Tag Archives: IPSO

Press regulator urged to act after continued failings in Jewish Chronicle reports

The press regulator has been – again – asked to launch a standards investigation over continued “serious and systemic” editorial problems causing “egregious” malpractice at the Jewish Chronicle.

IPSO has been contacted by 15 victims of inaccurate reporting by the newspaper – including This Writer – after eight further breaches of the editors’ code of conduct were made by the Jewish Chronicle following the regulator’s decision not to launch a standards investigation over an initial 33 such breaches and four admissions of libel.

In our letter, which is also signed by such famously-wronged individuals as Jo Bird, Audrey White and Marc Wadsworth, we say: “This was in our view a shocking level of non-compliance, equivalent to one breach in every four issues published over the period, yet the IPSO Board considered two training sessions to be sufficient remedy. For context, this would be the equivalent of a daily newspaper breaching the Code 91 times in one year.

“We found the decision of the IPSO board not to order such an investigation in December 2021 disappointing and based on spurious reasoning.

“Your letter of 23 December 2021 explained that your refusal was in part because of a ‘change of ownership’ in 2020, and ‘new editorial leadership’ in 2021. As you are no doubt aware, that change of ownership appears to have been driven by financial losses largely occasioned by libel payouts resulting from poor journalism. The change of editor in fact took place when its editor of 13 years resigned only 72 hours before IPSO’s meeting to discuss this issue on 14 December 2021.

“We read in the recent review of IPSO by Sir Bill Jeffrey that, in February of this year, IPSO declared that ‘sufficient improvements had occurred in both complaints handling and editorial standards to allow the cessation of active monitoring of standards’ at the Jewish Chronicle. This conclusion is surprising to us given that, between December 2021 and the publication of that report, IPSO had upheld three further complaints against the Jewish Chronicle and
the paper had also (to our knowledge) been obliged to take down one further article.

“Only two months after the IPSO board decided to take no further action against the Jewish Chronicle, and three weeks before the publication of Sir Bill Jeffrey’s report, yet another complaint against that publication was upheld, involving three separate breaches of the code of conduct and a finding that it had behaved unacceptably.

“To quote paragraph 19 of that adjudication: ‘The committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s conduct prior to the publication and the absence of a published apology as part of the remedial action which had been taken. The committee considered that the publication’s conduct was unacceptable, and their concerns were drawn to the attention of IPSO’s standards department.’”

We wrote: “We hope that IPSO will now recognise that the mere provision of training failed to resolve the serious and systemic journalistic and editorial problems at the Jewish Chronicle. Sir Bill Jeffrey wrote that an IPSO standards investigation is only likely to happen if malpractice is egregious and comes out of the blue or if ‘IPSO conclude that their engagement is getting nowhere and a stronger response is needed’. It is surely obvious now that IPSO is getting nowhere with the Jewish Chronicle and that a stronger response is needed.

“The Jewish Chronicle shows no signs whatsoever of improvement. Every one of the post-2021 adjudications includes reference to one or more of ‘significant inaccuracy’, ‘significantly misleading’ reporting, and ‘unacceptable’ conduct. If this continuing record of journalistic failure and malpractice does not amount to a ‘serious and systemic’ breach of IPSO’s code of conduct, we would welcome your comments and clear explanation of what exactly would be required to amount to such a breach.

“We urge you to recommend a standards investigation to your board, and to do so urgently – in weeks rather than months – before more bad journalism is published, more falsehoods are disseminated among readers and more harm is done to innocent people.”

My upheld complaint that the Jewish Chronicle had falsely stated that I had made “antisemitic” comments is the first item on the list of that organisation’s breaches.

A series of articles against Audrey White had falsely alleged that she had lied in order to be readmitted to the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn became leader, after having been expelled in the 1980s (all untrue); that she had received multiple warnings about bullying other party members (she had not); that she had falsely claimed to have complained to the police about a Labour councillor and a disabled pensioner (it was not a false claim); and that she had been a member of the Socialist Party (she had not).

The newspaper had to publish an apology to Marc Wadsworth after, in its own words, “We reported that Marc Wadsworth had spoken at the launch event for the ‘Labour in Exile Network’ (LIEN), a group that aimed to discover the addresses of Jewish Labour activists to “take care” of them, and that he was thereby complicit in a conspiracy to intimidate, threaten or harass Jewish activists into silence. We also suggested that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that such activities were criminal.” None of this was true.

It also had to publish a correction after stating that Jo Bird’s Labour membership had been suspended for a third time.

The letter has been sent to Lord Faulks, IPSO’s current chairman, and we await his response.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Failed health sec and cheating husband Matt Hancock loses IPSO complaint

Matt Hancock: this may have been the look on his face when he received the adjudication.

