If you happen to be of a certain age that you’ll find something inescapably amusing in this headline from the sports section of the BBC.

Dong signs new Man Utd contract

“Our relationship is not based on lust; it’s primarily a relationship of intellect, a meeting of minds, and I find that really interesting and attractive.”

Lembit Opik on his relationship with Cheeky Girl, Gabriela Irimia

Absolutely no sign of a shag yet, then, Lembit?

I wrote a very lengthy post the other day on the subject of the impending contest for the Deputy Leadership, thinking that I could then leave subject safely alone for a while…

…and then Tom Watson goes and points me in the direction of Harriet ‘I’m the one with two X chromosomes’ Harman’s spiffy new website and I discover that she seems absolutely determined to piss me off completely before there’s a proper fucking contest underway.

To some extent, campaign skills are something you’d hope to see in potential Deputy Leader - whatever else you might think of the present incumbent, Prescott’s always been pretty good value in the rallying the faithful stakes as he’s generally good for the kind of Tory-bashing political knockabout that goes down well with a partisan crowd, and I dare that privately he’s probably a scream as he looks to a man who can appreciate the comedic value of a good old knob gag.
So when it comes to choosing his replacement, how well the contenders’ campaign is likely to be a factor in influencing the thinking of many members.

Now, I think I’ve made my views on certain matters fairly clear - I’m all for equality but I’m not a fan of anything that looks tokenistic or that deliberately plays on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation in the hope of gaining an advantage.

So Harriet’s already too heavy emphasis on her possession of two X chromosomes is not going down a bundle with me, not because she two X chromosomes but because as far as I’m concerned her personal chromosomal arrange is completely fucking irrelevant, so harping about it constantly means jack (or jill) shit round here.

So imagine my ‘delight’ on finding that she now has her very own Black and Minority Ethnic Campaign Team - she obviously missed the Government paper (can’t recall which department, but it was one of the heavyweights, Treasury or Home Office) that ‘officially’ dropped the ‘Black and’ prefix in recognition both that there are now a considerable number of white minority communities and that even the majority of non-white ones aren’t actually black, but what the hell, I’m sure she means well.

Quite what relevance this has, again, to whether she’d make a capable Deputy Leader is not entirely clear, although it does mean she’s got Oona King to hold her hand while on the campaign trail, which may go down well in some quarters.

Again, the words ‘fucking irrelevant’ come to mind.

Harriets also gone and got herself a two page ‘puff-piece’ in the Torygraph, which rather through me to begin with as its written by their health correspondent and published in their health section, despite it (and Harriet, who’s the Solictor General as I recall) having precisely fuck all to do with health.

The the explanation came to me - the journo’s a mate of hers - oh good, Harriet’s got a friend at the Torygraph.

Next week, Hilary Benn will be featured in three page interview in ‘Take A Break’ and you’ll an Alan Johnson exclusive in the Sports section of a Mid-Lothian Herald.

And as for her opinion poll from last November…

Harriet Harman is the deputy leadership candidate most likely to increase Labour’s vote at the next general election, a poll indicated today.

The survey, commissioned from independent pollsters YouGov by the constitutional affairs minister herself, found that 15% of voters would be more inclined to vote Labour if she succeeded John Prescott.

What the poll also indicates is that 15% of voters would also be less likely to vote for Labour, if she became Deputy Leader - so the net electoral gain for the Party would be…

…fuck all.

I also see that Kerron’s none too impressed either.

Ho hum…

It must be a slow week, this week, because the ‘Idiot formerly known as the Safety Elephant’ is back and having a good old whinge at the Law Lords after the Court of Appeal ruled that the government’s control orders breach the provisions of the Human Rights Act.

Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke has condemned the “disgraceful” refusal of the Law Lords to talk to ministers over anti-terrorism laws.

The Court of Appeal ruled last August that using “control orders” to keep six terrorist suspects under a form of house arrest breached human rights.

With little discussion about the ruling, Mr Clarke’s successor was told to “take another stab”, he told Lords.

Mr Clarke said this was “incredible”, considering public fears over terror.

