British Right-Wing Pundits

in the sort of manner when you are deep into hard drugs and your dad accuses you of being a glue sniffer.

sorry to post two articles to this thread in a single day but this is another doozy
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/03/would-any-publisher-dare-to-print-lolita-now/

A million-plus-selling literary novelist of my acquaintance — fêted for penetrating the labile recesses of the female heart — was warned that he should not attempt to write his next novel, set in the first half of the last century, in the voice of a woman.

Got to be Amis or Jacobson right?

To answer my own question I started — as you do — by typing ‘Lolita’ into Google. An alert flashed up, which said, ‘Warning: child pornography is illegal’.

*Narrator: No alert flashed up*

fêted for penetrating the labile recesses of the female heart

good grief

spectator.co.uk/2019/08/hitler-should-never-have-been-allowed-to-write-socialist-doctrines-in-prison

Posting my thoughts about Christchurch & the media mainstreaming hate here so as not to drag the thread off topic.

Just to single out some of the hypocrites on the UK side here:

Matthew “book eater” Goodwin primly criticising Andrew Adonis for a clumsy Julius Caesar reference. MG chaired a debate entitled “is rising ethnic diversity a threat to the west?” and for affronted when challenged on it. All his research seems to come to the conclusion that immigration is bad.

David Aaronovitch attended the above debate and wrote an article last year called “it’s not racist to criticise Islam”, and has a LOT of previous on this. He is tweeting his regret today.

I’m sure the Times will have opinion pieces shared on this soon enough. The Times has a complaint upheld by the press regulator over its story about a girl being adopted by a Muslim foster family - the story was almost entirely false. They publish Melanie Phillips, who was quoted in Anders Brevik’s manifesto.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2018/09/the-times-muslim-christian-child-foster-care-tower-hamlets-court-ruling-ipso

It would be good if any of these people thought about which views are being legitimised, or how many incidents like this will need to happen for them to reconsider.

Yeah, like that's going to happen. Aaronovitch, what a dick.

With some of these people, and their editors, it's part of the fetishisation of "debate" above all other issues, the idea that these ideas SHOULD be in the mainstream press so they can be interrogated and wilt under the glare of rational argument and forensic knowledge. Some of the others are just racists or click-hungry in search of a quick buck.

Now, obviously there's an existential question for the former group there, because if hatred and bigotry CAN'T be defeated through enlightened rational debate then what is the point of newspaper columnists existing?

Fanny Dinklesrtein also on the board of a blatantly Islamophopic foundation and gets VERY het up when challenged about it online.

They all get annoyed when they're challenged with any of their crap opinions. They think they can just say what they like and everyone will agree because they've thought so long and hard about their wise words, it's like they've never even been on ILX.

It's also like they've never been to a comprehensive school or anywhere else where their brand of shot rolls downhill to

*Shit.

One positive that might, with caution, be drawn from the anti-Zionism/antisemitism/Labour debacle and now the NZ shooting is like, better awareness about how one (not explicitly or intentionally racist and violent) discourse leads into or enables another (which is) unless some careful conditions are built in. I've been reading the Hirsh article Mordy linked to and it makes the case well. The cultivation of certain atmospheres. Or maybe the sort of RW pundits this thread is about won't learn but will come to seem behind the curve on this.

The Aussie police keep saying how there is no immediate threat of terrorism, without mentioning the continuous and highly public torrent of undisguised racist shit from our own right-wing commentariat. Fuck the lot of them. I’m going to try an avoid whatever Andrew bolt writes about this because it will assuredly provoke me to violence.

Call me cynical but I think if there was going to be a teachable moment, either for right-wing pundits or society at large, it would probably have been when 77 mostly-white children got shot by a guy explicitly saying he was inspired by the British press’ take on race and Islam. The problem is that these are not niche views. Almost everyone will reject terrorism, but the idea of ‘white replacement’ and the incompatibility of Muslims with European society is absolutely mainstream. In he U.K., I don’t think Melanie Philips, Douglas Murray, Rod Liddell, etc are in the majority but the minority is sizeable enough to be financially rewarding for them and the people who employ them in perpetuity. Even if it wasn’t, there are enough people like the Gatestone Institute willing to fund it.

Newsnight actually gave Generation Identity a platform last night, what the fuck?

Additionally, even if it wasn’t financially viable for the Gatestone Institute, you can still rely on the BBC.

Something has plainly gone very wrong at @BBCNewsnight. This evening—on the day of the racist murder of Muslims in #Christchurch—they gave a platform to racist hate organisation Generation Identity. Would you explain your decision @esmewren? I’ll be making a formal complaint. pic.twitter.com/RdQcfxAeF1

— Tom Kibasi (@TomKibasi) March 15, 2019

Xp! Snap.

Is it just a ratings thing?

The most charitable reading

Newsnight has a bigger audience on significant news days so I’m minded to say they could do with being more responsible on those broadcasts. It costs them nothing and I can’t see how it’s worth it, publicity-wise, to wind up people who have a problem with normalising the fash. The GI creeps are at Speaker’s Corner most days rubbing up against nutters of all stripes. How difficult is it for production staff to just leave them there?

most nights newsnight struggles to post up a representative voice for the UK’s official opposition... so howtf have they got on a representative for thenppl who advocate the systematic ethnic cleansing of BAME people

and on the same day as christchurch too wth

has there been any good writing on how the emergent global far right could look to exploit the upcoming european parliamentary elections? this piece was a little unsettling - and I'm thinking about things like bannon touring europe pressing the flesh w various RW figures here, farage's visit to salvini last week etc. it seems like they're getting pretty organised. I'd be interested in reading any pieces that draw historical parallels with, uh, the 1930s too : /
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-facebook-elections

and - hopefully not being too parochial about this - but this wider trend is actually one of the reasons I'm v concerned about the way the 'resolution' to brexit is handled. thankfully I think our politicians do understand that if it is not dealt with sensitively and in a fashion which respects democratic principles, the far right feeds on 'betrayal'

My feeling is that the far right says they’re betrayed whatever the rest of us do or don’t do. I advocate calling out their entitlement issues whenever possible.

