Tag Archives: Jeremy

Has Rachel Riley libelled defenders of Michael Rosen? Will they sue?

Michael Rosen.

It seems Rachel Riley is playing her old games again – and this one appears to be in very poor taste.

She has responded to a piece of – journalism? – by someone called David Hirsh, raking over the behaviour of a person who is no longer alive and therefore unable to speak for himself. It is not clear to This Writer whether the deceased’s family were involved.

The piece about Peter Newbon, who was a leading figure in an organisation known as Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS), appears to have made certain claims about the beloved children’s author and poet, Michael Rosen – on which Ms Riley commented as follows:

Note that she did not provide any information explaining the reason her “stomach turns” at the mention of Mr Rosen. This is familiar behaviour; by allowing others to draw their own conclusions, it may be possible to deny those conclusions later.

But is it possible to work out what one may reasonably deduce is the reason Mr Rosen has such an effect on Ms Riley’s digestive system? I have not read the Hirsh article – but I believe I have enough information from the following exchange between him and Mr Rosen:

(I’m not going to refer here to the Jamie Wilson court case, in which Newbon was also involved. If you want more information on that, details are available here.)

So the claim is that the late Mr Newbon was bullied by people including Mr Rosen, and that this led to his suicide.

In that case, we need to examine how Michael Rosen knew Peter Newbon. And we find this:

The image, tweeted by Newbon, shows former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn apparently reading the anti-Semitic bookĀ The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to children.

In fact, he had been reading Mr Rosen’s bookĀ We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and the words with which Newbon accompanied the image paraphrase that work: “Oh no! A J-…er, I mean a ZIONIST! A nasty, horrible Zionist! We can’t go over him, we can’t go under him, we’ll have to make an effigy…” instead of: “We can’t go over it, we can’t under it. Oh no! We have to go through itā€.

Hirsh has said Newbon did not create the image; he merely shared it. But every share is a new publication of the image and any message it conveys. Furthermore, the words above the image appear to have been typed in by Newbon. Were they his words, or those of whoever created the meme? Either way, if he typed them into his tweet, we may infer that he agreed with the message thatĀ they convey.

Mr Rosen had contacted Newbon’s employer, Northumbria University, to complain about its lecturer sharing the image, which he described as “loathesome and antisemitic” – and he was not alone; the university received around 4,000 complaints in total.

I think we may reasonably infer that this is the “bullying” to which Hirsh referred. How he can describe Mr Rosen’s complaint in that manner, or as “antisemitic”, is a mystery as Mr Rosen, being Jewish, may quite clearly be seen as the victim of anti-Semitism here; the tweeted image links him – a Jew – with an anti-Semitic book which was once said to have been written by Jews and which makes claims calculated to provoke hatred against Jews.

I have no information on Newbon’s own ethnicity. If he was Jewish himself, then for Mr Rosen to have been anti-Semitic towards him, Mr Rosen’s complaint would have to have exhibited hatred towards him because he was a Jew – and we have no evidence of this.

And a complaint about a tweet that may clearly be taken as an attack on Mr Rosen may not be described as bullying in any way. Or so it seems to This Writer. It seems to me, based on the evidence, thatĀ he is the victim:

So I can find no clear basis for Ms Riley’s apparent comment that the Hirsh article reminds her of any reason her “stomach turns” at the mention of Mr Rosen.

Her tweet certainly appears to have turned the stomachs of people who enjoy his work or have personal experience of him. A few hours after her initial tweet, Ms Riley followed it up with this:

To This Writer, the comment is very strange – firstly because I can only find two responses to her previous tweet on the subject, that criticise her. Is that really enough for her to pass comment as though there was a large backlash?

Secondly, it does not make grammatical sense – and this leads me to suggest that it may be taken to mean something else: not that she isn’t bothered by people she claims are antisemites being upset at her comment about Mr Rosen,Ā but that if people do criticise her for that comment, she is not bothered because they are all antisemites.

Again, there appears to be no evidence to support a claim that every respondent is an anti-Semite.

It strikes This Writer that these tweets may create something of a difficulty for Ms Riley, in legal terms, because anyone defending Mr Rosen in response to her comments – either before or after her “Antisemites upset again” tweet – may reasonably infer that tweet to refer to them. And they may consider it to be libellous against them.

So not only is it possible that she and her employers at Channel 4 may receive a complaint about her behaviour from Mr Rosen – they already have from at least one other person…

… but she may also receive a “letter before action”, either individually or as a group, from a large number of people, some of them celebrities in their own right.

