national UK newspaper offering cash for lies about gaming as cause of crime

A talent agency ad:

A national newspaper wants your story and will pay hundreds of pounds to the right person.

Write a few lines about how computer games turned you to crime and if it's something we like, we'll call you straight back.

Payment details: paid role.

Well, that's refreshingly (dis)honest, and a step up from the traditional Response Source fishing expedition. I'm out of the UK (still) - anyone want to try and find out which paper this is?

via

nadine dorries: I do not have the courage of my convictions

Seriously, Nadine, if you want to smear the motivations of health-workers who provide abortion services, you might as well have the courage to do it directly:

There is not one NHS hospital in the UK which will carry out abortion over 16 weeks other than Kings in London and Newcastle, they will only operate in cases of extreme need, when the continuation of the pregnancy is a threat to the health of the mother.

This is why all abortions over sixteen weeks are carried out by abortion only private clinics. Some may describe that as an industry.

It helps to remember that "some" is in fact Nadine Dorries and a very small number of anti-abortion activists. Regular readers will show no surprise to discover that Dorries' rationale is far from honest - jumping from the opinion of one doctor to claiming an explanation for national policy.

One problem with Dorries' claim is that a large number of NHS trusts have contracts with private providers, primarily bpas (formerly the British Pregnancy Advisory Service). So an abortion being paid for under the NHS could easily take place in a bpas clinic. In fact, bpas currently provides 50% of NHS-funded abortions undertaken by specialist agencies.

Furthermore, as bpas themselves argue:

Many women choose to pay for care at bpas because they can arrange an appointment that is more convenient for then. Other women choose bpas to avoid having to discuss the pregnancy with their GP, or because they prefer the idea of going to a specialist clinic whose staff have chosen to work in abortion care.

bpas was also formed - as a registered charity in 1968 - shortly after the law changed and when the NHS was unable to provide abortion care for all who needed it.

Such provision still remains limited on the NHS, demanding the participation of specialist agencies and private clinics for pragmatic reasons that have little (or indeed nothing) to do with Dorries' 15-week limit.

Finally, we're also left wondering whether Dorries will introduce an ammendment arguing for a 15-week limit, given that she's apparently so convinced by the doctor she spoke with. If not, why not?

In fact, why doesn't the next journalist who goes to Dorries for a comment ask exactly when she thinks the week limit should be? Would she support a total ban on abortion for any reason other than to protect a mother's health?

peter hitchens: I would like to reiterate that I am not that bright

Cheerfully jumping the shark again and again on a motorcycle of his own stupidity, Peter Hitchens declares:

We have got rid of fathers, and will soon make them illegal.

This will come as something of a surprise to my father, my brother and my brother-in-law, as well as the many millions of other men who are.. well.. fathers to children, both biologically and in the countless other ways that matter. As you might have already guessed, this is another entry in the competition to entirely misread and mispresent the upcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

Hitchens has decided that "they" (the government / feminists / teh gayzor) have "banned" fathers, a notion which is both factually wrong and very, very stupid. Proposing that a tiny minority of children might be born without legal fathers is not and will never be the same as "banning" heterosexual reproduction or traditional family roles.

Despite the deepest paranoid fears of Mail columnists, there's similarly no reason why a woman choosing to raise a child without a legally recognised biological father will suddenly cause a majority of other women (and men) to make the same decision. For the vast majority, such a decision will simply be irrelevant because it will never occur.

There's also absolutely no reason why that change should lead to widespread censorship of public speech:

But now the words 'a father' will be replaced by 'supportive parenting'. Next, what the law said as recently as 1990 will be unsayable in a public place. Opponents of this change will, as usual, be falsely smeared as bigots.

Not bigots, just very, very stupid if they make this kind of argument.

Hitchens offers absolutely no explanation why this specific change in law will lead to fatherhood being a taboo idea, forbidden in public - possibly for the very simple reason that no such explanation exists. It's a version of the slippery slope fallacy where the lower part of the slope is on a different mountain in a different country, going uphill.

Peter Hitchens: persuading you that you shouldn't listen to a single thing he says, exclusively in the Mail on Sunday.

the cut-and-paste brigade

It would be just super if journalists didn't cut-and-paste whatever anti-abortion campaigners send them - particularly when, time and time again, they've been shown to have trouble telling the truth, either through deliberate deception or a basic inability to read and understand scientific research.

