Akila Hughes Loses Vindictive Court Case against Sargon. Obviously.

There was an interesting bit of legal news last week. Akila Hughes, a left-wing Black American activist, lost her lawsuit against Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, the man who broke UKIP. I’ve blogged about Sargon many times already. He’s a libertarian, Trump-supporting, Tory Brexiteer, so I really don’t share his politics. They’re closer to Hughes. But this time, I think Sargon was actually right and that Hughes has only herself to blame for her defeat. Sargon was the better person.

The dispute goes back to the American presidential election campaign between Trump and Clinton. Hughes was a supporter of Killary, and put up a video supporting her. Sargon disagreed, and in order to show that millions of Americans didn’t share her views, took clips from it and turned it into a YouTube poop intended to satirise her. YouTube poops, if you are blissfully unaware of them, are videos where the makers take clips of certain celebrities or personalities and edit them to make them look ridiculous. There have been any number directed against mad conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, which I find hilarious. And the peeps on YouTube regularly take videos and clips of material by others and include them in their own to critique or comment upon this. This is allowed under the copyright laws as fair use.

Hughes didn’t see it that way, however, and decided that Sargon was infringing her copyright. So she sued him for $150,000. She also showed just how personally vindictive she was by declaring on YouTube that she didn’t care if this bankrupted Sargon and took food away from his children, because Sargon himself should have thought of that. But this personal spite has backfired on her. Judge Sullivan founded in Sargon’s favour, and has ordered Hughes to pay the Sage of Swindon $38,000 in costs. The other day Sargon received a copy of the lawman’s judgement, and posted a video about it on YouTube. And it’s not only interesting in itself, but I’d say it was also relevant for other, similar vindictive legal actions. Like those, in my opinion, brought by Rachel Riley and Tracey Ann Oberman.

The judge decided against Hughes because of her suit’s ‘objective unreasonableness’. I don’t think she had been able to show how Sargon had harmed her through the video, but had shown instead her own personal spite against him by stating that she didn’t care about taking food away from his children. He also ruled that she had acted from improper motivations. While many such litigants are able to keep theirs hidden, she had displayed hers by boasting about her intentions to her many followers on Twitter and social media. Hughes had previously led a campaign to have Sargon thrown off Twitter, and when this succeeded, claimed it was due to her. Having received a message from YouTube that the company supported Black creators, she took this as a sign that she should go ahead and try to get Sargon deplatformed from there as well. She also told her followers she wanted to bankrupt Sargon, stymie his attempts to crowdfund his defence and use copyright law to silence her personal critics and opponents. The judge also ruled that she was also seeking to publicise her suit in order to enrich herself. He therefor found against her. Sargon isn’t out of the woods, as Hughes has 38 days to appeal the decision. But it looks very damning.

I have to say that while I dislike Sargon’s opinions, I don’t believe that he is personally racist or a White supremacist as Hughes and his opponents allege he. He has spoken on his channel to Black activists, and shares their concern about the breakdown of the Black family. Not that family breakdown hasn’t devastated White and other communities as well. Some of his criticisms of Black anti-racism are, in my opinion, entirely fair. In one of his videos he criticised a group of Black activists, who were complaining because the Equalities Commission were compiling statistics on anti-White incidents. He called them racists, which they are. He has also criticised Black Lives Matter and the demands for redressing historic western slavery, when real slavery has re-emerged in Africa. He has quoted a recent article from a paper, which stated that there are now three times more slaves around the world than were transported from Africa to the New World during the transatlantic slave trade. This is grotesque and horrific, but you hear very little about it. Emma Maltby took issue in the pages of the I a few weeks ago to attack right-wing critics of anti-racism movements like Black Lives Matter for trying to use the issue to distract on the real problems of racism and racial inequality in the west. She’s right, but so is Sargon, and I don’t believe that the real slavery that is experiencing a resurgence would have quite the same exposure without Sargon and Conservative critics like him. My sympathies in this case are with Sargon, not Hughes.

And I also note certain similarities between Hughes’ case and that of Rachel Riley and Tracey Ann Oberman to sue Mike and other bloggers for posting a piece about their maltreatment of a schoolgirl. They accused the girl of being an anti-Semite and told her they wanted to re-educate her, simply because she put up a piece supporting Jeremy Corbyn. Shaun Lawson put up an article about this, which other people, including Mike, reblogged and/ or commented upon. Riley and Oberman therefore took it upon themselves to sue Mike and others, including Jane Heybroek in a related case, for libel.

Now Riley and Oberman certainly haven’t gone on social media and revealed their improper motives, but the circumstances of these lawsuits are very suspicious and, in my opinion, certainly look every bit as vindictive and spiteful as Hughes’. Riley and Oberman are rich celebs. Riley is able to afford the expense of a QC, and has insurance against her losing legal suits. Mike, like Sargon, has had to crowdfund his defence. Riley, like Hughes, has attempted to stymie Mike’s defence. Her lawyer argued that the difficulty Mike was having obtaining a lawyer to act for him during the summer months was clogging up the legal system, in what looks suspiciously to me like an attempt to stop Mike raising any more money to defend himself. Despite her own claims that she is not doing it for the money, she did not proceed against Shaun Lawson, who creator the original article. He lives in Uruguay, and apparently doesn’t have much in the way of money so it apparently isn’t worth suing him. Her suit against Jane Heybroek was abandoned when her insurers decided that they would no longer fund her suit, and she would have to start using her own money. In addition, Riley also appealed to her followers to suggest people she should sue, as the charities she supported needed money. This, as Zelo Street pointed out, comes close to the very definition of grifting. And so it does look very much to me – and I stress this is my own personal opinion – that Riley is using the lawsuit and its publicity to enrich herself.

And I am absolutely convinced that she is, like Hughes, abusing the legal system to shut down her personal critics. Riley and Oberman like to present themselves as crusaders against anti-Semitism. But their interpretation of anti-Semitism seems to be the perversion used by the Zionist fanatics: criticism or opposition to Israel. Israel, it needs to be stressed, is a country. And like all-too many nations, it commits atrocities. In the case of Israel, these are against the indigenous Palestinians. It is not by any means anti-Semitic to criticise Israel for its crimes. Despising Israel’s atrocities does not mean that one hates its citizens, still less the wider Jewish community. However, Israel and pro-Israel groups have and are using claims of racism and anti-Semitism to silence critics and opposition groups, such as the Boycott, Divest and Sanction campaign against goods produced in the occupied territories. The misuse of such legislation to silence such criticism is termed ‘lawfare’. And it looks to me very much exactly what Riley and Oberman are doing in their lawsuit against Mike.