Oh, and Jeremy Corbyn might also consider getting involved, considering the fact that he was also attacked in that doctored image, that an innocent person has suffered harm because of it, because of the Hirsh article and because of the Riley tweets, and that Hirsh himself has challenged him to take such action:

It seems clear that this kind of behaviour – that may harm the reputations and ruin the lives of good people – may continue until somebody with the wherewithal finally puts a stop to it.

Is it forlorn to hope that this could be the catalyst for that to happen?

While we wait to find out, please remember that I am one of those whose reputation and life has been harmed – and I’m still trying to pay my legal team after my own four-year battle with Ms Riley. If you have been moved by the story above, then please help in any of the following ways:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don’t forget that if you’re having trouble, or simply don’t like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it’s for the crowdfund!

ADDITIONAL NOTE: a few people onĀ Facebook have suggested that people could not sue Ms Riley because “in order for a libel action to stand, the court has to be convinced that it could be interpreted as referring to a specific individual”. This is not true.

From my copy of Essential Law for Journalists:

“The test of whether the words identified the person suing is whether they would reasonably lead people acquainted with him to believe that he was the person referred to.” So, for example, Robin Ince (of The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4) may have a prime facie case because he published a popular tweet defending Michael Rosen and Ms Riley tweeted words that may be taken as meaning anyone supporting him is an anti-Semite.

To continue: “During the late 1980s and 1990s the Police Federation, representing junior police officers, made good use of this aspect of the libel law in many actions against newspapers on behalf of their members… Many of the officers were not named… The test of identification is not whether the general reader knew who was referred to, but whether some individuals… did.”

Also, the person suing doesn’t even have to prove that the words they’re complaining about actually refer to them: “A journalist sued successfully over an article… which neither named nor described him. A person reading the article carefully would have noted various details which were inconsistent with a reference to [him]. However, the court said ordinary people often skimmed through such articles casually, not expecting a high degree of accuracy. If, as a result of such reading, they reached the conclusion that the article referred to the plaintiff, then identification was proved.”


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The news in tweets: Thursday, July 13, 2023

Martin Lewis: he’s really not happy with Oliver Dowden.

This one’s for all of you who want some real news alongside your daily revelations about “BBC presenter” – or who simply didn’t care about that ‘dead cat’ story.

Martin Lewis corrects the record after Oliver Dowden falsely claimed he supported the Tories

Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis does not take kindly to suggestions that he supports any political party over the others.

So it was only to be expected that, after Oliver Dowden claimed he supported the government on a point in the government’s Mortgage Charter, he would be… miffed.

Here’s what he had to say:

For those of you who can’t (or can’t be bothered to) click on “Show more”, he continued: ‘…benches.”

‘I am party independent. Iā€™ve had constructive conversations with both the Chancellor and the Shadow Chancellor about mortgage support.

‘I do not appreciate being used in party-political spats. It is correct that I support those specific measures in the mortgage charter, mainly as they were my suggestions (so in a way ā€˜they’reā€™ supporting what ā€˜Iā€™ said) and both major parties proposed similar – but that should not be taken as a read-across to favouring any party, even just within the mortgage agenda.’

This Writer wondered, after PMQs, how many falsehoods Dowden would be caught out on in deputy Prime Minister’s Questions this week. I named two at the time.

This is another. How many more were there?

Join the demonstration to save ticket offices

This is happeningĀ todayĀ (Thursday, July 12, 2023). Information courtesy of the Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn:

The government’s plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in England – this latest attack on railway workers – puts thousands of jobs at risk and, if these proposed changes go ahead, there will be serious implications on millions of elderly, disabled and vulnerable commuters who rely on the personal touch of a ticket office to arrange and support their travel.

We must resist these closures.

Tomorrow, the RMT is hosting a national day of action, leafleting and speaking to commuters outside train stations up and down the country. And in London there will be a demo outside Kings Cross with speakers including Jeremy Corbyn. Together, we must demand that ticket offices remain open – click here to find your nearest action.

The opposition to these ticket office closures has been immense, with commuters writing in to local papers, posting on social media and making it known that they oppose these closures. The government have also opened a consultation on these closures which closes in just two weeks. If you haven’t already, please fill in the consultation – click here, select your local train station and make your views known.

Write to your MP

You can also write to your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Parliament and support the campaign to save our ticket offices. You can use this letter-writing tool, created by our comrades at the RMT, which only takes a few minutes to fill out. As the consultation period is brief, it is absolutely vital that we ensure this issue is at the very top of the parliamentary agenda in the weeks to come.Ā  Click on the link and demand your MP stands up for railway workers and the millions of commuters who rely on them to support their journeys.

Sign the petition to make sure the Tories stick to the law – and don’t send any refugees to Rwanda

Are we seriously being asked to believe nobody in Boris Johnson’s office or the government knows how to switch on a phone?

Look at this, which I believe is from the Covid Inquiry. Simon Case is the Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service:

“I thought it was handed over” is legal-speak to avoid actually saying anything.

In fact, we all know the phone wasn’t handed over. Apparently Boris Johnson has a ‘team’, alongside people from – oh dear – the Cabinet Office, trying to switch on ‘Phone 1’, but none of them know how to do it.

They say they fear security breaches, because the phone’s number was public knowledge for 15 years before Johnson twigged that this might be a bad idea and switched it off in April 2021 (if you believe in that sort of thing).

In fact, if anyone interested in breaching the UK’s security wanted to hack that phone, they would have done it long before Johnson got near the “off” switch. Also, any compromising information in it should have been changed long ago. There really is no reason not to simply switch it back on.

Alternatively, since WhatsApp messages aren’t actually stored on the phone anyway, why don’t they all just access the cloud storage that actually does hold that information, as people (including This Writer) have been telling them to do for many months?

While the government was defending itself for painting over mural at one child refugee centre, it was painting over other murals at other centres

This is cruelty for its own sake:

Lords defeat Tory government again over Illegal Migration Bill


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The news in tweets: Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Who thought we could see this again? It perfectly sums up Boris Johnson’s behaviour towards the Covid Inquiry over his mobile phone and the WhatsApp messages therein.

Boris Johnson refuses to hand over mobile phone containing Covid WhatsApps by inquiry deadline

This is more complicated than it seems. If you were to take Carol Vorderman’s tweet at face value…

… you might think she was saying he hasn’t handed overĀ any of the WhatsApp messages he received and sent at that time. This is not true.

The story is about “Phone 1” – the telephone he used up until April 2021, but (allegedly) switched off amid claims that it could have been hacked by a foreign power.

Johnson himself reckons he is trying to comply with the Covid Inquiry’s demand for the information but is working with government security officials on a way to turn on the old phone without creating a security emergency.

But here’s the thing: the security breach happened long ago – he switched the phone off (he says) because it emerged that his phone number had been public knowledge for 15 years. Apparently this means it could have been hacked.

In that case, it seems to sane people, he should have left it on and handed it to the security people two years ago, so they could work out what possibly compromising information could have been lifted from it by hostile foreign governments (or even teenage hackers living down the road).

He didn’t do that, so…

Yes. When will that happen?

Oh, and it should be possible to retrieve the WhatsApp messages by other means anyway. Why haven’t these “experts” tried that already?

Government response to ‘Kindertransport’ lord on removal of mural at child refugee centre is shockingly insensitive

Lord Alf Dubs, who was himself once a refugee from a foreign country (Germany before World War II – he was a Jewish child who arrived on the Kindertransport) asked the government why it cruelly ordered that a welcoming mural at a child refugee centre in Kent should be over-painted. Here’s the response:

Jessica Simor is right: it is incredibly insensitive of this Tory lord to tell a fellow peer – who was welcomed into the UK as a child – that national policy is now to make the country as unwelcoming as possible.

It seems the government has regressed – de-civilised – during the last 13 years of Tory misrule.

The big Tory wage lie

Read:

Why would the Tories say wages are rising at record rates?

Could it be to justify their demand that they need to be held down in order to slow inflation?

If so, it’s a false argument – as Richard Burgon makes clear:

Here’s some proof about the corporate profits:

Sainsbury’s wouldn’t be paying its chief executive so much if he wasn’t raking in the Long Green.

So it’s definitely the big profits that are pushing up inflation. And what is the Tory government doing about it?

Look:

And here’s a pertinent comment on that choice:

He’s joined in his crackdown on your livelihood by fellow millionaire Andrew Bailey, head honcho at the Bank of England:

Is this the reason Ed Balls tried to dominate the discussion of George Osborne’s wedding on Monday?


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Jeremy Corbyn’s wife is in group aiming to unseat Sir Keir Starmer

This is encouraging:

Jeremy Corbyn’s wife is part of a group set up to unseat Sir Keir Starmer at the next general election that is also discussing standing independent candidates against Labour in coming by-elections.

Screenshots leaked to Sky News show an account belonging to Laura Alvarez is a member of the Organise Corbyn Inspired Socialist Alliance (OCISA) Facebook group.

Further images show Ms Alvarez’s account commenting in the group – including posting “disgusting creature” on a photo ofĀ Sir Keir.

Source: Jeremy Corbyn’s wife Laura Alvarez in group aiming to unseat Sir Keir Starmer at next election | Politics News | Sky News

EXTRA: This Site has been contacted by a person wishing to clarify OCISA’s side of the story.

They say: “Laura isn’t a figurehead for OCISA. She didn’t say Starmer is disgusting.

“OCISA will not be standing candidates around the country – only in Holborn and St Pancras, although members are being encouraged to support Socialist candidates in their areas.”

They added: “Membership has shot up, so Sky did us a favour!”


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Is there really no alternative to Jeremy Hunt?

Jeremy Hunt: he’s so smug about the economic disaster his government has dropped on us.

Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been merrily telling us there’s no alternative to the latest round of interest rate rises that are making rich people richer and making poor people struggle to meet their mortgage payments.

And what’s he saying? “There is no alternative.”

Should we believe him? What’s behind his bluster?

Here’s Gary Stevenson:

So now you know.

When Jeremy Hunt says “there is no alternative”, he means we have no choice but to watch him and his oily city chums sucking all the life out of the economy, sapping your spending power in a feeding frenzy that can only end in disaster.

Still, it’s good that Boris Johnson has gone, isn’t it?


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Jeremy Corbyn hints he’ll stand in next general election as he marks 40 years in Parliament

Jeremy Corbyn chats with one or two friends in his constituency… Oh, all right. This is in fact how he was greeted in Leeds, back in 2017.

This will be mud in the eye of the Brylcreem Barrister (as some call him) and his cronies.

Left Foot Forward has reported:

The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has today given his strongest indication yet that he intends to stand as a parliamentary candidate for Islington North in the next general election.

In aĀ Twitter threadĀ marking the 40th anniversary of him first being elected as MP for Islington North, Corbyn said: ā€œIt has been an honour representing the people of Islington North. With your support, that is what Iā€™ll continue to do.ā€

Rumours have proliferated that Mr Corbyn will stand as an Independent since the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee passed a motion by Keir Starmer that barred him from representing that party in any further election.

Now, as he celebrates 40 years as a member of Parliament, he has given the strongest hint yet that this is exactly what he’ll do.

He’s certainly had a lot of support on his anniversary.

Thanks to Corbyn and the movement that grew around him, we have seen how popular left-wing policy positions can be. We now know they almost won a general election despite the most hostile press and Parliamentary Labour Party in political history

wrote Chelley Ryan in theĀ Morning Star, adding:

There is a solidarity that runs deep amongst us all, forged during the Corbyn era.

In the same paper, David Rosenberg wrote about Mr Corbyn’s dedicated work fighting racism and fascism:

And Lindsay German examined his life of pro-peace activism:

Source: Jeremy Corbyn hints he will stand in the next general election 40 years after he was first elected – Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK’s progressive debate


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Tory anti-strike Bill fails to understand why workers need to take industrial action

Striking nurses: the only reason these people are taking action is to protect the health service that protects YOU. And the Tories are trying to demonise them for it. Who do you support?

While Keir Starmer talks a lot of nonsense about the NHS – particularly failures by ambulance crews to reach people in time – Jeremy Corbyn highlights the reasons such people are going on strike.

Today (Monday, May 22, 2023), the Tory government’s anti-strike Bill returns to Parliament, with its requirement that industries including the health service, rail, education, fire, and border security provide ā€˜minimum service levelsā€™.

Mr Corbyn makes what should be the obvious point:Ā people in these industries are striking because their bosses won’tĀ allow them to meet these minimum levels:

Doctors and nurses are striking because patients are dying.

Teachers are striking because children are suffering.

Postal workers are striking because Royal Mail is failing.

If the Tories cared about ā€œminimum service levelsā€, they would support workersā€™ demands for fully-funded and fully-staffed public services.

Instead, by overriding the fundamental right to strike, they are preventing people from fighting for the safety of us all.

That’s Mr Corbyn’s main message, but there is another: this attack on strikers is supported by corporate greed.

“In scapegoating NHS staff, teachers, railway workers, posties and civil servants, the government is forcing ordinary people to pay the price for a crisis caused by decades of austerity, economic mismanagement, and corporate greed,” he writes.

“This price is paid through real-terms cuts to their wages. Itā€™s paid through the stress and anxiety of an increased workload. And itā€™s paid through public bailouts of failing private companies that continue to destroy the services upon which we all rely.”

Put simply:Ā the attack on strikers is an attack on workers’ pay and the quality of the services they provide, purely to make more profit for bosses and shareholders who don’t use those services and don’t care.

Source: Jeremy Corbyn – When our democracy is under attack, itā€™s up to the labour movement to fight back


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70,000+ demand Labour restore whip to Corbyn. Will Starmer say they’re ALL anti-Semites?