As I've been suggesting for a while, the basic presumption that Nadine Dorries - for example - is either lying or stupidly wrong gets you a long way. Going to her as a supposedly knowledgeable MP on the subject compounds the stupidity of the original reporting: you merely get more of the same, with added misdirection and falsity.

when "greater communication" between faith leaders and scientists means doing what the vatican says

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Fresh from the Catholic Church media office, here's Cardinal Keith O'Brien:

I have been approached by MPs and asked by others in the media to consider meeting with leading scientists who are currently involved in this area. I would be only too happy to agree to such a meeting and I am sure other Church representatives and leaders of other faiths would also agree.......In agreeing to such a meeting my only condition would be that the scientists were also willing to accept instruction from our Churches and peoples of faith on basic morality, on what human life really is, on the purpose of our life on earth.

"I'm willing to meet and talk with scientists provided that they agree to my faith-based definitions and do what I tell them." Huh. That sounds like a productive meeting.

liars seize moral high ground, demand accuracy and honesty

The Daily Mail saddled the high moral horse last week to frame the accusation (or factual declaration) that the Catholic Church had been lying about the embryo bill as a denigration of public debate.

The orchestrated attacks on the Roman Catholic church by ministers, scientists and medical charities have done nothing to advance the debate over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

In sneering language, they have portrayed the Church as rooted in the Dark Ages - wilfully blocking research which could help millions who suffer from such dreadful ailments as Alzheimer's, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson's. Bishops and cardinals have been accused by fertility expert Lord Winston of lying to the public, by health minister Ben Bradshaw of being intemperate, emotive and plain wrong, and by other Labour MPs of "scaremongering".

The awkward thing here is that - apart from the unkind smearing of the Dark Ages - that this is an accurate account of the behaviour of bishops and cardinals over the last few weeks and months. Bishops and cardinals have indeed misrepresented the science (and attendant safeguards) made possible by the proposed change in law. Yet somehow, it's the fault of other people for pointing this out rather than the fault of the church for willfully and continually misleading public debate.

While the embryo bill is now open to a free vote, the issue of accuracy and honesty in debate prevails - presumably leading David Cameron, father to a disabled son, to argue (as reported in The Times)

that the Catholic Church was entitled to express its opinion, [adding]: “There is a danger that people can overstate what is in this Bill and that is all the greater need for it to be debated calmly and reasonably in Parliament.

That Cardinal Keith O'Brien appears congenitally unable to discuss these issues "calmly and reasonably" needs to become a feature of the coverage of his remarks, rather than the trigger for another round of "he said, she said" reporting. Pointing out when someone is lying (and rather than acting as a somehow neutral third party to evident lies) is a rather important element of journalism, no?

"bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions"

Clive Davis (on his blog at the Spectator) flags up an interview with Canon Michael Ainsworth, the cleric attacked by Asian youths outside his church in east London earlier this month.

Evidence of jihad and attempts to set up no-go areas?

"We must respond calmly, and not jump to conclusions..." Coping with the hysteria from "wild" national press coverage had been "almost worse than being attacked." He felt helpless as his church was besieged by cameramen and reporters after the story broke last Friday.

"They have their own agendas," said Mr Ainsworth, "as do the bloggers, both professional and amateur, who are using the story for their own ends and drawing bizarre, mainly racist, conclusions."

Bizarre, mainly racist conclusions. Just who can he be thinking about?

Incidentally, here's Melanie Phillips, posting on her blog at the.. uh.. Spectator.. last week:

Jihad in east Londistan

From the rather fuller stories about this incident in today’s papers, it is clear that this is far from the first such attack in the area. Indeed, there appear to have been many attacks on vicars or churches by Muslims who are clearly intent on turning east London into a no-go area for Christians (and, given the stoning of the Jewish group visiting the area on Holocaust Remembrance Day, for Jews as well.

The mosque in the picture, by the way, was once St Sophia cathedral which was converted into a mosque on the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fate of innumerable churches under Islamic conquest).

The jihadi nature of the attack on of the attack on Canon Ainsworth [...] is unmistakeable.

Hmm.

nadine dorries: watch as I remove all doubt concerning my credibility

I'm actually in the US right now and away from normal blogging, but the latest episode in the Nadine Dorries roadshow demands attention. At the very least, she's making it much harder for the question "lying or ignorant?" to actually sound like a question, and not a thin attempt to avoid accusing someone of being an enormous fraud.