As I said, I don’t share Sargon’s opinions, but I’m glad he won. Just as I hope Mike and the others will similarly be vindicated when Riley’s and Oberman’s suit comes to trial. I hope the judge also finds their case vexatious and vindictive. Because it certainly seems that way to me.

Rachel Riley Fans Bully Ken Loach into Resigning as Anti-Racism Judge

Okay, we’re in the middle of an unprecedented public health emergency, a global pandemic that is forcing country after country across the world to go into lockdown. The French passed legislation a week or so ago stipulating that citizens had to have documented permission in order to leave the homes. Earlier this week our clown of a Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, appeared on television to tell us that he was ordering us, with certain exception, to stay in our homes. The exceptions are key workers and people caring for the sick. You are allowed to leave home to get food and other necessary visits. But that’s it. Shops, businesses and libraries are closing, and there are to be no public gatherings of more than two people.

The crisis has brought out the very best and worse of people. People are going round to check on and run errands for neighbours in high-risk categories, such as those over 70, and those with pre-existing conditions that make them more vulnerable, like cancer patients. On the other hand, we’ve also seen mobs clearing the shelves of food and toilet paper in supermarkets and stores, hoarding them and so preventing others, like the elderly, sick and healthcare workers, from acquiring them. One of my neighbours was so upset when she personally saw this happening when she went shopping that she burst into tears in her car.

But one person the crisis hasn’t affected is Rachel Riley. She appears to be as squalid, mean-spirited, spiteful and bigoted as ever. She, Oberman and a female hack had tried to get Ken Loach and Michael Rosen dropped from judging a competition organised by the anti-racist organisation, Show Racism the Red Card, because she decided they were anti-Semites. The accusation’s risible. Ken Loach is a left-wing film auteur, who is passionately anti-racist. And that includes fighting anti-Semitism. Of course the Thatcherites inside and outside the Labour party and the Israel lobby tried to smear him as anti-Semite a year or so ago because he has directed a film attacking Israel’s barbarous treatment of the Palestinians. But he enjoys the support of very many anti-racist, self-respecting Jews in the Labour Party. When he appeared at a meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour, he was given a standing ovation.

As for Michael Rosen, not only is the accusation risible, it’s also personally offensive. Rosen’s Jewish, though this doesn’t bother the smear merchants. They seem to especially delight in smearing Jews, who dare to have the temerity to demonstrate that Judaism does not equal Zionism. Indeed, there is, or was, a bit of graffiti on a wall in Jerusalem stating ‘Judaism and Zionism are diametrically opposed’. This is an attitude completely alien to the Jewish establishment. As Tony Greenstein has pointed out time and again, the current Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis grew up in apartheid South Africa and a right-wing settlement on land stolen from the Palestinians, and led a British contingent on the March of the Flags. This is the annual event when Israeli bovver-boys goose step through the Muslim sector of Jerusalem, vandalising property and trying to intimidate the locals. Rosen is an author, poet and broadcaster. He was the Children’s Poet Laureate. I believe he has, like so many other Jewish Brits, lost relatives in the Shoah. He is a Holocaust educator, and appeared before parliament to testify about it. Like Loach, he is very, very definitely no kind of anti-Semite or Nazi. But because he dared to support Jeremy Corbyn, Riley and the other smear merchants attacked him.

Show Racism the Red Card defied the smear campaign of Riley and her fans. The organisation had received statements from people from all walks of life supporting Loach and Rosen. It therefore announced that they were delighted to have them as judges. That should have been it. But it wasn’t. Riley issued another Tweet claiming that Loach is a Holocaust denier. This was because Loach had initially supported another person, whom he believed had been unfairly accused of anti-Semitism. When he found out that the woman really was an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, he cut off all further communication. Riley deleted this Tweet, but the damage was done. Her fans and others, who had been taken in by her lie bombarded Loach and his family with abuse and threats. He has now been forced to withdraw as a judge.

Mike put up a piece commenting on this vile behaviour. He pointed out that Riley will continue bullying and smearing people until she’s stopped. He’s currently fighting a libel case brought by her, despite Riley not challenging the facts on which Mike based his statement that Riley had bullied a schoolgirl for being anti-Semitic, simply because she supported Corbyn. Mike appealed once again for donations, as justice is expensive. If he wins his case, it just might stop her trying to use the law to smear, bully and silence others. See his article at: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/03/18/sickening-bullying-of-innocents-shows-riley-wont-stop-until-she-is-made-to/

Riley’s tactic of posting and then deleting a Tweet that could be considered libelous and an incitement to intimidation is shared by another noxious character: Tommy Robinson. The arch-islamophobe with convictions for assault and contempt of court has a habit of turning up on the doorsteps of his critics, or their elderly parents, with a couple of mates, demanding a word at all hours of the day and night. He’s also handy at dishing out smears. Mike Stuchbery, one of his most persistent critics, has been forced out of his job as a teacher and live abroad, after Robinson and his crew turned up late one night at his house, banging on the walls and windows and accusing him of being paedophile. It wasn’t remotely true, but then, as Boy George sang so long ago, ‘truth means nothing in some strange quarters’. Robinson also gets his followers to persecute and intimidate his critics, and then also denies he has deliberately provoked them. He denounces and doxes them on the Net, posting details of their home addresses, which he then deletes. No, he wasn’t sending his followers round to threaten them. It was all a mistake, and he took the offending Tweet or post off the Net as soon as possible. It’s all ‘plausible deniability’.

And Riley seems to have adopted the same tactic.

Which shouldn’t surprise anybody, considering how closely linked the Israel lobby is with the EDL. Tony Greenstein, in particularly, has documented and photographed various occasions in which pro-Israel, anti-Palestine protesters have turned up virtually arm in arm with the EDL’s squadristi. I am not accusing Riley of being an islamophobe, but she’s adopting their tactics.

