Vox Political: Guardian Journos Outraged at Speaking Invitation to Editor of The Canary

Mike over at Vox Political today also put up another story about an attempt to silence a very able and outspoken woman of colour. This time it’s Kerry-Anne Mendoza, the editor-in-chief of the Canary. She’s another friend of Mike’s blog, and mentioned it and other leading members of the new left media when she appeared on Newsnight in 2016.

Mendoza has been invited to give this year’s Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture. These talks are organized by the National Union of Journalists Black Members’ Council in honour of the pioneering Black lady journalist. It has zilch to do with the Guardian-Observer branch of the NUJ, but for some weird reason they’re outraged that Mendoza’s been given this honour. They sent an email out to their members, asking them to send in complaints to the NUJ’s equalities people and were threatening to hold a vote.

The Guardian journos’ audacity as White, university-educated people complaining and threatening to vote to stop one of the very few BAME editors from giving a talk to commemorate a black journalist as part of Black History Month provoked an immediate backlash. Mendoza herself said

I’m a proud member of the National Union of Journalists and honoured to be invited to give the Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture this year.

It’s a sign of the entitlement of our establishment journalists that they would behave so poorly in response.

I think we’ve reached peak Guardian. A group of mostly white, middle class journalists trying to stop one of Britain’s only working class, BAME editors in chief from giving a speech for Black History Month.

And the Groan’s hacks also shot themselves in the foot with the timing of their outburst. It came just when a national boycott was being organized against the Guardian under the hashtag,#BoycottTheGuardian for the hours between 7 and 9 pm, September 27, 2018. This shot the hashtag campaign up to No.1.

And the peeps on Twitter also weren’t silent themselves about the Guardian and its presumption. Tom Pride, Aaron Bastani, Craig Murray, Alex Tiffin, Nadeem Ahmed, Jimmy Lacey and the MP, Chris Williamson, also sent Tweets wondering what the Guardian thought it was doing, alienating its left-wing readers when nobody on the right reads it. They deplored its political coverage, and said that while Britain needs a left-wing paper, it seems increasingly irrelevant. They also pointed out that it was Neoconservative and had done its level best to damage Corbyn and the Labour party, especially by running stories linking them to anti-Semitism.

Mike makes the point that the tweets attacking the rag’s attacks on the Labour party would have received far less attention if the hacks had kept their mouths shuts and their mitts away from the keyboard. He goes on to say that it’s not clear what will happen next. He concludes

It is possible that the Establishment will try to hush up the fact that there has been a huge protest against what can be seen as a clear example of racism by mostly white, middle-class university-graduate journalists.

If that happens, we’ll just have to run another campaign – bigger, louder, and impossible to ignore. Repression always incites rebellion.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/09/28/journalists-outrage-at-canary-editors-speech-invitation-leads-to-boycott-the-guardian-campaign/

Despite its reputation, the Groaniad isn’t a far left rag. In at least seven elections since the 1970s, the newspaper has urged its readers to vote Liberal/Liberal-SDP Alliance/Lib-Dem. The last time they did so was in 2010, and the result was the disgusting coalition between the Lib-Dems and the Tories. And they do seem to have a very strong Neocon bias. There have been articles in Lobster pointing out that the newspaper has a very long history of supporting Zionism and Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. And I have a very strong suspicion that they, or some of their journalists, were also busy writing articles defending and promoting Blair’s wars in the Middle East. From a left-wing point of view, of course.

They’re also massive hypocrites when it comes to the use of unpaid, intern labour. They got into Private Eye several times a few years ago because they published articles attacking the use of unpaid interns by big companies, while at the same time they were the newspaper that most extensively exploited such unpaid aspiring journalists.

Quite why they should take it upon themselves to decry Mendoza’s invitation to give this year’s Claudia Jone’s lecture is a mystery to me. I have no idea why they think it is any business of theirs, but there seems to be more than an attitude of entitlement, as if they feel that as one of the country’s leading left-wing papers, they somehow have some kind of right to decide who gets to speak on issues like this. It seems very strongly to me that they feel threatened not just by Mendoza herself, but also by what she represents. The Guardian, like the rest of the national papers, is losing readers and money. Private Eye has reported in its ‘Street of Shame’ column several times that the Guardian Media Group is at least tens of millions in debt. I think the real figure may even be over a hundred million.

By contrast, people are increasingly turning to the internet for their news and information. Mendoza’s invitation to speak shows just how influential the Canary has become, and, by implication, the new left media of which it, and Vox Political, are a part. The Guardian, like the lamestream media generally, is losing its audience and its influence. The previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, used to speak regularly at political gatherings and events. It seems that the people at the Groan felt that it should have been someone from their paper, or who at least worked in print and shared the lamestream media’s bias. And it really couldn’t tolerate that the Black Members’ Council had chosen someone different. Someone from outside. Hence the tantrum about Mendoza being invited to speak.

