Times Islamophobia - Not Waving But Drowning

Murdoch editor John Witherow, it seems, is not familiar with the Streisand Effect. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from his willingness to devote his Times editorial to a spectacularly wrong-headed rebuttal of the investigation into Andrew Norfolk’s failings in a series of articles which just happened to pass adverse comment upon Scary Muslims™.

John Witherow, editor of the Times

That investigation, which I discussed yesterday, was at a disadvantage: authors Brian Cathcart and Paddy French could not have hoped to equal the reach of the Times, and so contacted every MP, and many more, directly with copies of their analysis. By responding via an aggressive editorial - which has Witherow’s fingerprints all over it - the Murdoch mafiosi have brought the investigation to a potentially far greater audience.

Having made this all-too-avoidable blunder, Witherow then compounds his error by rolling out a spectacularly lame defence, which consists of a combination of name-calling and crude deflection. Under the heading “Press Gang” (Witherow got one thing right - that’s the name of Paddy French’s blog) he tells grandly “Politically motivated campaigners are trying to smear and suppress fine reporting”. His paper is fine - take his word for it. Er, no.

But do go on. “The attackers have form. When Norfolk revealed for the first time the systematic abuse of white teenagers by men of mainly Pakistani background in Rotherham and other northern towns, he also revealed the complicity of social workers, Police and local councillors who failed to stop the grooming. They failed for fear of being accused of racism. That fear proved deeply entrenched”. There was more.

“Norfolk’s work was eventually honoured with the Orwell Prize, the Paul Foot award and with journalist of the year awards, but not before it had been fiercely disparaged by groups determined to recast the story in terms of Islamophobia. Norfolk’s critics fell silent only when overwhelming evidence emerged in the press, courts and public inquiries that forced the country to confront a deeply rooted pattern of criminal behaviour with a clear ethnic component”. This is the most magnificently crafted smokescreen. And it’s total drivel.

Note the crude linking of “The attackers have form” to criticism of Norfolk’s work exposing grooming gangs. Is there a link? Between Messrs Cathcart and French and that alleged criticism? No. Not the faintest trace of a link. It’s a dead cat. And not a very good one.

Worse, Witherow is effectively telling his audience that Norfolk got it right then, and so whatever he churns out hereafter must also be right. Honestly, Officer, I can’t have taken a wrong turn and gone the wrong way down a one way street, because for the past three years I haven’t taken a wrong turn of any kind. Would that impress a court? Maybe not.

Worst of all, Witherow fails to address even one of the many criticisms made of Norfolk’s attacks. It is almost as if he is unable to do so. He does, of course, tell readers how press non-regulator IPSO has had only minor criticisms of Norfolk’s reportage, but then, as I never tire of reminding the press establishment, IPSO is effectively the same old failed PCC, er, fluid in a differently labelled bottle. It is a sham regulator.

All that the editor of what was once considered a paper of record can say in his defence is that his reporters should be trusted. And to that I say fine - produce trustworthy journalism. Because right now, it can’t be trusted. And so it isn’t. Full stop, end of story.

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Tim Montgomerie’s Anti-Semitism Hypocrisy

Derby North MP Chris Williamson has been re-admitted to the Labour Party, following a period of suspension following comments he made about Labour’s reaction to complaints of anti-Semitism. As the BBC has reported, this was “after footage of Mr Williamson was published by the Yorkshire Post, showing him telling activists that Labour had ‘given too much ground' over allegations of anti-Semitism and was being ‘demonised as a racist, bigoted party’”. Some pundits have reacted strongly to this news.

Wake up Monty, you're bang to rights

And some of those pundits really ought not to be coming over so righteous, considering their own lamentable records when it comes to making anti-Semitic remarks - something Williamson did not do in that activist meeting. Sure, he was clumsy, crass, and grossly insensitive, and so it was appropriate that he was suspended.

One of those getting on his high horse about Williamson’s re-admission to the Labour fold is the serially clueless Tim Montgomerie, the obscenely overrated nobody who went on record to tell the world that the phone hacking scandal was just a Labour put-up job to get payback for Damian McBride. It wasn’t, and he was exposed as a sham.