To summarise just one more time, Nadine Dorries is either unbelievably, extraordinarily ignorant to a hitherto undiscovered degree, or her capacious lies have been the subject of special surgery to increase their girth and depth.

Here's Unity, DK, Manic and Ben Goldacre - maybe you'll be able to decide which it is after you've finished reading.

nadine dorries: ignorant or lying (part 92)

To be fair, Nadine Dorries is either horribly ignorant about something she claims to be well informed about.... or she's a liar. As Unity points out, the data showing survival rates for births before 24 weeks touted by Dorries is currently far from reliable. It's certainly at odds with existing peer-reviewed evidence, discussed in part over the weekend.

Ben Goldacre's summary tells you most of what you need to know:

Even if this data stands up eventually, right now it is non-peer reviewed, non-published, utterly chaotic, personal communication of data, from 1996 to 2000, with no clear source, and with no information about how it was collected or analysed. That would be fine if it hadn’t suddenly become central to the debate on abortion.

You may also remember that - far from being grateful for attempting to bring clarity to the debate - Dorries accused Goldacre of breaching parliamentary procedure by.. reading public accessible evidence, a baseless slur which she has never publicly addressed.

Presumably any call for an apology would be met with another display of name-calling and denial.

one-sided

As The Sunday Times declares "Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions," it helps to actually read the statement issued by Royal College of Psychiatrists:

Mental disorder can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth.

The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women's health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive - some studies indicate no evidence of harm, while other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion.

The Sunday Times makes no mention of the fact that the research is inconclusive and that mental disorder may arise from pregnancy alone, only emphasising the potential risk due to abortion. There's also little recognition of the risk to mental health of a continued, unwanted pregnancy.

As such, jumping from that one-sided reading of the College's careful, balanced opinion to the case of "a talented artist [who] hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins" is - at best - alarmist and misleading.

melanie phillips: "no direct ties" to al qaeda is the "precise opposite" of "no direct connection"

We may have to expand the meaning of cognitive dissonance to truly describe the experience of trying to follow the logic of Melanie Phillips.

First, Phillips quotes The Guardian:

A US military study officially acknowledged for the first time yesterday that Saddam Hussein had no direct ties to al-Qaida, undercutting the Bush administration's central case for war with Iraq.

And then argues:

But the actual report doesn’t say that at all. Indeed, its reveals the precise opposite. Although its executive summary states:

This study found no ‘smoking gun’ (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda

the body of the report finds significant evidence of highly pertinent indirect connections with al Qaeda affiliates.

Somehow, Phillips has managed to convince herself that "no direct ties" is the "precise opposite" of "no 'smoking gun' (i.e. direct connection)." Having established this re-ordering of the logical universe, she proceeds to argue that indirect connections (which she recognises as such) should be treated as the equivalent of direct connections.

It's a labyrinthine web of self-serving deception that exceeds earlier noble attempts - some kind of shitty medal may be in order.

Her argument seems to be that while the professionals who compiled and wrote the report with access to the actual evidence came to one conclusion, there's another far more likely conclusion which is - to coin a phrase - the precise opposite. Phillips one more pushes the straw-man argument of denial:

the bizarre claim that Saddam not only had ‘no links’ with al Qaeda but had ‘no links’ with terrorism at all.

Here, Phillips attempts to pretend that "no links" and "no direct ties" means the same thing. She's also entirely unable to provide an example of anyone seriously arguing that Saddam was not connected to terrorism - most likely because no-one is.

Entertainingly - and going further down the rabbit-hole of self-parody - Phillips chooses to blame the media for misleadingly...uh.. accurately reporting the executive summary of the Institute for Defence Analyses report. While she might not like the executive summary, the media can't - on this occasion - be faulted for reporting it.

(updated) nadine dorries: ill-equipped with actual science, it's time for the anti-abortionists to turn to shame

It is slightly unfortunate that the site to which Nadine Dorries links as the headquarters of the Alive and Kicking anti-abortion campaign is, at the time of posting, a slimming site offering the opportunity to lose unwanted body weight. Please write your own uncomfortable punchline.

Presumably she meant to link to this site instead.

Dorries' support for a campaign which seeks to "shame" its opponents also reminds you that her supposed support for solid scientific evidence is a thin veneer for a specific kind of religious moralising. Dorries quotes a poll (without giving any source) that shows public support for a reduction in week limit; she might also have quoted this poll, which shows strong support for the principle of abortion on demand, but that might not sit well with the opponents of all abortion whose politics she represents.

