Rest well, Caroline

As ever, whenever a celebrity dies, especially when they die young, suddenly and tragically, the internet comes alive with the inevitable public grief, hand-wringing, assumptions from people who claim they knew exactly what happened in that unfortunate person's final sad weeks, days and hours, and there is a rush to apportion blame. 

But with the news only breaking last night about the suicide of Caroline Flack, we only have certain facts available. We know she took her own life, we know she was due to face trial for the assault of her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, we know the CPS alleges that she hit him with a lamp while he was asleep, we know he didn't want to press charges, we know that she pleaded not guilty, we know that a condition of her bail was that she was not to contact her boyfriend. 

And there is plenty we do not know. 

We do not yet know what the post-mortem or inquest will reveal. And there are things we will never know, such as whether this story may have had a happier outcome if she was allowed to see her boyfriend before the trial, or indeed what the outcome of the trial would have been. We won't know of a not-guilty verdict or find out how she could rebuild her life after an acquittal - or what would follow for her and Burton in the event of a guilty verdict. 

The only thing we can be sure of is that if she was found guilty, she'd become the anti-poster-child for the "See? Women can be abusers too!" brigade. That brigade had already come out of the woodwork, shitting on the whole concept of presumption of innocence. Nobody is saying that women cannot be the perpetrators of domestic violence - of course they can - but everyone accused of this dreadful crime has the right to a fair trial. 

This brigade of (mostly) angry men was emboldened by pictures published by The Sun of a bloodstained bed at Flack's flat, pictures which, horrifically, were still on the newspaper's website at the time of writing. The publication of the bloodied bed was, at best, in poor taste and, at worst, not in the public interest, particularly before her trial had taken place.

There is a rush to blanket-blame "the media" for Flack's death - and she has long been an object of tabloid obsession, particularly after she dated a 17-year-old Harry Styles when she was 31. No age of consent laws were broken, but eyebrows were raised when Styles was photographed leaving her flat. It didn't take long for her to be pigeonholed as a "cougar", a sexually aggressive and adventurous seducer of younger men, a woman who is seen as a threat to the ideal of a demure, compliant woman. 

She became an easy target for hate and it wasn't restricted to the usual tabloid suspects. Everyone with a Twitter account and a misguided sense of moral righteousness could pile in. 

And the public lapped it up. If there wasn't a market for these sort of salacious stories, they wouldn't be written or broadcast in the first place. We feed the beast when we click on the links. Entertainment journalists are often quick to defend their profession, to point out that it's not an easy job (it's not) and they are obliged to constantly seek out the stories that will get the clicks and the sales (also true). But it is unfortunate that in the quest to keep eyeballs on screens and papers, fingers furtively scrolling or turning pages, that not only does accuracy often fall by the wayside, but public interest tests fall short and there is little time to pause and contemplate if a story is kind or even necessary.

Advocating the end of entertainment journalism or holding "the mainstream media" solely responsible for Flack's death is reductive and simplistic, ignoring the role of social media in this complicated story, especially as that was the only way Burton was able to communicate with Flack since December. However, it shouldn't preclude entertainment journalists from pausing to think about how they cover stories, especially those involving celebrities who may be vulnerable, may have mental health issues, may be struggling with addiction, or may simply be going through a tough time, as can happen to any one of us. 

The guidelines for reporting on suicide, issued by the Samaritans, are an excellent resource - it is not a restriction on press freedom to report responsibly.

Ultimately, gossip is part of human nature. That's never going to change. We devour gossip about our friends as readily as we devour celebrity gossip. Hell, I have an episode of The Bachelor burbling mindlessly away in the background as I write this and I just rolled my eyes as a doe-eyed blonde used her one-on-one time with the prized Colton, the hot, virgin bachelor, to call her mother for the first time since her release from prison. I'm not going to pretend I'm immune to taking a pervy interest in the lives of beautiful people I'll never meet. Of course, with every celebrity death, there's always one sneering blowhard who feels the need to comment "Who?" under a tweet or Facebook post, as if not knowing about a figure in popular culture is some form of moral superiority. 

But the truth is that none of us are superior. We're all flawed and farty and prone to awkwardness, even those who, on the surface, appear to have everything under control. And any one of us could end up in as dark a place as Flack found herself in her lonely final hours. May we all pause to be kind to each other and to ourselves.

Photography by Alex Borland.

Who needs standards in journalism?

In this era of "citizen journalism", insisting on high standards in reporting - demanding pesky things such as accuracy, genuine balance, correct spelling, punctuation and grammar and, God forbid, paying journalists for their work - exposes one to mockery. 

Never mind that accuracy is the foundation on which credible journalism is built, or that balance on issues of climate change will not be achieved by wheeling out Lord Lawson to punch science in the face, or that journalism is more readable when spelling, punctuation and grammar are in order, or that journalists should be paid for their work because, well, it's work...

Instead, as part of the world's inexorable descent into idiocracy, the rise of the "citizen journalist" means that anyone, it seems, can call themselves a journalist. We wouldn't allow "citizen brain surgeons" to open our skulls but, it seems, many of us are happy to let "citizen journalists" tell us what to think, whether its accurate or not.

"Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?" I hear the indignant crowd shriek at me. After all, I've made a pretty good living out of being a journalist for more than 20 years now. Why would I want these untrained upstarts parking their tanks on my lawn? Why don't I just go back to my manual typewriter and report on the intrigues of the church fete and let "citizen journalists" take over?  

OK, I'll tell you why. Because journalism is a profession. Training is required. Journalists do not need to spend years and years at university, as is the case for doctors, and it is a shame that the days of cadetships, where aspiring hacks could leave school at 16 and work their way up the ladder at newspapers, have fallen by the wayside. But there are skills that need to be taught, an understanding of media law is essential, and ethics are as important as ever. These can be taught at college, university or on the job - or a combination of these - and they are essential for professionalism. 

This is not about Old Lady Lewis yelling at technology. It's great that social media can be used to break news, for people who are on the spot as news events unfold to film or write about what they see through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook Live. 

Hell, I'd be a massive hypocrite if I demanded that bloggers get shut down, particularly as bloggers have shown incredible bravery in less liberal parts of the world in their quest to expose true horrors and corruption. Raif Badawi, for example, is still languishing in a Saudi Arabian jail. He has been publicly lashed over charges, including insulting Islam and apostasy, because of his pro-free speech blog.

