30.

4 Labour Resignations - Who’s Next: Margaret Hodge may be on her way out of the party. John Mann says he isn’t. We will see.

3 Tommy Robinson Salford Event IS A FARCE Stephen Yaxley Lennon summoned his faithful followers to Media City to see his attack on BBC Panorama. But it wasn’t ready.

2 Katie Hopkins Alesha MacPhail Lies BUSTED The pro-am motormouth had tried to pin the murder of a six-year-old girl on Syrian refugees. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

1 Ian Austin RESIGNS From Labour He claimed he was just considering his position. But by late last Wednesday, the Dudley North MP had left Labour. You read it here first.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Tommy Robinson Salford Event IS A FARCE

Almost as soon as Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, knew that BBC Panorama was going to devote an edition of the show to himself, and more importantly his back story, his criminality, his tactics of intimidation, his economy with the actualité, his attempt to play the gangster, and any other facet of his modus operandi, he decided that there would have to be a rebuttal. Perhaps even a pre-buttal.

So it was that he teased a number of short videos which he claims show the BBC, and especially presenter and interrogator John Sweeney, in a negative light. The problem is that, thus far, they only look bad for the Beeb if you take Lennon’s word for it. But this had a purpose: it drew in the faithful for a presentation of his Panorama bashing documentary PanoDrama, to be held at Media City today.

But then it all started to go wrong. Lennon was diverted last night by the temptations of the nearest Rub-A-Dub, where he became Elephant’s Trunk and Mozart. So today he was hung over. Worse, by his own admission, the actual making of the Panorama bashing documentary had been left to the last minute. It was still being edited last night. But, fortunately, all that was then needed was to convert some files.

They wouldn’t convert. When Lennon made another of his videos this morning, he joked that the process of exporting files had failed twice. But it would all be OK, and the show would start at 1400 hours as advertised. Then the exporting process failed for a third time. But it would all be all right on the night, or at least by 1400 hours. It wasn’t.

Lennon changed the start time to 1430, on the flimsy pretext that he was doing it as an act of generosity to all those who had been delayed by problems with trams, trains, and other unforeseen events that are not actually stopping anyone getting to Manchester.

The documentary was still not ready. So Lennon flannelled. He played a tribute video to his wife. He played his wedding video. Someone came up on stage and sang Hallelujah, thus indicating a sudden interest in religion that was not there previously.

It got worse. As John O’Connell of Far Right Watch observed, “And the Live Feed out to his ‘world audience’ has apparently crashed”. This will, no doubt, be attributed in the paranoid retelling to THEM coming to get HIM. Then it got yet worse. “#Salford … #Yaxley says the video is still rendering into a different format. Vid is said to be quite long and rambling, no way now can it be shown in full before designated Event Finish Time which is NOT flexible”. The latest Lennon spectacle had descended into complete farce.

The event was due to end at 1615 hours. As I type (1540 hours) it seems no extension had been requested. The crowd was rather smaller than Lennon might have hoped - hundreds rather than thousands - and the paranoia was beginning to spread: “#Salford … #Yaxley - Some are claiming all their phone signals are being jammed by BBC and 'Deep State’. Next up, Flat Earth and Secret Bases on Mars” as John O’Connell put it.

Some of the Panorama bashing material was finally screened just before 1600 hours. But the damage had been done; many had become bored and had drifted away. Stephen Yaxley Lennon was bound to overreach himself sooner or later. The good news is that the downfall moment came sooner. Just rejoice at that news.

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Tommy Robinson Fan GETS GUILTY

At an event in London last July protesting the imprisonment of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, al-Jazeera journalist Sonia Gallego was verbally abused by one of the protesters. The protester was then discovered to have attended more than one previous similar gathering, and had been caught on camera shouting “Traitor” at an officer of the Metropolitan Police.

Bill Eve - sorry, gammon's off today

His name was Bill Eve, and what was worse for him was that he and wife Lorraine ran the Bank restaurant in the Elm Park district of Hornchurch. The adverse publicity began almost immediately. Then it got even worse: Bill Eve was charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The prosecution also attempted to prove that there was a religious element to his abuse.

Fortunately for Eve, he got off the religiously aggravated part. As Press Gazette has told, “A Tommy Robinson supporter who hurled abuse at an Al Jazeera journalist has been cleared of a religiously aggravated offence after telling magistrates he has a ‘little’ Muslim friend … A video played at City of London Magistrates’ Court showed Eve accusing the reporter of being ‘Muslim-backed’, asking if she is ‘fucking stupid’ and calling her ‘a slag’”.