Alive and Kicking - as you might have guessed from Dorries' endorsement - are also less than honest with their rhetoric. Billing themselves as the "campaign to make abortion rare," their website makes not one single, solitary mention of the existence of contraception - or the existence of adoption agencies, or support networks for unplanned pregnancy.

In other words, no mention is made of anything that might actually help women and their partners when confronted with the issue of abortion. Instead, there's the horribly common (and still baseless) smear of "a cash-driven abortion industry," and the selective mining of research which ignores any and all counter-evidence.

Furthermore, even if successful, the campaign to shorten the week limit from 24 to 20 would only effect a tiny minority of women - less than 1% of all abortions take place in that period. In 2003, 0.75% of abortions in England Wales were carried out at 22 weeks or over - a reduction that would hardly make abortion "rare," and would most likely impact those whose decision to abort has been taken as a matter of urgency.

It continues to be galling to be lectured on the need for "balanced" counselling for women considering abortion by groups and individuals who continually misrepresent and distort evidence to support their position.

EDIT: In the spirit of bloody-mindedness, I decided I should look at the opinion poll from 2005 on which Alive and Kicking bases its claim to public support for change. It is, beyond any doubt, a push-poll. Here's the central statement presented for agreement or disagreement:

The current abortion limit of 24 weeks should be lowered significantly given that more than 80% of babies born at that age survive.

Hmm. Now there's a huge slice of statistical fudge. It may even be an outright fabrication.

The most reliable data we have for that kind of claim comes from the EPIcure studies of the survivability of premature babies. The original study from 1995 showed that the percentage of babies born alive (who survived to leave hospital) at 23 to 24 weeks it was 11 per cent; at 24 to 25 weeks, it was 26 per cent. That's the Daily Mail's summary - but in the direct words of the researchers, overall survival was 39%.

While the second study is still being completed, The Times reports:

Data is still being analysed, but early indications suggest little improvement in survival rates to age six (between 10 and 15 per cent) of babies born before 24 weeks.

Hmm.

During the last round of debate, much was made of research undertaken by Professor John Wyatt at University College Hospital in London who looked at births between 22 and 25 weeks between 1981 and 2000. In that cohort - at a well-funded, well-staffed hospital with some of the country's experts in premature birth - survival rose from 31% to 71%. But not to more than 80% (EDIT - and there are problems with the data anyway.)

A bit of googling turns up a Canadian study from the late 90s which gives the closest figures: survival to discharge at 24 weeks gestation was 54%, compared to 82% at 26 weeks (with, again, no mention of long-term circumstances). Close, but still no cigar.

It is possible that this figure refers to survivability (in some undefined sense) of infants born exclusively in week 24. But without any actual sources for research to support that, it's impossible to discover how the polling company - commissioned by Alive and Kicking - reached their conclusion and presented it as fact. Maybe I'm too cynical for words, but I'm not feeling the urge to extend blind trust on this one.

ignoring forced marriage doesn't make it go away

Here's a thought - perhaps we don't actually want people who support forced marriage to feel comfortable about it:

Schools in areas feared to have high rates of forced marriage are refusing to display posters on the issue because they are too hard-hitting, according to a government report.

Headteachers are unwilling to put up the posters for fear that they might offend some parents. [...] “In Birmingham, the poster had not been displayed as schools felt that the graphics are ‘too hard-hitting’.

“Some schools in Leeds are displaying the posters but others are concerned that they may offend some of their parents,” the paper said.

Well, it's supposed to be hard-hitting campaign. That's the point.

I have some sympathy for the confusion that arises concerning forced marriage and arranged marriage in some quarters of the media, but I can't imagine the communities involved have any difficulty telling the two apart. And those who can't need to learn the difference right now.

Fortunately, schools are making use of postcards and other material to get the message across, and I'm conscious that the story may have suffered from headline inflation syndrome. However, tip-toeing around this particular issue would seem likely to re-inforce the existing culture of silence that makes forced marriage possible. Yes, it's an uncomfortable issue but turning a blind eye doesn't make it go away. It makes you culpable.

To act on the fear that some parents will be offended is also fairly patronising, given that the vast majority of parents will recognise and support the campaign for what it is. The merit of the campaign far outweighs the possiblity of perceived offence.