I wonder, Safety, do you that more or less incredible than this statement, which appears on an archived copy of the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Bill’, which after its passage through parliament become the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, under which control orders were introduced.

EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Mr Secretary Clarke has made the following statement under section 19(1)(a) of the
Human Rights Act 1998:

In my view the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.

I hate to be picky, here, Safety - but exactly how many meetings/discussions did you have with the Law Lords before you came to the conclusion that the Bill, as introduced to Parliament, was compatible with Convention rights and signed off on that statement?

Mm, - I suppose I could just submit an FOIA request and find out, but my general suspicion here that the answer is likely to be somewhere between zero and none.

Still, you don’t necessarily have to meet with them to get a useful opinion. You could just as easily send them a draft copy of the Bill, ask them to look it over for you and maybe point out where the pitfalls might lie.

No? Didn’t do that as well?

Then what the fuck do you expect? You don’t consult with them first, you just slap your entirely unqualified opinion on the top of the bill, whack it through Parliament and then piss and moan when a case hits caught and the Law Lords point out that you were bollocks right from the outset.

And then you wonder you get treated like a naughty schoolboy and you homework get sent back with ‘must try harder’ slapped all over in red pen?

A senior committee of Law Lords should be set up to discuss the general principles of new laws, providing ministers with better guidance, Mr Clarke told the Lords constitution committee.

That’s actually a reasonable suggestion, even if its clearly accompanied by the sound of stable doors being bolted long after the horse have buggered off for a bit of a frolic.

Shame you didn’t think of that before - after all the Human Right Act did become law in 1998.

In fact do not think that such a committee should have set up right from the outset, at the time that the Act was passed?

In fact, to take the argument even further, do you not think it a good idea that these stataments of compatibility, which must be included by law on all parliamentary bills, should actually be signed off by someone who is actually qualified to render an opinion on such matters, and not by whichever Minister introduces the bill. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Law Lord, although that would be my preferred option, you do have Lord Goldsmith as well and I’m sure he’d be happy to look things over for and the rest of the Cabinet.

Okay, even with that there are limitations - you can never quite predict what real test cases might throw at you so there’s still a chance that even a Law Lord or the Attorney General might miss something and not manage to cover all your bases, but at least if you did cop for a battering in the High Court after all that then its going to be because something a bit unusal and unexpected has cropped up, not because you’ve overlooked the fucking obvious.

He also said he thought the UK could leave the European Convention on Human Rights if public feeling increased that it restricted anti-terror efforts.

Bollock, Safety - you’re blatantly scaremongering. For fuck’s sake, even Charlie Falconer’s backed right off from  that line and declared it to be a heap of shit.

Look, this is not difficult.

No ECHR mean no membership of the European Union or Council of Europe, them’s the rules - so unless you’re planning on joining UKIP any time soon, then that’s pretty much a non-starter.

It had led to increased “tension” between ministers and judges.

And that’s perfectly understandable - no one really likes being shown up as an incompetent twat.

Since the US attacks on 11 September, 2001, and the London bombings on 7 July, 2005, people had been “very exercised about whether or not we are preventing these crimes effectively”, Mr Clarke added.

Actually, Safety, I’m rather more ‘exercised’ about why we aren’t prosecuting the fuckers rather than fannying around with illiberal crap like internment and control orders.

Look, repeat after me - and excuse the bliblical idiom
Investigation begat Arrest.

Arrest begat Charges.

Charges begat Trial.

Trial begat Conviction.

Conviction begat Prison Sentence.

That is the basic ‘lineage’ of the British Criminal Justice system, one that the vast majority of people in this country are perfect contented with. It doesn’t always deliver the outcome you expect, but on the whole it does a good job and has done for fucking centuries.

The moral of this little parable is, ‘if it ain’t broke, keep your grubby little fucking paws off it and let it do its job’.

Ministers have criticised several judgements on terror suspects.

Mr Clarke said the public did not usually understand what disputes between judges and ministers were about

Actually, Safety, this particular member of the public does usually understand what these disputes are about, given access to reasonably reliable and bias-free information. The main reason why the public often don’t understand these disputes is because when they do crop up any semblance of common sense is immediately loss in a barrage of tendentious shite from politicians and journalists.

