In defence of John Bercow

Poor Donald Trump. When he visits Britain, he is going to be no-platformed everywhere he goes, the media will completely ignore him, nothing he says will ever get reported, and the people of this country will have absolutely no idea he is even here. Poor little Donny won't have any freedom of speech.

Except that will not be how it pans out when he takes up Theresa May's embarrassingly fast invitation to pop across the pond and say hello. His visit will dominate the news cycle for days. His views will be heard by millions. This is a man who makes global headlines every time he tweets. He has more platforms than an Olympic diving team.

But none of this has stopped Trump's British apologists from demanding John Bercow resign. This is all because Bercow plans to use the power he has as speaker of the house to not invite Trump to address MPs in Westminster Hall. Please note that Bercow has not called for Trump to be refused entry to the UK or to never speak to anyone or for press conferences to be called off.

All he has done is refuse Trump an invitation to speak at Westminster Hall as a statement against Trump's racism and sexism, and to send a message of British support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary, both concepts that seem to elude the wit of Trump. Bercow had the opportunity to take a stand, to speak out on behalf of British values and he took it. He can look back on this in years to come and be very proud. Good on him.

Bercow's upholding of support for an independent judiciary is particularly important. This week, a 44-year-old man from Hertfordshire was arrested at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack when he disembarked from a flight from Iraq. British idiots, who are apparently experts in US constitutional law, started saying that this was proof that Britain should copy Trump with travel restrictions for people with passports from Iraq - except that at this stage we don't know if the arrested man had an Iraqi passport.

It is entirely possible that the arrested man only has a British passport, in which case a travel restriction would not work. And even if he does have an Iraqi passport, he has been arrested before committing a terror attack on British soil. This would indicate that we don't need to copy Trump because our intelligence services and police are already being effective.

The same idiots who called British judges "enemies of the people" for ruling that our democratically elected MPs should have a vote on triggering Article 50 for leaving the EU are siding with Trump instead of the independent judiciary on the issue of the travel restrictions yet, curiously, they also have a lack of respect for our counter-terrorist forces, even when they do their job properly.

Trump's apologists have also pointed out this week that Bercow has shaken hands with leaders of such undemocratic regimes as China and Saudi Arabia. This is true but these leaders were not invited to speak at Westminster Hall. In any case, plenty of people who are supporting Bercow have also publicly objected to the human rights abuses of both countries and plenty of others with whom Britain breaks bread.

Barack Obama only got the opportunity to address Westminster Hall in 2012, after he had already served an entire term as president. Aung San Suu Kyi has addressed Westminster Hall, which made a powerful statement against the despotic forces in Burma that have imprisoned her and attempted to silence her over the decades. Nelson Mandela has also had this honour. While there are debates as to whether he was a freedom fighter or a leader of thugs, it is hard to argue that he was not a towering figure in ending the official policy of apartheid in South Africa.

In this historic context, for Theresa May to offer Trump a state visit within moments of his election is desperate, premature and completely embarrassing. In the wake of public pressure as well as an outcry that has transcended party politics, it looks like Trump will still be coming over here but his visit will be scaled back.

The latest news is that instead of London, the visit will move to Brexit heartland of the Midlands and Trump will use the opportunity to raise funds for British veterans. Oh good. So basically Trump is employing the same tactics of far right hate group, Britain First. They gained a lot of social media traction by posting things many people who are by no means extremist will agree on, such as support for our troops when they return from war zones and memes about not being cruel to dogs. But Britain First, like Trump, also holds plenty of despicable views. It would appear they are both playing the "But I support the troops!" card as a distraction and in an attempt to mislead people.

In any case, charities such as Help For Heroes should not have to exist in the first place.

If a government sends men and women to war, to risk death and life-changing injury, the least they can do is ensure that injured veterans are housed and do not slip into abject poverty. If Trump was going to schedule a meeting with the defence secretary on how the US and British governments can better help injured veterans when they return home, that would at least deserve some respect. The latest reports indicate Trump wants to host a mass rally with tickets at £10 a head.

Trump can expect protests wherever he goes. Moving the visit away from London won't stop that. People will travel to make themselves heard and it is simply wrong to assume that everyone in the Midlands will be delighted about Trump turning up in their neighbourhood. If anyone wishes to exercise their right to protest when Trump arrives, that should be respected. This will not impede Trump's right to freedom of speech.

Peaceful protest has long been a hallmark of British democracy. With the latest anti-Trump protests, there have certainly been some potty-mouthed banners, especially in Scotland, but peaceful does not mean colourful language is verboten.

In any case, Britain has outdone itself in the last few weeks with the most polite online petition ever.

At the time of writing, 1,853,814 people signed up to the following: "Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen."

To say that Donald Trump is free to visit this green and pleasant land but that it should not cause embarrassment to an elderly woman is adorable. And, if Trump doesn't get to meet the Queen, that will really grind his gears. But it does not mean for a second that his freedom of speech is being denied. Seriously, Trump apologists of Britain and the world, get a grip.








Photography by Matt A.J/Flickr

An oath for oafs

Sajid Javid simply loves the idea of an oath of allegiance to British values! He is all excited after reading Dame Louise Casey's report on social cohesion because it recommends public office-holders take such an oath. Elected officials, civil servants and council workers would be expected to take this oath, should it ever become a requirement, according to the report.

But Sajid has taken an already scarily Orwellian idea one step further and said that all migrants, not just those seeking UK citizenship, should take the oath. 

Yep, he is mad about the oath. Sajid would rather talk about this oath instead of, oh, I dunno, his own decision to vote against landlords requiring their properties to be fit for human habitation while he is an actual landlord. But, hey, letting hard-working people pay through the nose to live in squalor is clearly a British value! Am I right, Sajid? Jolly good show, old chap! 

Hell, he is so keen to advocate for an oath that he has even started spitballing a few ideas for it. What a guy! I am so glad that as a permanent resident of Britain, owner of property in Britain, married to a British citizen, working, paying my taxes and voting in Britain, that Sajid is here to tell me how I can best direct my loyalty.

Sajid said the oath might include phrases such as "tolerating the views of others even if you disagree with them" as well as "believing in freedom of speech". OK, fine. So I have the freedom to say I find the vile and racist rantings of, say, Anjem Choudary or Jayda Fransen are utterly repulsive but I still must "tolerate their views"? I have zero tolerance for racism. If I had to take this oath, would I really mean it? What would happen to me if I publicly said I didn't tolerate the crap people like Choudary and Fransen come out with it? I'd be exercising my freedom of speech, as per the oath, but breaking the bit about tolerance.

"Freedom of religion" was another of Sajid's helpful suggestions. Yep, you can believe in whatever deity you like but what about freedom from religion? I am unimpressed, for example, that certain politicians voted against marriage equality with their religious beliefs being a factor in their decision. I find that sort of church-state crossover hard to tolerate - whoops, there I go again, being intolerant! Indeed, while we're talking about religion, would I be breaking the oath if I dared suggest that it is high time the Church of England was disestablished? If I say so, am I breaking the bit in Sajid's imaginary oath about believing in freedom of religion?