A failed health sec and cheating husband who broke lockdown rules he wrote and helped enrich his mates via a VIP PPE lane has lost in a bid to have that description ruled inaccurate.

Matt Hancock complained to press regulator IPSO over several articles published by the Daily Mirror.

They’re very festive, so This Writer will just repeat them here in full (because I can):

Hancock complained over the following pieces:

  • “No stranger to ridicule or reinvention” (2 November 2022)
  • “Shameful record of blunders” (2 November 2022)
  • “He’s no jungle hero… lying Hancock threw us all to the wolves” (11 November 2022)
  • “SOLIDARITY IS EMOTIONAL” (3 December 2022)

The articles included allegations that Hancock:

  • “presided over PPE contracts being handed out to acquaintances of ministers and officials, including his ex-pub landlord” during the Covid-19 pandemic
  • “broke ministerial code by failing to declare he held shares in a family firm that won an NHS contract”
  • was “a failed health secretary and cheating husband who broke the lockdown rules he wrote, doubled down on the lies he told, helped enrich his mates via the infamous VIP PPE lane, and couldn’t resist monetising the infamy he acquired as a result of his ineptitude at managing the pandemic”.

The complaints under Clause 1 of the Editors’ Code (accuracy) were all rejected.

The decision means we’re all free to use the same language about Hancock, and some have beaten This Writer to it:

All right, then!


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

#IPSO: toothless press regulator backs out of standards investigation into repeat libeller

A demand for action to stop a serial-libelling newspaper committing further offences has collapsed after the press regulator IPSO as good as admitted it won’t do its job.

The Jewish Chronicle has been found guilty of libel by the courts four times in the past three years – and was found by IPSO itself to have breached the Editors’ Code on accuracy no fewer than 33 times in the same period.

The Chronicle itself – including its editors and current owners – seems completely unperturbed by this evidence of prolonged wrongdoing.

As a news reporter of more than a quarter of a century’s standing, This Writer finds that amazing. If I had been found to have libelled anybody when I was working for the newspapers, my job would probably have been in danger, along with the paper’s future if the compensation award was large enough.

So I and a group of other JC libel victims led by former Labour councillor Jo Bird felt we had no option other than to appeal to press regulator IPSO for a standards investigation into the paper.

This would have meant that IPSO would consider whether the number and regularity of Editor’s Code breaches meant that the JC‘s editorial standards have fallen to an unacceptable level. If it were to find against the newspaper, then penalties – and measures to improve it – may be demanded.

IPSO’s board apparently discussed the matter and concluded that, because the JC is small and it has a new editor, an investigation would be disproportionate and unnecessary. Additional training will be enough, and the IPSO executive will review progress in six months.

Apparently, being small is now an excuse for bad journalism. I wonder if any of my colleagues in the left-wing social media will be allowed to offer the same excuse, if they are found to breach the law in similar ways.

As for the change of editor – how is this a guarantee of improvement? We know nothing about the newbie, who could be just as bad as Stephen Pollard’s record shows him to have been.

And of course all IPSO publishers are supposed to deliver training regularly to their staff as a matter of routine.

We are left with just one conclusion: that as a regulator of the UK press, IPSO is a sham.

As a member of the group that took action against the JC, I said today: “IPSO has refused to take meaningful action in the case of a member that repeatedly defies its authority, and it is clear that it will never do so. This sends the message to IPSO members that no behaviour by them could ever be bad enough to prompt even a formal investigation, let alone disciplinary action.

“We had pointed out to Lord Faulks that IPSO’s own conduct should also be subject to investigation. IPSO’s complaints committee publicly reported the Jewish Chronicle to IPSO’s standards department for ‘unacceptable ’conduct in November 2019, yet the paper’s spree of libels and code breaches was allowed to continue. This matter has been ignored.

“The price for this regulatory failure is felt by the public – both by those who are libelled and misrepresented and by readers who are fed falsehoods without consequence. That IPSO provided its response to us only after five months had elapsed underlines this disregard for the public. That it chose to do so at the height of the Christmas season smacks of the worst kind of news manipulation.

“The moral is clear: IPSO is nothing like a real regulator. It is a sham, a toothless organisation that always puts the interests of the press before those of ordinary people. If you have been abused in the papers, don’t count on IPSO to put it right.”

To this, I would add that it is clear the only way to gain proper redress against an IPSO-regulated newspaper that libels you is to take it to court and win a large amount of money in damages.

Yes, it is expensive. But my own experience in crowdfunding shows that members of the public are entirely willing to support their colleagues who have been wronged by people and organisations in positions of power and influence.

It can be done. And in the case of rags like the Jewish Chronicle, it should be – not just for the sake of those it has wronged, but for the sake of the facts.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Is IPSO incapable of investigating standards at the Jewish Chronicle? Or UNWILLING?