But plenty of bloggers and assorted social media users seem to be unaware of the responsibilities that come with writing either reportage or opinion pieces. They risk getting sued for libel or prejudicing court cases. Often, they contribute to the growing mountain of bullshit that can be filed under "fake news". 

The tidal wave of ignorance about the British criminal justice system and rules in regard to reporting on court cases has been brought into sharp focus in recent weeks. First, there was the #FreeTommy crowd, foaming and indignant that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon could be guilty of contempt of court when they thought all he was doing was telling the truth about rapists - except that his "reporting" has the potential to cost the taxpayers thousands in aborted trials and could cause rapists to go free. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is not a journalist.

And ever since the trial of cricketer Ben Stokes commenced earlier this month, the armchair experts have been out in force crapping all over social media with their inane pronouncements of guilt or innocence. These fools do not care that the trial is ongoing and, at the time of writing, not all evidence has come before the jury. 

As well as being told to avoid the traditional forms of news media, jurors are now being advised to steer clear of social media, lest their decision is coloured by online pitchfork-wavers. The journalists reporting on the case have to be very careful with the language they use, to not allow opinion to creep into their stories, but head over to Facebook and everyone seems to know exactly what happened that night and what should happen to those involved. It's pathetic.

Of course, not all journalism is perfect and bad journalism should be called out. This week, for example, there was a mass outrage because apparently an innocent British woman was jailed in Dubai for the heinous crime of having a glass of wine on an Emirates Airline flight. Except that's not quite what happened - and the reporting of this case in the UK media was almost universally terrible.  

The woman in question, Ellie Holman, a Swedish citizen who lives in Kent, arrived in Dubai from London with her daughter. At passport control, she handed over an expired Swedish passport. Understandably, she was not allowed into the country, as would be the case if she tried to enter any country with an expired passport. Ms Holman then produced an Iranian passport - Iranian citizens cannot get a tourist visa on arrival to the UAE, just as they can't if they want to visit the UK. She had the option of paying on the spot for a visa which would allow her, as an Iranian citizen, to spend 96 hours in the UAE. But she refused. 

As the situation escalated, she filmed the border control officials - again, this would land you in trouble at pretty much any international airport. In the UK, for example, while filming in public places is legal, airports are privately owned businesses and, as such, they can set their own rules in regard to filming and photography. 

Ms Holman was asked if she had been drinking and she said she'd consumed a glass of wine on the plane. But her detention was not for drinking a glass of wine - it was for visa irregularities. However, it was decided that charges would not be pursued and Ms Holman and her daughter should be arriving back in the UK today. 

If someone rocked up to Heathrow on an expired Swedish passport and then tried to enter the country by producing an Iranian passport without a valid UK visa - and then filmed border control officials as the situation escalated - they too would be taken aside and public sympathy would be non-existent. 

As someone who has herself fallen foul of the law in the UAE, I am not going to sit here and tell you all that UAE law is perfect. It's not and there are plenty of good reasons to criticise it. But I am also someone who believes in accurate journalism and there is nothing to be gained by reporting on Ms Holman's case in such a shoddy manner. It undermines the good work other journalists have done on reporting on legal matters in the UAE and neighbouring states.

If people who declare themselves "citizen journalists" would like to become professional journalists, there are multiple options available for training. It would be great if such people did take the time to make themselves aware of media law, of rules and conventions particularly in regard to court reporting, and of media ethics. Good things have come out of the rise of blogging and social media - but when you publish something, you have responsibilities. I'm sure plenty of people, if they have made it to the end of this blog post, will still dismiss me as a boring and bitter old hack, trying to take all the fun out of their crusades - but if you cannot be bothered with accuracy, you are not a journalist. 

Photography by rawpixel.com from Pexels

On reclaiming decency

Sadly, the notion of decency is often associated with joyless pearl-clutchers expressing disgust at everything from nubile young women in minimal clothing to gay couples having the temerity to get married to anyone having sex outside of heterosexual wedlock. But to automatically link decency to displays of flesh or other people's sex lives is to merely be a pathetic busybody rather than an advocate for genuine decency. 

Indeed, plenty of people who are synonymous with decency are actually pretty terrible - the TV evangelists who inevitably fall from grace when they are caught in bed with people other than their wives while expecting sexual purity - and money - from everyone else, the anti-gay zealots who force people into the closet and inspire homophobic violence, the exposed flesh police who play no small role in creating a vile culture where short skirts and low-cut tops are blamed for rape rather than rapists.

But it is good to see that in the wake of England's surprise performance in the World Cup, decency has been the winner. Gareth Southgate, the team manager, has emerged as a genuine role model - a man who has been humble, respectful and compassionate while still being a strong leader. His young team responded well to this sort of leadership and their World Cup was not marred by scandal or idiotic comments during post-match interviews. Usually when football managers and players end up on the front page rather than the back page of newspapers, it is because they have behaved like dickheads. Not this time. Instead, these fine men made it to the front page because they inspired love, loyalty - and everyone was glad of some temporary respite from stories of catastrophic Brexit negotiations and Theresa May's amazing collapsing cabinet.

Southgate and his team have all been thoroughly decent.

Not so decent were the idiots who jumped on an NHS vehicle and damaged items in an Ikea store after England defeated Sweden in the quarter-finals. In this era of social media, it wasn't long before video footage of these people went viral - the woman involved was quickly identified and has been arrested. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the men involved have not been tracked down. I hope they are found and arrested too.

Inevitably and ridiculously, there were pleas to not ruin the lives of these young people by sharing the videos of them vandalising publicly funded emergency vehicles. "Calm down, nobody died," one tosser moronically opined on a Facebook page. Would he be as sanguine if it was his car that was vandalised, or one of his loved ones experienced a delay in receiving treatment because that NHS vehicle was off the road? 

And the NHS vehicle in this case was so badly damaged that it was taken off the road - the bonnet was dented, the windscreen was shattered, a wing mirror was destroyed and the radio was broken. This is not OK. It is criminal damage and the repair bill will be footed by the taxpayer. 

To deliberately jump on an NHS vehicle is an act of indecency. 

Doing daft things when one is drunk is not unusual but there is a world of difference between nicking a traffic cone to wear as a hat for a selfie and rendering an emergency services vehicle unroadworthy.