I’ve only heard her on the radio and TV, but she came across very strongly as an excellent speaker with a keen, critical intelligence, able to dismantle and rebut the arguments and lies of the right. I have absolutely no doubt that she is an excellent choice of speaker, and wish her all the best.

Nicholas ‘Fatty’ Soames Uses Homophobic Insult against Owen Jones. No Censure from Tories.

So much for the Tories and their vaunted ‘Respect’ policy. These are the people, who claim that Labour is riddled with anti-Semites and misogynists, all busily insulting nice young Blairites like Luciana Berger and Angela Eagle. Berger has received anti-Semitic abuse and threats, but they’re nowhere near as extensive on the left as she’s claimed. And one Blairite made up her tale of misogynist abuse completely. They exaggerate and lie because it’s convenient for them to say so, in order to cling to power in the Labour Party. And, of course, for their allies in the Tories to cling to power in government.

Allies? Really? Isn’t that going too far? No, not at all. As one terrified local Blairite Labour leader called for Tories and Lib Dems to join her party, in order to stop it being overrun by the ‘far left’, by which she means Momentun and mainstream social democrats, and the Blairites stand for exactly the same policies as the Tories – privatisation and welfare cuts – it’s fair to describe them as exactly that.

Jones had written an article criticising the mainstream media for living in the London bubble. It ignores everything outside the capital, and is dominated by groupthink. It is also full of mediocrities and incompetents, who got there not on personal merit, but because of who they knew.

Mike was a professional journalist, and brings his own considerable journalistic skills to his blogging. And he entirely concurred. And what Jones said is not remotely controversial, except to offended establishment journos. The Guardian and Independent have talked about how national journalism is dominated by London. Just as so many of the leading journos were also friends and neighbours of Dave Cameron in the Cotswolds. I noticed long ago that some of the stories that got into the national press about burglaries and murders were only in there, because they occurred in London. The same crimes are perpetrated all over the country, but these cases were only considered worthy of national news because they took place in the nation’s capital.

As for groupthink and classicism, you can see it. The mainstream media all follow the establishment line that unquestioningly accepts the need for austerity, and gets very shrill and upset when somebody else does. You look at the backgrounds of the main journos, and you’ll see that the majority of them are very comfortably upper-middle class with family connections to the press and media. Paul Dacre’s father was another hack with the Mail, when he was writing admiring stories about Hitler in the ’30s, for example. The editor of the Scum is an old Etonian.

And what makes this situation worse, though Jones didn’t mention it, is that the industry relies heavily on unpaid interns. The worst offender is the Groaniad, if Private Eye exposes can be believed. It’s very difficult for talented outsiders to break into, and they are being exploited by the hacks and mediocrities above them.

This was all too much for the establishment journos, who all dogpiled into Jones to revile him. And the odious Soames was in there as well, calling him by a homophobic epithet. Jones is gay, and Soames called him a ‘sh*tweasel’. According to the Urban Dictionary, this is someone who inserts his penis up another’s bottom by surprise without warning. So pretty much an anal rapist, then.

It’s an ugly term, and an ugly slur. Mike considers the possibility that Soames may not have known what it meant, and though it just meant he was someone who stabbed people in the back, in the conventional way.

Not an excuse.

Not that Soames is exactly a stranger to controversy. I can remember how he was all over the News Quiz on Radio 4 under Major for his monstrously bigoted comments.

But the silence about this from the Tories and the mainstream media is deafening. As Mike points out, you can imagine the howls of outrage from the Tories and the mainstream press if this had come from a Labour MP, and directed at a Tory or Blairite. Especially with the upcoming debate on anti-Semitism. But when it’s good, right-wing Tories making such comments, there’s nothing.

So much for the new Tory embrace of the gay community. Well, I can remember how, over a decade ago, backbench Tory after backbench Tory had to resign after making homophobic and racist comments. Cameron said he was going to clean it all out as part of his campaign to modernise the party. He clearly hasn’t, as Soames remark shows.

The Tories are an organised hypocrisy, and this shows once again how corrupt and partisan the mainstream press are. Get them out.

Musical Satire: Gauking Heads

This is another satirical song from Dutch Wogan over on YouTube. In it, he impersonates cabinet minister David Gauke singing a very pointed version of Talking Heads’ ‘Once In A Lifetime’. Gauke was one of those, who changed department in the cabinet last week. The song includes the lines ‘a new department every week’, and there is a definitely a hidden meaning when Gauke gets to the question, ‘Well, how did I get here?’ It also notes that Gauke is yet another Tory cabinet minister, who definitely doesn’t want to pay his workers, and so offers his staff instead ‘unpaid training jobs’. Enjoy!

Sainsbury’s Exploitation of Charity and the Free Labour of Others

Mike yesterday put up a piece about the anger provoked when the Camden branch of Sainsbury’s put an advert in the local paper for an artist to redecorate the staff canteen. The multi-million pound corporation, which had profits last year of £587 million to March 12, did not offer to pay the luck artist. Instead, they tried to get away with saying that s/he would get ‘valuable experience’ in the creative industries. It was posted on Twitter by Adam Hess, who also posted his personal response, “Hi Sainsbury’s, I now take food from you without paying because it is a great opportunity for you to impress me’.

See Mike’s article at: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/05/14/hi-sainsburys-i-now-take-food-from-you-without-paying-because-it-is-a-great-opportunity-for-you-to-impress-me/

George Monbiot in his book Captive State, about the corporate ownership of Britain, devotes a whole chapter to the supermarkets and their highly destructive effect on British society and agriculture. In contrast to what David Sainsbury and the rest of the supermarket CEOs would have us all believe, they do not create jobs. They destroy them. The areas in which supermarkets establish themselves have higher rates of unemployment than areas with plenty of small independent retailers, who employ more staff. These are also being driven out of business by the supermarkets. And unlike your local greengrocer or butcher, the supermarkets buy their stock from a limited number of suppliers. They also sell their food more cheaply only in more affluent areas, where the rich have the ability to go elsewhere for their food. And they are extremely exploitative towards their suppliers. They make very detailed demands, including for huge discounts, knowing that they can ruin a supplier by not stocking them.

Also shocking is their attitude to charity. Many of these supermarkets, like Sainsbury’s, like to be seen as giving generously to charity. But it’s all hypocrisy. Very often, as Monbiot shows in his book, the charitable donations do not come from the supermarkets themselves. They are made by the supermarkets’ suppliers, who have no choice. They are instructed to make the donation by the supermarkets, who then pass the donation off as their own.

Sainsbury’s and the rest of them are convenient, but in very many ways they’re a huge blight on society, exploiters of the worst kind. And their sense of entitlement to the free labour of others, as shown by their request for an artist to work for them for free, is part of the general demand for such labour, under the guise of internships. And they try to sell this exploitation to aspiring youngsters in exactly the same way, whether it’s an office post, a job in journalism, or as artistic project, above: it’s always good experience.

It’s time internships and similar freebies for the big corporations were ended, and they started paying their unpaid workers.

1898 Call from Russian Workers to Form Union against Employers’ Abuses

I found this leaflet from the Ekaterinoslav Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in Lionel Kochan’s Russia in Revolution (London: Paladin 1970) in 1898. It’s a protest against the appalling conditions and high accident rate at the Bryansk factory. If the direct causes of the strike were particular to late 19th century Russia, I was struck by how many of the issues are recurring in Britain in the early 21st century: starvation, low wages, refusal by the company to permit ‘necessary breaks’ – according to Owen Jones in Chavs, in one call centre workers have to put up their hands, as in school, every time they wish to take a comfort break. Unions and strikers were illegal in pre-Revolutionary Russia, and this government would very much like to go the same way. Boris Johnson has said that he would like to make strikes made illegal, if they were passed without fifty per cent of the workers attending the meeting, even if all the workers present voted overwhelmingly for the strike. The leaflet reads:

Every day we must hear, no here, now there, that a man has died and our blood-suckers continue to stuff their pockets, giving no consideration to the men who have died, whose families have lost their bread-winner and are perhaps dying of starvation. The whole day we work, pouring out our blood and sweat. Every minute we expose our life to danger, we have no chance to use an essential break, and when there are accidents they accuse us of carelessness! The greed of the capitalists, the long working day, the meagre wage – there is the cause of all accidents. Even the holidays which we have had until now, have seemed too much to these beasts of prey and they have persuaded the government, which is always on the side of the capitalists, to reduce the number of holidays in the year … Comrades, they have fooled us, they have fed long enough on our blood and sweat. Our only salvation can be Friendly Workers’ Unions, against which nothing can stand. Let us join together, comrades, in one general union and demand from the office new changes in the regulations. (p. 45).

People are starving in Britain due to the government’s reforms of the benefits’ systems. Mike over at Vox Political has launched an FOI request and went to court to get the government to release the precise numbers of figures for those who are dying. It’s about 73 people a month, although it may well be much higher. And the Work Programme and various workfare policies, traineeships and unpaid internships are all about supplying industry with unpaid labour. It’s about time all this was stopped, and working people stood together to unite to force the Tories out and overturn their vile policies.