If you want people to understand what these disputes are about then you ban the reporting of them in any daily newspaper that can be bought for less than 70p (or a £1 at weekends) uses the word ‘Stunnas’, has published more than two photographs of Princess Diana in any 12 month period since her death (coverage of the death and funeral excepted) or has ever run a daily feature column or page on any shitty reality TV shows.

He said: “What I strongly dislike is flailing around in a cloud of views of senior lawyers with different opinions and the difficulty of getting to a firmness of accuracy in that situation.”

Translation: Fucking laywers - its all fucking Greek to me.

Mr Clarke added that “the politicians, the ministers, the judges and the parliamentarians generally do understand the broad relations” between the judiciary and the government.

Well that’s a fucking relief - what kind of fucking morons would we be electing to run the country if they couldn’t understand that.

Err, that is a rhetorical question, DK, in case you are looking in…

But, he said: “I think citizens don’t and find it very, very confusing when there are rows taking place”

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave a couple of snarks ago…

Mr Clarke added: “The idea that judges are so eminent and right… that they are beyond criticism is one I couldn’t go along with.”

True, but the I also couldn’t run to the idea that Ministers are beyond criticism either - how do you feel about that?

Conservative leader David Cameron has pledged to reform, replace or scrap the Human Rights Act if he is elected.

Yep, that’s Cameron for you - leaving his options right option because he hasn’t got the first fucking idea of a real policy on the future of HRA.

Last August, the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier decision that control orders made against six suspects were too severe and should be quashed.

The orders, which kept the men inside for 18 hours a day, breached Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which outlaws indefinite detention without trial, it was ruled.

Now you see, Safety, its not that difficult to understand these rows as long as they’re explained properly.

You had a row with the Law Lords because you wanted to bang people up indefinitely without trial, and they wouldn’t let you.

What is it about that that you think is so difficult to understand?

The Beeb have managed to explain it perfectly well as far I can see.

It’s often said of politicians that you know when they’re is deep trouble because it then that they become the story and not the issues.

I wonder if the same can be said for a newspaper?

On Monday of this week, I posted an article on the closure of The Lagoon public house, in Tipton, a hostelry that was well known, locally, as the de facto headquarters of the local BNP, in which I noted with some curiosity that the only local newspaper to pick up on the story, the independently-owned, Wolverhampton-based, Express & Star (which has no connection whatsoever with Richard Desmond’s Express and Star group, which published the Daily Express, etc.) completely neglected to mention the pub’s BNP connection; an omission made all the more curious by the fact that its licencee, named as Jamie Lloyd in the report, is, in fact, Councillor James Lloyd, the leader of the BNP group on Sandwell Council.

Strange, thought I (and quite a few others who’ve contacted my since I ran the story).

Even without the BNP ‘angle’, the mere fact that a councillor is to appear before a licencing panel of his own Local Authority because the Police has requested the closure of a pub of which he is the licencee as a result of violent incidents involving a machete and a semi-automatic weapon is something most would consider a matter of legitimate public interest, especially as the pub, itself, in situated in the same ward that the councillor represents. And its not as if the reputation of the pub and its regular ‘clientele’ is not common knowledge locally, nor is difficult to make the connection between ‘Jamie Lloyd’ and ‘Councillor James Lloyd’ either by way of his political affiliations or by a simple search on 192.com, which shows him to be the only James Lloyd residing in Tipton.

And yet the Express and Star appear either to have been unaware of these facts at the time of publication, or simply decided they were of no relevance to local people.

A puzzle, I’m sure you’ll agree, and that became rather more puzzling on my being alerted to an interesting little exchange that’s been taking place of late on one of Stormfront’s forums…

Okay, a quick ‘who’s who’ is in order here.

‘Ontology’ is former BNP member (and briefly a Birmingham City Councillor), Sharon Ebanks, who was expelled from the BNP last year following her unsuccessful efforts to retain, in the courts, the seat she had been ‘awarded’ as a result of a miscount in last year’s council elections. As to why she was expelled from the BNP, there are conflicting accounts - Griffin alleges an assortment of ‘misconduct’, including anti-semitism; Ebanks claims that the BNP welched on a promise to cover her legal costs, despite advising her to defend the election case, and got shot of her when she complained about it and demands they cough-up.