Yes, it is very easy to be publicly shamed in this internet era - and for some people, the shaming is unfair and unjustified, or blown out of all proportion. But equally, the internet can make it easy for people to make amends, to publicly apologise or to set the record straight. And just as today's dead tree newspaper is tomorrow's chip paper or kitty litter liner, the content-hungry beast that is the internet means that while the story may live on in Google searches, other stupid things will happen to make people forget about it and move on.

And the existence of the internet does not mean an end to adults taking responsibility for their actions. The woman who was arrested was 21. That means she is considered in the eyes of the law to be responsible enough to drink alcohol, drive a car, get married, join the military, buy property, consent to sex, and vote. The comments on social media about her thighs and body were revolting, unnecessary and irrelevant, but the outrage at someone behaving so irresponsibly was justified, as was the outrage at the fools who were egging her and the other car-jumpers on.

At 21, you are expected to be able to distinguish between right and wrong, to not jump on an emergency vehicle, even when you are drunk or encouraged by other drunks. Howls of "But she's so young! Her life is ruined!" are infantilising nonsense. At what age is it OK for someone to be held to account for this sort of mindless vandalism? I wouldn't expect it of my seven-year-old nephew - if I did catch him jumping on my car rendering it unroadworthy, he would not see the calm side of Aunty George for quite a while and his parents would not be amused either.

The contrast between a small minority showing off the worst of Britain and the decency of Gareth Southgate and his team is immense. His squad was the second-youngest in the tournament and they behaved like grown-ups. Indeed, plenty of much older sportsmen have, over the years, lacked the decency of the England team - I'm looking at you, Shane Warne.

The English squad's conduct on and off the pitch was something to aspire to - the term "role model" is bandied about too often but in this case, it is perfectly apt. The term "decency" is often mocked as old-fashioned, of being from the dull, prudish world of Mary Whitehouse - but in the case of Gareth Southgate and the England squad, we have an example of genuine decency, a decency that does not dwell on the activities in one's bedroom or the brevity of one's clothing because it is much bigger than that. 

True decency is not petty. True decency is not limited to any one religion and it is does not have to involve religion at all. True decency is not self-serving. True decency recognises the good that can be found everywhere. True decency is about showing respect, thinking about the consequences of your actions, taking responsibility, being honest, recognising that you are part of something bigger than yourself. And, sadly, the stories that are once again wiping the World Cup off the front pages show true decency is in very short supply.

Photography by Dean Johnson/Flickr

The death of Ataturk's vision

Ataturk's brilliant post WWI vision of a democratic, secular Turkey is in tatters today.

We went to bed on Friday night in the UK as a coup attempt by sections of the Turkish military was underway. Amid the chaos, there was an element of high farce as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a big fan of censorship and shutting down social media, was trying to speak to the nation on TV via Facetime, until the call dropped out. There were claims he was seeking asylum in Germany but Angela Merkel wouldn't have it. 

And, most hypocritically of all, Erdogan was calling for his supporters to take to the streets. Late at night. During a military coup. This is the same man who responds to people publicly protesting against his awful government with tear gas and rubber bullets. 

But he was more than happy to let his fans loose on the streets on Friday night. According to Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, 265 people were killed in the coup attempt, including civilians.

Boris Johnson, our new Foreign Secretary (yes, I know...), said he spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu to express support for the country's "democratically elected government and instititions".

However, there is evidence that the November 2015 elections were affected by fraud. These are the elections which President Erdogan's AKP Party won after losing an election in June 2015 and forcing a caretaker government rather than forming a coalition. He is a man who does not want to relinquish his grip on power. The Washington Post used an electronic electoral forensics toolkit to conclude that the results were most likely not above board. It could well be that, amazingly, voters in Istanbul cast 1.66 votes each as an email was leaked that appeared to show 10,316,871 voters cast 17,104,607. And then the official election results website went out of service. Incredible!

In any case, it is just another example of how democracy should not simply start and end at the ballot box. Gloating Brexiters telling Remainers to get over it, take note. 

As well as police routinely opening fire and tear-gassing anti-government protests in Turkey, internet censorship laws were passed in 2007 and amended in 2014 to broaden the scope of government blocking and to make it easier for the authorities to access data without a warrant, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were temporarily blocked in April 2015 until they complied with severe restrictions, social media was blocked during the coup attempt, dozens of Turkish citizens have faced charges for criticising the government online, the Homeland Security Act 2015 increased the amount of time for which investigators can conduct wire taps and similar operations without a court order from 24 to 48 hours, and Turkey currently sits at a dismal 151 on the World Press Freedom Index out of 180 countries, dropping two places from last year.

It should come as no great surprise to anyone who has been observing Turkish politics for any extended period of time that a coup attempt happened over the weekend. The methods employed by the coup leaders will be debated for years to come but there are plenty of people in Turkey who may not be a fan of the methods yet they still agree with the stated aims of returning their beloved country to a proper, functional secular democracy.

We will never know if the coup leaders would have paved the way for a return to Ataturk's vision but we do know that dark days lie ahead for Turkey. Six thousand people have been arrested. There is serious talk of a return to capital punishment. It is a barbaric slippery slope to say it will be reintroduced simply for coup leaders. Does anyone trust Erdogan not to reintroduce it on a wider scale? For dissenters or journalists perhaps? They've already jailed two prominent journalists this year in outrageous circumstances.

Are we witnessing the birth of Erdogan's Islamist dictatorship?

None of this will help Turkey's bid to join the EU. Anyone who scaremongered about Turkey during the referendum campaign should feel pretty stupid today, although these people seem to be impossible to embarrass. And Turkey's role in the refugee crisis is now up in the air and this could have tragic consequences. The only positive would be for this to force the EU to work together properly on constructive solutions instead of member states taking simplistic, hardline approaches usually in a bid to appease rising far right groups across the continent.

It is a mess and, because of Turkey's fulcrum-like geographical location, it is a mess that will not be contained within its borders.

Photo by Faruk/Flickr

Report on rape, expect idiocy at leisure...

The take-home message of my last couple of days is probably: Don't bother trying to reason with rape apologists and people who don't understand the basics of the British justice system because you will only end up beating your head against the nearest brick wall.

But that is exactly what I foolishly did and, wow, have I come across some of the finest minds operating in Britain today.

On the Evening Standard Facebook page, a link to a this story about a reported rape in my local area was posted last night. The headline, "Woman, 34, 'raped in south-west London park as she walked home alone" was like catnip for victim-blamers.