Yes, schools need to work in co-operation with their communities, but I think we can easily put this issue on the list of things where we - as a wider community - are fine that a tiny minority of people will be incidentally offended. The alternative - keeping quiet in the specific regions where we suspect forced marriage is a problem - is simply immoral.

Oh, and the tiny, tiny number of people who actively support forced marriage are free to go fuck themselves.

for sale

A rather beautiful moment of political honesty as New York prepares to find a new governor:

Paterson also displayed a rather awesome sense of humor. "Just so we don't have to go through this whole resignation thing again," one ballsy reporter asked, "have you ever patronized a prostitute?" Patterson thought for a minute. "Only the lobbyists," he said.

Ah, the comforting glow of institutionalised moral hypocrisy.

oh, that iran. we thought you meant a different iran, the one that doesn't hang gay people.

Mehdi Kazemi has been granted a reprieve on his impending deportation to Iran - apparently the Home Office have just discovered that a country that executed his boyfriend for being gay might just not be safest place for him.

That Jacqui Smith's department has taken the decision "in the light of new circumstances" suggests that the Home Office knew little or nothing about the circumstances under which Kazemi sought asylum.

It's not as though Iran's approach to gay teenagers has suddenly changed. Even the Foreign and Commonwealth office know enough to warn prospective tourists that:

Homosexual behaviour, adultery and sex outside of marriage are illegal under Iranian law and can carry the death penalty.

So exactly what are these new circumstances, beyond the fresh revelation of inhuman incompetence on the part of the immigration service?

tom utley: yes, you're in the middle of painful labour contractions, but what about my needs?

Tom Utley is modestly infamous for rambling anecdotes which stumble sidways into some kind of barely coherent commentary on a policy he knows little or nothing about - as we've discussed several times before.

Today's display begins with Utley's distaste for being present at the birth of his children, a story easily summarised as "Yes, I know you're anxious, dilated and in pain, but what about my needs?" It's just so unfair that people might expect him to want to support his wife during labour.

The story is a vehicle for his favourite logical fallacy, which is that being allowed to do something is that same thing as being forced to do something - which in turn provides a way of complaining about anything he personally doesn't like. Can it be so hard to understand, for example, that being offered the opporutnity to take paternity leave is profoundly not the same thing as forcing men to give up their jobs and stay at home?

Utley's prolonged wailing demand that David Cameron address the tax burden for married couples rather ignores that - during the month of July last year - Cameron did little more than talk about how the tax system should be reformed. Hell, Cameron even made his support for tax reform part of his campaign to get elected leader of the Conservative party. In other words, it's one policy that the Tories have covered.

In short, Utley performs the standard pundit trick of assuming his own personal dislike for contributing to housework and child-care (and fear and loathing of the delivery room) must be universal. If anything, the reminder that men - almost universally - are not Tom Utley, should comes as a great comfort to men, women and children alike.

that sex is more popular than the bishop of motherwell is not proof of conspiracy

I'm not sure I mananged to convey below the simple silliness of Bishop Devine's claim of a gay conspiracy.

The gay rights movement has campaigned in public, openly stating their case in the attempt to influence public issues through - all while admitting that this is exactly what their intentions are. Stonewall - for example - has never, ever, tried to hide that it has sought to advance an agenda which brings the rights of gay people in line with everyone else.

Their methods reflect the kinds of activity undertaken by every interest group involved in politics, groups which involve (drum-roll of irony) the Catholic church. To suddenly exclaim that groups working openly in public are, in fact, proof of conspiracy - some kind of hidden plot - is ludicrous beyond words. It's manifestly silly, and journalists should be challenging the bishop on those grounds alone.

The fact that the Catholic church has been less successful in persuading people to adopt their approach to sexuality is not proof of conspiracy. It's proof that people enjoy sex more than listening to the Bishop of Motherwell.

funny ha ha

Time for another Daily Mail Mirror fishing expedition - this time under the general heading of "ZOMG! Isn't stalking just hilarious?!?"

Freelance for the Daily Mirror is looking for women aged 26 to 53 who have done funny and wacky things to woo the man of their dreams. They might have sent 400 texts until he agreed to go out with them, pretended to be someone else to get a date, gone to extreme lengths - anything funny along those lines.

It'd involve coming to an all-expenses-paid photo shoot in London and having a pampering day - hair and make-up done etc. There's also a small payment available. If you know anyone who'd be suitable for this light-hearted feature please do get in touch with Olivia.

It's so very helpful for Olivia to provide examples of the exact kind of stories that she'd like repeated patiently back to her. Why, these articles just write themselves.