But he wanted the world to know that he was the victim in all of this. After reading “The court heard Eve is now ‘sofa surfing’ due to marriage troubles, while his wife’s business, the Bank Restaurant in Hornchurch, east London, has suffered after the footage was posted on Twitter”, comes his apologia. Which should convince no-one.

Here’s his sob story: “I don’t want to cause anyone any harm, I really don’t and the saddest thing is I have been accused of being racist, and even worse is the things that this whole thing has caused … I don’t live at home anymore because of this, my wife’s business has been demolished because of this, because Ms Gallego thought it would be good to put this incident up on Twitter”. It was someone else’s fault.

But the reason Ms Gallego filmed the incident was down to Eve’s aggressive and confrontational behaviour. As PG notes, “The court heard Gallego was reporting on the ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in Whitehall on 14 July last year when she was approached by Eve demanding to know who she was with”. She added “An alarm bell went off and I wanted to film it for my safety”. Also, Eve would do well to remember one thing.

The court could only judge on the evidence put before it. They did not see his incoherent and threatening verbal assault on Mohammed Hijab, colleague of Ali Dawah, at a previous Lennon event. They did not see him calling a Police officer a “traitor”. Because if film of those incidents had been admitted as evidence, he wouldn’t have got off the religiously aggravated part. And he might have been fined rather more.

Bill Eve has discovered that actions have consequences. Sadly, he’s not yet understood that it’s his own fault that his wife kicked him out, her business got screwed, and he ended up with a criminal record. Playing the victim works for Stephen Lennon, but not for him.

Something for the Wall Of Gammon™ to ponder today in Manchester.

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Allison Pearson Alienates Muslim Britons

Still for some reason given a berth at the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, Allison Pearson is well known to Zelo Street regulars. Who can forget her plaintive wail “Don't care whether Brexit is poached or boiled. We are NOT staying under jurisdiction of ECJ which stops us kicking out jihadists”? Her Europhobic paranoia prevented her from realising that the ECJ does not prevent us kicking out jihadists.

Allison Pearson

She also advocated, more or less, for concentration camps: “We need a State of Emergency as France has. We need internment of thousands of terror suspects now to protect our children”. And her crass response to the Brussels Airport attack was the stuff of legend: “Brussels, de facto capital of the EU, is also the jihadist capital of Europe. And the Remainers dare to say we're safer in the EU! #Brexit”. Well, she’s back. And still bigoted.

Shamima Begum

After Shamima Begum was stripped of her British citizenship by opinion poll chasing Prime Ministerial aspirant Sajid Javid, Ms Pearson enthusiastically joined in. By the time her Telegraph column had appeared, she had perhaps become a little too enthusiastic.

It’s not as if the Tel saw it coming: Ms Pearson’s first Twitter response was “The jihadi bride Shamima Begum has had her British citizenship revoked by the Home Office. A welcome move that sends out a powerful signal to those who betrayed the country they belatedly and conveniently decide to call ‘home’”. They. Belatedly and conveniently.

Also, note the use of “betrayal”. Proper judgmental stuff. From here, the next port of call was to justify stripping the citizenship from someone in defiance of international law. Ms Pearson enthusiastically endorsed one Tweeter who told “Australia revoked the citizenship of 5 people who were dual nationals last year for going to Syria & Iraq to fight for Isis”. The problem here is twofold, not that there is much point telling her.

One, this is talking about dual nationals, and Ms Begum is not. She is now stateless. And Two, just because A N Other country might veer on to the wring side of international law is not a justification for joining in, and nor is it a credible defence.

Still, on she went, first with the whataboutery of “The Home Office has spent nearly £5million keeping 23 returned jihadists under restrictions. A tiny fraction of the total number. Many go unwatched as it’s ‘too expensive’. Are these acceptable risks for innocent Britons to bear?” and then with her column. And one fateful assertion.

“Shamima Begum may have been born here, but she was never British”. Think about that. Someone born in the UK to parents who have right of residence is British. What Ms Pearson is saying is that this does not extend to Muslim Britons. Or does it not extend to all brown Britons? Does it extend to black Britons? It is not hard to see the slippery slope down which she is heading. But it is hard to see why the Tel still tolerates her.

Small wonder that Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain responded “Truly awful that the Telegraph published this & chose to propagate this in a tweet. Whether it is Pearson or Daesh, too many think we can never be equal in our society”. Quite.

Alison Pearson is a deluded and paranoid bigot. While the Telegraph continues to publish her, it is promoting deluded and paranoid bigotry. And that’s not good enough.

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