This is what the Spectator has published following a massacre of Muslims by a far-right terrorist #notshockinganymore pic.twitter.com/FdTuVfAS7h

— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) March 15, 2019

The Spectator still on their Islamophobia isn’t real tip.

Let us be very clear, what happened today was a diabolical and methodical ordering of words into a readable structure conveying a messages. it is most certainly not a sentence

wrt Newsnight, I don’t think there is a single cause. Esme Wren came in as Editor after thirteen years at Sky and seems to have intensified it but a lot of this stuff was present when Ian Katz (ex Guardian) was in charge, and probably before that too.

Ratings are one factor, the infamous dedication to faux ‘balance’ another. I think there are definitely people at the BBC who see Nick Griffin’s demolition on Question Time as a pivotal moment in contemporary politics (ignoring the fact it was probably Marmite that did for the BNP in the end) - without taking into account how the far-right has adapted and become more agile.

I don’t think you get to where we are now without a deep hostility to the left, though. Both in the sense of tying the rise of the far-right and Soc Dem politics into a false narrative about extremism, to which the Sensible Centre is a panacea, and in the Nagle-style ‘too much id-pol makes people fascist’ .

I don't understand how the Newsnight/BNP story came to be that way it is. I remember the BNP getting a boost, and indeed they got their highest ever proportion of the vote in the election after the broadcast.

Sunlight IS the best disinfectant. Doesn't stop it also being the best amplifier

I think it's mostly about making what they consider to be sexy, exciting television, if that helps the ratings that is obviously a good thing but I think it's primarily exciting for the programme makers, more exciting than talking to David Gauke again, for example.

the whole practice of "live television interviews" such as practiced by newsnight is generally reprehensible. they want to come up with "gotcha questions" and put people on the spot and in doing so overestimate their ability to control the medium in the face of practiced and experienced liars

the daily mirror running with: don't murderous nazi white supremacists make the cutest babies on the cover.

The Mail is running with ‘it was Facebook what done it’.

This Twitter argument between Abi Wilkinson and a bunch of people from LBC is something:

Hi Abi, one of LBC's producers here. James regularly calls out racism and Islamophobia (on and off air) including that of fellow LBC presenters.

— Sandra Glab (@glabsandra) March 16, 2019

Racism and Islamophobia are positive things to challenge and its great that one of the presenters we employ calls out the racism and Islamophobia of all the other presenters we employ.

the whole practice of "live television interviews" such as practiced by newsnight is generally reprehensible. they want to come up with "gotcha questions" and put people on the spot and in doing so overestimate their ability to control the medium in the face of practiced and experienced liars

― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy),

This is unfathomable to me - the seeming inability to deal with practiced and serial liars, to the point where you are wondering even after the show - do they even know they've been had?

Flipside is the really poor level of some of the people that do go on, a complete inability to deal with even the slightest tough questioning. Its one of the reason i think Left-leaning guests SHOULD go on Fox, its the best practice out there

Or else just keep Barry Gardiner away from any TV studio anywhere.

Hi Abi, one of LBC's producers here. James regularly calls out racism and Islamophobia (on and off air) including that of fellow LBC presenters.

— Sandra Glab (@glabsandra) March 16, 2019

Nick Griffin was out there giving talks twenty years ago about how the arguments needed to be about “culture” and “values”. And it has been for almost that long too.

In the modern day and age it’s engagement that drives numbers that drives profit, and the YouTube sea of recommendations is pulled from the people who spend the most time watching videos - conspiracy theorists and extremists to a man. Capitalism will stoke tensions, amplify bigots and count the profits with a # prayfor hashtag and a tear running down its cheek.

why....... are you hiring islamophobes?

Refresh the thread zebra :)

oh sorry see SV posted that upthread xps

extremely here for david aaronovitch getting a doing in tom kibasi’s mentions

Agree. The comparison with the IRA is obviously stupid. And afaik, after major IRA bombings, they weren’t given an unchallenged interview the night of the attacks. Aaronovitch obviously thinks these people have a point and it deserves to be heard.

— Tom Kibasi (@TomKibasi) March 16, 2019

Fucking hell! If I were him I’d be keeping the head down low, but there he goes jumping in with “genocidal racists have a right to free speech too!”

http://flavible.com/politics/map/polls?sid=1542

from 15th

Survation showing LAB with 4 point lead. YouGov has CON with 4 pointlead

oops wrong place

LBC producer admitting they employ racists:

Hi Abi, one of LBC's producers here. James regularly calls out racism and Islamophobia (on and off air) including that of fellow LBC presenters.

— Sandra Glab (@glabsandra) March 16, 2019

Refresh the thread xyzebra

bah it was so good it was worth doing again

it was worth it for the wins joke

board description imo

Yep. That's where Tommy Robinson, the EDL the BNP, Column 88, the Aryan Brotherhood, Stormfront get all their ideas and information from - @thetimes. You fucking idiot.

— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) March 17, 2019

DA is not taking the observation that the Times has published some awful stuff well.