Sajid also suggested "freedom from abuse". If he means physical abuse, we already have laws against assault, rape and murder. These are laws everyone is expected to obey, whether or not they are a public official or not, and regardless of whether they were born here or came here from somewhere else. 

Or does he mean verbal abuse? If so, there are already laws against hate speech and death threats? Do the anti-hate speech laws contravene the "freedom of speech" part of the oath? Honestly, Sajid, this is a minefield! It's almost as if you're making this up as you're going along rather than thinking it through rationally.

Then Sajid said "a belief in equality, democracy and the democratic process" should be chucked into the oath which, the more I think about it, the more it starts looking like having about as much credibility as a pinky promise. Sajid, we currently have an openly misogynistic homophobe on the Commons Women and Equalities Committee in the form of Conservative MP Philip Davies. This is a man who this week tried to filibuster a bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention because men are victims of domestic violence too - even though the convention covers violence against men and women. If only there was a senior woman in the Conservative Party with the power to prevent ridiculous appointments to committees...

As for a belief in "democracy and the democratic process", sure, I can get on board with that. My belief in democracy extends to believing that the monarchy is undemocratic and has no real place in a modern society and that the House of Lords needs urgent reform. I am, apparently, free to say this but does the oath cover democracy and the democratic process as it currently exists or is there some wiggle room on that one, Sajid?

And finally, he suggested "respect for the law, even if you think the law is an ass". So this oath would mean that we must respect all laws at all times, no matter what? Blind loyalty for the win, eh Sajid? What if a public official who had to swear this oath found that stupid laws made their job impossible or compromised safety or would put a vulnerable person at risk? How would swearing to this part of the oath help whistleblowers who expose things that may well be legal but are morally wrong or dangerous or just plain ineffective? 

Sorry, Sajid, you're going to have to work much harder to convince me that this idea for an oath is not just creepy and chilling, but also that it is not completely and utterly useless. Would this sort of lip service really help different groups in communities come together or get along better? Would this prevent a single act of terrorism? Nope. And nope. 

What I do know is that I have lived here long enough to know this sort of forced patriotism, this ridiculous, ill-thought-out jingoism is just a stupid distraction by Sajid Javid and if it ever happened, it would not do a damn thing to improve anything.

  

Photography by Karen Arnold

Why I won't join the Fidel Castro grief orgy

Fidel Castro is dead. And I, for one, will not be shedding a single tear for his passing.

As a journalist, I cannot mourn the passing of a man who on the day of his death left behind a country ranked at just 171 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. Cuba is ranked 171 out of 180 countries. It is dwelling at the bottom with other press freedom dumpster fires such as North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. It rates lower than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Just last month, Cuba arrested journalists who were attempting to cover the Hurricane Matthew disaster. Equipment was confiscated, and in the wake of harassment in recent months, some journalists have fled the country.

Raul Castro's calls for reforms in 2010 have been meaningless. The regime has almost 100 per cent ownership of all media outlets. Access to the internet for citizens is severely limited. Only around 5 per cent of Cubans have internet at home, all internet comes via the government-owned telco Etecsa. Opposition websites are blocked. There is no real editorial independence in Cuba. Censorship and threats to journalists trying to do their job are par for the course.

We will never know for certain how many people have been murdered under Fidel Castro's regime. The Cuba Archive has documented 3,615 firing squad executions since 1959. It's not on the same scale as the deaths under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao but the mentality is the same - wipe out opposition and dissent through executions, a legal system without due process and labour camps.

Why would anyone who claims to chreish freedom, who is appalled by capital punishment, who believes in free and open political debate be OK with such repression, regardless of the scale?

"BUT FREE HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION!" scream Castro's apologists.

Yeah, that's great as long as the educated, healthy people can actually fulfill their potential, travel freely, express their views freely, and enjoy access to a free press and a polling station once in a while. Have the apologists not noticed that plenty of countries have great educational and healthcare options and democracy? It should not be an either/or situation.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE US?!" the apologists yell.

It is precisely this non-nuanced, binary thinking that is turning the world into an idiocracy. It is possible to be angry about more than one thing. There is plenty to criticise the US over, especially in terms of foreign policy over multiple decades. But none of this will bring back the people who were on the receiving end of Castro's firing squads, or reunite families who have been separated, or bring peace to those who want to practice their faith without state repression.

People have risked their lives in dangerous sea voyages to escape the Castro regime. Yet it is stunning how many people who, I am certain, are quite rightly sympathetic to refugees escaping brutality, economic hardship and repression by sea in other parts of the world are seemingly unbothered by the plight of those who felt they had no choice but to leave Cuba. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Instead, I stand with the people who are dancing on the streets this weekend. The mere fact that I can sit here in London and criticise both the US and Cuba, and indeed Britain, without fearing for my life speaks volumes. Make mine a Cuba libre.



Photography by Kevin Burkett/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

Grim times for peaceful protest

See that photo above? I am pretty sure I have very little in common politically with the people in the photo but I support their right to peacefully protest in Washington DC. In a free society, they have every right to express their views without inflicting violence on others or having violence inflicted upon them.

This is how peaceful protest should work. Peaceful protest does not necessarily mean quiet, demure protest. Hell, it does not necessarily mean protesting fully clothed either, Pussy Riot and Slutwalk being two cases in point.

But it has become abundantly clear that the right to peaceful protest is misunderstood.

The protest at the Conservative party conference was, objectively, by any reasonable person's measure, a peaceful one. It was estimated that at least 60,000 people marched in Manchester - with four arrests made, that means that, at worst, 0.00666666666% of all the people who protested were arrested. But the tiny and unconstructive minority ensured that anything but the nation-changing issues raised by the protestors got airplay in the next day's papers.

The newspapers have the right to run whatever the hell they want on their front pages. That is how a free press works. But sadly, a few buffoons gave the press a leave pass to run stories that were not related to any of the motivations behind the protest?

Journalists were spat it, which is obviously completely revolting. I understand the frustrations with the media that might lead to spitting but that does not make spitting on someone trying to do their job in any way acceptable. Pitifully though, when I tweeted that I "understand the frustrations", I was jumped on by a Tory apologist hate mob who accused me of condoning spitting. Which I did not do. Never mind that I am the person who dry-retches if I overhear someone spitting across the other side of the road. Apparently, understanding why people are frustrated with the media made me the patron saint of expectoration.

Someone threw an egg at a young Conservative who was trying to get a rise out of the crowd by brandishing a photo of Margaret Thatcher, even though he was probably still in nappies - or possibly not yet conceived - when Thatcher was ousted in 1990. The "egg-throwing yobs" became front page news rather than the issues that are a legacy of Thatcher's Britain.