Jo Bird: her complaint against the Jewish Chronicle over inaccuracies in its report about her was upheld; now she, I, and seven other victims of its falsehoods are demanding an investigation into whether the paper’s editorial standards have fallen to an unacceptable level. And guess what? We’re not the only ones.

Remember the letter to newspaper regulator IPSO that This Writer co-signed, requesting a Standards Investigation into the Jewish Chronicle after it notched up 28 recorded breaches of the Editors’ Code and four libel defeats in just three years?

It seems IPSO would rather forget about it.

Tasked with providing a respond by August 12, the organisation’s first reaction was to send a ‘holding’ letter, to which one of my co-signatories, Jo Bird, replied with a list of seven questions.

She then received another holding letter from IPSO’s head of standards, saying she was going on holiday but would get on the case when she got back, and that Lord Faulks, the IPSO chair, would respond on his own account ‘in due course’.

Ms Bird chased this – only to receive yet another ‘holding’ letter saying the head of standards was now sick, and she has written again to say that the questions she asked (When will Faulks write? How many JC breaches has IPSO counted? And others) don’t need the head of standards to answer them.

We expect to receive another ‘holding’ letter.

Meanwhile, there has been another ruling against the JC, involving two code breaches: https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/ruling/?id=29092-20 – that makes 37 breaches of the law or the code in 37 months, including seven code breaches and one libel settlement in 2021 alone.

Some of us want to know what’s going on at the so-called press regulator. It should not take more than a month to work out whether there are grounds to investigate the standard of reporting at a newspaper that, over the last three years, has broken the rules – and the law – an average of once a month.

IPSO is itself owned and run by newspaper bosses and owners. Are they concerned that an investigation may create a precedent, setting a bar for investigations that their own newspapers could pass? Are they opposed to an investigation because they like what the JC has been doing? And are they embarrassed by the fact that the JC has put them in an impossible predicament?

Well, their problem is about to get worse.

Hacked Off – the campaign for a national press that is accountable and free of political and commercial influence – is launching a campaign demanding an IPSO standards investigation into the JC, and pointing out at the same time that there are very strong grounds for IPSO to investigate The Times over Islamophobia, The Telegraph on bad science and The Mail on a whole range of subjects – today, September 20, 2021.

Suppose IPSO has been gearing itself up to reject an investigation – or to run a token inquiry and whitewash the JC.

It seems to This Writer that such a course of action is about to become much, much more difficult to justify.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Jo Bird, the proposed standards review of the Jewish Chronicle… and me

Jo Bird: her complaint against the Jewish Chronicle over inaccuracies in its report about her was upheld; now she, I, and seven other victims of its falsehoods are demanding an investigation into whether the paper’s editorial standards have fallen to an unacceptable level.

In case you’ve been living under a rock since the weekend, the newspaper regulator IPSO has made yet another ruling against the Jewish Chronicle for failures in its journalism.

The right-wing rag was found to have wrongly reported that Ms Bird, a Labour councillor in the Wirral, had been suspended for a third time in late 2020.

Details are below, including her own statement on the ruling which points out that the JC crucially failed to mention the fact that she is Jewish in its account of alleged anti-Semitism by her – thereby omitting crucial context.

As you can see from the last paragraph of her statement, Ms Bird demanded a formal Standards Investigation by IPSO into the JC.

This means that IPSO would consider whether the number and regularity of Editor’s Code breaches means that the JC‘s editorial standards have fallen to an unacceptable level. If it were to find against the newspaper, then penalties – and measures to improve it – may be demanded.

Where do I fit in to this?

I’m glad you asked.

Back in 2018, the JC was one of a handful of newspapers that re-published a false claim from The Sunday Times that I was a Holocaust denier. There was no truth in the allegation, which was derived from documents leaked by the Labour Party, which was investigating me at the time; investigators had ignored their own regulations on fairness in order to fabricate the claims.

The JC had not attempted to verify any of the claims against me before it published them. I complained to IPSO and my complaint was upheld (although you wouldn’t know it from the surly line of clarification that was added to the story, to the effect that I had said the claim was false. The Sunday Times was subsequently forced to publish a lengthy clarification in which it admitted that there was no truth at all to its claim about me).

After Ms Bird’s victory was announced, I was contacted by friends acting on her behalf, to ask if I would be willing to sign a letter calling on IPSO to conduct the Standards Investigation that she had already demanded, in my capacity as another victim of false reporting.

I was happy to do so.