She’s disgusting, and it’s long past time when anyone stopped believing her lies and abuse. I hope Mike will be able to do this when he finally has his day against her in court. Not just for Mike, but for everyone else she’s threatened, bullied and smeared.

Score! Anti-Racism Charity Gives Riley the Red Card over Competition Judges

Despite Melanie Phillips and Ephraim Mirvis trying to keep the anti-Semitism smears going, there has been some good news. The anti-racism charity, Show Racism the Red Card, politely told smear merchant Rachel Riley where she could stick her complaints about the judges they had selected for a youth competition. The organisation had launched a competition for school children, and chose as judges the left-wing film director, Ken Loach, and Children’s Poet Laureate Michael Rosen. Both are eminently suitable. One of Loach’s most recent film, Dirty Pretty Things, is about the immigrants, who do the dirty, menial work we don’t want to, like cleaning. Michael Rosen is Jewish and an educator on the Holocaust. He has presented evidence about the latter to parliament. But Riley and her matey Tracey-Ann Oberman, and a journalist, Ebner, objected to the decision to appoint the two because they had a ‘problematic’ relationship with British Jews. This was, in my opinion, the insinuation that they were anti-Semitic. Loach has been accused of it before, because he directed a film or a play years ago about the gross maltreatment and dispossession of the Palestinians by the Israelis. Of course, like so many others so smeared, he is nothing of the sort. He was given a very warm welcome a few years ago when he was invited to attend a meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour. They’re a group formed to campaign against the anti-Semitism smears against the party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Unlike the Jewish Labour Movement, they really were all Jewish, although gentiles could become associate members, and they were members of the party. Neither of these stipulations apply to the JLM, whose members don’t have to be Jews or party members, but who somehow claim the right to represent Labour’s Jews. Loach and Rosen were smeared by Riley and her buddies because they had the audacity to support Jeremy Corbyn.

Now Show Racism the Red Card has issued a statement confirming that they are very pleased to have Loach and Rosen as judges. They lament the way the competition has been overshadowed by these accusations. However, they were contacted by prominent figures in education, the arts, sport, law, media, science and politics, who endorsed their decision and refuted the allegations against Loach and Rosen. They also thank the public for the kind messages of support they received from them. Loach has been a member of the charity’s Hall of Fame because of his work with them. The charity says of Loach and Rosen that

As award-winning icons in their respective fields, it is very exciting for us that Ken and Michael have agreed to be judges. But equally important is the compassion we have seen them show to people – of all races and religions – who our charity is here to help.

Mike rightly describes Riley and her fellows as bigots. They are, in the sense that they are utterly intolerant of the opinions of others. They have consistently tried to silence and deplatform supporters of Jeremy Corbyn by smearing them as anti-Semites, even self-respecting Jews like Michael Rosen. However, Riley isn’t concerned about real anti-Semitism from outside the Labour party. She is silent when people send her examples of such to her Twitter feed. Mike gives two such cases. One is a Tweet from the Prole Star asking her what she has to say about a video contained in the Tweet. This shows the islamophobe Tommy Robinson greeting his followers with ‘Shalom’ – the traditional Jewish greeting – and asking them to send money so he can continue his work of destroying the White race. Robinson is a gentile, and this is a reference to the notorious anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about Jews. Robinson’s probably joking, but this isn’t funny, just grossly offensive.

Derek Lucas sent Riley and the noxious editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, a Tweet from the Auschwitz Memorial. The Museum was appealing to Amazon to take down from the book store real anti-Semitic books. These included one by Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Czechoslovakia and one of the chief organisers of the Holocaust, and three by the Nazi ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg. One of these was an explicitly anti-Semitic piece with the title, The Jew and His Trace through History. And another was The Sins of High Finance, which you can guess is about the Jewish control  of capitalism. There’s no question that these books should not be for sale. But Riley has said that she’s not interested in anti-Semitism outside the Labour Party. And so she’s silent about these real works of anti-Jewish hatred, by men who were active in the Jews’ mass murder.

Mike is currently fighting a libel action against him brought by Riley, who wishes to silence him and a number of others for the horrendous crime of blogging about her alleged bullying and smearing of a vulnerable schoolgirl as an anti-Semite. Because, surprise! Surprise! – the girl also dared to support Corbyn on line. Mike states that it is important that he win, so he can very publicly defeat her and her wretched bigotry. He therefore ends his article by appealing for donations and giving details how people may give them, if they choose to do so.

It’s excellent that Show Racism the Red Card has stood up to the real bullies in this, and backed Loach and Rosen. I have no doubt that they’ll be excellent judges.

And Riley’s silence on real Nazism and anti-Semitism would seem to indicate that she’s the real bigot in all this.

See: https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/03/06/anti-racism-charity-defies-bigots-like-riley-retains-loach-and-rosen-as-competition-judges/

The Labour Party, Affirmative Action and the Problem of Liberal Prejudice, Part 1: Racism

This is another piece about one of the issues raised at the Labour party deputy leadership hustings in Bristol on Saturday. It could be controversial, because in it I question some of the assumptions underlying some of the pro-minority movements and campaigns. I’m doing this not because I’m opposed to them, but simply to try to correct what I regard are flaws and defects in them, which may be the source of other kinds of injustice and fuel a backlash against these programmes from the right.

One of the questions at the hustings came from a student at one of the city’s universities. They were upset at the appearance of posters saying, ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ around campus. Racism was on the rise, and they wanted to know what the candidates would do about it.

Now let’s be clear about it. Racism is on the rise. There has been an increase in racist incidents since Brexit. Yesterday the papers carried a story about poster that had been put up in a block of flats telling non-Anglophone residents that they should only speak English. If they couldn’t do this, it said, that they should hand their property over to an English family and leave for their countries of origin. One of the documentary shows following real police doing their job last night showed them tackling a racist incident. A Romanian family had been abused by their English neighbour, and the father had been attacked. One of the two female rozzers, who made the arrest, said that she didn’t feel that the number of racist people had increased, but that the racists had been emboldened by Brexit. Some of Zelo Street’s posts confirm this. The supporters of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson, whose anti-immigrant abuse and vitriol was uncovered by the blogger Jacob’sfriends, also seems to be strongly pro-Brexit. As were the right-wing posters attacking Rachel Riley for getting Katie Hopkins banned from Twitter, whatever lies Oberman wants to push about the far left. 

