Turning Point UK - A New Comedy Genre

Since the launch of alt-right campaigning group Turning Point UK, there has still been no word as to who is putting up the money for the UK chapter of a US original which has been accused of links to white supremacist and other less than totally desirable far-right groups. Nor, indeed, has there been much high profile activity from those who have put their names to the enterprise. Not much more noise from their sympathisers, either.

But what there has been is a torrent of ridicule and derision, enough to show that Turning Point UK is likely to benefit the political process in this country - except not in the way in which its founders and principals intended. Parody “branch” accounts have sprung up across the Twittersphere. Those featuring in the group’s launch have been royally rinsed. It is almost as if someone were deliberately spraying into the wind.

Worst University Challenge entry ever

Turning Point UK’s own publicity is clumsy and counter-productive: take the claim “7 Reasons Brexit is Great for Business - featuring businessman @LanceForman WATCH the full video here”. Lads, lads, how shall I put this? HE’S YOUR CEO’S DAD. Can’t you get someone not connected to the group? And it gets worse.

“Young people are not puppets to be used in the Left’s narrative. We think for ourselves. We act for ourselves. We vote for what we believe in and we believe in a freer society. Smaller Government = Bigger Freedom” they proclaim. But they aren’t thinking for themselves. They’re being paid to shill for the right-leaning establishment.

The upshot, though, can be put directly: Turning Point UK is proving to be a great recruiting sergeant. But for the opposition. And there are more benefits.

One, the tsunami of derision is forcing the principals of Turning Point UK, and those of like mind, to see just how the rest of the world sees them. Far from awe and deference at all those media appearances they manage to secure, most who have an opinion on them consider them a bunch of overprivileged and irrelevant tossers.

Two, the ridicule might just make those who do the booking for the BBC’s politics shows, and indeed those carried by other broadcasters, think twice about putting this junior horror show on Politics Live, or TalkRADIO, or LBC, or Channel 4 News.

Three, as Owen Jones has put it, “Young rightwingers tend be the most obnoxious and nasty, and relish defining themselves against their own generation … A campaign led by the sort of young rightwing activists who, frankly, have more contempt for young people than their older peers, and who many young people have encountered irl and would prefer to stab themselves in the face with a fork than hang out with, is not going to work … If I was going to design a campaign to solidify Labour's already unprecedented lead among young people, it would be ‘make young people meet young right-wing activists’”. Quite.

And Four, the longer this clown car is allowed on the track, the more damage it does to itself, its supporters, and the right generally. Nothing in recent politics has shown more clearly the lack of self-awareness of the right-wing elite and their youth wing.

So don’t stop now, Turning Point UK - we all need a good laugh once in a while.

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Murdoch Crimes - Where Are The Cops?

When Nick Davies blew the whistle on the Murdoch mafiosi’s use of illegal voicemail interception to bring in and stand up stories for the late and not at all lamented Screws, his most taxing problem was getting the Metropolitan Police to admit that it was sitting on enough evidence to show that the practice had been on an industrial scale.

Yates of the Yard proved most reluctant to make the admission. The bad news today is that his successors appear to be of like mind: the evidence of criminality has been piling up, yet the cops do nothing. How different it is in the USA, where Raw Story has just told readers “Christian publishing company owned by News Corp found guilty of significant fraud and destroying evidence”. There is more.

“HarperCollins Christian Publishing company … was successfully sued by ePAC Technologies, whose CEO invented a way to quickly print and bind books.According to court documents, HarperCollins Christian attempted to buy ePAC, except it was all allegedly a ruse that lasted for years with no final acquisition”. Do go on.

“A jury in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ultimately found in favor of ePAC. ‘The jury awarded EPAC Technologies, Inc., a leading high-technology manufacturer and printer, $12 million in punitive damages on top of more than $3 million in compensatory damages for fraud and breach of contract,’ the release says”.

John Witherow - commissioned criminal acts

But here in the UK, the Murdoch empire is keeping all its damages payments below the radar. It is paying out millions to make phone hacking claimants go away, thus keeping cases out of court. So it can claim that the Super Soaraway Currant Bun didn’t hack phones, even though there is a mountain of evidence that says it did (you can read Brian Cathcart’s take on the lack of Police interest HERE).

John Ford - blagged for the Sunday Times

And the cops keep schtum about it. Not a peep. No new investigation, no new arrests, no new convictions. No new investigation, either, into the activities of Mazher Mahmood, aka the Fake Sheikh, despite his having co-opted the Police on expeditions like the “Dirty bomb plot” and the Victorian Beckham kidnapping, both of which didn’t exist.

One might expect that Maz and his pals at the Murdoch press would at least have been done for wasting Police time, but no. Nor has there been any action following the revelations made by John Ford, who illegally blagged information for the Murdoch Sunday Times for several years. The Murdoch press paid for his legal defence (see HERE).

So there is no investigation into Will Lewis and his running of the News International Management Standards Committee, or into John Witherow, formerly editor of the Sunday Times and now promoted to the daily title, who commissioned so much illegality from John Ford, or into Rebekah Brooks, editor of the Sun at a time when phone hacking there was practised on an industrial scale. The evidence is there. Yet the cops do nothing.

Anyone might conclude that Robert Mark’s stated aim for what he wanted the Metropolitan Police to become - a force that caught more criminals than it employed - has still not been accomplished. There appears to be one law for the Murdochs, and one for the rest.

What is the Police for, if not to investigate crime? Perhaps we need Leveson 2 first.

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Julia Hartley Dooda Interview Hypocrisy

So often, when the claims of high principles made by those in the Pundit Establishment are tested in the cold light of day, they turn out to be nothing of the sort. And that is as true for TalkRADIO host Julia Hartley Brewer as for many others. Her protestations came from her disinterested view of Leave-backing politicians lying.

We know who you are, thanks

After Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski had been once again caught with trousers alight, David Allen Green put together a Twitter thread on why such things are important (see it HERE). Ms Hartley Dooda decided to wade in, because she knew more about the subject than everyone else, whatever the all too obvious limitations of her knowledge.

“He didn’t know his facts, said something that was blatantly untrue and was then a bit of a dick about it. But to claim it matters this much is laughable. I hear politicians spouting lies and refusing to correct them on most days!” DAG mused “Bless, a perfect example of a pundit admitting that they just shrug when politicians lie to them. We get the politicians, and we get the pundits, we deserve”. That was true enough to hurt.

“As I’ve just told David, I call politicians out on their lies EVERY DAY on my radio show. I’m sure my @talkRADIO listeners can confirm that” countered Ms Hartley Dooda. And after another Tweeter had observed “I am highly entertained that Brexiter vloggers like Julia are reduced to begging the public to stop correcting MPs when they lie to our faces”, she really was angry. Angry enough to tell the world that she was a real journalist, honestly.

“My job as a journalist is to point out when politicians are lying, to ask them to correct their facts and expose them when they don’t. Which is what I do. I can’t actually physically force them to do it. So, yes, ‘journalism’”. But, as she then demonstrated in no style at all this morning on her piss-poor TalkRADIO show, she doesn’t even do that.

Ms Hartley Dooda, as befits someone who claims even-handedness while dispensing terms of routine abuse such as “Remainiacs” and “Remoaners”, had among her guests former Tory leader Iain Duncan Cough. She allowed him to peddle a totally false prospectus on the subject of the so-called Irish Backstop.

Duncan Cough was not saying his solution to the Backstop was a tech solution, but that is what it is. And a simple misunderstanding is creeping in here, as Ros Altmann pointed out: “When interviewing politicians who claim there's a tech solution to Irish border, please ask them why they oppose the backstop. This #backstop is only needed if there ISN'T a tech solution, so what's their problem?” But not a peep from Ms Hartley Dooda.

If Iain Duncan Cough and his pals have a viable tech solution, then why is he banging on about the need to be flexible on the Backstop? That question was not put. Because, whether it was down to her not knowing her subject, bias towards Leave, or a combination of the two, what Julia Hartley Dooda likes to claim, and what she actually delivers in practice, are two very different things. And for the listeners, that’s not good enough.

Behold the shortcomings of the Pundit Establishment. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Nadine Dorries Islamophobia EXPOSED

After the Tories found one of their local Young Conservatives officers indulging in blatant Islamophobia earlier, there did not seem to be as much as the flicker of an eyelid in response. Then came evidence that Islamophobia is not merely present in The Blue Team, it is so endemic that the party is past caring about it.

As so often when it comes to causing her own party maximum embarrassment, the one opening mouth and inserting foot in no style at all was Mid-Bedfordshire’s representative (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries, who early this morning told her followers “I think the woman pedalling that lie may be a prospective candidate for Chingford. Let’s hope the residents see through that, for their sake”. But here a problem entered.

Ash Sarkar ...

Her target was Ash Sarkar, who had appeared on the paper review panel of The Andy Marr Show™ yesterday. But Labour’s PPC for Chingford is Faiza Shaheen. They are not the same person. Nor do they look remotely like one another. But they are both brown. The condemnation was swift, but few who did so were surprised.

... Faiza Shaheen

Then, after Ms Sarkar shot back “Me and @faizashaheen are two different women, Nadine. You don’t see me out here mixing you up with any random white lady, so please pay me the same courtesy” and Labour MP Rupa Huq revealed “As someone who was called @ThangamMP by a female cabinet minister on Thursday is the conclusion @faizashaheen @AyoCaesar and me should draw from all this that we are all just interchangeable to them? Boney M's ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ comes to mind” came more.

First, Ms Dorries’ source for her initial giveaway gaffe (also used as a source by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, a borderline Fake News site) turned out to be a sad, whinging Tory propagandist peddling such defamatory drivel as “Oops! Corbyn’s new friend just found out he’s a racist”.

Then came proof from Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain that Ms Dorries has a recent history of Islamophobia (see thread HERE). It made grim reading: “why did Nadine Dorries spread a nonsense story from 2008 by an Anne-Marie Waters supporter, who considers Tommy Robinson to be a ‘truth teller’ (before deleting)... It is worth noting it was about Muslims”. That was just a sighting shot. There was much more.

“When Sadiq Khan talked about hate crime, Nadine Dorries had the audacity to ask him about grooming gangs … [she] was disappointed that Boris' de-humanising comments about Muslim women who wear the burqa being ‘bank robbers’ and ‘letterboxes’, ‘didn't go further’ … [she] believes that Muslim women choose clothing to ‘hide...her bruises’ - the accusation of domestic violence & linking to a burqa, is astonishing”.

Ms Dorries “plays to another false far-right stereotype, linking FGM to Muslim women … believes that ‘vote rigging / organisation in *Muslim communities* by named ringleaders is commonplace’”. Also she Retweeted Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, before hastily deleting it. There can be only one conclusion.

Nadine Dorries has an Islamophobia problem - as well as a penchant for seriously unreliable sources and what looks like sympathy for the far right. She is another part of the Tory Party’s problem with Muslims. And remember, they allowed her to become an MP.

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Giles Udy Corbyn Red Scare BUSTED

As the Tories continue to thrash around over Brexit, fighting like so many rats in a sack, the business of smearing Labour goes on. And there is no more accomplished smearer of Labour than alleged historian Giles Udy, who is paranoid with it, just to be on the safe side. He has attempted to link Jeremy Corbyn to a document which suggests the UK will be roamed by death squads and there will be forced re-education under Labour.

Giles Udy. Claims to be an historian

This sounds real blood-curdling stuff. But there is a problem. The document, such as it is, has nothing to do with the Labour Party. This presents a problem for Udy, whose credibility took a nosedive last year after he claimed there had to be a Stasi file on Jezza because he would have met East German party officials when visiting the country. There was no file: Udy was bust. He had, like the Murdoch press, been caught inventing evidence.

Still, onwards and, er, onwards, eh? So off went Udy to advertise his latest article for Standpoint magazine. “In April 2018 John McDonnell tried to assure the City that Labour did not have a ‘shadow manifesto’ that it was keeping hidden until after an election. It does. This is it. Full details are in my article, extracts here in this long (apologies) thread”.

Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes? “The plans were published when the Left never imagined it would get close to Downing Street. They might regret that now. The tone is messianic: Capitalism has taken us to the 'abyss' & 'must be overthrown’. Only ‘state power in the hands of the working class can save humanity’”. Scary stuff. Do go on.

“The revolution will run through three stages. By stage three, there will be civil war - with counter-revolutionary right-wing death squads let loose to enforce a military dictatorship run by industrialists and newspaper editors. Maybe even @DailyMailUK journos on the barricades?” Er, I’m not sure this is a real Labour Party document. But carry on.

“To head this off there will be purges of the leadership of the police, civil and diplomatic service, judiciary, army and security services, and their replacement by 'supporters of the revolution' (just like the old Soviet commissars) - with political re-education for lower ranks”. Giles, just where did you get this assemblage of hokum?

One quick scan of the Standpoint article is all you need. “The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) has published its own 25,000-word programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism, which goes into considerable detail about the revolution that is to come”. Er, Giles, mate … this isn’t a Labour Party document. Ah, but Giles has an excuse ready.

“As political labels to describe followers of Marx, ‘socialist’, ‘democratic socialist’, and ‘communist’ are virtually interchangeable”. No, Giles, they really aren’t. And quoting a CPB programme as if it were Labour Party policy is fraudulent in the extreme.

Giles Udy actually had some credibility left after those totally untrue claims about Corbyn’s visit to the then East Germany. We can be sure about this because he just sprayed it up the wall claiming that a Corbyn led Labour Party would implement a programme from another party if it came to power. We’ll see the proverbial flying pigs first.

He’s not a historian, he’s a paranoid fraud. No change there, then.

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Tories In New Racism Storm

[Update at end of post]

Why is it that the Tories are so keen to paint the Labour Party as having some kind of racism problem? Simples. The party with the real racism problem is the Tories themselves; the pointing at Labour no more than crude deflection. This sad reality has once again been demonstrated by the Blackpool North and Cleveleys Young Conservatives, and their alleged Admin Executive Jay Daniel. He won’t be popular at CCHQ right now.

Brandon Lewis - decisions, decisions

Daniel has been openly exhibiting paranoid Islamophobia, which is bad enough, but then it tipped over into forthright racism. Also, he wants Islam banned in the West. So it is no surprise that Tory chairman Brandon “barrow boy” Lewis is coming under pressure to say or do something about the latest unfortunate outbreak of racism in his party.

It all started when Daniel claimed that there really were such things as “No-go zones” which non-Muslims could not enter. Martin Dennehy showed him that this was not true, adding “So you agree there are not ‘no go zones’ Jay?” Sadly, Daniel was not persuaded: “No I definitely believe there's no go areas”. And it got worse.

Dennehy asked why he had posted a Snopes article which showed he was wrong. The reply was priceless. “I'll admit that I made a mistake with that article, however it doesn't change the fact that there are more muslims in areas than other areas of the UK... also if Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance, why can't Tommy Robinson walk down a street in his home town?” A Tory backing Stephen Yaxley Lennon? Oh dear!

Could it get even worse? Sadly, yes it could. After another Tweeter had observed that many of those who previously used the racially charged term “Paki” had now moved to saying “Muslim” instead, he replied “Well you can't even call someone from Pakistan a 'paki' or a 'Pakistani' without being racist these days so I understand your confusion”.

The term “Paki” is blatantly racist. It’s upfront racism. And it got worse still: after one Tweeter claimed that Daniel was “defending the statement that Islam should be banned in the west”, and another asked “So @Conservatives officially support this?”, Daniel confirmed “No they don't, I do”. Going to act now, Brandon?

By now, all he had left was to hopefully cover his tracks, complaining “They've been banging on all day about how saying that someone from Pakistan is a Pakistani is racist. And yet they have to do it to make sense”. But there was a much worse problem.

The Blackpool North and Cleveleys Young Conservatives Twitter feed had openly sympathised with Daniel’s racism, telling “I agree with you on this one Jay. Call someone from Britain a ‘Brit’, no-one bats an eye, call someone from Pakistan a ‘Paki’ and there’s outrage. There shouldn’t be double standards here”. The Tweet was later deleted.

Unfortunately, it had already been screen grabbed, and through the good offices of Ash Sarkar had reached a much wider audience, as she put Lewis on the spot: “What the hell is this tweet from @BNandCYC? There are very clear rules in the Labour Party about the suspension of members who bring their party into disrepute. @BrandonLewis - do these tweets represent your party’s attitude to racism? And if not, what action will be taken?”

So what are the Tories going to do about their very real racism problem? We’re waiting.

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[UPDATE 1820 hours: Blackpool Gazette is now reporting that Jay Daniel is being expelled from the Tory Party. His Twitter account appears to have been taken down.

The local Conservative association has said this: "The individual involved in this incident will be expelled from the party. Their views do not reflect those of the Conservative party - they do not share our values ... This incident will be dealt with in the most serious manner possible. A clear message needs to be sent that this cannot and will not be tolerated".

Over to Brandon Lewis, then, to be equally firm with all the other instances of Tory Islamophobia - of which there are rather a lot right now]

Read more at: https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/young-blackpool-conservative-expelled-from-party-following-racist-remarks-1-9575303

Read more at: https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/young-blackpool-conservative-expelled-from-party-following-racist-remarks-1-9575303

Turning Point UK - WHO FUNDS YOU?

As if there were not enough right-leaning lobby groups out there, along has come Turning Point UK, a spin-off from a US original which self-describes as “Student movement. Freedom. Free markets. Limited Government. We’re community organisers of the right”. As so often, it’s all about FREEM and MOXY. Which we already have.

So what does Turning Point UK have to say for itself? “Turning Point UK is a grassroots organisation dedicated to educating students and other young people on the values of free markets and limited government”. Bullshit. This is another Astroturf group, this time peddling right-wing small-state propaganda to impressionable young people.

But do go on. “We seek to competently defend the structures of society that have both created one of the most competitive economies and oldest, most influential democracies in human history”. A democracy so old that universal suffrage for both men and women has been practised here for all of 91 years. Then they go totally gaga.

“It is now more important than ever to defend our values against a dogmatic left-wing political climate, education system and radical Labour Party which sympathises with terrorists, wishes to disarm the nation and whose Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, if elected - would bankrupt the economy”. Aaarghh! Rotten Lefties™! Jibber! JIBBER!

The organisation wants to “Educate young people on ideas consistently ignored or marginalised by mainstream education”. Like I said, peddle right-wing propaganda - tell students not to believe what they are being taught. And they will “Debate, question, and argue all authorities and ideologies which have historically failed to provide freedom”. FREEM! FREEM! Which is, no doubt, defined by Themselves Personally Now.

They have a team - “Our team consists of new voices ranging from conservative to classically liberal young”. They also talk well, but lie badly. Their team is 100% Conservative. It includes such luminaries as Tom Harwood, replacement teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, Steven Edginton, gofer to mercenary hack Isabel Oakeshott (as well as being yet another congenital liar), and Darren Grimes, who’s not really a Conservative. He’s just a criminal.

But something is missing, and it’s not just credibility (their social media star Raphael Lachter has all of 45 Twitter followers). Who is backing this venture? Yes, those on the Tory right are endorsing it - Priti Patel, Bernard Jenkin, Steve Baker, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole - but who is putting up the money?

CEO Oliver Anisfeld - whose CV seems to go little further than having established YouTube channel J-TV - has just set up a company called Media & Activism, of which he is the sole director. And that’s the only clue. This matters: previous attempts by the right to infiltrate student politics include Student Rights, from the hard-right Henry Jackson Society, and of course the infamous Young Britons’ Foundation of Tory bullying legend.

The YBF was mainly about older people grooming the young. Turning Point UK looks rather similar. It is already well connected - Harwood, Grimes and Edginton ensure that - and it has the encouragement of the usual right-wing suspects (Steve Baker was, of course, one of the recipients of the YBF’s Golden Dolphin Award).

Turning Point UK is clearly aspiring to establish itself as a successor to the YBF, in that it can bring on yet more ideologically conservative young people. The schtick is the same: their ideas are being shut out, FREEDOM is being eroded. Young people should be FREE to learn all about these marginalised ideas. They are then, in the words of Professor Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago, Free To Choose.

That it is mere propaganda somehow fails to get a mention. Expect more from this group and those backing it in the near future. But maybe not so much on who pays the bills.

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