And that is the reason my name is attached to the following letter:

Dear Lord Faulks,

We welcome IPSO’s agreement to consider Jo Bird’s proposal for a Standards Investigation into the Jewish Chronicle and we urge you to launch such an investigation without delay. With 28 recorded breaches of the Editors’ Code and four libel defeats in just three years, it is clear that the paper’s editorial standards are shockingly low and IPSO’s actions to date have made no difference.

We have all either seen our complaints to IPSO about the Jewish Chronicle’s bad journalism upheld or secured admissions of libel from the paper. Unless standards there improve there will be more victims, while readers will continue to be misled.

IPSO’s regulations say a Standards Investigation can take place where there is evidence of ‘serious and systemic breaches of the code’. The seriousness of the breaches by the Jewish Chronicle is attested to in IPSO’s own rulings while the sheer number of breaches and libel defeats – taking place at a small publication that appears only weekly – proves the problem is systemic.

We would be grateful if you would circulate this letter to all IPSO board members and to senior management.

Yours,

Jo Bird

John Davies

Ibrahim Hewitt, Interpal

Jenny Lennox

Kal Ross

Mike Sivier

Thomas Suárez

Marc Wadsworth

Audrey White

Now we must wait for a response from IPSO, due by August 12, and then for its findings – if an investigation is launched.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Humiliation for two more newspapers that falsely accused Vox Political of anti-Semitism

The Sun and The Express have joined the growing ranks of newspapers that have been ordered to publish a “clarification” after falsely accusing me of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

Press regulator IPSO published the rulings against those publications on January 3.

So now, with one ruling left to be published the score stands as follows: Vox Political – 4, libellous newspapers – 0.

The full ruling against The Sun can be found here. It has been ordered to publish a clarification as follows:

“A previous version of this article reported that Mr Sivier had said it was “not a big problem” if Jews were taken off a list of Holocaust survivors. He has contacted us to say that he was in fact referring to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party as not being a “big problem”. The article also reported that he said he did not know whether thousands or millions of people died in the Holocaust; he assures us this comment referred to him not knowing why the SWP had referred to “thousands” of victims on a pamphlet it had prepared, and that he accepts that around 17 million people died.”

There’s a lot wrong with it – the main issue being that it’s not a matter of me saying the newspaper was inaccurate; the factual evidence proves it was wrong.

The ruling against The Express is here. That publication must publish this clarification:

“Mr Sivier has contacted us to point out that his statement “I’m not going to comment” had been made in reference to not knowing whether the SWP had referred to “thousands” rather than “millions” of Holocaust victims on a flyer, and was not a reference to his own beliefs about the number of victims of the Holocaust. He also says that his reference to there not being a “big problem” was made in relation to the general issue of anti-Semitism on the left and not in reference to the specific issue of omitting Jews from the list of Holocaust survivors, as the SWP was alleged to have done on the flyer. Mr Sivier denies making any comments that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic and we are happy to make this position clear.”

Again, the fact show that this isn’t about what I said or denied; it’s about the facts of the matter which the Express ignored.

IPSO’s ruling also fails, in both cases, on a major point, referring to a comment by the late Tam Dalyell that Tony Blair, as prime minister, had been “unduly influenced” by “a cabal of Jewish advisors”. This had been raised by a commenter on this website, who put it forward as an example of left-wing anti-Semitism and demanded that I provide an opinion on it. In response, I stated that it was impossible to do so, as the commenter had provided no background information to either corroborate or disprove the claim. Therefore, “(without further information) concerns that Tony Blair was being ‘unduly influenced’ by ‘a cabal of Jewish advisors’ may have been entirely justified.”

IPSO’s adjudicators, in their ruling, stated that “The complainant said that he had not intended to suggest that this was accurate, but that it might theoretically be accurate.” This is a straightforward lie.

I have written to IPSO on many occasions pointing out the correct meaning of my words, despite the fact that it is self-evident to anybody who reads them. I wrote: “I said that a person hearing such a claim may have been entirely justified to be concerned – unless or until they had further information to corroborate or disprove it.”

There is no way this can be interpreted as me saying Mr Dalyell’s words “might theoretically be accurate” and IPSO’s adjudicators, being in full possession of the wealth of information I have provided to them, must have known this. Therefore they deliberately lied in their ruling.

There is one adjudication left outstanding – regarding The Sunday Times, the first newspaper to publish the false claims about me. I have made the facts of this matter clear, so it will be interesting to see whether the ruling changes in that case.

But I am also aware of the passage of time. Libel cases may not be initiated more than 12 months after publication of the words that form the basis of the complaint. As I mention above, those words were published on February 4 or 5 last year, and it is January 5 at the time of writing. I wonder whether IPSO has been deliberately running down the clock to make it impossible for me to take these newspapers to court.