But the situation is complicated by the fact that many Whites do not feel themselves to racist, and believe that the anti-racism campaigns are racially smearing them. Over a decade and a half ago the Spectator expressed and tried to capitalise on this resentment with an article ‘Blackened Whites’. Another article stated that the only minority not welcome in central London was White working class men. The slogan ‘It’s okay to be White’ is another expression of this feeling. As far as I can make out, it started in America among Conservatives, who believed that Whites were being unfairly tarnished as racists. These Conservatives include Blacks as well as Whites. There’s a series of videos by a group of Black activists carrying a placard bearing the slogan as the confront liberals and left-wingers.

And unfortunately, they do have a point. I’ve read material from anti-racist and Black activists that seems to assume that if you’re White, you have to be racist and which does approach a kind of racial essentialism. There’s a hidden assumption that, through their history, somehow all Whites are racist and can only be stopped from being so through Black activism. I’ll admit that not all Black or anti-racist activists are like this by any means. But it is there, and it is causing a backlash against anti-racism programmes.

All of the candidates expressed their firm determination to combat racism. One of the female candidates – I’m fairly sure it was Dawn Butler, but I could be wrong – announced that she wanted to defend and promote the rights of all minorities. Not only did she want all-women shortlists, she wanted all-Black shortlists, and similar representation for the LGBTQ communities and the disabled. She, or one of the other female candidates, also said that they were also determined to stamp out misogyny.

There have been calls for greater numbers of Black and Asian MPs for a long time. It has been said that if the number of BAME MPs reflected the size of the Black and Asian population, there would be 50 of them rather than the handful there is at the moment. However, as many Black communities form a minority within White majority constituencies, there’s a tendency, conscious or otherwise, to choose White candidates. Hence there was a letter in one of the papers during an election in the first decade of this century by a Black writer, stating that Black people could represent them.

I am absolutely sure in many cases that this is correct. But this also raises the question of Black racism and double standards. If Whites can’t represent Blacks, then it could be asked if it is also unfair to assume that Blacks can represent Whites. And Black and Asian anti-White racism exists. At the same time that letter was written, Whites became the majority of victims of racial abuse and assault. Reading between the lines, I think that the majority of victims were still Black and Asian, but Whites constituted the single largest group of victims. The rise in anti-White racism was throughout the country, and the organisations set up to help victims of racial abuse made it clear that they were also going to help Whites. Since then, and particularly after 9/11, the situation has returned to Blacks and Asians being the victims of most of this abuse and violence. But anti-White racism is still present. And unfortunately some of the Black anti-racist organisations don’t want it recognised or tackled.

A few weeks ago, Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, put up a video about the Black and Asian organisations, which had written to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. They were upset because the Commission was also including stats on incidents against White British. This, they felt, could not be justified because Whites don’t have the long history of racist persecution as non-White minorities. This is an extremely dangerous view. The recognition of racial abuse and violence by ethnic minorities against Whites in no way subtracts from the racism experienced by those communities. It is merely a recognition that anti-White prejudice also exists, and needs to be tackled. If it isn’t, it hardly needs to be said that a certain section of the White community will look instead to the far right as their protectors. Racial tensions have also increased due to the mishandling of the cases of Asian paedophile gangs abusing White girls. In Rotherham it went on for years, and the Manchester police and local authority knew about it, and did nothing. They were afraid that if they did act, it would start riots.

I am very much aware that the majority of child abusers in this country are White. I am also aware that the abusers were secular individuals, and that they weren’t abusing White girls because they were Muslims, as the Islamophobes have claimed. One academic, who has covered the case, has denied that race was a motivation behind their assaults. However, it was a factor in the authorities decision not to prosecute the offenders for about ten years. They did not want to do so because they were Asian, and the girls were White. And this has promoted the feeling that the liberal establishment, as it is so considered, has no interest in defending Whites from victimisation by ethnic minorities. It’s a gift to organisations like Britain First and the EDL. Or simply the Conservative party, as it has moved so far to the racist right under Johnson.

There is also the problem that some of the alienation experience by Whites in constituencies with large ethnic minority communities, has been increased immensely when the parties seem only interested in choosing candidates from those communities. Following the Oldham riots, the Financial Times sent their correspondent, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, to the town to investigate. The Asian and White communities there were nearly equal, with the White a fraction larger. However, all of the parties – Labour, Lib Dem and the Conservatives – had chosen Asian candidates. And these candidates seemed less interested in the local issues that affected everyone in Oldham, regardless of colour, than in issues far away in India and Pakistan, most specifically the issue of Kashmir. A section of the White community felt ignored and marginalised, tensions increased and then exploded into violence.

This puts any politician elected from an all-Black or Asian shortlist in a difficult position. They are there to represent all of the community. But many will be on the list because they specifically want to help Blacks and Asians. In constituencies where Whites are in a minority, like parts of London, that could mean that parts of the White population feel discriminated against. Some might turn to the far right. Others may leave London to White majority in the ‘White flight’. And some will remain, but become alienated and cynical. It’s recipe for increasing racial tension, not fighting it. The situation is made worse by the network of organisations and schemes that are only open to Blacks and Asians and which exclude Whites in a system that the Financial Times called ‘liberal apartheid’. Black and Asian politicians elected through such shortlists will be seen as part of an establishment that actively discriminates against Whites. Individual politicians elected through such lists will have to show that they can also represent Whites as well. Which means that they also may be too cautious, and fail to give deprived ethnic minority communities adequate help and support.

All-Black and Asian shortlists will help solve the problem of Black underrepresentation in Parliament, but depending on the local personalities and organisations involved, they risk increasing racism by excluding Whites. 

 

Right-Wingers Attack Riley for Hopkins Ban, Oberman Blames Left

On Thursday, Zelo Street reported the welcome news that just about all of Hatey Katie Hopkins’ tweets had been removed from Twitter. However, when she was on there Riley had 1.1 million followers, and despite the ban there’s always the possibility that she’ll come back. Credit for her removal from the platform must go to Rachel Riley, who said that she had met Imran Ahmed for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, and asked them to review the presence on Twitter not just of Hopkins, but also of George Galloway.  Someone describing himself only as ‘That Chap’ commented that it was sad that Twitter had received many thousands of reports about Hopkins’ conduct, but only acted because someone famous had got involved. Dr Louise Raw took a more cheerful view, noting that despite Riley’s crowing, much of the work had already been done by dedicated anti-Fascists.