People demanded to know what the hell she was doing walking home by herself at 2am. It didn't seem to occur to these dullards that the buses had stopped running by then, it's not always easy to hail a taxi in that part of the neighbourhood at 2am, the night buses were still a walk in the dark away and possibly not even heading near her home, or that, quite simply, it was not a long walk and the Merton Police Twitter account likes to remind us all the time how safe the borough is.

Also, none of these variables and possibilities bloody matter because she had every right to walk home without getting raped. I've walked by myself in that area at night without expecting to be raped.

And there were the inevitable comparisons of rape to crimes against property. According to yet another academic giant, men (What? All of them?) take their Rolexes off when they walk through a rough neighbourhood. By this logic, if a man is mugged for his Rolex, that is exactly the same as the monstrous violation of one's body that is rape. I'm not sure if the men making these statements realise that men can be raped too but that notion might make their tiny heads explode.

Others added some racism to the victim-blaming, demanding to know why there was no description of the alleged attacker in the article. This obviously meant that she was attacked by an immigrant, probably an illegal one, according to the cavalcade of fools.

Or maybe it meant that she was attacked in the dark and was too busy trying to fend off her attacker in the dark to pause and observe him for distinguishing features.

There was no race-based description, according to one genius, because some people are "protected" by the police. Yeah. Except a quick peek at the news section of the Metropolitan Police website shows that if there is a description based on skin colour or nationality available, this will be publicised in the alerts about people wanted for questioning. If there is a clear photo of a suspect, which makes the person's ethnicity pretty obvious, the Met will publish that too.

Then someone called Emily Burton (and my apologies in advance to all the perfectly pleasant women out there called Emily Burton...) felt the need to send me a message on Facebook in response to my attempts to reason with a mob who were either angry with a woman for walking home alone or angry that the police were "obviously" hiding something.

Here is her delightful and sisterly message to me:

HEY LISTEN UP YOU DRIED UP OLD CUNT everyone is fucked off with your RETARDED OPINIONS , bet you've never had a shag in your life !!! never mind the fact you are the ultimate billy no mates , now go back to your bible you stupid bitch and FUCK THE HELL OFF !!! Georgia Lewis BRAIN DEAD CUNT

BTW if you don't know what the definition of a brain dead cunt is LOOK IN A MIRROR

The message went into my "Others" folder. If she didn't alert me to the fact she'd sent me a message on the Evening Standard's Facebook page, I probably wouldn't have seen it for months. I publicly thanked her for the message and told her that I hope she is never raped because I wouldn't wish rape on anyone, and because that would be a terrible way to learn why victim-blaming is an awful thing to do.

It would appear that she then thought better of announcing to the world that she sends unsolicited and abusive messages to people she has never met, because her comments disappeared and she now seems to have vamoosed from Facebook altogether.

And then the Wimbledon Guardian, my local newspaper, reported on the story this morning and posted it on their Facebook page. Lo and behold, more idiots!

This time, two people objected to the reporter's use of the word "alleged". One bloke called Dave asked why "alleged" and whether this is "something women do for attention". And a woman called Emma said: "Surely 'allegedly' should be used when finger pointing a suspect, not for what the victim has said. I'm sure the police can determine if rape occurred or not. Allegedly wasn't the right choice of word."

Er, yes, Emma and Dave, in a responsible news report "allegedly" is the right word. Until someone is arrested and unless that person is then found guilty of rape, the victim's report to the police is still an allegation.

I pointed this out to Dave whose stellar response was "If that's your opinion, mine's different."

Christ on a cracker, Dave, no. It's not my opinion. It is how the British justice system works to ensure a fair trial. The principle of innocent until proven guilty is a pretty important one. According to Dave, who adorably attempted feminism, this might put women off reporting rape.

No. The principle of the presumption of innocence should not ever put off a woman - or a man, for that matter, from reporting rape. You know what does put women off reporting rapes though? The victim-blaming crap that puts her on trial in the kangaroo court of online comments for having the temerity to walk home alone with the apparently outrageous expectation that nobody will rape her.

A rapist is responsible for rape. That is all.






Photo by jks Lola

Charity and the cult of the personality

Today, #kidscompany and Boris Johnson were trending at the same time on Twitter. It was quite the coincidence because both stories that led to the social media noise illustrated precisely why the cult of the personality continues to make idiots of us all. We may look back with the privileged superiority of 20/20 vision in hindsight at how people fell under the spell of Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin but we are not necessarily any smarter in 2015.

Boris Johnson was in the news because he rugby-tackled a 10-year-old boy. Everyone reported this with the usual "Oh,  isn't Boris hilarious!" tone. It's another Boris distraction from his appalling record as Mayor of London and his ineffectiveness as an MP. He does this on purpose, because he knows it's what people will talk about instead of anything serious.

But falling for the cult of the personality isn't limited to the BoJo fan club. The #kidscompany Twitter trend centred on the terrible story that is the collapse of the Kids Company charity. Kids Company was founded in 1996 by British-Iranian psychotherapist, Camila Batmanghelidjh.

Batmanghelidjh was lauded across the political spectrum. Celebrities, such as the members of Coldplay and JK Rowling, donated generously to the charity that started as a youth drop-in centre in London's Camberwell neighbourhood and grew until it had therapy centres, alternative education facilities and a presence in 40 schools in London and Bristol, as well as a performing arts programme in Liverpool.

And, crucially, David Cameron hailed her as a heroine, as part of his "Big Society" concept. Remember that? That thing in which we are all meant to be in together? That one.

Kids Company received £30m of taxpayers' money. Three million of this was meant to be spent on restructuring an organisation that had grown perhaps too fast with ego and ambition overtaking reality. Instead, it was mostly spent on overdue staff wages and, if we're lucky, the government might be able to recoup £1.8m. When a government has to prop up a charity that is attempting to provide vital social services, we have a serious problem.

When Camila Batmanghelidjh became a public figure, she was very quickly known for her brightly coloured caftans and turbans. She was charismatic, she was passionate, she was patronisingly described as "larger than life", which we all know is code for "overweight but makes up for it with personality".

And it seems that her dizzying presence blinded people to a lot of things. There is an ongoing police investigation into sexual assault. Today, we had the unedifying spectacle of the Commons committee hearing into the inner workings of Kids Company. The committee heard that despite claiming to care for 36,000 clients, there were only records for 1,699 people. There were questions about handing out cash to vulnerable minors and whether that really is the best way to deal with the complex issues that go along with social and economic disadvantage. After this day of testimony, it would appear that Kids Company was poorly run with no real strategy for solving social and economic problems at their root causes or for how the charity should expand.