Jeremy Corbyn: no, he wasn’t signing the petition for his own reinstatement in the Parliamentary Labour Party – in fact he was writing about Jews including Roza Robota, Szmul Zygielbojm and Anne Frank, in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of remembrance. Anti-Semite? Don’t make us laugh, Starmer.

Remember This Site’s article yesterday (May 20, 2023), ridiculing Jewish Labour Movement chair Mike Katz for praising Keir Starmer’s handling of “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists”?

I quoted his comments about Jeremy Corbyn as an example of this, in which he claimed of the most committed anti-racist in Parliament: “His reluctance to show any remorse and his continual denial and downplaying of the problem makes him the author of his own demise and negates any claim he can make to actually being anti-racist.”

And yet on the same dayĀ Vox Political published its article, more than 70,000 people were revealed to have signed a petition demanding that Starmer’s Labour restore the party whip to Mr Corbyn.

It also demands that the Labour Party in the Islington North constituency be allowed to select their own candidate for the next general election, after the party’s National Executive Committee supported a Starmer motion barring Mr Corbyn from standing.

According to theĀ Morning Star,

The Islington North MP and former Labour leader had the party whip withdrawn after saying anti-semitism within Labour had been ā€œoverstated for political reasonsā€ and was blocked from representing Labour in the next general election earlier this year by an unrelated motion to the NEC claiming he would undermine Labourā€™s chances of forming a government because he led it to defeat in 2019.

LAAA national organiser Matt Willgress criticised Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer for breaching a campaign promise that local party members should select their candidates for every election.

Young Labour activist and Arise volunteer Fraser McGuire said it is clear that many Labour members and supporters want to protect party democracy and allow Islington North CLP members to select their own candidate.

He said this would ā€œundoubtedlyā€ be Mr Corbyn.

Campaign for Labour Party Democracy co-chairwoman Rachel Garnham said it was unsurprising that tens of thousands feel ā€œaggrieved by Starmerā€™s hypocrisy and top-down approach to candidate selection.ā€

An Islington Friends of Corbyn spokesperson said people are ā€œangrier than ever about the continuing injusticeā€ against Mr Corbyn and the constituency.

This Writer feels sure that these people won’t be voting Labour in a future election, if they don’t get their way.

What will Keir Starmer do in response – brand themĀ allĀ as anti-Semites?

Of course, the petition makes a nonsense of Katz’s claim that Starmer had properly handled “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists” in the Labour.

Instead, it strongly suggests that Starmer has vindictively attacked honest, hard-working Labour Party members whose only crime was standing up for the positive values the party was formed to represent – rather than the perverted, narcissistic, power-for-its-own-sake policies of the current leader.

And we haven’t even touched on StarmerLabour’s anti-black racism yet. Look for that in a future article.

Source: Over 70,000 sign petition demanding Labour restore the whip to Corbyn as mass support continues to grow | Morning Star


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Islington North Labour defies Starmer to support Jeremy Corbyn. What will he do now?

Remember when Keir Starmer said this?

“The selections for Labour Party candidates needs [sic] to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.”

Well, Islington North Constituency Labour Party has done just that – passing a motion of support for MP Jeremy Corbyn and expressing the desire that he should be their candidate in the next general election.

There’s a problem with that: Keir Starmer’s NEC has ruled that Mr Corbyn may no longer stand for election as a Labour Party candidate. He demanded this NEC imposition in spite of his own words from 2020 that you see at the top of this article.

Responses from those of us who keep an eye on the retreat of democracy in the Labour Party have drawn the logical conclusions:

Indeed. Starmer won’t respect the wishes of Labour Party members and is likely to impose his own preferred candidate (some are already suggesting that Sam Tarry has been chosen). Also…

… it does seem likely that Starmer will take revenge on the constituency delegates who voted against his orders.

No doubt we shall see what he does soon enough.


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Mortgage-hike denier is ‘Jeremy Hunt of the Month’

There was a moment a few years ago, on that great radio comedy show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, when contestants were asked to answer questions posed by children.

One such query was: “What’s the rudest word there is?”

The response was: “You must ask Jeremy Hunt, the [then] Culture Secretary.”

It is in that spirit, I think, thatĀ Maximilien Robespierre has given his ‘Jeremy Hunt of the Month’ award to Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, who dismissed the concerns of mortgage holders who had to cope with inflated interest rates after Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng crashed the UK economy last year:

TheĀ Robespierre YouTube channel also gives us ‘Fool of the Week’ but that went to one of our old favourites – James Cleverly, who made a fool of himself on the local election campaign trail when he couldn’t remember the name of the candidate he was supporting!

Here’s that clip:


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