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/01/katie-hopkins-and-vanishing-twitter-feed.html

Hopkins’ banishment from Twitter is certainly no bad thing, but Riley herself is certainly no friend and ally of genuine anti-racists. Her benchmark for deciding someone is an anti-Semite is crudely simple: are they a critic of Israel and/or a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn? If the answer to either or both of those is yes, she accuses them of anti-Jewish hatred. Even when they definitely are anything but, like Corbyn himself and his supporters. These include people, who have suffered abuse and violence at the hands of real anti-Semites and Nazis, either for being Jewish, or for standing with them. It’s why Riley decided she wanted Galloway’s Twitter channel pulled as well. Galloway isn’t an anti-Semite, and has made it very clear that he regards the Holocaust as a monstrous crime against humanity. But his former wife was a Palestinian, and he has always stood up for the Palestinian people against the dispossession and the ethnic cleansing of the Israeli state, and so Riley has decided to libel him as an anti-Semite.

Mike has put up a piece today making it clear that on this issue, my enemy’s enemy is certainly not my friend. He asks if the CCDH have looked at Riley’s own record – at the way she stirred up hatred against Jeremy Corbyn, her comparison of the Durham Miners’ Band with the Klu Klux Klan, her false accusation of a anti-Semitism against a Labour election candidate, and her abuse and harassment of a teenage girl, and then libeling those, like Mike, who stood up to defend her. Mike says, quite rightly, that ‘Ms Riley gets away with all of this because she is an overpaid TV celebrity who can use her wealth to bully into submission anybody against whom she has a disagreement’.

He therefore asks his readers to contact CCDH and Imran Ahmed if they don’t think that real anti-racism campaigners should be consorting with Riley. The organisation and Mr Ahmed are on Twitter themselves at @CCDHate and @imi_ahmed. And you might also wish to donate to Mike’s defence fund to help him fight Riley’s false accusation of libel.

Removal of Katie Hopkins from Twitter shows my enemy’s enemy is NOT my friend

Riley herself has now come in for further criticism on Twitter for getting Hopkins banned. Zelo Street has put up some of the Tweets, and it’s clear that they come from the Right. They seem to be Brexiteers, Conservatives and Unionists, and supporters of Boris Johnson. But Riley’s bestie, the equally offensive Tracey Ann Oberman, has declared that they are all members of the extreme Left. Zelo Street comments

‘That’s a pretty right-wing crowd. But admitting that would never do. You think I jest? Here comes Tracy Ann Oberman. “Watching the Far Left have a twitter meltdown over KatieHopkins twitter ban at the hands of EVIL Rachel Riley and those of us who have helped Twitter assess these matters , is quite a thing. The irrationality and double think plus the outright LIES”. Forget what you saw and look over there!

Katie Hopkins is out there on the far right. So it is those out there who are screaming the loudest. But remember, ignorance is strength, and right is left. I’ll just leave that one there.’

See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2020/01/hopkins-twitter-ban-blame-game.html

Now there is, unfortunately, nothing unusual in Oberman’s actions here. She and Riley, it seems, always try to blame each and every piece of abuse they receive on the left, even when it is manifestly clear that it comes from the right and the far right. It’s so ingrained now that they don’t seem to be capable of doing anything else. It’s got to the point where you wonder if it’s simple misdirection, or whether Riley and Oberman really do believe that anti-Semitism is just something that come from the left. If they do, then as I said a few times before, they’re losing their grip on reality. They’re starting to sound like all the crazies, who believed there are secret government plots against them, or that the Communist Chinese are beaming messages into their head via secret supertechnology. Or that Blacks have a secret powder that transforms them into Whites, and Roman Catholics can control your thoughts via telepathy, so that you will start thinking about the Pope under their nefarious influence.

That would be bad enough, at least for the mental health of the two women themselves. But in some ways it’s actually worse if Riley and Oberman aren’t deluded, but are consciously and deliberately deceiving people by opportunistically blaming the left for instances of anti-Semitism and the abuse they receive.

Because that would mean that they are enabling the far right.

Despite the claims of the media, the actually incidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour party is vanishingly low. It’s much higher in right and in the far right. But there hasn’t nearly been so much attention on that because of the determination of the media and the political establishment to destroy Corbyn any chance they can get. Riley and Oberman have been an enthusiastic part of this campaign.

But ignoring it only allows this right-wing anti-Semitism to grow. The blogger Jacobsfriends showed how much it was prevalent, along with other forms of racism and islamophobia, in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s and Boris Johnson’s supporters. But Riley and Oberman have made it very clear they’re not interested in right-wing Jew-hatred. They’re only interested in it when it’s on the left, or they can shift the blame to the left. They are therefore tacitly demanding that people ignore it and don’t worry about its growth.

Even though its more powerful, and far more of a threat to Jews and people of colour.

Which means that despite getting Hopkins banned, Riley and Oberman are definitely not genuine anti-racists and may even be seen as its enablers.

Aaagh! Tracey Ann Oberman Is In New ‘Dad’s Army’ Series

Tomorrow, UK Gold is set to begin screening the first of its recreations of three episodes of the classic comedy, Dad’s Army. As you’ve probably seen from the adverts and the splash page about it in the Radio Times, as well as a piece about it on The One Show, the actual episodes were lost years ago. They were recorded on videotape, which was then re-used for another show. The scripts, however, has survived, and so they’ve decided to re-shoot them using other actors to replace the original cast. Along with other, younger actors, whose names I don’t recognise, is veteran thesp Timothy West, playing Sergeant Godfrey. It looks great, the actors look and sound like their brilliant predecessors, more or less, and have the right attitude. They say they can’t replace the original team, and are just being their understudies.

But there’s one thing that stops me from watching it. They’ve cast Tracey Ann Oberman as Pike’s mother.

Tracey Ann Oberman is Rachel Riley’s best mate in her persecution of bloggers, who support Jeremy Corbyn. Like Riley, she also likes to throw accusations of anti-Semitism around willy-nilly, insulting and smearing decent people simply because they’re Socialists, left-wing Labour party members and/or simply critics of Israel. And if anyone makes a few acute observations about her, she threatens them with a libel suit.

She’s been a firm supporter of Riley in her prosecution of the 17 people, who blogged about Riley’s bullying of a 16-year old girl with anxiety issues. Riley, amongst other things, declared that she wanted to ‘re-educate’ the poor girl, a term I’ve only used in the context of totalitarian brainwashing. When the child refused, Riley smeared her as an anti-Semite and managed to whip up a troll army into bullying and harassing the girl online. When Mike and 16 others blogged about this, Riley claimed that it was libel and initiated legal proceedings.

But when Mike challenged Riley to state what was libelous when she initially complained, neither she nor Oberman could explain why or how. They also haven’t challenged the facts of the case. This seems to me to be another SLAPP suit, in which the forces of the right attempt to shut down criticism through vexatious legal action. Action they know their opponents won’t be able to afford to defend themselves against.

Oberman herself was threatening to do something similar to Ash Sarkar, the head of Novara Media a few weeks ago. She was accusing Sarkar of being anti-Semitic, again based on no evidence or reason whatsoever, except that Sarkar and Novara have supported Corbyn and criticise Israel and the Israel lobby for the country’s maltreatment of the Palestinians. When Sarkar made a few pointed remarks about Oberman’s privileged background, Oberman whined that she was a ‘jobbing actor’, and that these remarks put her career at risk. She also claimed that she was ‘as White’ as Sarkar is. Sarkar is very definitely a dark complexioned Asian, while Oberman is definitely White. Of course, Oberman meant that she couldn’t be White, because Nazis and racists don’t regard Jews as White. Sarkar saw through that subtext, and said that she was not disputing that Jews didn’t suffer victimisation. They do, and horrendously, it’s growing. But as Tony Greenstein, Buddy Hell and many others have pointed out, Blacks, Asians and Travellers suffer far greater levels of racism. And some of this is perpetrated by the right-wing individuals, who are making so much fuss about the supposed anti-Semitism in the Labour party. And Oberman, as an ardent right-wing Zionist, should herself be very much aware that the original Jewish settlers in Palestine were Whites from eastern Europe, who despised the Misrahim, the indigenous Arabicised Jews, or Jewish Arabs, of Palestine and the Middle East. And there is also massive prejudice in Israel against Blacks and Black African Jews, such as those from Ethiopia. And Nazi racism is utter, murderous rubbish, so no-one should believe the bilge about Jews not being proper Europeans. Including spurious racist sputterings that they can’t be as White as they’re European compatriots.

I also know drama graduates and real jobbing actors. They’re immensely talented people, who work hard trying just to get bit parts in TV and other shows, simply because of the intense competition and uncertainty of the profession. They are most definitely not like Oberman, who was boasting a few weeks ago that every time someone criticises her, she gets another job offer.

So the news that the wretched Oberman is going to be in it puts me in a bit of a quandary. I’d like to watch it, but I don’t want to give any support to Oberman. At the same time, I don’t want to deny the other actors their chance to shine. Perhaps one way round this is to put in the equivalence of a swear box. If I watch anything with Oberman in, then I have to give money to help Mike’s defence fund against Riley’s fake libel action. That might do the trick and salve my conscience.

 

 

Kudos and Thanks to Mike and Supporters for £5000 Donations Raised in Single Day

Okay, I realise I haven’t put anything up for several days, so apologies to everyone, who’s been reading this blog and waiting. Your patience is greatly appreciated. Also greatly appreciated are the people, who sent £5,000 worth of donations to Mike’s crowdfunding site in a single day. Mike set this up to allow him to fight the threat of a libel action by TV celeb bullies Rachel Riley and Tracey Ann Oberman. Riley and Oberman take after the late, unlamented owner of the Mirror, Robert Maxwell, who used to threaten anyone, who said anything against him, with a libel writ. Riley and Oberman have been doing the same to everyone, who have criticised them for bullying a vulnerable schoolgirl with anxiety, who they claimed was anti-Semitic. Mike was one of those threatened by their pet lawyer. Thanks to everyone, who contributed. And please keep the donations coming, as he still needs to reach a target of £25,000 in case the gruesome twosome go ahead.

Thanks and respect to Robert Lincoln-Samwell, who defended Mike on twitter from attacks by someone calling himself the Caped Joo Sader. The Joo Sader is one of those sadly misled individuals, who still labour under the delusion that Mike’s an anti-Semite, thanks to the lies and vilification of the CAA, Labour Right and the press. He was tweeting, trying to stop others from supporting Mike, claiming that Mike had been expelled from Labour for anti-Semitism, and must be an anti-Semite because Riley and Oberman are Jewish, and that he published a comic strip depicting Hitler as a superhero. Mr Lincoln-Samwell refuted these accusations against Mike. He also told him that Mike had forced the DWP to come clean about the people, who had been found fit for work and died shortly afterwards. He praised Mike for defending for defending the poorest and most vulnerable in society, which included his family and people, despite being a carer himself. He then asked what the Joo Sader did. When the Joo Sader replied that he fought racism, Mr Lincoln-Samwell answered

So absolutely nothing that benefits the Homeless, disabled, low-income workers and Children in Poverty then.

which are bigger issues than Racism.

Mike is a bit more than just a Keyboard warrior mate.

Mike takes racism very seriously, and says that he thinks Mr Lincoln-Samwell meant with his comment that it’s not a big issue that the DWP and its policies have caused more deaths in the UK than racism. He’s deeply impressed and moved by Mr Lincoln-Samwell’s testimonial. He concludes his article thanking everyone for their help by asking them to keep donating, and promises to do the best he can with the money.

Joy as Vox Political crowdfunding page raises £5K in a single day

This shows just how much Mike’s work trying to bring the DWP to account for the deaths they’ve caused, along with the all the great left-wing and disability rights bloggers, like Tom Pride, Another Angry Voice, the Disability News Service and so on is massively appreciated. And that people don’t believe the smears of a right-wing establishment trying to smear decent people as anti-Semites. Tony Greenstein, a Jewish anti-Zionist and fierce opponent of Fascism and racism in all its forms, has said that this is racists smearing anti-racists as racists. He’s exactly right. It is. Greenstein has pointed out that none of the Labour right-wingers supporting the smear campaign in the party have lifted a finger in defence of the Windrush migrants illegally and unjustly deported by May. And one of Tom Watson’s supporters, Phil Woolas, actually ran a campaign in his constituency that was based on ‘getting White people angry’.

As for the supposedly pro-Hitler comic strip, ‘Hardboiled Hitler’, this is anything but. It’s an exercise in mock-heroic, a literary genre in which you present the object of ridicule in a heroic form in order to parody them by showing their faults even more clearly. In Mike’s case, Hitler tries to strut as the Aryan superman, but is a massively physically inept clown. He isn’t just clumsy, but also constantly farting. Which Hitler really did suffer from in real life. It was chronic meteorism, not helped by the fact that the Fuehrer was being given pills by his homeopathic healer which included Strychnine and human faeces. The strip determinedly exposed what a shabby figure Hitler was, and definitely did not glamorise him nor his vile regime. Those, who’ve read and examined it recognise this. But I guess it’s just too subtle for the close-minded and bigoted.

But thanks and respect to everyone, who’ve supported Mike through all this. You’re great, and your support is greatly appreciated.

Dodgy Lawyer Mark Lewis Ridiculed and Attacked for Threatening Tweets

Here’s someone else, who could soon be getting the banhammer from the relevant authorities, to use the parlance of a website that’s best not named. On Wednesday, Mike got back from a visit to the hospital with Mrs. Mike to find he had a tweet from one Mark Lewis, a lawyer claiming to be acting for Rachel Riley and Tracey Ann Oberman. He wanted Mike to get in contact with him, and was threatening to take out a Norwich Pharmacal Order to disclose his address. He also claimed he had screenshots of Mike’s tweets.

Mike went out and took consultation from m’learned friends, who told him not to respond. Shaun Lawson, whose article is at the centre of all this, posted up a series of tweets explaining what it was all about, and how Lewis was really trying it on.

Riley, Oberman and their legions of moronic squadristi were offended by an article Lawson posted about how they had bullied and smeared a 16 year old schoolgirl as an anti-Semite, and then did the same to her father. The girl suffers from anxiety, and her mass abuse on twitter naturally caused her immense distress. Riley, whose only claim to fame is that she’s the woman who puts the letters on the board on Countdown, and Oberman, a Z-list actress were annoyed that Lawson’s account of their trolling and bullying had been widely reblogged and spread across social media. So they started threatening libel action against anyone who did so.

This what their lawyer, Lewis, is threatening to do. However, Lawson points out in his tweets about this matter that legally Lewis doesn’t have a leg to stand on. The article consisted mostly of tweets made by Riley and Oberman themselves, and is not libelous. He’s just fishing, and cannot take out a Norwich pharmacal order. Although to me, from his deranged and threatening behaviour, it may be that he himself needs a few pharmaceutical orders. Also, threatening people over twitter is against the guidelines of the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority. He already has form for this, having been fined £2,500 before for this. One Tweeter posted the internet address of his record and the 42-page judgement that the SRA issued against him.

And he may well get another one, as so far he’s tried to bully 76 people, some of whom know the law here as well as he does and have duly reported him.

Private Eye has a very sharp response from dodgy lawyers, who make baseless threats: Arkell vs Pressdram. It comes from a case in the 1970s when one of the parties sent a legal threat to the other, who responded succinctly: ‘F*** Off!’

The good peeps he threatened on twitter were not so crude, but they did tell him what he could do. They told him he should be ashamed of himself, particularly as he was now threatening to sue a 17 year old girl for blogging about the Riley and Oberman’s bullying. His actions were ‘heavy-handed’ and ‘churlish’ and showed Riley and Oberman in their true colours. He was also called an ambulance-chaser, with someone mockingly saying that they’d had an injury in the last three years, which wasn’t their fault. Would he mind acting for them? Which parodies the adverts for such ambulance-chasing firms on daytime television. Another Tweeter, Adam Vickers, asked him if he would stand up for a Palestinian friend of his, who had been attacked and harassed for supporting the victims of Israeli brutality. Others said it was all bullsh*t, and he was a creepy little weirdo.

As for Lewis himself, he and his partner fled the other year to Israel, claiming that they were doing so because of increasing anti-Semitism in Europe. This is true of continental Europe, perhaps, and especially eastern Europe. But the level of anti-Semitism in Britain, while rising, is certainly nowhere near an existential threat to Jews. Which means that Lewis is either another hysterical paranoid, very gullible, or he’s talking more Zionist propaganda.

Mike also took issue with a report in the Guardian, which said that Riley and Oberman were preparing to take legal action against 70 individuals in connection with their campaign against anti-Semitism in the Labour party, and that Lewis said that these tweets against them constituted harassment. Mike commented that it was really the other way round.

His article concluded

Perhaps this is a serious attempt at using the law to bully perfectly decent people, but it is clear that the people behind it cannot be taken seriously.

I’ll take it seriously when I see a reason to do so. Right now, I don’t.

If Lewis continues flagrantly continues to break the SRA’s regulations regarding such bullying, will it be long before we can expect him to be well and truly whacked with the banhammer and receive a visit from Mr. Struckoff?

‘I’ Newspaper on Rowling and Riley Planning to Launch Blairite Party

Today’s I for 12th February 2019 also carried the news that J.K. Rowling, Rachel Riley and Tracey-Ann Oberman were in a meeting with former members of Blair’s staff to launch this new, Centrist party that has periodically been mooted for the past year or so.

The article by Jane Clinton, ‘Rowling and Riley ‘plotting Blairite party’, on page 26 of the paper, runs

Countdown’s Rachel Riley and former EastEnders actress Tracy Ann Oberman have joined forces with advisers from Tony Blair’s government and JK Rowling’s agent to create a centrist breakaway Labour party.

Riley and Oberman, who are both Jewish, have been attacked by Labour supporters for criticizing Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of the anti-Semitism row that has engulfed the party. Riley revealed last month that Channel 4 bosses ordered extra protection following her comments.

They met Blair’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and his former speechwriter, Philip Collins, last Tuesday at the London offices of Ms Rowling’s agent, Neil Blair. There were 50 supporters present.

Details of the event, confirmed by I, include the creation of a pro-European centrist party which would appeal to the left of the Conservative party and the right of Labour.

Observers believe its creation would be the death knell for the Liberal Democrats.

At the meeting, during discussions as to who should be leader of the new party, Rowling’s name was shouted out to applause.

The Harry Potter author has been critical of Mr Corbyn, but leadership is not believed to be her ambition. Instead, it is thought shemay offer financial backing or fund a think-tank.

The good peeps over at Zelo Street have already critiqued this piece of Blairite aspiration, and pronounced the new party DOA. They note that such a party has been mooted several times, the names of various right-wing Labour MPs have been suggested in connection with it. And each time take-off has been aborted or not even attempted.

They point out that people have been proclaiming the death of the Lib Dems since the 1950s, but each time such predictions have been greatly exaggerated. The article goes on to mention the serious matter of Riley’s and Oberman’s conduct, which makes them totally unsuitable as leaders for any new party. Oberman threatened to sue blogger Shaun Lawson because he mentioned her in one of his tweets and in an article. Why? Because Riley, Oberman and their followers had viciously attacked and smeared a 16-year old schoolgirl and her father with false claims of anti-Semitism. The girl, who suffers from anxiety anyway, was threatened and harassed. Zelo Street concludes

Well-documented and cringe-inducing harassment, to boot. If that is the depth of the political talent pool available to the new Centrist party, it’s going to look more like a puddle.

Right now, it looks as though this new venture is DOA. No surprise there, then.

See: http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/02/new-centrist-party-looks-doa.html

Mike was also on the receiving end of the wrath of Riley and her army of fanboys for a piece he did reporting Lawson’s article and Riley’s and Oberman’s bullying of the teenager. And yes, they tried smearing him as an anti-Semite. Rowling’s also tried attacking Mike over social media, and got her rear end handed to her as a result. If I remember correctly, Rowling, Riley and Oberman are part of a little circle with Z-list actress Frances Barber, Al Murray and David Baddiel, who believe that they are genuinely tackling racism. They’ve been quoted as joking with each other about whether this is 1936 or not. Of course it isn’t. If this really was anything like 1936 there’d be no question of it. Real anti-Semitic mobs wearing Fascist uniforms, like Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts would be goose-stepping into Jewish and working class areas trying to provoke fights and intimidate the people there. You would hear speech from bigots and Nazis telling everyone that Jews were an unassimilable threat, and that further Jewish immigration should be curbed. And the same Nazis would also talk openly about Jews being ‘the money power’ behind capitalism and communism and plotting to destroy the White race. And as for Germany, Jews would be progressively banned from getting jobs or entering the universities, their businesses closed, and themselves publicly beaten and humiliated. while trade unionists, socialists, communists, anarchists, recidivist criminals, neurotics, the long-term jobless, sex workers and other dissidents and individuals the Nazi state decided were undesirable and ‘dysgenic’ would be rounded up to be worked to death in the concentration camps. The Alternative Fuer Deutschland are a bunch of Nazi goons, and there is the spectre of read Fascism and Nazism in eastern Europe – in Poland, Hungary, the Baltic States and Ukraine. But here in Britain is very much not like 1936. Not yet.

Tony Greenstein has repeatedly pointed out that while there has been an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, Jews in Britain as a group are very comfortably middle class and most definitely do not suffer the real persecution of other ethnic minorities. For example, they are not being forcibly and unjustly deported, like the Windrush migrants. Other groups, such as Blacks, Asians and Muslims suffer far higher levels of violence and abuse. I haven’t heard any mainstream politician attacking the Jews or demanding that Jewish immigration be stopped. But there have been any number of Conservative and Kipper MPs making racist comments about Muslims and suggesting that they are incompatible with the British way of life.

As Riley’s and Rowling’s friends, Frances Barber also weighed in to accuse Mike and Owen Jones of being anti-Semites, while David Baddiel seems to have swallowed the Integrity Initiative black propaganda about Corbyn. I found a video on YouTube commenting on him declaring that Corbyn was an agent of Putin.

They’re spouting dangerous nonsense. The vast majority of the people accused of anti-Semitism in the Labour party were smeared because they were Corbyn’s supporters, members of the party’s left-wing, or critics of Israel. It was part of the campaign by the Blairites to hang on by attacking ordinary Labour party members. The Jewish establishment and the Zionists in the Labour party got involved because they support the Israeli state’s policy of ethnic cleansing and the construction of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That was clearly shown in the Al-Jazeera documentary, The Lobby, when Joan Ryan attempted to get an ordinary Labour party member thrown out as an anti-Semite because she had the temerity to ask Ryan a question she couldn’t answer. She wondered what the Jewish Labour Movement was doing to promote the two-state solution, and what would be done about the illegal settlements in Palestine if the solution was successfully put into operation. As for this country’s Jewish establishment, the Board of Deputies declares itself in its constitution to be a Zionist organization, and the other year former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs led a party of British Jews to the March of the Flags. This is an annual event where the Israeli equivalent of skinhead boot-boys march through the Muslim quarter vandalizing homes and property and threatening its people. Liberal Jewish organisations urged Sachs not to go, but he ignored them. They were ‘the wrong kind’ of Jews, you see.

As for the rise of Fascism in eastern Europe, this is being assisted and defended by Israel, whose supporters, like Stephen Pollard, the far right editor of the Jewish Chronicle, declare them to be ‘good friends of Israel’ because they buy Israel arms. And so are the remaining Jews of eastern Europe put in danger through lack of support from Israel. All while Israel proclaims itself to be the protector of Jews worldwide.

As for this supposed Centrist party, I can remember it being touted last year, when it was supposed to have millions of pounds in funding ready for, along with legions of corporate donors. At one point Blair’s son, Euan, was discussed as a founding member and possible leader. Then it all collapsed again. It had no members, no policies, and one of the founders walked out after a disagreement with the others.

All this Centrist party represents is continuity Blairism. Which means more privatization, more NHS privatization, more attacks on the welfare state, meaning more homelessness and starvation, and more corporatism. Which means that in exchange for funding, private industry can have their chairmen and senior management appointed to positions in government and the civil service.

Rowling, Riley, Oberman and Barber are a disgrace. The Centrist party Rowling and her friends Riley and Oberman are expected to lead represents nothing but further corporate exploitation and misery. It has collapsed several times before, and will do so again. No matter how much it is puffed by the papers.