Just because Kids Company is a charity, that should not make it immune from scrutiny. If anything should be scrutinised, it's charities because people who donate have the right to know how their money will be used. It is a huge responsibility.

The elephant in the room is that the government saw fit to give £30m of our money to one charity without a whole lot in the way of due diligence. The very notion that £30m of public money can be thrown at a charity to try and solve complex problems in three different cities is ridiculous.

While tweeters waste bandwidth giggling at Batmangelidjh's weight and outfits and at Boris tackling a child, not enough people are talking about how few answers the government has for elevating people out of poverty.



Photography by George Hodan

It's about time Britain grew up...

It has been one of those weeks where I just want to yell: "GROW UP! GROW UP, THE LOT OF YOU!" at the internet. Seriously, too many people have been really pathetic.

In particular, those outraged at Jeremy Corbyn not singing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain commemoration need to pipe down and let the grown-ups talk at the big table. If you want to live in a place that forces people to sing national anthems, I hear North Korea is lovely at this time of year.

But, honestly, the outcry over Corbyn and "God Save The Queen", a ludicrous anthem if ever there was one, was manufactured by the media, with the notable exception of the Guardian choosing not to plaster the fauxrage on its front page today.

If the editors were genuinely offended by Corbyn's respectful silence and wanted to show they are all about honouring those who have died in war, why weren't the front pages focused on the actual service of remembrance at St Paul's cathedral? It wouldn't have caused the easily offended little petals on Twitter to lose their shit, it wouldn't have been great clickbait, but it would have been the mature way to cover that story.

Another mature story to put on today's front pages would have been a report about how £4.4 billion worth of cuts to tax credits will affect people who are in work, but that wouldn't play into the whole "all people on benefits are feckless, lazy scroungers who spend all day watching Sky TV in tracksuits while texting their drug dealer on their iPhone" narrative.

And then it was Prime Minister's Question Time, Corbyn's first as leader of the opposition. Has anyone noticed that all of a sudden, journalists are referring to "Her Majesty's Opposition" when they have never done so before? It is accurate, but it is naive to think this is not being done on purpose. Again, grow up and quit editorialising when you are meant to be doing balanced, fair journalism.

Corbyn set the tone with an appeal for a less theatrical PMQs. He asked questions that real voters want asked in parliament. This is what parliament is for - it is meant to represent the people. This is Democracy 101. It would have been good to see Corbyn add more facts and stats to the questions and the responses, but the idea is sound and it will be interesting to see how this continues to play out in the coming weeks and months.

And it's not as if David Cameron's fans can complain about Corbyn's calm, measured approach. The law of unintended consequences means that Cameron comes across better in a less melodramatic forum. His answers were no more substantial than they were in the last parliament. He trotted out the tired £8-billion-for-the-NHS line out once more, without any detail or context again, for example, but he did not come across as a braying schoolboy.

Even when another Tory MP added a jibe about the national anthem to the end of his question, Cameron was classy enough to not take the bait in his response.

It was a far cry from the ding-dong battles of the last parliament but then things got a bit silly again. Andrew Turner, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, popped up from the government back bench to ask a question about the isle's struggle to import a tiger for its zoo. Apparently, the hapless kitty has been kept in isolation in Belgium for two years because of red tape about a rabies certificate. Leaving aside the ethics of keeping a tiger in a zoo on a tiny island rather than letting her live in the wild, this was the moment that PMQs jumped the shark. The whole scenario smacked of a set-up, of a way to draw attention away from questions on issues such as housing and mental health.

And again, PMQs looked like a schoolyard.

Afterwards, there was a pleasing tweet from Labour MP, Chuka Umunna. He may have thrown his toys out of the pram by refusing to be part of Corbyn's shadow cabinet but he was very gracious when he tweeted: "#PMQs is a circus. I've long argued to abolish it and put a better alternative in its place, but it was rather refreshing today - good."

And some people lamented the lack of theatrics. They too can grow the hell up. I am really sorry if a civilised exchange of views is boring for you. I am really sorry that you have the attention span of a kitten and can only concentrate on politics when members on both sides of the house are carrying on like a Grange Hill brawl. And I am really sorry if you truly think that sort of mindless, unproductive crap is the way forward for British political debate.

So, who is allowed to say what we're all really thinking?

Every time Katie Hopkins vomits a deliberately outrageous tweet or Nigel Farage says something about not wanting to live next door to a group of Romanian men or someone, almost always from a right-leaning perspective, creates an outrage, someone will always rise to their defence by saying: "They're only saying what we're all really thinking.".

Obviously, this statement is not literally be true. Nobody can ever say something that echoes the thoughts of every single one of us. But someone like Hopkins or Farage is frequently afforded the "TOSWWART" defence, as if they are speaking out for a silent majority too scared to say something that might cause offence.

But the TOSWWART defence is not applied equally. Witness the debacle this week over Emily Thornberry's ill-considered tweet that caused her to lose her job as Shadow Attorney General. All the tweet said was "Image from #Rochester" with a photograph of a house festooned with St George flags and a white van parked out the front. It was a tweet that was open to interpretation but the mob verdict - which was ultimately the only verdict that mattered - was: "Check out the north London Labour snob looking down her nose on a working class household." 

And Thornberry may well have rolled her eyes as she passed the house. Or maybe she was just sharing the sights of the electorate. Here is a tweet she cooked earlier. Whatever the case, she probably shouldn't have tweeted anything more controversial than a selfie with the Labour candidate, but what's done is done. Ed Miliband said the tweet made him "furious" - so furious, in fact, that she had to jump before she was pushed, thus keeping the story in the news cycle all bloody weekend. 

Honestly, Ed, there are million things more infuriating than that tweet, and now you've lost a woman from a working class background, an MP who is popular in her constituency and largely seen as someone who does a good job, from your shadow cabinet. Cue a slow hand clap for the Member for Doncaster North.

An apology would have been sufficient. That would be an apology to the same mob that routinely calls out the left for being nothing but a homogenous rabble of sandal-wearing, muesli-knitting professional outrage-takers. An apology to one stereotypical group that stereotypes another group who stereotypes those who disagree with them in return. And so we have a cycle of stereotyping that rinses around the news cycle and the world of social media and achieves absolutely nothing.

Predictably, The Sun pounced on Dan Ware, the flag-flying, white van man who admitted he doesn't vote and didn't know there was a by-election on in his own town, and published his stage-managed manifesto. It was an incoherent splattering of ideas that basically boiled down to: "Send 'em all back where they came from, lower taxes but make public transport cheaper and build better roads, and while I'm at it, let's bring back the cane in schools and spend more public money jailing anyone who burns a poppy!".

Good to see Ware surprised everyone by completely shattering the stereotype of the English flag-flying, white van man, then.

Is that ridiculous manifesto really what everyone is secretly thinking and only Ware has the courage to say it via The Sun? 

I doubt it. Ware is being used by The Sun to push their agenda in the lead-up to the election and it is one that plenty of people can see right through. The paper had Ware photographed outside Thornberry's "£3 million house" because apparently you can only live in a big house if you were born in one or you play football.

But why can't Thornberry also be afforded the TOSWWART defence? 

Either by accident or design, Thornberry shone a light on the thoughts that cross many people's minds when they see a house like Ware's. It is naive to think that none of us stereotype or make assumptions. We all do, regardless what our politics might be. I know people from across the political spectrum whose hearts sink when they are out canvassing door-to-door for their party and they come across the house with the St George flags flying. They expect a difficult conversation, possibly about immigration, and this is often precisely what happens.

Of course, the challenge for all the major parties is to find ways to engage with people whose choice of home decoration causes them to pause before knocking on the door, especially if they feel they are so far removed from the political process that they never bother to vote. Knee-jerk reactions, such as forcing someone out of a job over a three-word tweet and slamming that same person as a champagne socialist who would only have any political credibility if she lived her whole life in an unheated council house, are equally unconstructive. 

It's time we all grew up. Twitter is a great source of breaking news, of getting quick reactions and engaging with our politicians. But when the news cycle is bogged down for days in the fallout from one tweet, regardless of who sent the tweet, we have a serious problem.

Myleene Klass, Ed Miliband and the sorry state of political debate

Well, that was a sorry sight. We witnessed Ed Miliband supposedly being "owned" by Myleene Klass on ITV's "The Agenda", a programme I hadn't heard of until my Facebook news feed erupted this morning with people on either #TeamMyleene or #TeamEd. From what I can tell, the programme is an attempt by ITV, albeit not a particularly good one, to foster political debate.

Instead, we had the unedifying spectacle of Miliband calmly trying to explain the rationale behind the so-called "mansion tax" as a means of funding the NHS, while Klass kept talking over the top of him, using the phrase "fiscal drag" so everyone thinks she knows what she is talking about, claiming to speak out on behalf of grannies in £2 million pound houses, claiming £2 million will only get you a garage in London even though a cursory glance at Rightmove will reveal that she is talking bunkum, and using the non-analogy of "You may as well just tax me on this glass of water" even though that doesn't make any sense.

But in the midst of her spiel, she made a good point - or at least she gestated the embryo of a good point. It is unclear how much money a mansion tax will bring in for the NHS. Miliband says £1.2 billion. He may be right. He may not. Klass claimed the tax might only raise £300,000 but this figure wasn't attributed to a person or a group. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the mansion tax, whatever sum of money it might raise, it quite simply will not be enough to sort out the funding crisis in the NHS.

Miliband said that the NHS has gone backwards under this government. That is true, although it has been going backwards under successive governments. It was then that Klass asked: "But why? But what are the other options?" and asked Miliband why the NHS is in this mess in the first place.

That is a good question. So naturally the cloth-eared dolt of a presenter decided to wind up the NHS discussion there and then. The whole discussion lasted all of two minutes. Two minutes. One-hundred-and-twenty seconds devoted to discussing one of the biggest issues facing this country, an issue that elections can be won and lost on. And it was a mere two minutes that caused social media to lose its shit today.

And Klass's embryonic good point was lost forever.

The two biggest reasons for cost pressures on the NHS are crippling PFI debts - paying back loans taken out to build or redevelop hospitals across the country will end up costing us around £300 billion with repayments expected to peak at £10.1 billion per year by 2017-18 - and the cost of the marketised NHS. The administration alone on the tender process for NHS contracts costs billions and that is before a single contract has been signed or any service has actually found its way to a patient.

But this is never really discussed properly. There may be some tinkering around the edges with Labour Party NHS policy but no major party is actually tackling these two issues head on. And any discussion about NHS finances is completely meaningless without discussing these two factors. Any party that has a clear plan to sort out the waste of our money created by both these scandals deserves to win the next election.

Similarly, this morning on Sky News, the red sofa of inexplicable guests was filled with Tony Blackburn and Michelle Dewbury, neither of whom appeared to have any real clue about the NHS. This didn't stop them discussing it anyway with Stephen Dixon, surely the most intellectually mild news presenter in the country right now. It was another ill-informed discussion full of the usual wailing about how we all need the NHS, and what can be done about it but nobody ever being particularly clear on what "it" is. And given that "it" is PFI debt, it's NHS marketisation costs, it's Clinical Commissioning Groups created by the rancid Health and Social Care Act of 2012, it is all too hard to be summed up in the Sky News breakfast news programme or on a lame attempt at serious journalism on ITV. Meanwhile, debate in the House of Commons is generally a petty schoolyard rabble.

And as a result, we are all the poorer and less informed for it.




Photography by Petr Kratochvil

Eternally seeking the perfect victim...

In the past few weeks, two cases have been in the news and these two cases shine a rather horrible light on our notions of victimhood. Monica Lewinsky's affair with Bill Clinton and the subsequent legal and political ramifications again made headlines when Lewinsky started a Twitter account and was, predictably, faced with assorted trolls. And in the UK, Ched Evans, a convicted rapist, has won a fast-tracked inquiry into his conviction - and regardless of the outcome of this, Twitter and the court of public opinion - which led to the inquiry being fast-tracked in the first place - will ensure the woman at the centre of the awful incident will still be living in the shadow of that night in a hotel room.

What is disturbing about both these cases is the rush to condemn the women largely because neither one fits the narrow, demure image of a victim that guarantees sympathy or, at the very least, stops a mob of keyboard warriors from behaving like anonymous, irrationally angry vultures.

In the case of Monica Lewinsky, it really didn't matter how she chose to live her life and conduct herself in public after the story broke, she was never going to win. Being open about what happened in the Oval Office all those years ago and trying to make the most of her accidental fame with money-making ventures such as a line of handbags, has led to inevitable slut-shaming and a desire to silence her. I had a bizarre Twitter exchange this week in which a conservative American woman was disappointed that she hasn't been more critical of Bill Clinton and, as such, she is a poor role model who is not serving other women well.

Really? Why does Monica Lewinsky have to be a role model for anyone? Why is it up to her to serve other women over an incident that she did not intend to become public? The woman I argued with on Twitter agreed that Lewinsky was indeed a victim but she was not behaving like the kind of victim she wanted her to be. As if Lewinsky owes it to Random Conservative Internet Woman to behave in a certain way.

If Linda Tripp had not betrayed Lewinsky on such an enormous scale, we may never have known about any of this.

If Lewinsky just wanted to confide in someone about her relationship with the President and move on without pressing harassment charges, that should have been her choice to make.

If Bill Clinton hadn't hung her out to dry with the infamous "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" quote, an inevitable statement to make in an often puritanical society, it might have been a different story all round. But it is Lewinsky who has come out of this worse, lost so much more, and been fed to the wolves on a far more regular basis than Clinton ever will be.

If Lewinsky decided to slink away quietly after the voracious news cycle had moved on and Clinton completed his presidency relatively unscathed, that would be perfectly understandable but she would probably then have been accused of letting Clinton get away with it, of letting herself be silenced and so on. And, frankly, it'd be naive to think that even if she did exile herself in some rural backwater and open a five-and-dime, the scandal would still cast a long shadow over her life, such was the global notoriety she achieved. She still might not have settled down with a nice lad and led a quiet, anonymous existence - and who is to say that is even what she wants out of life?

Lewinsky was in an extraordinary situation, one that she could never have imagined when she started her White House internship, and there are any number of ways she could have reacted. If 100 different women were in that exact same situation, there would probably be 100 different responses.

As a victim, Lewinsky was only ever going to be acceptable if she was either silent and absent from public life or she was demure and contrite. Instead, she told government lawyers to go fuck themselves when she was questioned and threatened with 27 years in prison. Good for her and bad luck if that offends anyone.

In the Ched Evans rape case, again we have a victim who does not fit the mould of a victim that is acceptable to the hordes on the interwebs. It is astounding how quickly people have gone straight to the "she is clearly a slag" defence on behalf of Evans.

As it stands at the time of writing, Evans is a convicted rapist. A jury found that the victim was too drunk to consent and the fact that she consented to sex with one of his friends before Evans joined in was deemed to be irrelevant. Consent to sex with one man does not equal consent to sex with his mate.

So what if she was not a virgin when Evans let himself into the hotel room. So what that this is not a rape that fits the "man jumping out of an alleyway" image that many seem to associate with this awful crime. So what if Natasha Massey, his girlfriend, is standing by her man. Even if Evans' conviction is overturned, I have no idea why you'd stay with him - but that is Massey's choice, just as Hillary Clinton stayed with Bill, even though she is bright and qualified enough to hold high office on her own merits.

But, I repeat, as I write this, Ched Evans is still a convicted rapist. And his victim, who was only 19 at the time, is still trying to rebuild her life.

The morons on the internet who have named the victim and then named her new identity, forcing her to change her name and location yet again, are absolutely disgraceful excuses for human beings. Just as the events of 1998 will always be with Monica Lewinsky, the events of May 2011 will always be with this woman.

She deserves privacy and the right to get on with her life, regardless of the outcome of the inquiry into the conviction. She is not seeking to be a public figure and that choice should not be denied her just as Lewinsky should not have to be forced into exile. You can disagree with anything Lewinsky might have to say about the events of 16 years ago but if you seek to silence her, or any woman who might not fit the mould of demure contrition, you are part of the problem.

If Sheffield United want him to play for them, that is their choice. If people want to support a club and pay for tickets to watch Evans play, that is their choice too. But the club's managers or fans or the #JusticeForChed zealots cannot expect others to be silent. If Evans returns to top level football, nobody should be stunned if others use their right to free speech and peaceful protest to picket the Bramall Lane stadium. If people refuse to watch Ched Evans play and refuse to renew their season tickets on that basis, that is also a choice that must be respected.

The conservative woman on Twitter believes that Lewinsky's unwillingness to condemn Bill Clinton is a great disservice to all women. But the bigger disservice to women is to force them to conform to the prejudices of others, and to want them to only behave in a certain way when they are confronted with awful situations where there is no one correct way to react.

Privacy? Who needs it?

So Edward Snowden is hiding out somewhere in Hong Kong - or maybe by now, he's not. Who knows? Whatever the case, there is no middle ground narrative for him. He is either a noble and faultless hero or he is a reckless, dangerous man who, to top it all off, has pretty much orchestrated the world's most jaw-dropping break-up. Hell, he has made text-dumpers look positively saintly.

But his personal life is not really the point. Well, unless you're writing for New York magazine, in which case it is perfectly appropriate to name and run pictures of a woman believed to be Snowden's abandoned partner. And not just any old pictures either. New York magazine saw fit to publish pictures of her in pole dancing attire along with excerpts from her blog and her YouTube channel. And, quelle surprise, the Daily Mail has also decided pictures of a woman who is most likely feeling vulnerable and confused are newsworthy.  

What's the problem, you might ask. She put those pictures online for all to see so surely she has given up her right to privacy, no? No. As far as we are aware, she did not know what her partner was up to and was as stunned as his employers were to discover he had left the US after leaking his story to the Guardian. She has almost certainly been questioned, or will be questioned, but at the time of writing, she has not been charged with any crime or been found guilty of any crime.

It is likely that she wanted to attract the attention of people looking for pictures, videos and blog posts on pole dancing. Such people could have found her blog and interacted with her without knowing the details of her personal life. That is nobody's business.

She had occasionally alluded to a boyfriend known only as "E" on her blog, and yesterday she wrote a vague blog post about heartbreak and goodbyes - without naming her now world-famous boyfriend - but has since, understandably, deleted the whole website. Except it all lives on in Google cache. 

Ironically, in a lame attempt to smear someone who has potentially exposed a massive threat to privacy in multiple nations, New York magazine has not respected Snowden's partner's right to privacy. And they have demonstrated just how easy it is for your online presence to become everyone's business without the intervention of big government.

