Neil Parish: he has admitted looking at porn in the House of Commons and is resigning as a member of Parliament.
This Writer’s biggest question now is, what tractor website has a name similar to an internet pornography site – and will it be changing its name in the near future?
Neil Parish has said the first of two occasions in which he admits watching pornography in the House of Commons was when he was trying to look at tractors; he accidentally opened a porn site with a similar name, he said.
He later returned to the site he had found – deliberately – while sitting in the House of Commons, waiting to vote, he admitted. It was after this occasion that two female colleagues claimed they had seen him looking at porn on his phone while sitting near them.
It is right that he should go – if only because he tried to brazen it out at first.
Like his erstwhile party leader Boris Johnson, Parish initially said he would wait for the results of an inquiry led by his party’s Whips’ office before making any decision on his own future – and he refused to say whether he had watched porn in the Commons, even though he obviously knew he had.
Johnson had previously refused to discuss his alleged attendance at lockdown-busting Downing Street parties and whether he had lied to Parliament about them (an offence for which he should resign, according to the Ministerial Code). He has since been fined for attending one such gathering, with investigations continuing regarding five others.
Parish’s resignation may be seen as an attempt to prevent another scandal from affecting the Conservatives’ chances in the local elections, which will take place on Thursday (May 5).
But is anybody going to want to elect a representative from a party whose members watch porn rather than concentrate on their work, and then try to lie or dissemble their way out of the blame when they’re caught?
Damian Green, the first secretary of state, has described the claims as ‘untrue and deeply hurtful’ [Image: Andrew Matthews/PA].
Picture the scene: Damian Green is speaking in Parliament, making a speech elsewhere, or doing a public appearance.
It doesn’t matter which, because anybody there will have just one thing to say – that they think Mr Green is a sex pervert of some kind.
When he denies it, they’ll say: “If that’s true, why wasn’t the report of the inquiry published?”
There is no good answer to this. Whatever he says, the answer is: “If you were innocent, the report would have been published in full. It wasn’t. You’re a pervert.”
The only way Mr Green can still claim innocence is if the inquiry report is published in full, and finds him completely innocent. Even then, people may be unsatisfied unless a police investigation takes place – and the Conservative Party won’t allow that to happen.
So Damian Green is finished.
Downing Street has said it may not publish any report into allegations against the first secretary of state, Damian Green, who is currently under investigation by the Cabinet Office.
The inquiry by its head of propriety and ethics, Sue Gray, was launched in early November after journalists and the Conservative activist Kate Maltby wrote a piece claiming Green had touched her knee in 2015 and, one year later, sent her a suggestive message.
After Maltby’s piece was published in the Times, it later emerged that pornography – allegedly of an “extreme” nature – had been found on Green’s parliamentary computer after a police raid in 2008.
The result of the inquiry was expected to be announced in the coming days, but Downing Street said the full report would not necessarily be put in the public domain.
Asked if … the government was not committing to publishing the full inquiry, [a 10 Downing Street] spokesman said: “That’s what I’m saying.”
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Are you as utterly sick of televised ‘poverty porn’ as you should be?
Night after night, main offenders Channel 4, Channel 5 – and even the BBC – flood their schedules with nonsense films designed to misinform the public about the lives of the deprived and enlist your collusion in their demonization and destruction.
It’s time somebody put a stop to it, and the United Disability Resistance Movement (UDRM) wants your help to achieve this.
“Some of us have recently been looking at asking our members to write a … letter to the individual members of OFCOM about the media portrayal of benefits ‘scroungers’,” wrote a UDRM representative in a message to This Blog yesterday.
“We think all should unite, able and disabled against the media rhetoric and narrative.
“At UDRM we are convinced that, if all protest groups worked together, we would stand a much better chance of changing things because we all want the same thing in the end. We believe there’s strength in numbers and we are already working with some other groups under the banner of ‘Unite and Fight’.”
The group is asking for anyone who agrees that ‘poverty porn’ should be stopped to send a copy of the following letter to one, many or all of the Ofcom members listed below, indicating their support for the points it makes, in a short campaign over two days between Saturday and Sunday (August 8-9).
It’s up to you.
Here’s the letter. Please consider joining this campaign.
Dear [insert name],
I am writing to complain about the number of programmes on mainstream British television and radio and in British print media at the moment which vilify, target and demonise people who are claiming welfare benefits.
People are being mocked and their struggles are being seen as entertainment when, in fact, it is day-to-day existence for many and not a fictitious variation of shows such as ‘Big Brother’. Sanctions, starvation and evictions are not ‘amusing’ or a joke, they are a reality for many and are horrifying in their brutality. People have died.
