Douglas Murray - Here’s Your Lawsuit

While author Priyamvada Gopal attempts to deal with the tsunami of abuse and threatening behaviour stemming from deliberate misinterpretation of one genuine Twitter message she sent, and one fake one that she certainly did not, other less charitable actors out there are using the argument over what she said and meant for their own personal gain. And there are few actors less charitable than Doug Murray The K.

Murray is no disinterested spectator when it comes to matters of race, religion, and colour. He is on record as insisting that “Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board … From long before we were first attacked [!] it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs … Where a mosque has become a centre of hate it should be closed and pulled down”.

That is unequivocal and leaves no room for alternative interpretation; indeed, after he made those remarks, the Tory front bench severed relations with Murray. Compare and contrast with Dr Gopal, who had Tweeted “White lives don’t matter. As white lives”, meaning that the lives mattered, but not the fact that they were white.

The Guardian has explained “When she had said ‘White lives don’t matter. As white lives,’ she had meant their value should be inherent and not linked to ideologies around race, she said. ‘Whiteness does not qualify someone to have their life matter; the life matters but not the whiteness.’ She added: ‘You cannot oppose Black Lives Matter with “white lives matter” because they are not comparable. Whiteness is already valued but blackness is not.’” Murray has waded into the controversy without troubling himself with meanings.

Firstly, he has been given a platform by the Mail on Sunday to truncate Dr Gopal’s Tweet - not accidentally - so he can then claim “a Cambridge academic called Priyamvada Gopal sent a message on Twitter saying, ‘white lives don’t matter’. Previously, this student of colonial and post-colonial literature has been notorious for tweeting incendiary material”.

And Secondly, he has claimed in a piece for UnHerd that Dr Gopal is a racist. More than once, which may cause some amusement to those familiar with Murray’s oeuvre. Under the title “Cambridge University’s very modern bigotry”, he introduces Dr Gopal by sniffing “A small body of work sits behind her - but a greater body of grievance clearly sits within her”, and sneering dismissively at her work, whether formally published or otherwise.

Then he considers the Tweet, which he calls “this racist little rant”. He talks of “Gopal’s statement that the lives of white people do not matter”, which is not what she said. He talks of “her use of her platform and time to spread racism”. He attempts to equate her behaviour with that of Jordan Peterson. He talks of “abusive messages which her racist tweets had garnered”. He paints a disparaging picture of her and then talks about “these new racist standards”. This was accompanied by an equally incendiary Tweet.

This talked of “the Cambridge race-baiting professor, Priyamvada Gopal”. Dr Gopal has now served notice: Murray will be the subject of a legal action, to the relief of many who wished it had happened rather earlier. “A little envelope coming his way”, as she put it.

Doug Murray The K calling racist on anyone else is most interesting. The defence advanced by his lawyers will be yet moreso. Everyone else can just get the popcorn in.

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Yes, It’s The Pravda On Sunday!

How we laughed at Pravda and Isvestiya as they told us how Leonid Brezhnev was in rude health, when we knew that he was lurching from one health crisis to another before finally shuffling off and leaving a crumbling Soviet Union for someone else to sort out. We roared with laughter at Chinese state media telling us how remarkably fit Mao Zhedong was, not long before the old tyrant waved to his adoring public for the last time.

And we hoot with derision at Ri Chun-hee as she reinvents reality on behalf of the régime in Pyongyang. Yet we are supposed to take this kind of shameless personality cult revisionism seriously when it comes from our free and fearless press, and come from them it has this morning, in the shape of the Mail on Sunday, our very own Pravda.

The paper’s front page would not have been out of place in early 1980s Moscow, with its blustering faux patriotism. “Exclusive interview … Boris does press-ups for the MoS! As PM says he’s ‘fit as a butcher’s dog’ (and proves it) and is helping with nappies and night feeds, he announces massive revival plan … BILLIONS TO GET BRITAIN BOOMING”.

All hail the new record in tractor production! The sun shines over our motherland! The workers control the means of production! The struggle of the urban proletariat! The great leader sends the counter-revolutionary running dogs packing! In one mighty bound he emulates Vladimir Vladimirovich and Il Duce! Let us go forward with Himself!

Yes, it's well fishy

No, sorry, this is total crap. The only surprise is that this week, it is political editor Glen Owen consigned to taking dictation, rather than his sidekick, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole. The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker might as well hand over production of the MoS to CCHQ. Or perhaps they already did.