She did not ask to be an international public figure. She has a right to privacy and she has a right to make a new life for herself elsewhere, something that will now become more difficult as she is splashed all over the internet and no doubt in tomorrow's newspapers.

Edward Snowden's revelations are not necessarily shocking. Nor is the potential for the British government to be involved, despite the denials of William Hague. We voluntarily hand over information to the government all the time. In the last two weeks, I have handed over information about myself and my husband to the UK Border Agency so that I can have indefinite leave to remain in Britain. Yesterday, I made a complaint about my local bus service and included my Oyster card number to make it easier to track down the offending drivers. I have to trust that they won't use the information about my travels around London against me.

And they probably won't. Who cares where little ol' me goes in my boring daily business? But that's not really the point.

As a white, 37-year-old Australian woman of English and Scottish Christian heritage, I don't fit any of the usual stereotypes and I am probably not on any watchlists. Or am I? I regularly communicate online with Arab friends who I met in my time living in the Middle East. I am currently involved in a campaign to save my local hospital which has an online presence. I have written on this very blog in defence of the mosque in my neighbourhood. I am not a royalist or a fan of the current government. Who knows if some combination of words, phrases or contacts in my online life has alerted GCHQ? I am pretty sure I have the freedom in Britain to say what I say online without fear or maybe I am being naive?

But surely we need all this surveillance to keep us all safe? Here's the thing about terrorism - the reason why  it is so effective at creating mass fear is the element of surprise. Nobody who went to work at the World Trade Center on that awful day expected the day to end quite so badly. Nobody who went about their usual London commute on 7/7 thought their bus or train might end up a burning wreck. Drummer Lee Rigby did not expect to be attacked and killed in broad daylight.

The two suspects in Drummer Rigby's murder trial were known to MI5 but the attack still happened. All that was required to carry out such a vile act was a conversation between a couple of seriously unwell people and the acquisition of a meat cleaver. The conversation might not have even taken place online or by telephone. It was all pretty low-tech.

What we do need is time to properly digest the information already available to us from Edward Snowden's story. There will no doubt be more revelations in the coming months. We need to rationally assess the full extent of our collective privacy invasion and determine if we think such intrusions are worthwhile, necessary or even effective at stopping terrorism.

But even today, #PRISM and #NSA are dropping back in on Twitter because of #PS4 and #iOS7. An entire Twitter account, @_nothingtohide is devoted to the retweeting of lame remarks along the lines of "I don't care if the government spies on me! My life is so boring! LOL!".

Why do we need to give a damn about whether or not Edward Snowden has uncovered a massive infringement on liberty on an international scale? After all, there's a new console we simply must own and there are pictures of his pretty girlfriend in her underwear to leer over. 

The American right's failed attempt to slur Ashley Judd

I love observing American politics. It is important to be aware of what goes on in the most powerful nation on Earth, and it fascinates, amuses, frustrates, delights and angers me in equal measure.

Hilariously, if I engage in a discussion on Twitter about American politics, sometimes I am told to mind my own business. Freedom of speech is only for Americans within America, according to some idiots. It's sad to be so insecure when it comes to criticism or curiosity from people outside your own country.

So, this blog post will most likely infuriate some people. Well, pardon me for taking an interest in the wider world...

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Washington DC last week, there was an attempt to manufacture outrage about Ashley Judd. Amid talk that the actress may be launching a political career representing the Democrats in the state of Kentucky, Steven Crowder, a conservative comedian, thought he had uncovered a Republican wet dream - a Democrat who said something stupid about rape. After the accident-prone Republican election campaign last year, this was just the sort of thing the American right could seize upon. A chance to say: "Hey, look! It's not just us! Liberals say dumb things about rape too! Why aren't the libtards calling out Ashley Judd for saying something stupid about rape?"

Except she didn't say anything stupid about rape.

Crowder launched into an attempt at comedy by referring to this tweet from Judd:

@AshleyJudd
Then over to eastern Congo for connection between conflict minerals used in our electronics, mass rape, & forcibly displaced persons.

Crowder said: "By the way, in breaking news, Ashley Judd just tweeted that buying Apple products, again, is akin to rape. From her iPhone. Rape - now she knows how my brain felt after watching Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Oh, she said it. What is this obsession with Ashley Judd and rape? It's pretty unnerving."

Except, quelle surprise, there is a predictable lack of nuance or context in Crowder's attempt to slag off Judd, a rape survivor. The tweet is part of many tweets, talks and writings by Judd on the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country she has visited to raise awareness of the country's ongoing troubles. They include the militarisation of the mines from which material for products such as iPhones are sourced, and the violence, exploitation and slavery that goes along with it, including rape used as a weapon of war.

Judd wrote a blog post on this very subject in which she admits she is as guilty as anyone else who avails themselves of iPhones, iPads and the like. For anyone who can concentrate for five minutes in one sitting, her points are clear. She admits the hypocrisy of her own and everyone else's reliance on technology sourced from places of conflict, she calls for transparency from companies such as Apple, and she doesn't flinch from chronicling the horrors of rape, especially on women suffering from fistulas.

Instead, of making a lame joke about brain rape, Crowder could have pointed out that Judd was doing it right when it comes to discussing rape and that perhaps it would behoove certain conservatives to do better. While trying to call out Ashley Judd for saying something stupid about rape, Crowder managed to say something stupid about rape. Genius!

The gaffes about rape during the 2012 election, the subsequent justification of these gaffes by some conservatives, and the despair publicly expressed by other conservatives indicates there is some shit that needs to be sorted out.

There is a difference between misspeaking and the exposure of awful views on rape and this stupidity isn't restricted to conservatives. Whoopi Goldberg deserved every condemnation for her ridiculous "rape-rape" explanation for Roman Polanski's behaviour and Joe Biden's "garden-variety slap across the face" gaffe was a bloody stupid thing to say. But the ongoing stream of stupid things said about rape has disproportionately plagued the American conservative movement.

Indeed, an American conservative I follow on Twitter, the forthright @rachelveronica told me she would happily give a "Don't say stupid things about rape" talk at CPAC 2014.

I realise that talking about how to discuss rape in a sensitive and sane manner doesn't sound like a golden opportunity for comedy, but in the case of Crowder, this is irrelevant because he is a man who is about as funny as a leaking fistula.


Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com