Here's my ad:

I'm writing a feature about hacks who use mass-mailing lists to drum up support for "fun" stories which fill pages that might otherwise contain traces of journalism.

You might have paid people to make up stories which amazingly match your original idea. Perhaps you've listed exactly what you're looking for, in the hope that you won't have to rewrite the feature you've already typed up other than to change the names.

Did you use your last feature (a case study of three relationships) to make sweeping claims about all men and women? If so, the Daily Mail Mirror is waiting to hear from you.

Thanks, as ever, to my London source.

bishop joseph devine: gay people aren't a persecuted minority. incidentally, remember the good old days when oscar wilde was jailed for being a homo?

It's always fun when a member of a religious group that campaigned against the right for gay people to have the same protections under the law as the religious says things like this:

The Rt Rev Joseph Devine, Bishop of Motherwell and president of the Catholic Education Commission, said gay rights organisations aligned themselves with minority groups, such as Holocaust survivors, to project an "image of a group of people under persecution".

He warned that the gay lobby – which he labelled "the opposition" – had mounted "a giant conspiracy" to shape public policy.

Leaving to one side the ironic claims of the global queer conspiracy made by a world religion with a central authority figure - and ignoring the idea that the appearance of persecution is often generated by one group (say, Catholic bishops) trying to demonise and deny the rights of another (say, gay people) - even a total cretin would remember the large number of gay people (and people merely suspected of being gay) who were sent to die in concentration camps during the holocaust. Perhaps, just perhaps, that's the source of that occasional historical juxtaposition.

Particularly delightful is the Bishop's barely concealed disgust that a gay man has been publicly recognised for his charitable work instead of thrown in prison for being a hideous bender:

He went on: "In this New Year's honours list, I saw actor Ian McKellen being honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals, when a century ago Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail. "It's a very small group of people, but very active and organised – and extremely indulgent. The opposition know exactly what they're doing. We don't."

People sent to prison for being gay? Why, that almost sounds like some kind of persecution, you know.

While we're playing the game of remembering instances of "I can't believe it's not persecution" from, oh, almost five minutes ago, let's revisit the prolonged religious objections to the Sexual Orientation Regulations - which did absolutely nothing more than extend to gay people rights already accorded to the religious.

There was lying, further lying, the attempt to demonise gay people, and attempted blackmail, all amidst howls that a conspiracy of gay people were demanding special rights, even though those rights differed not one iota from those on offer to everyone else.

Elsewhere in reactionary opinion you can ignore, another Catholic bishop has demanded that books which criticise the Catholic church should be banned from schools, comparing criticism of the church to... holocaust denial.

Perhaps someone needs to explain to the bishops, in small words, why no-one takes the Catholic church seriously anymore, beginning with a sequence of recent press cuttings and sermons. If there's a conspiracy to undermine the credibility of the faith, it starts at home.

parasites

It's time for another episode of "thankfully these rare tragedies totally prove whatever it was I was talking about."

Meanwhile, here's a complimentary episode of "I blame the mother of the victim," though there's also room to blame the victim for having been out drinking. Nice. It's a two-fer.

It would be nice if at least one right-wing columnist could hold a murderer and rapist responsible for murder and rape, no?

red hand gang

Given the sporadic outbreaks of sock-puppeting in the UK political blog circuit, it's no great surprise that the same should eventually emerge in the arena of student politics. This story broke in Edinburgh University student publication The Journal at the end of February:

EUSAless, the online blog notorious for attacking elected officials at the Edinburgh University Students Association, was a "campaign tool" being run by several members of presidential hopeful Harry Cole’s campaign team, an investigation by The Journal can reveal. [...]

Alastair Sloan, press officer and spokesperson for Harry Cole’s campaign, has been secretly running the anonymous blog, alongside several other contributors close to Mr Cole, since November 2007.

In that time, EUSAless has been particularly influential in undermining public opinion of EUSA sabbatical officers Josh MacAlister, Tom French and Gordon Aikman while attacking Mr Cole’s political rivals. [...] On more than one occasion, EUSAless has attempted to appear independent of the Harry Cole campaign. In an entry dated 12 December 2007, it denies suggestions that Mr Cole was involved with the blog, while another post, dated 5 February 2008, attempts to imply that Mr Sloan also had no involvement.

You may be enormously, even overwhelmingly surprised to discover that EUSAless has been taken offline "for legal reasons concerning anonymous comments."