And some people used their freedom of speech to yell "Tory scum!" at Boris Johnson as he entered the Conservative Party Conference. He punned his way into the headlines by claiming he was warmly welcomed with cries of "Tories, come!". Oh, the hilarity. And, thus, the fact that Boris Johnson only had the cojones to criticise the impact of his party's welfare cuts on Londoners after he voted for the bill that includes the welfare cuts, went unnoticed.

Then there was the sickening, dreadful report of street sexual harassment and a rape threat made to a woman attending the Conservative Party conference. This story was broken with minimal detail by Guido Fawkes. It is not known whether the accused was affiliated to any groups at the protest or whether he was just some random dickhead who decided to join in and allegedly behave like a sexist douchebag. I can only say "allegedly" because it is unclear if the incident was reported to the police. After all, police officers were not in short supply at the protest. Or was the woman concerned happy to just let Guido Fawkes use the story to further his political agenda and equally as happy to let a man who thinks sexual harassment and rape threats are OK to walk freely around Manchester?

And look at that, I've just spent four paragraphs of this blog post doing exactly what the establishment wants. I've talked about the minute minority rather than the real concerns of the 59,994 or more people who managed to march on the Conservative Party conference last Sunday without being arrested.

And just this weekend in Ankara, the Turkish capital, more than 100 people were killed in a bomb blast at a peace rally. Many are holding the government responsible, either directly or indirectly, and, at the time of writing, nobody has claimed responsibility.

Anybody, regardless of their politics, should be horrified at this infringement on the right to peaceful protest in Turkey. But, if you are also part of the brigade that judged the entire march on the Conservative party on the actions of a few, if you seriously think Boris Johnson's beloved water cannon should be used for events like this, I have to ask you: Why do you hate freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and democracy so much?

Democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box. It is a continuous process that includes the right to protest. It is not about people who didn't vote Conservative being "sore losers" unless your political thinking has not evolved past that of a six-year-old. Peaceful protest is one way to challenge the government, hold them to account, and suggest alternatives.

It does not matter if the protest comes from the left, the right or the middle. The right to do so peacefully must be upheld if we are serious about living in a democracy. Whether it is the 250,000 who marched against TTIP in Berlin this week or a handful of Britain First types brandishing inarticulate signs and yelling inarticulate slogans about immigration, it is a right we should all cherish.

One day, you might be the one being silenced because you were angry enough to protest but more people were angry enough at protests in general to stand by and let water cannon - or worse - take over.




Photography by Peter Griffin

Abortion, adoption and the reality of choice

The story only received scant media coverage when it broke last month. Anti-abortion protesters forced a London abortion clinic to shut down. The clinic's name has not been made public but it is also rumoured that a second clinic is under threat thanks to protesters harassing women. It is suspected that Blackfriars Medical Centre, a longtime target of protest groups such as Abort67, is the second clinic under threat.

Never mind that apart from abortion being legal here in the UK, the Blackfriars clinic also provides ante- and post-natal checks, smear tests, minor surgery, counselling, men's health services, travel vaccines, cardiac health promotion, asthma and diabetes health promotion, dermatology and counselling. But for supposedly prolife people, these life-saving services might get thrown under a bus as long as they can limit access to safe, legal abortion by harassing women whose medical appointments are none of their damn business.

The only politician to stick her head above the parapet is Labour leadership contender, Yvette Cooper, and for that, she deserves respect. She has called for buffer zones around abortion clinics, as has happened in the US, Canada and France. This means the protesters can still exercise their right to free speech and women can still exercise their right to access medical services.

If you want to shout in public about why you believe abortion is wrong, that is your choice - but you have to remember that free speech is not the same as it being compulsory for anyone to listen to you. And free speech means that anyone who disagrees has the right to put forward their case.

Will the UK end up going down the US track of clinics requiring volunteer escorts to usher girls and women safely past protesters? Will the UK ever see its first example of abortion clinic staff being murdered? I really hope that is not the path on which we are travelling. Yvette Cooper should be commended for taking a stand on behalf of girls and women across the country.

Yes, girls as well as women...

The world has been reeling from the knowledge that in Paraguay, an 11-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by her step-father at the age of 10, has just given birth. Her mother, the person who should be able to make medical decisions on behalf of her daughter, was denied the opportunity to let her daughter have a safe abortion just as she was not taken seriously when she tried to report her husband to the police. Everyone should be relieved that the girl survived the pregnancy and the c-section delivery, but every time she sees her c-section scar, she will be reminded of her rape. She is living in a family stricken by poverty in a country where around 600 girls aged 14 or under become pregnant every year. How has forcing her to give birth improved anything?

What is left of that girl's childhood? Is this the sort of awful story that we want to see replicated in the UK? It is the sort of awful story that should not happen anywhere ever.

Pregnancy is the world's biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide and it would be appalling if the UK's abortion laws changed so that girls here joined that terrible, inexcusable death toll in ever-increasing numbers.

But wait! There's always adoption! Well, sort of.

Adoption can be a wonderful thing, giving hope to children who might otherwise face a terrible childhood. But where are the Abort67 activists when it comes to making adoption easier for people who are able to given babies and children loving, safe homes? Such activists tend to sell adoption as a simple solution, a panacea for every unplanned, unwanted pregnancy but why are they not lobbying local authorities when ridiculous criteria make it impossible for potentially great parents to adopt?

Obviously, it would be irresponsible to simply let anyone who wandered in off the streets adopt children without any checks. After all, we are talking about kids who may have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused, kids who have witnessed violence in the home, kids with serious medical problems and kids who were born addicted to drugs or suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome.

It is important to remember that adoption isn't always sunshine and rainbows. It can be very hard on everyone concerned. Potential adopters have to be realistic, to be aware that they probably won't end up with an angelic newborn.

But when local authorities impose conditions such as requiring at least one parent to take a year off work and, for adoption of sibling groups, one bedroom per child, children will linger in foster care. I recently came across the sad case of five siblings who are awaiting a forever family while being separated in the foster care system. Tragically, they will probably remain in the system for a long time yet unless there is someone out there with a six-bedroom house and the ability to take a year off work.

Why isn't Abort67 focusing on these cases? Why isn't Abort67 advocating the use of birth control and ensuring that every school student in the country receives broad-based effective sex education? Why is Abort67 more concerned with sitting outside clinics?

Because that is easier than doing anything that would actually contribute to reducing abortion or helping children that have already been born.

May Abort67 remain a fringe group. Yvette Cooper was dead right when she said that we do not need US-style abortion wars here.

Azerbaijan's press freedom: #JeSuisYunus

Jeremy Clarkson has been fired as presenter of Top Gear. Assorted idiots across Britain are behaving as if this is a monstrous attack on free speech. It is not. He had all the free speech he wanted but he cannot get away with assaulting a colleague. The only person responsible for the likely end of Top Gear is Jeremy Clarkson himself.