Programmes such as ‘Benefits Street’ and ‘Benefits Britain, Life on the Dole’ perpetuate the myth that claiming welfare benefits is a lifestyle choice. Vitriolic articles by so-called commentators such as Katie Hopkins incite hatred. Benefit claimants, migrants and job seekers are being portrayed as scroungers who have chosen a lifestyle of inactivity and modern-day begging. This is not the case. People claim benefits because there is nothing else they can do. People claim benefits because they were born disabled or have become sick later in life. People claim benefits because they have lost their jobs and have been unable to secure a new role. People claim benefits because employers are paying minimum, starvation wages and they cannot afford to feed and clothe their families. People claim benefits because they need help. People claim benefits because they have no choice. This is not entertainment, this is disgusting, this is frightening; this is tragedy.
Further to this, ‘Poverty Porn’ has alarming knock-on effects on the way people who have no choice but to claim benefits to survive are viewed. The result of this misinformation is the alarming increase in hate crime against those who are claiming benefits. Spying on friends and neighbours is encouraged. covert filming and recording is rife. According to the Crown Prosecution Service in 2014 there was a 213 percent increase in the number of prosecutions for hate crime against disabled people. In 2011 the report, ‘Ready Willing and Able’ highlighted the fact that 38 percent of the general public perceived disabled people to be a burden on society. On 24 April 2015 the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein compared British print media’s attitude to migrants to propaganda in 1930s Nazi Germany.
The TUC has stated that “The government’s austerity programme is reshaping the welfare State through cuts in benefits and the privatisation of public services, including health, education and drastically reduced state support. The impact of benefits cuts and of the associated campaign of demonisation of disabled people, the unemployed, migrants, asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups has been catastrophic. Crimes motivated by hate have wider and deeper roots, but austerity has made the problems worse.” This is not healthy. This is frightening. This can only lead to the further disintegration of our society.
I am asking OFCOM to look into this trend in the British media to publicise non-stop ‘poverty porn’ in print, on the radio and on television. I am asking OFCOM to do the right thing. I am asking OFCOM to have the courage to say ‘No More’. The public should be shown the true stories of the struggling majority, not the glamorisation of the extreme minority. Over many years the British press has been lauded for its fairness and unbiased reporting. Please do not allow this to change.
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Government-approved sex industry: A “gentleman’s” club – possibly as Conservative MPs understand them. Indeed, some sitting members may have posed for this very portrait. Picture: As attributed.
We seem to be returning to the days when our so-called betters dictated to us that the mere sight of a lady’s ankle was enough to inflame the blood and led to lewd, lecherous and scandalous behaviour – before the hypocritical old nobs headed off to the “gentlemen’s” club for an appointment with ‘Lady Lola’ or some similarly-named professional whose main talent was wrapping her own ankles around her ears.
Now we can see that, even while the government cracks down on internet pornography, it is actively promoting live sex work (in the flesh, as it were) by advertising jobs in the sex industry on its Universal Jobmatch website. Jobseekers can be sanctioned if they fail to use this site, so it seems likely there is a high chance they will be exposed to this sort of thing.
So it seems the government wants to force porn addicts away from indulging their obsession in the comfort of their own home and into “very professional and discreet” clubs. Could there possibly be a money incentive in this?
To make these clubs enticing, the government’s jobsearch site is advertising for female “table top” dancers who need a “good sense of rhythm”.
Cameron’s stated aim is to protect children but there is nothing to stop people under 18 from applying for the jobs. It is even possible that Job Centre Plus staff may try to force teenagers into them, with the threat of benefit sanctions if they do not acquiesce.
Cameron’s claim is that internet porn features “vile images that pollute minds and cause crime”. It’s most likely a fair comment (this writer can’t claim to have been polluted in that way).
But suppose he’s right; statistically speaking, it’s undoubtedly possible that some of the people who look at online porn may go on to commit crimes – possibly sex crimes.
Suppose these people, unable to look at their filth online, instead attend one of the clubs advertising for “very well groomed” table top dancers. They’re likely to have a frustrating night, with real, naked bodies only inches away from them for as long as they can stand it, and no (legal) outlet for the urges this may create in them.
The club closes; they get turned out onto the street, possibly on their own, possibly with friends. What are these potentially-criminal porn addicts likely to do if they see a lone woman, possibly a dancer from the club, with nobody nearby to help her if she gets into trouble?
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