Such court action would also have to prove that I have suffered serious harm – in this case, financial harm – due to the damage to my reputation. This would be difficult to prove as my income from This Site has always been low. In addition, the number of people visiting Vox Political skyrocketed after I started reporting that IPSO had adjudicated in my favour – first against The Mail and then against the Jewish Chronicle. So it could be argued that the IPSO rulings have achieved my aim and turned public opinion back to my favour. It could even be argued that I have benefited from this affair. It would be a twisted argument, but that’s British litigation for you.

It now seems unlikely in the extreme that anybody genuinely believes me to be an anti-Semite, or to harbour any ill-feeling toward Jewish people based on their religion or ethnicity. Anybody professing such a belief is likely to be doing it for political purposes.

That being said, I will consult my legal advisors on possible action against IPSO if it persists in the lie, and I will continue raising funds to fight false claims of anti-Semitism against me. I may also consider using these funds to help other people who have also been falsely accused. These lies harm the fight against genuine anti-Semitism (which is increasing), and it is important to identify the perpetrators of these false complaints.

There are also other cases that I need to bring to court in the very near future. I’ll say more about that in a future article.

So these are important victories, and the failings of the adjudication won’t make any real difference. They support the fight against false accusations of anti-Semitism. And you can help that fight by contributing to my crowdfunding campaign – the details are directly below.

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Press regulator rules Jewish Chronicle WRONG to have called Vox Political writer ‘Holocaust denier’

What was it the Jewish Chronicle was saying about the Labour Party being an “existential threat” to Jewish people?

From a purely objective viewpoint (of course), it seems clear that the main threat to Jewish people is coming from rags like the Chronicle, making false claims about perfectly decent people like me.

It stirs up distrust in the community, you see.

And people like Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard should not be allowed to get away with it. This is why I am raising funds to take those who have libelled me to court, so a financial penalty can be imposed on them that is of equal weight to the damage they have caused. Regular readers of This Site will be aware of the existence of my JustGiving page, and I apologise for having to keep mentioning it, but if you have contributed already, please consider making a further donation, or ask a friend to do so.

The Jewish Chronicle had accused me of Holocaust denial, following up on an article in another newspaper (on which judgement is pending). I took the matter to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which announced a ruling. This happened two weeks ago, but I had to wait for the all-clear to mention the fact. Here it is:

The complainant said that it was inaccurate for the article to say that he had said he “could not
comment” on whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust because he ‘didn’t
know’. A commenter on the website had been listing incidents of anti-Semitism on the Left, and
had referred to a leaflet which he said omitted Jews from a list of Holocaust survivors, and put
the number of deaths from the Holocaust at thousands, rather than millions. In response to a
comment about the leaflet, the complainant had said “I’m not going to comment on ‘thousands’
instead of ‘millions’ because I don’t know, but the Nazi holocaust involved many other groups
as well as Jews, and it seems likely that the SWP was simply being ‘politically correct’”. He said
he was referring to not knowing why the leaflet made this claim, rather than to not knowing the
number of Jews who died.

The publication denied that the article was inaccurate. In respect of the ‘thousands or millions’
claim, its interpretation of the comments thread was plausible, and there was no significantly
inaccuracy.

The complainant had not expressly said that he “could not comment on whether thousands or
millions of Jews died in the Holocaust”. There was no reference in the discussion surrounding the
leaflet to “whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust”, because the leaflet had
explicitly not referred to Jews among the victims of the Holocaust. The publication was entitled to
give its own interpretation of what the complainant had meant by his comments. However, the
article did not make clear that it was reporting the publication’s interpretation of the
complainant’s comments. This represented a failure to take care, in breach of Clause 1(i). The
article gave the impression that the complainant had said something which he had not, on a
subject liable to cause widespread offence.

As with MailOnline previously, IPSO has let me down as far as punishment is concerned.

The Jewish Chronicle gets off with a light slap on the wrist: “Having upheld the complaint… the Committee considered what remedial action should be required. The publication had offered a clarification which set out the complainant’s position in relation to the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and on the meaning of his comments. This clarification made the complainant’s position clear, and addressed the article’s misleading presentation of his comments. This was sufficient to meet the terms… and should now be published.”

A full clarification, admitting that the paper had misled readers and apologising to me, would have been more appropriate.

And there are other outstanding matters that will now require a court ruling – which is why I am appealing for funds.

But for now, the score stands thus: Vox Political – TWO        Libellous newspapers – NIL.

Please be sure to share this information far and wide.

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

One down: Press regulator rules against MailOnline in Vox Political ‘anti-Semitism’ case

This is a welcome victory.

But in the words of somebody much nastier than me: It is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it may well be the end of the beginning.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld my complaint against MailOnline, that it misrepresented me in an article accusing me of Holocaust denial and other examples of anti-Semitism.