I do not want to talk any more about Jeremy Clarkson. I want to talk about Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is home to true martyrs of free speech. Khadija Ismayilova is locked up on an absurd charge of inciting a colleague to commit suicide. She is best known for reporting on high level government corruption in Azerbaijan. Seymour Khazi, another journalist who has investigated the government, is serving five years for "aggravated hooliganism." His defence is that he was attacked and acted in self-defence. He has accused the president of ordering his arrest and has written an open letter in support of Khadija Ismayilova.

One of the most shocking cases is that of Leyla and Arif Yunus. Leyla is a leading human rights campaigner and her husband is an academic. The couple, married for 37 years, has been detained separately. They were arrested at home in July 2014 on trumped-up charges of state treason, high treason, tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, falsification of documents and fraud. Leyla and Arif are both in poor health. Their detention period has been extended until August 2015. Leyla and Arif's daughter, Dinara, is currently exiled in The Netherlands where she is campaigning for their release as well as for true freedom for Azerbaijan.

The notion of a free media is laughable in Azerbaijan. As well as jailing journalists and activists without fair trials or due process, Radio Azadliq was raided and documents confiscated earlier this year. Last month, President Ilham Aliyev signed amendments to media legislation that make it easier for the government to shut down news outlets.

But none of this is getting a whole lot of attention in the west. Today if you do a Google News search of "Azerbaijan", the top two stories about this country are about the opening of a Harvey Nichols department store in Baku, and the country's increased oil production. The next cab off the rank on the Google News search is a scant eight reports from obscure news outlets about how the president is "miffed" about criticism ahead of the European Games, which Baku is hosting in June.

Boo hoo. Poor little President Aliyev is miffed that people are trying to call him out for his despotic ways.

Still, he won't waste too much time being miffed. He can simply shut down media outlets so much faster these days, in between jailing the outspoken. It's not as if there is a Europe-wide movement of country leaders calling for a boycott of the games. So they'll go ahead without controversy, just as the Winter Olympics did in Russia and the Summer Olympics did in China, those other bastions of human rights and freedom. And Qatar will keep its 2022 World Cup tournament despite its appalling record on human rights - everything from deaths of labourers building the stadium to Sheikha Mozah's involvement with a clinic that claims it can cure gay people.

It's all about the money. Whenever corruption is tolerated and human rights abuses swept under the carpet, there is almost always a trail of money that you can follow to the source of the stench.

Just as Europe is heavily reliant on Russian gas, everyone wants to do business with China and massive companies such as Shell are making a fortune in Qatar, Azerbaijan's economy is on the up thanks to oil. Foreign investment is on the rise. Nestle, another company with questionable ethics, has just been announced as a major sponsor of the European Games. As per today's news, Harvey Nicholls has opened up in Baku - it is rather like when Harvey Nicks opened in Dubai in an attempt by that particular city to replicate the best of the west in all but democracy.

There is money to be made, there are businesses to boom, there is oil to be drilled, there are human rights and freedoms to be thrown under the bus.

It is highly unlikely any western country will take a stand against Azerbaijan's human rights abuses any time soon. Sadly, the likes of #BringBackClarkson will continue to dominate in a way that #JeSuisYunus really should.

It will never be the end of the road for Jeremy Clarkson

First, a disclaimer. Top Gear has been one of my favourite TV shows for years. I genuinely enjoy the car chatter as much as I enjoy the films where the cast travel the world frequently behaving like bellends.  A friend of mine, who is sadly no longer with us, was not being awful when he called me "Jeremy Clarkson with boobs" when I worked as a motoring journalist in the Middle East (although I suspect Jezza is more buxom than I am...).

But while Clarkson has survived multiple scandals, the "fracas" may be the end of the road. Sort of. Initially, my prediction was that Clarkson would survive this latest incident and the producer would be moved to another BBC programme, possibly for a pay rise. But as more unseemly details emerge and as Clarkson himself telegraphs that the end is nigh in his column in The Sun, it looks apparent that Sunday nights in Britain may no longer be enhanced/blighted (cross out whichever word you feel does not apply) by the highly successful motoring programme.

Hell, there could be breaking news on this wretched story while I am sitting here blogging away...

It could be that Clarkson will jump before he is pushed. What that will mean for his co-hosts, Richard Hammond and James May, as well as the many people who are employed in multiple countries in the lucrative industry that Top Gear has generated, remains to be seen. Whether these people have been considered by the 900,000+ people who signed Guido Fawkes' lame #BringBackClarkson petition is dubious.

After all, the sparsely worded petition merely says:

We the undersigned petition the BBC to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson.

Freedom to fracas. 

 #BringBackClarkson 

There is no mention there, or in the comments from the petition's signatories, of the people who will be truly affected by this whole shitstorm. And here's the thing - no matter how this pans out, Clarkson will be fine. Do not worry about poor little Jezza. Jezza is not worried about poor little Jezza. He is a multi-millionaire with rich and powerful friends. He will get other offers, his kids won't go without shoes.

A BBC without Top Gear will be one that suffers a serious drop in revenue. A BBC without Top Gear may not be able to make quite so many lesser-watched but more worthwhile documentaries. A BBC without Top Gear will have to find alternative sources of revenue.

Or perhaps a Top Gear without Clarkson will prevail. Who knows? But if the allegations of physical violence against a colleague, and of using an expletive-laden racial slur against a colleague, turn out to be true, it will be very hard for the BBC to keep him on. If I was punched by a colleague or a colleague called me a "fucking Australian bitch", for example, I wouldn't be happy about continuing to work with that person. Why should anyone put up with that sort of behaviour in any workplace?

Is that the sort of "freedom to fracas" that Guido Fawkes thinks is appropriate for Britain's workplaces? 

If you don't like Top Gear, you have always had the freedom to not watch it. Easy. But if it turns out that Clarkson lost all self-control by physically and verbally abusing a colleague, his position will become untenable. And if Top Gear ends and fans are disappointed and people lose their jobs as a result, there will ultimately only be one person to blame.

Why I'm still a feminist: Part 3

And now for the last look at my feminist rants in honour of this year's International Women's Day... Let's see what I ranted about last year and whether anything has changed...

Just as I ended 2013 with a rant about first ladies, I started 2014 in the same vein in the wake of all manner of details about the private life of Francois Hollande emerging. Basically, it's only the business of those affected by his sex life and nobody else. Move on, nothing to see. Similarly, there was another sex work fauxrage over government employment incentives for strip clubs and the adult film industry. Sorry, but if the jobs are legal so are the incentives. And nobody is being forced by the government to work in these places. Again, move on, nothing to see.