“Labour isn’t serious about anti-Semitism. Part 127” Tweeted Monty the righteous, and one credit that has to be given to The Great Man is that he really is serious about anti-Semitism. So serious, in fact, that he blatantly indulged in it, was caught bang to rights by Total Politics, but refused to withdraw his comments, far less apologise.

Evan Harris - target of vicious anti-Semitic abuse

This is what TP said about Monty and his pal (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries: “Writing in the Sunday Telegraph Tim Montgomerie, and Nadine Dorries on her blog, both saw fit to label Dr Evan Harris - who has been a continual critic of both Dorries and her motion - 'Dr Death’ … Neither Tim nor Nadine are known for their tact but by stoking the flames of an emotive issue and comparing one of their opponents to a Nazi concentration camp Doctorthey’ve lost all rationality. The fact that Dr Harris is Jewish … such disgraceful and loaded name calling has no place in civilised debate. An apology will not be sufficient, nor I fear, forthcoming”. Anti-Semitism. Crude and utterly inexcusable.

Anti-Semitic? MOI?

The article goes on to remind us “These kinds of tactics are straight out of the Tea Party playbook - as is the practice of labelling prominent opponents ‘Dr Death’ or ‘baby killer’ - both terms used against Dr George Tiller, an abortion provider in the US who was shot dead by an anti abortionist in 2009". Not just anti-Semitism, either. Incitement.

Monty’s excuse for acting like a total shit and not doing the decent thing - apologising - was that another columnist - the screamingly intolerant Leo McKinstry - had also used the term about Dr Harris. So that’s “someone else was anti-Semitic, so it’s OK for me to be, too”. I will say no more about the obvious shortcomings in that argument.

A Mail pundit called him it, so I can too. Er, no

There are no finer examples of rank hypocrisy on the subject of anti-Semitism than Nadine Dorries and Tim Montgomerie. They call themselves Christians, yet are howlingly intolerant of others’ points of view, and shockingly abusive to their opponents.

As a result, Monty’s glasshouse is terribly draughty right now. No surprise there, then.

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Allison Pearson In Deep Shit

The latest edition of Private Eye magazine (#1409, on sale at all good newsagents and perhaps even W H Smith) gives pride of place in its Hackwatch feature to the increasingly wayward Allison Pearson of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. And at the end of a most interesting profile, the Eye notes her response to those neighbours who called the cops to a Domestic at Carrie Symonds’ flat in Camberwell.

Allison Pearson

The row, of course, also featured London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, the man who would be Prime Minister, and whose every pronouncement Ms Pearson lauds to the heavens. That those neighbours had called the Met’s finest out, and then passed their recording of said Domestic to the Rotten Lefties™ at the Guardian, was for her unforgivable. So off she went.

“We really need to name and shame the #Boris neighbours. Maybe record their blameless, unshouty lives and give the tape to a national newspaper. Anyone know who they are?” She was now in favour of doxxing the couple who lived in a flat adjacent to that occupied by Ms Symonds, and sometimes also by Bozza.

The Twitter response showed that this was a campaign destined to develop not necessarily to Ms Pearson’s advantage. Comedian Jenny Eclair asked “who’s doing the witch hunt now?” while PC Andy Moore of Thames Valley Police put her straight: “Most calls around DV are from concerned neighbours, the victim rarely makes that call through fear of violence … Be careful by calling them out as they’re the reason we the Police can protect. #domesticviolence It’s real”. And there was more.

Prof Ros Edwards of the University of Southampton reminded Ms Pearson “I have been the neighbour next door hearing the woman screaming and crashes. You are concerned. You do go and knock on the door. You do call the police. And if you have the presence of mind you do record it in case evidence is needed”. Quite.

But what is much, much worse for Ms Pearson is what has happened to those neighbours since she issued her call for them to be named and shamed. As Jim Pickard of the FT has now revealed, “[I] am told that the neighbours who reported the Symonds-Johnson row to the police have since moved out of their flat - and are seeking security advice - after a series of grim threats”. What you will not read in the Red Tops.

As Alex Harrowell has observed, “One of our most important class distinctions is the one between people represented by big name PR firms, and targets … This is one of the important lessons of #Leveson. They behave like this as a matter of course, by standard operating procedure, whatever the content of the story is. They did it to the Dowlers”.

So what say Ms Pearson to this? La la la, she can’t hear you, nothing to see here. She’s shaping up to whine at anyone in the NHS who doesn’t want to bill Rotten Foreigners™ for treatment. And plugging her next piss-poor book.

But she will know that she’s in the poo now, after demanding to have the mob set on Bozza’s neighbours, now that they’ve been forced into hiding. Not a good look.

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Jewish Activist Attacked For Supporting Corbyn

Andrew Feinstein knows what anti-Semitism is, and where it can lead. His mother was a Holocaust survivor. 39 members of her family were not. He has lived in Apartheid South Africa, and experienced anti-Semitism there. He is also a Labour supporter, and in particular a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. This has resulted in him attracting abuse.

After the Telegraph’s increasingly wayward pundit Allison Pearson had referred to Corbyn as “An appalling anti-Semite Marxist”, he responded “I am Jewish. My mother was a Holocaust survivor who lost 39 members of her family in the camps. I have lectured at Auschwitz on genocide prevention. I experienced anti-Semitism in apartheid South Africa. I can state unequivocally that Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite!”.

This prompted Islamophobic bigot David Collier to sneer “I don't know what is sadder. That you begin 'as a Jew', that you use Holocaust victims in an attempt to legitimise yourself further or that you actually believe the total poppycock you are trying to sell”. He didn’t begin “As a Jew”. But then the Jewish Chronicle and Murdoch Times entered the fray.

The JC, under the by-line of Daniel Sugarman, told readers “Jewish social media users respond in disgust to Corbyn-supporting accounts mimicking Holocaust tweet … The original tweet, by a far-left Jewish activist, described how his family's experience of the Holocaust meant he could 'state unequivocally that Jeremy Corbyn is not antisemitic’”.

There was, however, a problem with Sugarman’s article: three of the Twitter accounts pictured (@SAULBENKISH, @NewhamFirst and @mohammedmehboo6) have no obvious connection to either Corbyn or Labour generally, save that the last-named uses an image of the Labour leader as its avatar. But, so what? That proves nothing.

Still, Sugarman was not downhearted. “Feinstein is real though. I must say, it's kind of him to take time out from RTing Holocaust deniers in order to use his own murdered family members to deny Labour antisemitism”. He RTd Sarah Wilkinson once. Sugarman is being disingenuous here, though, because what he RTd was a news item: the two Tweets he shows from Ms Wilkinson that give off a whiff of anti-Semitism were not RTd by Feinstein.

That, though, was enough for Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian to proclaim “Activists defending Jeremy Corbyn from allegations of antisemitism have shared cut and pasted backstories claiming that they are the children of Holocaust survivors”. They’re activists? How do you know? Those Twitter accounts I quoted show no sign of it.

Having challenged Sugarman to a public debate on anti-Semitism, the Labour Party, Holocaust Remembrance and racism, Feinstein concludes “The crazy cowardly reactionary assault on me has only made me more determined to use my family & political history to fight the weaponisation of antisemitism 4 reactionary political ends. I’ll always fight racism in all its forms. Thanks 4 all the support”.

It’s sad that Jews who conclude independently that Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite find themselves under attack for their freely expressed political choice - and castigated for telling that their families were decimated at death camps like Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. And the talking up of seemingly random Twitter accounts as Corbyn-supporting activists is very poor journalism. It almost smacks of desperation.

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Muslim Fostering Row - THE TRUTH

It was the story that strained the reputation of Times hack Andrew Norfolk beyond the limits of its credibility. It suckered the Mail and Sun into publishing the most grotesque smears and downright untruths. The claim that a white Christian girl had been placed against her wishes with Muslim foster parents who didn’t speak English, at the behest of Tower Hamlets Council, reverberated around the press for several days.

Andrew Norfolk - thoroughly discredited

That story, though, reverberates no more. Because it was substantially untrue, and most certainly misleading. as Zelo Street pointed out at the time (see HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE), Norfolk’s reputation, like that of Christopher Booker before him, was bust as soon as the facts emerged. Moreover, it was not Norfolk’s only mis-step.

John Witherow - an editor with questions to answer

We know this as experienced journalists Brian Cathcart and Paddy French, with Julian Petley, have laid bare Norfolk’s failings in a report titled “UNMASKED - Andrew Norfolk, the Times Newspaper and Anti-Muslim Reporting - A Case To Answer” (read it HERE).

Cathcart’s Tweeting out of points from the report shows how damning the content is. “One case we examine in unprecedented detail is Norfolk's infamous ‘Christian child forced into Muslim foster care’ story.  The picture he painted of a white Christian girl ill-treated and indoctrinated by Muslim foster carers was NOT TRUE … [Norfolk’s] articles alleging that a human rights charity, Just Yorkshire, published a report so scathing it prompted death threats against an MP. This claim was also NOT TRUE”. There was more.

“Norfolk’s allegation that a council encouraged a convicted Pakistani rapist to seek visiting rights to his white victim’s child. Again, simply NOT TRUE … Our detailed analysis led us to conclude that Norfolk repeatedly wrote stories portraying Muslims as threatening when the facts showed otherwise. This was at a time when hate crimes against Muslims were rising … Our report finds patterns of behaviour by Norfolk we judged to be journalistically unethical. E.G. he repeatedly omitted from reports, or buried near the bottom, key information to which responsible journalists would have given prominence”. And more.

“We found that quotations – the lifeblood of journalism – were taken out of context and used in ways that we believe ethical journalists would not accept. All this was passed as fit for publication by editors of @thetimes – and then promoted and defended … We found that @thetimes, even when error and failure were obvious, refused to correct meaningfully or to apologise for errors which had seriously misled its readers”. And it got worse.

“@IpsoNews, the Times’s complaints body, conspicuously failed to uphold standards or call @thetimes to account for publishing stories that were plain wrong. It did the least it could … How did a multiple journalism award winner like Norfolk get so much wrong? Why did a national newspaper like @thetimes let it happen? Why have news media been so quiet about this scandal in their midst?” So what is being done about it?

“Printed copies of our report have gone out to every MP and to hundreds of working peers, leading journalists and opinion formers. We call on @thetimes to instigate a credible independent investigation into what has gone wrong”. And there’s the rub.

IPSO - absent yet again

Here on Zelo Street, any enjoyment at seeing criticism of Norfolk and the Times proved correct is tempered by the fact that the Murdoch press has a far larger megaphone - and is to this day utterly unrepentant in the face of overwhelming evidence of its bad journalism.

The failings are as before, as are the bodies concerned: IPSO, the sham press non-regulator; Norfolk, the hack trading on his reputation; John Witherow, his editor; Rebekah Brooks, News UK’s CEO; and Rupert Murdoch, whose media outlets here in the UK, and in the USA and Australia, have majored consistently in attacking Muslims.

The more this appallingly bad behaviour is uncovered, the more it is swept under the carpet and the more our free and fearless press turns a blind eye to it. That’s not good enough. And, given what we know about Witherow’s back catalogue, it’s another good reason why Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry should happen - and happen now.

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Terrorism - It’s The Far Right Yet Again

While some far-right watchers enjoyed the spectacle of Yellow Vest wannabe James Goddard getting guilty yesterday on a charge of common assault against a photographer during a demonstration in Manchester, securing himself a tenth conviction and the thick end of £1,000 in fines, costs and compensation, the really worrying revelation was unfolding further north, at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

It was here that one David Dudgeon, from Prestonpans in East Lothian, “pleaded guilty to possessing material useful to committing or preparing an act of terrorism namely a quantity of texts, manuals, booklets, leaflets, video files relating to the production of chemical and biological weapons and techniques for knife fighting”. And there is much more on Dudgeon’s activities in the report from the Edinburgh Evening News.

For instance, “Among the disturbing collection of right wing material Dudgeon had stored on a hard drive included texts such as Bloody Brazilian Knife Fighting, Prison Killing Techniques and Krav Maga Knife Attacks … The manuals and videos showed techniques on how to smuggle bombs on planes, the manufacture of black powder explosives and the use of biological weapons”. And that wasn’t all the cops found.

Guilty. And stupid with it

“Following a systematic search of his home police discovered a copy of the Anarchist Cook Book hidden away within a file on a hard drive … Further examination of the equipment showed Dudgeon had also collected scores of other far right violent material including titles Knife Fighting Techniques From Folsom Prison, Russian Knife Combat and Knife, Blade, Bludgeon and Bomb”. Plus a variety of websites he visited.

“Dudgeon’s internet history showed he had visited websites of ‘an extreme right wing nature’ including Christian fundamentalism, ISIS murder videos and sites about Tommy Robinson”. Stephen Yaxley Lennon isn’t to blame for any of this far-right terrorism, it’s just that his name keeps cropping up when far-right terror is concerned.

Jack Renshaw - murder plot admitted

Dudgeon was jailed: “Sheriff Michael O’Grady QC deferred sentence to next month for reports and remanded Dudgeon in custody”. This comes not long after Jack Renshaw admitted a plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper, although the press coverage was relatively low-key, but not because Renshaw is white, you understand.

As the Guardian observed last March, “Far-right terrorism has been identified as a key threat to the safety and prosperity of the country, according to the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, and Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police … In the wake of the Christchurch attacks, in which 50 Muslims were killed by a suspected white supremacist, security services … have refocused on the threat of far-right extremists”.

Nothing to do with him, though

That article also noted that “Sara Khan, the UK’s lead anti-extremism commissioner, told the Observer this month there has been a surge of UK-based far-right activists who are ‘organised, professional and actively attempting to recruit’”.

James Goddard may grab the headlines, but he’s nothing more than a comedy turn, a gob on stilts, a coward who couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time. And the pundits may grab more by rabbiting about Scary Muslims™. But it’s the murderously inclined far-right that should never be allowed to go undetected. That is today’s terrorist growth industry.

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Boris Propaganda Kiboshed BY HIMSELF

As the pre-determined progress of London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson towards 10 Downing Street falls into doubt, with the candidate’s tendency to bluster and forthright dishonesty cruelly exposed by one interviewer after another, so the desperation of his cheerleaders becomes more apparent.

Awwww! But not taken last weekend

And there is no more desperate a cheerleader for Bozza than the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who with his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, has once more tried to talk up The Man Who Would Be PM, kicking off today’s lame propaganda piddle with “Boris Breaks Cover With Big Brexit Pitch”. And what pitch would that be, pray?

“A lengthy interview with Laura K last night, ahead of another interview with LBC this morning. Team Boris are gearing up for a ‘media blitzkreig’ … The main focus of the interview is Brexit, with Boris setting out his big pitch for how to do Brexit differently … This will go down well with Brexiteers if he manages to follow through on it”. Yeah, right.

The Great Guido also tries to leverage Bozza’s rebuke of the Steve Bannon allegations - “This is the biggest load of codswallop I have ever heard” to continue his obsessive attack on the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr - while ignoring that he said something similar about phone hacking. And his affair with Petronella Wyatt. Both of which were true.

In any case, all that carefully crafted spin has been shot apart by Bozza himself, in yet another car crash moment, this time in what should have been an easy interview with LBC’s Gammonmeister Nick Ferrari. The subject of That Staged Photo came up. He should have expected it - the pic is in all the papers today. Here’s the exchange.

Ferrari: “Did you know this picture was out there?”

Bozza: “Of course I knew there was a picture like that in existence”.

Ferrari: “When was it taken?”

Bozza: “It’s not a state secret, it’s just something that I don’t want to get into”.

Ferrari: “You won’t even tell me when the picture was taken?”

Bozza: “No. Why should I?”

Ferrari: “Because it’s not recent, is it? Your hair in this photograph is not your hair currently, is it?”

Bozza: “This conversation is descending into farce”.

Ferrari: “This is quite an old picture, isn’t it?”

Bozza: “You’re wrong about that, because I no longer have my hair cut by the Turkish chap. I have my hair cut by a very nice person called Kelly”.

Er, WHAT? It’s not really an old picture because he has his hair cut by someone else nowadays? This is the bloke who is being promoted - including by the Fawkes rabble - as our next Prime Minister, the one who is going to sort out Brexit, no ifs, no buts?

Well, no it isn’t. And the idea The Great Guido, or indeed anyone else, can spin their way out of the hole which Bozza keeps digging for himself is purest fantasy. Boris Johnson was not fit to be Foreign Secretary. He is not fit to be Prime Minister. He could no more sort Brexit than bluff his way out of Nick Ferrari’s questions.

If Tory Members elect him leader, this country is well and truly fucked. End of story.

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