It is the first adjudication among five complaints against news organisations that made similar allegations against me on or around February 4. You’ll see the issues when you read the full adjudication below. IPSO was supposed to publish it on the organisation’s website last Thursday but, for some unaccountable reason, this has not happened. As I have assurances that it is not being challenged, I’m going ahead and publishing it here.

The ruling regarding the alleged statement about a “cabal of Jewish advisors” to Tony Blair is wrong; I did not suggest that anyone could be justified in suggesting that Mr Blair was influenced in such a way – I stated that anyone hearing such a claim could be justified in being concerned about it, at least until they were presented with the evidence on the matter. There is, therefore, a world of difference between what MailOnline – and now IPSO – attributed to me and the fact of the matter, and claims that the publication’s interpretation of my words is reasonable are false. I will have to pursue this in the courts.

The punishment is completely inappropriate. Ordering MailOnline to do something it had already offered to do – and which I had rejected because it was not enough – is frankly pathetic. MailOnline has been found to have been inaccurate in its reporting of me and should be forced to admit that it was wrong and apologise.

IPSO’s view is that “the Committee decided that the footnote clarification was sufficient on this occasion… [and] there is no requirement for MailOnline to publish the decision; it will be published on our website. Again, were the Committee to have considered that the breach of the Code was such that [publication of] an adjudication was required, the publication would have been required to publish this in a position determined by the Committee.” Weak.

The ruling in my favour over the false claim of Holocaust denial is very interesting, as the original allegation came from a leaked Labour Party report on me. Labour has raised several charges of anti-Semitism against me – among which, Holocaust denial is notable for its absence. But the Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the party to provide me with all the information it holds about me, after it was found to have broken the law by failing to honour a Subject Access Request I sent out in February – so I will see the information that led to the news outlet’s claim (or I will know that Labour has not sent all the information required of it).

That will have a huge bearing on the outcome of Labour’s investigation. As the party has been caught lying about me, this casts a shadow over all its other claims.

But the main benefit to come from this will arise when I launch my court cases against the organisations that have lied about me but are not subject to IPSO regulation. Having a ruling in my favour here will weigh heavily against my opponents in that arena.

But I need the funds to be able to do that, which is why I have a JustGiving page dedicated to that purpose.

If you want to help put an end to frivolous, lying accusations of anti-Semitism, please visit the page at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mike-sivier and donate some cash. I’m hoping to raise £25,000 and have a long way to go.

Here’s the IPSO adjudication:

Decision of the Complaints Committee – 02821-18 Sivier v MailOnline
Summary of Complaint
1. Mike Sivier complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that MailOnline breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “Journalist accused of anti-Semitism and ex Militant member among the far-left activists who have been let back into Labour after Corbynistas tightened their grip on the party”, published on 4 February 2018.
2. The article reported on “secret documents” seen by a different publication, which showed that the Labour Party had allowed “far left activists” back into the party. It said that the complainant was being given back his membership after being “expelled…over claims he had posted anti-Semitic abuse online”. The article said that the complainant “reportedly said it ‘may be entirely justified’ to say Tony Blair had been ‘unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers’”, and that he also “said he was ‘not pretending it was a big problem’ if Jews were omitted from a list of Holocaust survivors”. It went on to say that, according to the other publication, the complainant “claimed ‘I’m not going to comment’ on whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust as ‘I don’t know’”.
3. The complainant said that he had not been “expelled” from the Labour Party: he had been suspended while an investigation was carried out into allegations that he had posted material which might be interpreted as anti-Semitic – not for posting “abuse”. He said that another commenter on his website had stated that a Labour politician had said that Tony Blair was “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”. He said that, without further context, it was impossible to analyse this claim; he had replied saying “I would point out that (without further information) concerns that Tony Blair was being ‘unduly influenced’ by a ‘cabal of Jewish advisers’ may have been entirely justified”.
4. The complainant said that the other comments reported had been distorted by being removed from their context, and denied that they were anti-Semitic. A commenter on the website had been listing incidents of anti-Semitism on the Left, and had referred to a leaflet which he said omitted Jews from a list of Holocaust survivors, and put the number of deaths from the Holocaust at thousands, rather than millions. The complainant denied having said that he didn’t know whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust. Rather, in response to a comment about the leaflet, he had said “I’m not going to comment on ‘thousands’ instead of ‘millions’ because I don’t know,
but the Nazi holocaust involved many other groups as well as Jews, and it seems likely that the SWP was simply being ‘politically correct’”. He said he was referring to not knowing whether the leaflet made this claim, rather than to not knowing the number of Jews who died. He had gone on to say “Nobody has said anti-Semitism on the left doesn’t exist…But it isn’t organised and is mostly the work of aberrant individuals”. The commenter had then accused the complainant of “pretending that there isn’t a problem”. The complainant had replied “I’m not pretending there isn’t a problem, I’m just not pretending it’s a big problem”. His comment that he was “not pretending it was a big problem” had been referring to the problem of anti-Semitism on the Left in general, and not to the omission of Jews from the list.
5. The publication denied that the use of the word “expelled” was significantly misleading; the article did not suggest that the complainant had been permanently removed from the party, as its entire premise was that he and others had been readmitted. It nevertheless removed this word from the article and substituted the word “suspended” in its place. It also denied that the term “abuse” was misleading since the allegations related to the posting of content which might be interpreted as anti-Semitic. In addition, the publication said that it had accurately reported the complainant’s comments in relation to the “cabal of Jewish advisers”.
6. The publication said that the article was entirely accurate in reporting the complainant’s other comments; the interpretation that had been made of the comments was reasonable. It acknowledged that the complainant may have a different interpretation of the comments, and offered to publish a footnote clarification as follows:
Since first publication Mr Sivier has contacted us and asked us to point out that his refusal to comment on the issue of why the SWP flyer referred to “thousands” rather than “millions” was a reference to the choice of wording by the SWP on their flyer and not a reference to the number of victims of the Holocaust. He also says that the reference to there not being a “big problem” was directed to the general issue of anti-Semitism on the left and not the specific issue of omitting Jews from the list of Holocaust survivors. Mr Sivier denies making any comments that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic and we are happy to make his position clear.
It also offered to publish a standalone clarification on its website as follows:
An article on 4 February entitled “Journalist accused of anti-Semitism and an ex Militant member among the far-left activists who have been let back into
Labour after Corbynistas tightened their grip on the party” reported on allegedly anti-Semitic comments made by mike Sivier. We now understand that Mr Sivier denies that these comments could be interpreted as anti-Semitic and we are happy make his position clear.
7. The complainant denied that the article contained a reasonable interpretation of his comments. In reference to the claim regarding the number of Holocaust victims, his original comment had made clear, through the use of quotation marks, that he was referring to the use of the words in the leaflet, rather than to his own beliefs. The commenter had said that the complainant was “defending the indefensible, and pretending that there isn’t a problem” with anti-Semitism on the Left, and it was in response to this that he had said “I’m not pretending there isn’t a problem, though. I’m simply not pretending it’s a big problem”.
Relevant Code Provisions
Clause 1 (Accuracy) i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text. ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator. iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for. iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings of the Committee
8. The Committee noted that the article had reported claims about the complainant which had previously been published elsewhere, and had presented them in this light. However, the comments which the article reported on were publicly available, and the publication was responsible for reporting them accurately.
9. The article had originally stated that the complainant had been “expelled” by the party. The Committee acknowledged that, read alone, this might suggest that he had been permanently barred. However, the sub-headline indicated that he had been ‘suspended’, and the article made clear that he was eligible to be readmitted; indeed, this was the premise of the article. In these
circumstances, stating that he had been “expelled” was not significantly misleading, and there was no failure to take care over this claim. Similarly, it was not misleading for the article to say that the complainant had been expelled “over claims” of “abuse”: the suspension had related to allegations of anti-Semitic comments made online, which the publication was entitled to characterise as “abuse” when the basis for this was made clear. In addition, the newspaper had not stated as fact that he had in fact engaged in “abuse”, but had stated that he was suspended “over claims” of such behaviour. There was no breach of Clause 1 on these points.
10. In response to a commenter referring to comments by a Labour politician stating that Tony Blair was “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”, the complainant had written “(without further information) concerns that Tony Blair was being ‘unduly influenced’ by ‘a cabal of Jewish advisors’ may have been entirely justified.” This comment was accurately reported by the publication, and it was entitled to rely on the words the complainant had used. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.
11. The complainant had not directly said that he was “’not going to comment’ on whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust as ‘I don’t know’”. There was no reference in the discussion surrounding the leaflet to “whether thousands or millions of Jews died in the Holocaust”, because the leaflet had explicitly not referred to Jews among the victims of the Holocaust. The publication may have inferred this meaning from the complainant’s comments, but it reported this as something he had said. The article did not make clear that it was reporting the publication’s interpretation of the complainant’s comments; they were presented as direct quotations. Because the comment thread was publicly available, this represented a failure to take care, in breach of Clause 1(i). The article gave the impression that the complainant had said something which he had not, on a subject liable to cause widespread offence, a clarification was required to avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii).
12. As set out above, the complainant had suggested that omitting Jews from a list of Holocaust survivors in a leaflet may have been for “’politically correct’” reasons. However, he had not explicitly stated that omitting Jews from the list was “not a big problem”, as the article said Claiming that the complainant had said this, when his comments were publicly available, his represented a failure to take care over the accuracy of the article, in breach of Clause 1(i). Because the article gave the misleading impression that the complainant had made a claim that he had not made, it required clarification to avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii).
13. The footnote clarification addressed the two inaccuracies identified in the article, and made clear the complainant’s position with respect to these two points. It was therefore sufficient to address the inaccuracy and avoid a breach of Clause 1(ii). The Committee welcomed the offer of a standalone clarification; however, the footnote correction was sufficient to address the inaccuracies in the article, and the Committee did not require a standalone correction in this instance.
Conclusions
14. The complaint was upheld under Clause 1(i).
Remedial action required
15. The publication had offered a footnote clarification which set out the complainant’s position in relation to his comments. This clarification addressed the inaccuracies within the article, and was sufficient to meet the terms of Clause 1(ii). It should now be published.