Observers looked on cynically at claims such as “Boris on fatherhood, nappies and night feeds … I’M BOTH PRESENT AND INVOLVED IN A DETAILED WAY”. Mic Wright reimagined the headlines: “In the country formerly known as Great Britain, regime media reports on the leader's health, with a staged photo in which the premier, a rotund and often breathless ideologue, fakes doing press-ups for the tame reporter”.

Matthew Pudner added “a real journalist would have noted the flared elbows, flexed neck and arched back and duly recorded that the prime minister does not even lift”. Richard Bartholomew compared and contrasted the MoS with Chinese coverage of Mao’s swim.

But LBC host James O’Brien was not amused. “People will be checking the date on this front page for years to come while refusing to believe that the man doing the press-ups was in the midst of presiding over an absolutely catastrophic response to a national emergency that left thousands of people dead. It’s heartbreaking”. He then added more.

“Don’t know why but that press-up picture has really brought home the scale of the crises still to come. It’s taken four years flat to turn our lovely country into a clown car. And Johnson is barely out of the blocks”. Owen Gibson of the Guardian refused to take the MoS seriously: “Next week: Boris throws a shoe over a pub”. It would, to be fair, divert attention from all the fighting following that first all-day session since March.

And the press wonders why its trust ratings have collapsed. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Sarah Vine Takes Out Her Onion

Being a columnist for a major national newspaper brings unique privilege: not only the biggest paycheques, but also the largest megaphone, and with it the greatest ability to shape opinion and debate. It sets those columnists apart from the little people, awards them an exulted status, whether they merit it or not. But for some, this privilege is not enough. They want to attack others while being immune to attack.

Which brings us to the Daily Mail’s pointless pundit Sarah “Vain” Vine, perched comfortably upon her pile of money, securely ensconced in her bully pulpit, and able to pontificate on whatever subject she chooses, safe and secure in the knowledge that her targets cannot fight back with any effectiveness. Yet still she is insecure and unhappy.

Ms Vine is so unhappy right now that she is playing the victim, after her unwise Tweeting of fake material recently. This concerned Priyamvada Gopal, who has subsequently received death threats and is now consulting lawyers. “I mentioned [Priyamvada Gopal] in a retweet which I later realised was a set-up, a fact that I made clear and apologised for before deleting. But as I understand it she stands by her original ‘white lives’ tweet, which many have found upsetting. That is emphatically not my doing” she blustered.

Not much of an apology, though. And there was more. “It was an honest mistake: as soon as I realised it might not be real, I removed it, flagged my error and apologised. So that was my bad, and I accept it. But why does she deride me as a 'columnist' in inverted commas? I have never insulted her professionalism, why does she mine?” Ms Vine was beginning to lose it by this point. And “professionalism”? Do me a favour.

As to her taking some hours to remove the fake Tweet, “As I said last night, I was off comms for several hours having supper with my kids. I deleted it as soon as I realised. I don't check my phone obsessively. But that's irrelevant to you isn't it, because you just want to feed your narrative. Go ahead and knock yourself out”.

That will not cut any mustard with the lawyers, which may have caused the meltdown as she whined plaintively “I resent having my professionalism derided and my intentions twisted. I am not infallible but at least I always admit it - and try to do better. If you don’t like me because of your preconceptions, that’s your prerogative. But don’t bully or threaten me please”. That will come as a surprise to Mic Wright and his legal team.

Worse, a Daily Mail pundit protesting about threats and bullying is just coming it. The idea that Ms Vine tries to do better is also going to be news to many of those who have been on the receiving end of her diatribes. This is nothing more than her taking out her onion and blubbering that it’s not fair. It’s fair when she dishes it out to others, though.

The problem is that her perception of reality is also out of synch: when one Tweeter made a disparaging personal comment about her, she responded “See, if I were a different person I would report this as ‘hate speech’. But I can’t be arsed. Obvs”. No. Just no. What Dr Gopal got - remember the death threats - was hate speech. Ms Vine’s comment wasn’t.

But now you know that Sarah Vine, with her six-figure wad, huge megaphone, and the Mail’s lawyers batting for her, is a victim. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

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Top Six - June 28

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 continue trying to find maybe a teensy bit more domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Allison Pearson’s Casual Libel Stalled instead of removing defamatory Tweet - this will not end well.

5 Burnley Banner Man - Will Be Banned Partner sacked, life ban - slow handclap.

4 Maxine Peake And No Anti-Semitism Pundits lose their shit over interview comment - why would they do that?

3 Burnley Racist’s Employer - HARD CHOICES They had form for bigotry - would they take action? [Yes, they sacked him]

2 Sarah Vine - Nearly ANOTHER Legal Action She deletes malicious fake Tweet - but it may not be enough.

1 Farage’s Pointless Transatlantic Trip He travelled thousands of miles - just to talk to an empty car park.

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

Allison Pearson’s Casual Libel

As realisation dawns on some of those out there on the right who had been hurling abuse at author Priyamvada Gopal that she is prepared to instruct lawyers and come after them, the attempts to delete incriminating evidence have begun. But screen shots have been taken, URLs copied: Dr Gopal has received serious death threats as a result of the torrent of abuse and passing round of fabricated Tweets. So who might be in trouble?

Well, apart from the Daily Mail’s pointless pundit Sarah “Vain” Vine, whose latest faux pas I noted earlier, there is the routinely vicious and deeply unpleasant David Vance, failed Northern Irish politician turned social media smear merchant. Vance has passed around the fake Tweet I covered in relation to Ms Vine. He has now deleted it.

But the evidence had already been captured. Also about to be contacted by Dr Gopal’s lawyers is, yes, the Daily Mail itself. Through the offices of Glenda Emeritus Amanda Platell, the fake Tweet has found its way into today’s edition of that paper. Ms Platell appears to have cobbled it together with a genuine Tweet. Oh dear!

But the best value for money so far is the increasingly wayward Allison Pearson, still inexplicably given a berth by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. She has also been circulating the fake Tweet, because she has - most inadvisedly - been striking up a Twitter friendship with Vance. That was not her finest hour.

She asked her new social media pal “David, is that an actual tweet from Gopal? If so deeply disturbing”. Tom Gann attempted to show her the error of her ways. “No, it’s extremely & libellously fake - also, Allison, this is quite an iffy person to be chatting too (& trusting) all normally”. She brushed this aside and dug herself deeper.

“Well, it’s been printed in The Mail today and their lawyers will have OK’d it. I will check with them”. TAKE IT DOWN FIRST. No, not listening. Omar Wareich did not appear to believe her. “Oh, that must mean it's true! Honestly”. What say Ms P? “Some of her colleagues tell me it’s true [this is bullshit. She hasn’t talked to any of Dr Gopal’s colleagues]. I’m getting it checked out. We will know if it’s fake because she will sue”.

Note the casual “yeah, whatever, so she’ll sue”. Wareich tried to alert her to the seriousness of the situation. "It was a crude fabrication - a semi-literate tweet, drawn in part from something attributed to Stalin. I don't think [Priyamvada Gopal] has ever flinched from owning what she has actually written”. His message did not get through.

“Fine. I must have been misinformed but I am still going to check to make sure. It is OK to still check things out is it?” It’s a fake, you know what’s coming down the track, you’ve been warned, take it down. Meanwhile, Dr Gopal has confirmed that the Police are involved, lawyers are about to be involved, and those hearing from said lawyers include the Mail and Vance. So as Ms Pearson echoed Vance, they will talk to her too.

Any competent journalist will know what happens when you stall for time instead of taking down defamatory material. Which tells you all you need to know about Allison Pearson.

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Facebook Ad Boycott BITES

The selective deafness that has afflicted Facebook head man Mark Zuckerberg has been cured by the sudden realisation that this unusual handicap may hit him where it really hurts - in his wallet. The social media platform had been under fire for some time over the amount of hate speech and Fake News that was being published there; Zuck couldn’t hear the critics. But he could hear the advertisers preparing to leave.

Zuckerberg and his pals knew full well that Facebook was being used, most often by right-wing adherents of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, to push falsehood and misinformation. His excuse for not intervening was that this would amount to censorship. The kind of content that got through can be easily described.

A poster called Joshua Feuerstein had put out a photo with the caption “DISGUSTING! BLM protestors decided to vandalize a veterans’ memorial for those who died in the Vietnam War! But yeah … These are normal people who are sane and peaceful. NOT! I hope this pisses you off enough to share it!” And many did just that.

Kevin Roose of the New York Times responded “The #3 overall post on US Facebook today, with almost 200,000 shares, is a photo of a Vietnam War memorial vandalized by BLM protesters. Except the photo is from 2016, the vandals weren't BLM-affiliated, and it was debunked by a fact-checker weeks ago [citation]”.

Was this an isolated incident? Marshall Cohen of CNN had bad news: it was not. "200,000 shares of unadulterated, already-debunked garbage. This happens every single day on Facebook”. But hey, FREEZE PEACH! The Facebook money machine was bringing in the Dollars, and Zuck wasn’t for listening. Then the advertisers began to lose patience.

And as Donie O’Sullivan of CNN observed, we were talking some very big advertisers. "Coca-Cola is pausing all social media advertising ‘for at least 30 days’ beginning in July. This Facebook ad boycott is getting bigger by the hour”. Any advance on Coca-Cola?

You bet. Judd Legum, who writes the Popular Information newsletter, had a very big name to pitch. “‘Unilever said it will halt U.S. advertising on Facebook and Twitter for at least the remainder of the year, citing hate speech and divisive content on the platforms’ … This is HUGE. Unilever is one of the biggest advertisers in the world”.

Suddenly Zuck was all ears, as the Guardian has reported. “Facebook has announced changes to its policies around hate speech and voter suppression … Mark Zuckerberg on Friday announced tweaks to a number of policies, hours after the multinational Unilever said it would pull its advertisements from the platform for the next six months”.

And the effect of this was what, exactly? “Zuckerberg’s announcements, however, did not halt companies’ demands for change. On Friday afternoon, Coca-Cola, Honda, the chocolate brand Hershey, and the apparel companies Lululemon and Jansport joined the more than 100 brands boycotting advertising on Facebook … Facebook makes about 98% of its $70bn in annual revenue from advertising”. Too little, too late. Zuck is out of time.

The time of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook CEO was for a time, but not for all time.

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Sarah Vine - Nearly ANOTHER Legal Action

To attract one legal action may be misfortune, to attract a second very soon afterwards looks like carelessness. And pointless pundit Sarah “Vain” Vine has come awfully close to a careless moment after once again failing to do a little of that basic research that one might expect from someone who pretends to be a journalist.

Ms Vine is already facing proceedings brought by Mic Wright after she made a series of claims about him which were not true; he and his lawyers will have watched her latest mis-step with interest. What caused her to stray once more can be put directly.

Priyamvada Gopal

Author Priyamvada Gopal, who works within the University of Cambridge, has been on the receiving end of a torrent of abusive social media feedback. This has been sexist, misogynistic, and viciously racist in nature. Many Twitter accounts have been reported for flagrant breach of Ts and Cs. Also, one creative soul has invented a Tweet and attributed it to Dr Gopal, although she did not write it. The fake Tweet is what undid Ms Vine.

Dr Gopal told “I am not able to post a screenshot of Sarah Vine's peddling a fake quote though people have sent it to me. Those who can access her profile - she has the awful handle of Westminster Wag or something - should please report it. Lots of people have told her it is fake”. Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain had a screenshot.

“Sarah Vine (Daily Mail columnist) has shared a lie about [Priyamvada Gopal]. Even when Vine is informed it is a lie and acknowledges that she sees that it is a fake, she keeps the original lie up”. Ms Vine had posted the fake Tweet, commenting “That does seem fairly unambiguous - but I’m probably not intellectual enough to understand her true meaning”.

Jonathan Portes put the Mail columnist straight. “Don't know about ‘not intellectual enough’. But apparently - stupid enough to post an obvious fake without checking - irresponsible enough to do so given she's already had multiple death threats - and amoral enough not to delete and apologise”. And Dr Gopal was by now consulting lawyers.

“Thank you, Jonathan. My solicitors will be in touch with her. She's been given ample warning to delete and to clarify to her following. [Daily Mail] is complicit as she is a columnist”. At this point I felt obliged to point out that the Mail’s legal department had taken up her defence against Mic Wright. It was all getting very interesting.

But Sarah Vine was, ultimately, of less than perfect courage, and took down her Tweet, which Wright’s lawyers will also find interesting. Dr Gopal observed “Gosh, those SIX magic letters L.A.W.Y.E.R … Sarah Vine has finally retracted [her] false claim”. She had indeed, although her comment, “The tweet referenced here was fake, so I’m taking it down, with apologies” may not be enough to head off another lawsuit.

While this was going on, Mic Wright observed “It's also instructive to see that Sarah Vine *can* apologise to people sometimes”. And by 2330 hours, it had all become a bit too much for Ms Vine, whose considered response was “more wine”.

But that will not stave off her problems. Sarah Vine is becoming exceedingly careless.

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