Ebanks has since set up her own political party, which she has been actively promoting on Stormfront, much to the consternation of those forum users who are still members of the BNP - think ‘Life of Brian’ and ’splitters!’ and you’ll get the general picture.

‘White Resistance’ is one of the BNP members with whom Ebanks have been having a few ‘running battles’ of late, frictions which culminated in the posts shown in the screenshot, in which Ebanks ‘outs’ ‘White Resistance’, identifying him as the BNP’s local organiser, Steve Haddon (pictured below with Nick Griffin - Haddon is pasty-looking guy on the left) and also as being a journalist in the employ of the Express and Star newspaper - the same newspaper that some would consider to have soft-pedalled the story of the closure of The Lagoon by omitting all references to its BNP connections.

Mmm… Curioser and curiouser, as Alice might say.

As the Express and Star does not ‘byline’ its stories in either its online or print editions, there is no obvious way to confirm whether the information about Haddon’s employment given by Ebanks is correct - although ‘White Resistance’s’ response to Ebanks remarks do appear to confirm both that she has correctly identified his real world identity and that of his employer:

I keep my job because people can’t be sacked from their jobs for being a member of political parties. The E&S would be rather hypocritical if they did sack me considering its past views on this very subject. Again, nice try though.

What can one say?

Well, what one cannot say is that Haddon (if the information supplied by Ebanks is correct) has had any involvement or influence over the E&Ss coverage of the closure of The Lagoon - for all one can tell he might just as easily be assigned only to the coverage of local Sunday League football.

And, yes, he (as ‘White Resistance’) is quite correct in noting that he cannot (legally) be sacked because of his political affiliations or membership of a far right political party.

But that does not mean that the possibility that a journalist working for a local newspaper may also be a local organiser for a far-right political party with a well dopcumented history of racism and anti-semitism, is not a matter of legitimate local public interest or that such an occurance, if shown to be true, will not cause many local people to harbour serious misgivings about the Express and Star, or to consider somewhat more carefully the editoral intent behind some its stories, such as this one, which attacks a fairly routine swimming initiative as if it were the arrival of the Barbarian hordes…

A swimming session for women and children from ethnic minorities in Wolverhampton has sparked complaints from regular bath users who say it is encouraging segregation.

The weekly session, at the city’s Central Baths on Thursdays between 7pm and 8pm, has been introduced to encourage groups who would not normally get involved in swimming.

But it has come under fire as “political correctness gone beserk”, with council bosses today admitting a number of complaints had been received from members of the public.

Blinds costing around £1,000, funded by Kellogg’s Swim Active programme, have also been installed to improve privacy.The sessions replace a former aqua aerobics class. Council chiefs say they are aimed at Muslims, Sikhs and any other ethnic groups “with religious or cultural issues which would otherwise prevent them from taking part”.

Does one hour a week for people - actually women - who because of their religious/ beliefs cultural beliefs would not be able to make use of open public sessions really merit this kind of vitriol? Is this really ‘political correctness gone berserk’ or ’small-minded reporting gone berserk’?

Or is there a more subtle and consciously divisive intent on display?

Who, outside the E&S, actually knows - as the newspaper does not byline its stories we cannot even say for certain which ones Haddon may or may not have worked on, let alone whether his political views ‘colour’ his reporting - in fact, if the editor of the Express and Star is aware of Haddon’s afilliations, they may even go so far as to actively keep him off stories where his political opinions could, if (or rather when) exposed, turn out to be something of a liability to the newspaper.

One thing I have pondered carefully since receiving the information that appears to link ‘White Resistance’ with Haddon, and Haddon to the Express and Star (props to Lancaster UAF), is whether it would be unethical, on my part, to make use of this information - and as you’re reading this now, it should be obvious I’ve concluded that it isn’t.

The balance to be struck, as always, is that between legitimate public interest and individual privacy - does the right of the public to know that a local journalist has been identified as a BNP organiser in the town in which he works trump that of the individual’s right to privacy - a tough call at the best of times and one made tougher by the fact that Haddon is at best only a semi-public figure in a fairly minimal sense and only by virtue of articles published on the BNPs own website.