In other words, letting other people slur your political opponents is all fun and games until someone starts to hold you responsible for it. I can't help feeling that I've seen this strategy - of playing the victim when caught red-handed - somewhere else before.

blessed are those who take matters into their own hands

Following on from Mediawatchwatch's stirling coverage of "the little blasphemy prosecution that couldn't," I notice this proclamation from would-be prosecutor Stephen Green:

Christians will now have to take matters into their own hands when Christ is insulted on stage and on screen.

As it happens, our campaign against the theatre tour of Jerry Springer The Opera was highly successful, by the grace of God.

Yes, so successful that the show is now being staged in New York to positive reviews and appreciative audiences.

Blasphemy isn’t going to happen on stage in the United Kingdom, it’s just that unless and until this loophole is closed, Christians will have to find avenues other than those of the law.

In one respect, Green has finally caught up with the rest of the country: the law cannot and should not be used as a special bully-pulpit to enforce his belief system.

Slightly less encouraging is the call for Christians to "take matters into their own hands." Maybe Green isn't keeping up with current events, but we're generally not too hot on religious groups which take direct action to enforce their belief systems on others, let alone those who seek revenge after the event of a perceived slight.

Presumably "blessed are the meek" is thought no longer to apply in these circumstances.

standards

While Stephen Pollard may have reached the (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) conclusion that the recent Westminster protesters were "university educated idiots" and thus proof of a decline in standards, it's a little ironic that he links to Benedict Brogan - whose commitment to standards in journalism took this form:

They've unfurled two banners, one saying "BAA HQ", the other "No third runway". I picked up one of their 'planes': it's a photocopy of an email from someone at BA to a Dept of Transport official about something complicated that I can't be bothered to read.

Yes, incriminating documents that the government was forced to release under FOI are too dull for words - and it's just soooo tiresome when you're expected to do your job and read them.

I mean, only 18,000 people have objected to the plans for a third runway so it's not as though there's any kind of public interest element. Far easier to not bother to do the reading and assume a stance of righteous dismissal based in ignorance.

Anyone working in education may see a horrible parallel between Brogan and a certain variety of undergraduate.

That Pollard too fails to talk about why the protesters were protesting, or the contents of documents suggesting government collusion with BAA - presumably too boring or too complicated for Spectator readers - is another one of those little ironies you'll have to live with.

norman wells: when I do it, it doesn't count as brainwashing

Revealed! UK schools are not religious seminaries!

Ministers were yesterday accused of "brainwashing" schoolchildren by encouraging them to reject Christian values and have sex outside marriage.

Pupils as young as 11 will learn that marriage is unnecessary because you can have "strong and supportive" relationships outside wedlock.

And indeed you can. Apparently, teaching that marriage - and only marriage - is acceptable does not count as "brainwashing" because.. well, I'm sure there's a reason.

The revelation that schools are not obliged by law to teach a rather specific and narrow interpretation of Christianity (or any religion) above everything else is actually quite good news. However, the door is once more open for teh stupid:

The Department for Children, Schools and Families' teenage pregnancy unit, has funded a booklet, known as "a toolkit", which is aimed at secondary school teachers.

Critics yesterday attacked the publication, claiming that it promotes the view that there are "no rights and wrongs" when it comes to sexual relationships.

And there's the big lie that you're being persuaded to swallow: that refusing to condemn homosexuality, or believing that marriage doesn't work for anyone is the equivalent of having no moral values when it comes to sex - values which might prioritise respect and consent above religious approval.

Finally, the "critics" attaking this advice represent the most socially conservative view-point, one which is simply not shared by the vast majority of people in the UK. It is, with due nausea, Norman Wells of Family and Youth Concern:

It's verging on brainwashing," he said. "The forum is committed to promoting the view that there are no rights and wrongs when it comes to sexual relationships. The authors of this toolkit are clearly aiming to steer children away from a belief in moral absolutes and encouraging them to think everything is relative.

The only truly safe and healthy choice is to follow a clear moral code that keeps sexual intimacy within the context of a faithful and lifelong marriage.

Wells seems unable to cope with the notion that ignoring his personal belief system is not the same thing as lacking morality. In fact, given Wells' track record for accuracy and honesty, ignoring him might be a healthy precaution.

It would also be nice if someone would ask him if he remained virginal before getting married - someone so interested in the sex lives of others should be prepared to answer a few questions about his own.