Female genital mutilation was discussed in great detail for the first time on my blog last year - I am a bit saddened with myself that I did not do this sooner or more often. I have no time for cultural relativism here. It is a barbaric and brutal practice which pretty much always happens without consent and in appalling conditions. The privileged women who claim that it was their choice to be mutilated, that it was just a little nick and that the still-ghastly procedure was done in sanitary conditions by a doctor are ridiculous. They are in no way representative of the countless women whose lives are ruined in this way every year.

Reproductive rights in Australia came under the spotlight after the terrible Reverend Fred Nile used the suicide of an Australian TV presenter to push his anti-abortion barrow. Compared to the UK, Australian abortion laws are much tighter and differ from state to state. Here in the UK, they just differ if you live in Northern Ireland. That needs to change too.

And then another tragedy - the suicide of L'Wren Scott. She was reduced largely to being "Mick Jagger's girlfriend" rather than a talented fashion designer, a perfectionist, a woman from all reports of grace and charm.

And then there was the almost-abortion of Josie Cunningham. Her situation provided a challenge to prochoicers everywhere and a lot of snobbery emerged as a result, as well as some silly comments below the line. If you are prochoice, you need to be comfortable with all women's choices. That is how it works.

In may last year, the UAE trumpeted great results in a survey on women's rights. Having lived there for five years, I figured I was well-placed to analyse the results. The UAE remains a pretty good place to be a woman for the most part, but stats always need a closer study. This was no exception. It depends who you are as to whether being a woman in the UAE is a good thing or a bad thing. On the upside, it's not Saudi...

My eyes rolled hard last June when Kirstie Allsopp said she'd advise her daughter to skip university, find a nice boyfriend and just buy property. Given that her imaginary daughter would have access to education that millions of girls around the world still do not have, this was awful, head-in-the-clouds-and-up-one's-arse stuff. Allsopp gives sound property advice. Her life advice is another matter entirely.

I waded into murky territory with my "Fracking and feminism" blog post. The reality is that energy poverty denies girls and women the chance to reach their full potential in the developing world. It deprives them of access to education, it keeps them at home, often literally keeping the home fires burning. If shale gas was discovered in any of these places, the access to energy would be life-changing for many girls and women. But at what environmental cost? As opposition to fracking reaches fever pitch (although if Germany fracked more, it would not be relying on Russian gas...), intelligent long-term solutions are needed more than ever. But while everyone argues, girls and women are getting left behind.

The notion of women as victims is a murky one too so naturally I went there last October. Sympathy for women who have suffered something terrible varies wildly - it can depend on class, race, what she wore, how much she had to drink, the way she looks... And so the comparison of Monica Lewinsky and Ched Evan's rape victim led me to the conclusion that compassion for women remains conditional.

And then we ended the year with boobs. Another breastfeeding row... And now it is 2015 and International Women's Day has come and gone for another year and people still lose their shit about breastfeeding in public. Perhaps I need to resolve to do better. But I am just one blog. We need more voices across the world to be heard. And if you are doing anything to stifle freedom of speech, you are silencing women. So that is the uphill battle that now needs to be fought on top of improving the lot of women across the world. This is truly depressing.



Photo by Anna Langova

Charlie Hebdo, part trois... The Plimsoll line returns. And has the bear been poked?

Back in September 2013, long before most of the world had heard of Charlie Hebdo, I blogged about the Plimsoll line of modesty. I was ranting, as I sometimes to, on how frequently women can't win, no matter what they choose to do/say/wear etc.

Get your boobs out on Page 3 and risk being called a slag and a traitor to other women, wear something Islamic and you'll be told you're oppressed as if you are a stupid child, wear a short skirt and you might be asking to be raped, dress a little dowdily and you run the risk of some concern troll offering you a makeover, and whether your shoes are high or low, you may have to defend your choice to wear them and declare them as "empowering" even if you're just wearing them to keep your feet dry.

It is as if there is an imaginary Plimsoll line for hem lengths and square inches of flesh exposed before a woman crosses from slapper to sheepish. And now it would seem there is a Plimsoll line for offence as well.

The question has been asked over and over again since the Charlie Hebdo massacre: Did the magazine poke the bear?

And this is where there has been a global exercise in missing the point and, ultimately blaming murder victims for their own demise from everybody including the Pope. That said, the Pope is perfectly entitled to express his views and anyone who uses words rather than bullets for dissent is doing it right.

So the big question is: At what point is something fair comment, accurate reportage or "acceptable" satire and at what point does it become offensive? There is no one point for all people for this to happen. It depends on the individual. There is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. This is not a question with a solitary right or wrong answer.

Plenty of people, and not just IS-loving extremist terrorists, found plenty of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons for different reasons - but the people who are not extremist lunatics have used their freedom of speech to call out Charlie Hebdo, as is their right to do so. They have not shot people dead as the extremist lunatics have done. It is a tragedy that the dead magazine staffers are no longer around to engage in any sort of meaningful conversations about their work and answer their critics.

As I said, there is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. Monty Python's The Life Of Brian, for example, offended countless Christians when it was released in 1979 but there were plenty of Christians who found it hilarious. Likewise, who is to know where the line should be drawn with material that may offend Muslims? Again, it depends on the Muslim. Plenty of Muslims are offended by Charlie Hebdo but defend the magazine's right to free speech. And other Muslims may disagree with this entirely. Nobody speaks for all the world's Muslims any more than anyone spoke for all the world's Christians in 1979.

But the Monty Python team were not assassinated for making The Life Of Brian, just as nobody has been killed over The Book Of Mormon. Indeed, the Mormons have used the show as a PR tool which is rather brilliant.

So does all satire about Muslims need to be tempered in case more maniacs decide to gun down journalists, cartoonists and editors? This is the question that shows a lack of understanding about terrorism. Terrorism is effective because of the horrific element of surprise. Even after 9/11 and 7/7 and the Madrid bombing, we are still shocked when something like this happens, we remember where we were when we heard the news, we panic when it happens close to home or close to our loved ones.

Charlie Hebdo could, I suppose tone down the satire. But that would not necessarily save any more lives. And what is stopping another publication from being the next target? The Daily Mail, for example, sometimes renders satire redundant. It, like the Daily Express, is also a newspaper that does not exactly give Islam an easy ride. So, should these newspapers stop publishing stories on, say, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal just in case some maniac turns up at their offices and shoots everyone? Or how about Jezebel, a US website that often publishes stories about the latest insane thing Saudi Arabia has done to women? Plenty of Muslims find Saudi to be a ridiculous regime. Others may think banning women from driving and making sure male guardians give women permission for everything from working to travelling is perfectly reasonable. So should Jezebel quit calling out Saudi's sexist bullshit?

If any of these outlets became the target of a terrorist, we'd still be shocked. And then fearful. And then we start censoring, editors start second-guessing themselves, people start cancelling travel plans or changing their daily routine. And that is how terrorists win.

See? Where does it end? Does every news outlet in the world have to keep self-censoring and neutering stories and tempering opinion pieces until all it is left with is bland, inoffensive material that is of no use to anyone?

Charlie Hebdo may have poked the bear but everyone has their own bear and the level of poking it can withstand can vary wildly.

Interestingly, the outrage over the Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting the victims of Boko Haram's kidnapping and sexual enslavement as pregnant welfare queens was, I thought, ridiculous. I was so relieved when someone else interpreted it the same way I did - not as a sexist dig at the victims but a poke in our collective consciences over our attitudes in EU countries to Muslims on benefits. There is always outrage at asylum seekers on benefits and immigrants on benefits - and if they happen to be Muslim, that seems to kick the outrage meter up a few more notches. But there is still outrage, sometimes from the same people, at the kidnappings and forced marriages. To me, it posed the question of what we'd do if all the victims turned up on our borders, pregnant to their Boko Haram rapists, seeking asylum and state benefits. Would we all suddenly be collectively generous to these women or would attitudes remain unchanged?

I thought it was one of Charlie Hebdo's better cartoons. The cartoon depicting a black female politician as a monkey was, I thought, rather repulsive and I have no problem with saying that without reaching for a gun.

If this whole story has taught us anything, it's that satire doesn't always travel well and a lot of people have been left either baffled by French satire or simply unamused. But satire doesn't have to be universally amusing. Not everyone has to get it. And nobody should be killed over it.

You should be able to poke the bear. It is up to the bear to respond in a civilised manner.



Photography by Lilla Frerichs

Charlie Hebdo, what now? Part Deux

Following on from last week's blog post on the Charlie Hebdo murders, it is clear we still really don't know what to do about all this terrorism and the threats to free speech and a free press. What is clear is that the right to free speech includes the right to say something stupid (and this is as it should be) and plenty of people are exercising their right in this manner.

Still, facetiousness aside, it is heartening to see people in multiple cities come out in their thousands in a show of defiance against threats to free speech but ironically, the wall-to-wall coverage of these marches has taken up so much of the news cycle that other important stories are not being reported.

Indeed, to add to the irony, among the leaders of nations who linked arms to show their support for free speech in Paris were plenty of people who would do well to clean up their own backyards.

We have Francois Hollande demanding to know how the attack could have happened despite laws passed at the end of 2013 which increased government surveillance powers. Here's a clue, Francois: Your stupid laws aren't working. Then there is David Cameron who rushed through email and phone surveillance laws last year, describing them as "essential".Oh, and let's not forget Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. That'd be the same Israel that jailed three journalists in 2013 and targets journalists, especially those trying to cover the situation in Gaza. Not that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also at the march, is any better with attempts to control the messages people hear via state-controlled media and ensuring peace negotiations are kept secret and not properly reported. And Queen Rania of Jordan was there too. She'd be the one everyone says is so amazing yet she is also queen of a country that blocked 300 news websites in 2013 and isn't above jailing journalists either. But she seems to get a leave pass because she has such great style.

Barack Obama and John Kerry were criticised for not being there, despite the US ambassador to France and the Assistant Secretary of State being there. John Kerry was in India and is off to Paris next week for talks on countering violent extremism. Maybe Obama couldn't be arsed to attend, maybe he was busy doing other things, maybe he didn't want to link arms with a bunch of hypocrites, maybe it seemed like a futile exercise to him. I don't know and I don't really care just as I wouldn't really care if Bush was still in the White House and he didn't take a trip to Paris.

The reason I don't care is because one of the more ridiculous responses to all this has been to demand that every newspaper in the world print the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a show of solidarity. "Demand" is the operative word here. While it was certainly absurd that numerous media outlets ran pixellated versions of the cartoons with their coverage of this story, trying to force every newspaper to run the controversial cartoons is not what free speech is about either.

If a newspaper doesn't want to run a cartoon for whatever reason, they shouldn't have to do that. You don't have to publish every single thing that has offended someone in order to be an advocate for a free and fearless press, or to defend the right of others to publish things that may cause offence.

A great way to not hand victory to those who threaten press freedom would be for journalists to simply keep on working, to be fearless, to not be bound by political agendas, to pause every time they are self-censoring to ask why they are doing this and what they - or their masters - are so scared of.

Having worked for five years in the UAE, I was involved in some absurd self-censorship. I wrote an opinion piece about how easy and transformative it would be for the UAE to have a rail service to link all seven emirates. If it ever happens in my lifetime, I will be stunned. As such, I ended the piece with: "Do the leaders of the UAE have the political will to make this happen?". Cue a panic-stricken editor emerging from his office, fearful that I had broken the country's laws against criticising the rulers.

"But Georgia, it sounds like you don't think they have the political will to do this!" he wailed at me.

"That's right. I don't think they do."

"But people might think that we think they can't do this."

"I know, hence I wrote it as a rhetorical question so people can make their own minds up."

"Can you please tone it down, Georgia?"

As a result, a wishy-washy ending to my opinion piece went to press. Sigh... But I was working in a country that does not have a proper free press or freedom of assembly. I knew the score when I moved to the UAE and my time there was sometimes frustrating but the experience was still worthwhile. And it was obvious my boss was terrified of jail and deportation over a little column in the corner of the newspaper's motoring section.

For those working as journalists in the Middle East, I hope you can one day be a bit more fearless than I was over an opinion piece about trains. And for those of us who are working in countries that are doing better on the Reporters Without Borders Free Press Index, a lot of us can probably do better ourselves. We don't need to be forced to print anything we don't want to print. But a media governed by fear, even if there is nothing in legislation to justify the fear (and even if there is, quite frankly...), is not much of a media at all and it serves nobody.

Picture by Petr Kratochvil

After the Charlie Hebdo murders, what now?

There it is. One of the cartoons that has caused at least 12 people in the office of Charlie Hebdo to lose their lives today.

For those who can't read French, it is a cartoon of the leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the words simply say: "Best wishes, by the way. To you, al Baghdadi," and he says: "Especially to your health!". One wonders how weak one's beliefs are if they feel the need to shoot 12 people over such a statement.

Yet for this and other similar cartoons, two cowardly murderers who didn't have the balls to show their moronic faces stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and opened fire.

And the response to this latest act of terrorism, this latest attack on free speech, is the same old, same old. There's the usual blaming of every Muslim on the planet, the usual calls for moderate Muslims to speak out (which every moderate Muslim/agnostic Muslim/lapsed Muslim I know, and plenty I don't know, do all the time, over and over again, and I really do not know how much more they can do...), the usual plaintive calls for better understanding among all people of the world, the usual pointing out of violence by non-Muslims...

In short, we really don't know what to do.

You don't have to dig too deeply in the comments section of an online news story about, say, burqas to find people saying that France has the right idea on this issue, even those who may otherwise think France is a seething den of sinful socialism. The European Court of Human Rights upheld France's right to ban the burqa last year, a law that has been in place since 2010. France also bans all outward signs of any religion in all government schools. None of this stopped today's disgusting, terrifying events. Equally, Australia, the UK, Spain and the US do not ban the burqa and do allow outward symbols of religion to be worn in state schools and these countries have all experienced the deadly evils of warped Islamic extremism as well.

On top of all this, reports abound of French Jews are leaving their country because of a rise in anti-semitism, including violent attacks on people and synagogues. In 2013, a record 3,270 French Jews immigrated to Israel, a 63% increase from 2012.

So, yeah, there are problems in France, just as there are problems globally with people struggling with the basic concept of live and let live.

Fighting poverty and ensuring everyone has access to education are important actions in the fight against extremism. But plenty of educated, affluent people have gone on to be jihadis.

We really don't know what to do.

I will share the Charlie Hebdo cartoon, although this isn't some heroic act of courage on my part. I fully expect to make it home safely tonight without being targeted by a lunatic over this blog as I anonymously walk to the tube station. I will continue to support the right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression and a free press. But I've always done this, as have so many people everywhere, and still this shit happens.

But we cannot go on censoring ourselves, censoring those with whom we disagree, wanting to ban all the things that might offend us, deliberately trying to be offended instead of ignoring that which one might find offensive, seeking to police humour, and squashing satire along the way.

I am not going to pretend I have all the answers to this one. I don't. I am not sure who does or if anyone does.But I have just seen scenes from Paris appear in my newsfeed. It's a large gathering in France's gorgeous capital city of a diverse group of people gathering in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and, as a result, with journalists everywhere. A similar gathering is about to start in London. This is moving, important stuff and to scoff at such gatherings is to be, quite frankly, a bit of a dick.

I will end this blog post with an abridged version of my friend Luke Thornhill's Facebook status. As a sports journalist, he is thankful that the only backlash he gets in his line of work is the odd accusation of bias against a sporting team or a tweet from an angry fan, but that does not make him any less of a champion for a free press.

In a world where we really don't know what to do, Luke's resolution and subsequent actions in response to today's events sure as hell beat doing nothing at all.

I have decided to be a bit more Muslim-like and give more of what would loosely be termed as zakat. The Big Issue seller in Hull was the first beneficiary, with a cuppa and sandwich to go with his tip in return for his wares, I hope that the perpetrators of this attack die a little bit more inside on the coals of hell when they realise they're helping turn me into a better person, and that today I did it by adopting a pillar of Islam and supporting a magazine which exercises its freedom of speech in such a brilliant way. Peace be upon you.



  

20 ways to not be a dick in 2015

Happy new year! Here are a few tips on how to not be a dick in 2015. You're welcome.

1. Do not mistake UKIP for the party of free speech. They will only publicly defend your right to free speech if you agree with them or say something racist, sexist or homophobic because that means you have the "courage" to say what we are all really thinking. Apparently. This is also a party that is desperate for its members to stay off social media lest someone says something stupid.

2. On the same token, UKIP members can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Indeed, anyone can use their freedom of speech to say something stupid. Always remember that you have the freedom to ignore anything someone says that you find stupid. If you are seeking to silence someone, ask yourself whether this is because you feel threatened by what they are saying.

3. If you succeed in getting something banned that you don't like, do not act all surprised if something you do like also gets banned.

4. If you walk down the street with your face in your phone, do not get all indignant if you walk into someone. It is not their fault.

5. Before you blame immigrants for any problems with the NHS, bear in mind that the real cost pressures are coming from rancid PFI deals and the astronomical costs of administering the tender process for contracts.

6. If you whine about "BBC lefty bias", you will sound like a weapons grade bellend.

7. Vaccinate your kids.

8. Do not interrogate women without children about why they don't have children or when they might have children. It is none of your business.

9. If you are an MP, consider not giving yourself another massive pay rise this year. You also might like to consider paying for all manner of stuff yourself. Such as meals. And home maintenance.

10. Londoners! Unless it is the last tube of the night, there is no need to run for it or barge open the doors with an enormous bag of shopping just as they are beeping closed. There will be another train.

11. Refrain from eating oranges or mandarins on public transport. It's gross.

12. I am sure your children are adorable. They will be even more adorable if they do not ride scooters in supermarkets with narrow aisles and will be more likely to celebrate another birthday if they don't ride said scooters at speed on busy high streets. This and point number seven comprise the full extent of my parenting advice.

13. If you live somewhere like Dubai, a pet husky is a stupid idea.

14. The Duchess of Cambridge is not amazing. If you think she is amazing, you are too easily amazed.

15. Do not get all your news from one source. This will turn you into a moronic caricature.

16. I know it's an embarrassment of embarrassments rather than an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the talent of many MPs or potential MPs in Britain but it is still smart to vote. You never know. Your vote may even make a difference, especially if your MP has a tiny majority.

17. Don't whine about the death of the high street if you never actually use the shops on the high street.

18. Detoxing is a myth. We detox every day by doing a poo. But there is no money to be made in telling people this. Eat well, everything in moderation, et cetera et cetera. Boring but effective.

19. Similarly, if you don't eat sugar/gluten/meat/whatever food is declared lethal this week, that is your choice. But don't bore me with your sanctimony. I will continue to eat all of the above in varying quantities.

20. If another person's sex life is consensual, mind your own business. They probably don't want you to join in.

Brooks Newmark and the paisley penis panic

I can't lie. The breaking news about Conservative MP Brooks Newmark sending a rather revealing photo of himself to an undercover reporter posing as a lust-struck woman made me laugh. The story was ripe for insta-parody on Twitter - his name sounds like either a recruitment agency ("I always hire my accountants through Brooks Newmark...") or a posh menswear shop ("I decided to push the boat out and bought myself new socks from Brooks Newmark rather than Asda...), he was another Tory caught with his pants down, he was wearing paisley pyjamas. Paisley. I ask you.

As a result, Newmark has resigned from his post as Minister for Civil Society. At least he is still an MP so the taxpayer doesn't have to fund another by-election hot on the heels of Mark Reckless defecting to UKIP over the weekend. It will be up to his constituents to decide whether getting caught in a sting is a sacking offence.

Christ knows what the atmosphere is like at Newmark's house at the moment. Is his wife furious? Are the kids angry or just mortified? Frankly, this is none of our business just as Brooks Newmark sending a rude picture to someone he naively thought might fancy him is none of our business.

The outrage is a fauxrage.

What about the time Newmark said: "The important thing charities should be doing is sticking to their knitting and doing the best they can to promote their agenda, which should be about helping others." when his job encompassed responsibility for charities? That was way more outrageous than a moment of silly human frailty.

Don't even start with the "he was quoted out of context" defence. It was a smarmy, arrogant, patronising way of saying he didn't want any bothersome charities pestering him with their advocacy. Never mind that certain government policies might have led to the charities being busier than ever... Even the ones the Tories traditionally like such as Help For Heroes... Awkward.

Newmark's comments came in the midst of political wrangling over the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill - better known as the Gagging Bill - which became law in January 2014. That rotten, censoring, anti-freedom law is far more outrageous than a ministerial penis poking out of paisley pyjamas.

But what is very telling here is that Newmark got away with a pitiful attempt at a clarification after his mindless knitting comment, saying what he really meant to say was that charities "absolutely have the right to campaign" but should "stay out of the realm of party politics". So why didn't he simply say so in the first place? Also, it can be a bit hard for a charity to campaign against something a government has done without mentioning the people in government the charity deems responsible for the grievance. Anyone who doesn't think the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill is about censorship and silencing certain voices is kidding themselves.

So a patronising, dismissive comment about the very organisations with which he is meant to try and cooperate is fine under this government but a man has to resign for something that some may find immoral or distasteful but is certainly not illegal? This is not Saudi Arabia and for that we should be very thankful.

In the meantime, the Sunday Mirror has been under fire for running this story based on a sting after they broke the news. The whole thing does smack of a Sunday papers Tory sex scandal outrage from the 1980s. Retro. But this story exposes more than an errant wang. It exposes the true values of this government, and in particular the Conservative Party. I have no idea what the outcome would have been if an MP from any other party was caught in such a sting. Perhaps it would have been the same panic-stricken resignation rather than simply weathering the storm and moving on.

But weathering the storm and moving on would surely be the more grown-up way to deal with this pathetic excuse for a sex scandal. We do have much bigger fish to fry at the moment. In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war again.

This sorry story has exposed the Tories as the party that tries to win cheap political points with cheap jibes at charities in the name of stifled public debate. It is the party where doing something silly but legal is worse than passing a terrible law which goes against the freedoms it claims to stand for. On that count, well played to the Sunday Mirror for giving us that insight. It is now up to the people of Britain as to what they do with that information.

Censorship, censorship everywhere and not a chance to think...

You think you can say what you like? Think again. This blog has been routinely blocked by O2 and EE using stupid internet filters that treat adult consumers like children. O2 regularly makes Barry Butler, a freelance ESOL teacher from the Midlands, jump through absurd hoops every time he tries to read this blog and finds it has been blocked. 

EE has also been guilty of preventing adult customers from accessing this blog - this is especially ridiculous given that EE sponsored the BAFTA awards the other week. Let me see if I understand. We have a phone company that has prevented adults from accessing the internet in its entirety putting its name to a celebration of the British film industry. That would be an industry which over the years has given the world some of the most brilliant, subversive and controversial contributions to the cultural landscape. 

Corporations are already doing the work of the government whose plans for internet filtering are anti-free speech in the extreme. There is an alarming dearth of opposition to these plans in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. If that doesn't strike you as the start of an ominous future of restricted speech and expression, we need to sit down and have a little chat.

And then we have the mob mentality which seeks to silence anything offensive. Personally, I think Katie Hopkins is an attention-seeking professional troll. I don't tune in when she is on TV, I don't follow her on Twitter, I simply cannot be bothered with her nonsense. But she has every right to spout whatever it is that she says. The same goes for lads' mags, Frankie Boyle, Seth McFarlane, Sarah Silverman and anyone or anything else that people have sought to ban.

Campaigning website change.org wasted bandwidth with an e-petition to remove Katie Hopkins from ITV and Channel 5 after she she tweeted something tasteless after the helicopter crash in Scotland late last year. And, by jingo, it worked! Hopkins was indeed dropped from ITV's This Morning programme. Seriously, it is far saner to just not watch her if you don't like her. Frankly, I'd be happy if Keith Lemon, Citizen Khan, Mrs Brown's Boys or Chris Lilley never appeared on TV again because they're all about as funny as burning orphans but starting up an e-petition is childish and misses the point. 

Once you seek to ban something just because you don't like it, there is no reason why something you do like cannot be banned too.

We also have problematic discussions when it comes to banning hate speech. The thing is we don't actually need any more laws on hate speech. The UK already has laws against verbal abuse as well as physical abuse. If you yell something awful at someone and it causes distress or upset, you have broken the law and the judge will have to consider the hate speech aspect of it when sentencing. Similarly, if someone is beaten up for whatever reason, this is against the law and the judge again has to take into account whether there is any hateful motivation, such as racism or homophobia, when passing sentence. The impact of such abuse should be pretty obvious - I don't want to live in a society where it is acceptable to beat someone up for any reason - and in the case of assaults, either verbal or physical, that are motivated by hate, education is just as important as harsh sentences.

But this does not mean someone should not be allowed to speak out against issues such as same sex marriage or further immigration. I may find the views of someone opposed to marriage equality or immigration from certain nations absurd, illogical, unconstructive, unpleasant or just plain moronic - but if their views are silenced as "hate speech" there is nothing to stop other opinions also being shut down. If you start cutting down the right to express opinions, even ones with which you violently disagree, you automatically restrict your right to refute it.

And then there are more insidious ways that we are censored. 

The "gagging law" passed through Parliament, albeit with a few minor amendments and there was no mass outrage because, basically, people didn't take the time to understand it or think about how it might affect them. It imposes ridiculous requirements on lobbying groups (but not corporations...) in the run-up to elections and is essentially aimed at silencing groups such as trade unions and the implications go beyond silencing some rowdy unionists. Hint: If a law is opposed by various groups across the political spectrum, groups who typically disagree with each other, it's probably a bad law. The bureaucracy that will be involved in monitoring the membership lists and campaign spending of lobby groups flies in the face of government claims that they are all about spending less public money and being a libertarian party of small government. 

And just today I was tweeting in my other guise at the @Save_St_Helier account, whereby I am part of a campaign to try and retain vital services at my local hospital, such as A&E, maternity, renal and kids' intensive care. A few of us asked faceless bureaucrats in the Twitterverse for some transparency in relation to a process which has so far cost taxpayers £8.2 million. How the hell was a review of local healthcare services costing us so much money? 

We finally found out that £1.874 million of our money was paid to 2020 Delivery, one of those vague consultancies whereby a peruse of their website leaves you none the wiser about what they actually do. All we were told by the bureaucrats was that the £1.874 million was spent on "finance and activity monitoring and travel and transport analysis". But we can't really find out a whole lot more because Freedom of Information legislation does not apply to private companies, only public bodies. It's just another way to stop the free flow of information, to drive people who are using their freedom to publicly ask questions into a brick wall and to keep us passive and quiet.

I'm exhausted. I apologise for this blog post rambling all over the place but once you start looking at the ways in which we are censored, the ways in which the flow of information is restricted, the ways in which we seek to ban that which we dislike without thinking through the consequences, you soon discover a multi-headed hydra of anti-freedom bullshit has grown before your very eyes. Now, who wants to help me slay the hydra? It's a big job but it's one of the most important jobs we will ever do.   

Image: "Resurrection de la Censure", JJ Grandville