But then Haddon (if it is him) does work for a noticably right-wing newspaper that does, frequently, take a rather confrontational line of matters of race and ethnicity’ and the newspaper does serve an ethnically diverse area in which recent electoral gains by the BNP have caused some measure of unease amongst local minority communities, who quite naturally see the active presence of a racist political party as something of threat to the area’s otherwise pretty good track record on tolerance and diversity.

On balance, and on this occasion, the public right to know shades the argument because that right will necessarily inform local people’s perceptions of the Express and Star - Haddon’s political views could, conceivably, introduce a measure of bias into his reporting of some stories, bias that may not be corrected editorially given that the newspaper, itself, is one that expresses markedly right-wing views on many issues. Knowing this to be a possibility permits the public to adjust its perceptions of the newspaper accordingly and (hopefully) take a rather more sceptical view of its contents that they might otherwise have done had they been wholly unaware of Haddon’s background - again assuming that Ebanks’ claims are not a complete dud.

You’ll note that I’m neither calling for Haddon to be sacked due to his political affilliations, nor advocating protests outside the offices of the Express and Star - the former would be unlawful, the latter rather ill-advised and a little silly - it’s better to keep the BNP in plain sight, where you can keep an eye on them and openly challenge their pruirient views and values than drive them underground.

No, to simply be aware of the possibility that a local journalist may also be a BNP organiser is sufficient in this case, given that there are some small uncertainties as to the accuracy of the information and that there is no extant evidence to suggest that Haddon is or has been using his position as a journalist to quietly introduce BNP propaganda into its pages - and given the editorial stance of the Express and Star one has to wonder who could reasonably tell for certain if he had?
If the information supplied is correct then this is rather a matter for the Express and Star to ‘manage out’ as it sees fit and a matter in which the public interest rests simply in the knowing and not in seeing any particular action taken against the individual in question, unless concrete evidence did emerge of unethical conduct on his part.

And with that, I’ll sign off after the manner of the great Hunter Thompson.

Res Ipsa Loquiter

UPDATE: 24 Jan 2007

Lancaster UAF have kindly ‘asked the question’ of the local NUJ Chapter and received this response:

‘As regards this Haddon chap, it was raised at a meeting of Wolverhampton branch last week and all the former and current E&S members present did not
know of this guy.

Next day I checked with their reception and no one of that name could be found at the company.

It seems to be a phantom at the moment but there is the possibility that this person might be on some far-flung weekly or using an alias…’

Possibly not a journalist then, although it should be noted that the BNP does have form for using aliases on its website and public communications to conceal the identity of members; such as its press secretary Stuart Russell (real name) aka ‘Dr Phil Edwards’.

Russell/Edwards’ claim to a doctorate is, according to the excellent Disillusioned Kid, rather dubious:

As an adjunct to the above, it might be worth briefly considering the provenance of the article’s author. “Dr Phil Edwards” is in fact a pseudonym adopted by the party’s press secretary Stuart Russell. Even his doctorate is dubious, he claims to have taught quantum mechanics at the University of Nottingham, although when I directly challenged him on the issue of his qualifications he dodged the question. Make of that what you will.

And, indeed, a search for evidence to verify Russell’s claim to have taught quantum mechanics turns up absolutely nothing, not even a single citation on a published academic paper, which is the minimum one would expect to find for a theoretical physicist with a doctorate - the only Stuart Russell who does turn up in a search, and then only be citation, is a highly-regarded Professor at UCL Berkeley and a specialist in artificial intelligence, and I can be absolutely certain this in not the BNPs Stuart Russell, not least because I’m already familar with his work.

Finally, on Russell/Edwards, the plot thickens even more thanks to this transcript of a Radio 4 science programme, ‘Checkup’ from July 2005…

MYERS

Okay, let’s take another call now. And we’ll go to Grantham and Dr Stuart Russell is there, hello?

RUSSELL

Yes hello. When I was involved with the Nottingham University Psychic Research Group we used to have an orthopaedic surgeon came to give a talk on hypnosis as used in anaesthesia, I wondered if - that was Dr Ian Fletcher - I wonder if as time’s gone by whether this has actually progressed at all?

WILKINSON

I think that’s a very, very interesting area Dr Russell and it’s an area where if you’re a keen hypnotist you’re trying to push it forward a great deal all the time and that the problem, as I understand it, with hypnosis or other things perhaps like acupuncture is that not everybody is as susceptible as the next person to hypnosis or say acupuncture…

I can find no formal record of a Psychic Research Group at the University of Nottingham, although Dr Alan Gauld, a former president of the Society for Psychical Research is a retired Reader in Psychology at the School of Psychology of the University of Nottingham - but then that’s still a hell of long way from teaching quantum mechanics and suggests, at best, that Russell may have spent some time at Nottingham University as an undergraduate - at worst he may just own a few of Gauld’s books and be leeching off his academic reputation as a backstory to this own doubtful claims.

None of this answers the question as to why the E&S failed to make the BNP connection with the closure of The Lagoon or discover/disclose any of the other information that journalists working for its local rival, the Birmingham Post & Mail group, seem to have had little difficulty in uncovering.

Nor, indeed, does it shed any light on why Sharon Ebanks thought ‘Haddon’s’ (alleged) employment at the Express & Star significant enough to taunt him with it - if Haddon’s just the teaboy or a newspaper packer, then what difference does his being the local BNP organiser make?

And then there are these two comments, from a poster in Wolverhampton…

Amazing! So the only people who work for a newspaper are journalists or paperboys/girls? How do they get by without management, advertising, sales, production, distribution etc etc?

I see no mention of the term ‘journalist’ in the ‘expose’

Steve Haddon’s job has no influence on the content of the paper, hence why the witch hunt ground to halt with the ’switchboard has no listing for him and enquires to journalists on the paper have resulted in ‘never heard of him’ responses.

Comment by Pasty looking guy on the left(Just in case you got him mixed up with Nick Griffin!) 01.19.07

and

‘If it shown that the information given by Ebank is wrong, then of course I’ll post a correction’

????

Comment by Pasty looking guy on the left(Just in case you got him mixed up with Nick Griffin!) 01.24.07

And post an update, I have, as soon as I had confirmation on information from ‘GeorgeP’ also posted on the 19th.

But then, why is ‘Pasty looking guy…’ getting quite so jumpy, here, just because a question or two is being asked?

Another conundrum…

Via Pickled Politics, Obsolete and D-Notice (who made the spot), word comes to me that the Sun have finally (three months after the fact) published a cursory four-line apology for the flagrant inaccuracies of its Brave heroes hounded out by Muslim yobs story, that was splashed all over the front page last year:

Following our report ‘Hounded out’ about a soldier’s home in Datchet, Berks, being vandalised by Muslims, we have been asked to point out no threatening calls were logged at Combermere Barracks from Muslims and police have been unable to establish if any faith or religious group was responsible for the incident.We are happy to make this clear.

A small victory for the truth, perhaps, but a very welcome one, and as one of the bloggers, along with Clive Davis and Obsolete, who to the time to look into the story and call The Sun on its lies, a rather gratifying outcome.

No word, as yet, however on whether Tory MP Philip Davis is intending to apologise for his own intermperate remarks, as quoted by the Sun in its original article:

“If there’s anybody who should f*** off it’s the Muslims who are doing this kind of thing. Police should pull out the stops to track down these vile thugs.”

Actually, I’m in a rather magnanimous mood today so far as Tories go (other fish to fry), so rather than haul Mr Davis over the coals and call for a act of public contrition, let me suggest instead that he consults with his parliamentary colleague (and MP for the area in which this incident took place) Mr Adam Afriye in order to identify an appropriate means of expressing his regrets. Mr Afriye is, no doubt, is in fairly regular contact with his local Muslim community and, therefore, perfectly placed to convey Mr Davis’ profound apologies without the need for any great fuss - remember, its often the small courtesies that often mean the most.
After all, his ‘crime’, such as it is in this case, is merely one of being dumb enough to take this report at face value without checking, first, for signs of obvious journalistic ‘embroidery’.