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Sun forced to print front-page correction over Corbyn claim

Ipso made the ruling about the Sun’s Jeremy Corbyn front page that was published on 15 September.


Oh dear, how sad. Just when Rupert Murdoch is chumming up with David Cameron again, his biggest newsrag has been ordered to publish a front-page apology for misleading the public with a political story.

Bang goes any credibility the Dirty Digger might have had. It’ll be a blue Christmas (in more ways than one) for him.

And a merry Christmas for Labour.

The Sun has been forced to print a front-page correction over a claim that the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was willing to join the privy council because his party stood to benefit financially.

The press watchdog said the paper had made “significantly misleading” claims in its front-page story, published on 15 September and had only made an offer to correct them at the eleventh hour.

The Sun reported that Corbyn “will kiss the Queen’s hand on bended knee in a humiliating personal climbdown”. It said he had become a privy counsellor so he can “grab £6.2m” of state cash.

But, after a complaint from a former Labour party staff member, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) said that there was not a formal connection beteen Corbyn’s position on the council and the allocation of funding for opposition parties – called Short money.

It said, therefore, that the story was inaccurate, in contravention of clause one of its editorial code.

Because the misleading information was “repeated throughout the article” and appeared on the front page, Ipso ordered that notice of the adjudication also appear on the front of the paper.

Source: Sun forced to print front-page correction over Corbyn claim | Media | The Guardian

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Alistair Carmichael ‘leaked Sturgeon memo thinking it was true’

We already know that the civil servant who wrote the controversial ‘Memogate’ memo believed that it was accurate. Now the MP who leaked it has said the same.

The only people who have cast any doubt on the document are those who have an interest in doing so.

If the civil servant had not declared his belief that the information he had written was factually accurate – by which, let’s by clear, he meant it was what he had been told by the French consul-general – then This Writer would be more willing to give Nicola Sturgeon the benefit of the doubt.

The civil servant did express concerns that the consul-general had misheard the information he had imparted – but, looking at the actual content of that information, it is hard to find any way this could be true. There is no language barrier between three people who are all perfectly fluent in English, for example.

So this issue still comes down to whether you believe a civil servant with an impeccable record for honesty, absolutely no reason to fabricate any information, and no reason to believe he could get away with any such fabrication at the time he communicated the message he did, or three people who were directly involved in what appears to be a politically incendiary conversation, all of whom would have had very strong reasons for being conservative with the truth, if that conversation really did take place as recorded.

You be the judge.

Alistair Carmichael has told a special court he leaked a confidential memo that claimed Nicola Sturgeon secretly wanted a Tory general election victory because he believed it was true.

The former Scotland secretary told an election court in Edinburgh he believed the so-called Frenchgate memo was “politically explosive”, because it confirmed that the first minister wanted David Cameron to win in the belief it would further her quest for Scottish independence.

Carmichael denied he had intended to smear Sturgeon when he authorised his special adviser Euan Roddin to leak the memo. He said that until she forcefully denied it was accurate within minutes of the Daily Telegraph publishing it, he felt it revealed facts that were of critical public importance.

“A smear is where you say something about somebody else, an opinion which is untrue and which you know to be untrue,” he said. The memo “was saying something about Scottish nationalists that I believed to be true”.

The case centres on Carmichael’s decision in March to allow Roddin to leak a memo that allegedly summarised Sturgeon’s comments to the French ambassador Sylvie Bermann. The first minister allegedly said she did not believe Ed Miliband, then the Labour leader, was prime ministerial material, and that she would prefer to see the Tories win.

Carmichael said he trusted the honesty of the Scotland Office civil servant who had drawn up the memo, and the account Pierre Alain Coffinier, the French diplomat who briefed the civil servant, gave about the ambassador’s meeting with the first minister.

Source: Alistair Carmichael ‘leaked Sturgeon memo thinking it was true’ | Politics | The Guardian

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook