The Guido Fawkes saga continues
Hello readers, old and new! A lot has happened in the last 24 hours and it’s been quite amusing I must say. Just a quick recap.
On Sunday I exclusively published an article about Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines) 20 years ago. He wasn’t too happy about that and threatened legal action. Although I had anticipated this, some legal complications made it necessary for me to take it down. Paul and I have reached a compromise of sorts.
Tomorrow we’re going to meet. He has agreed to give me his first ever interview on record. He wants ‘a fair hearing’ and as a journalist it’s my duty to facilitate that. You can be assured we will be talking about ‘the letter’ and others criticisms that fellow bloggers have made. So until then please don’t speculate unnecessarily and wait for the interview.
More reading: Tim Ireland and Justin McKeating. Iain Dale calls for ‘blogwars’ to cease, though Dave and Juve aren’t impressed.
An interesting turn of events, when will the interview be published?
Dunno, when I get a chance to write it up I suppose.
I see. Iain Dale has waded into this whole thing with an appeal for calm: http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2007/02/let-blog-wars-cease.html
Who isn’t calm?
Is there rioting on the Bloggersphere?
Have I missed something?
Who isn’t calm?
Heh I know I was just being slightly cheeky.;) I don’t know why these disagreements are being called blog wars. They aren’t. We’ll know full well what a blog war is when the run up to the next general election happens.
Expect fireworks then, what we have now barely registers as a match being struck if you ask me…
Excellent - can’t wait to read it!
Though that Martin Bright is a piece of work - Guido’s “unsubstantiated” allegations re Brown and the Smith Institute *are* now being investigated by the Charity Commission.
So the dramallama has been sent home? IF (notice big if) i were a conspiracy theorist id be questioning a settlement that benefits both you and him…
But anyway for what its worth id appreciate if possible a straight question/answer type up. Since hes talking, and just because im interested ask him if the future of hedge funds in the UK is really this bleak, and for that matter if he feels they’re about to be clamped down upon in other parts of the world.
Deleted the other thread? Well, for the sake of posterity, let me repeat what I said:
If my memory serves me correctly, Hundal used to fraternise with that conspiracy-mongering Islamist and anti-Semite “Jamal” from Opinionated Voice, not to mention the SWP blogger and Hizb-ut-Tahrir sympathiser “Lenin” from Stalin’s Tomb - who, it seems to me, is writing a PhD thesis on why it is necessary to make alliances with Iranian proxies and Jew-hating Jazz players.
More worryingly, perhaps, is Sunny’s apparent affection for Hugo Chavez, and at a time when we see a growing number of kangaroo courts, pogroms, and constitutional infringements. But then again: what do you expect from a bloke that confesses to admiring [yes, admiring] Madeleine Bunting? She receives a salary of £150,000 every year for writing the most sinister and stomach-churning apologias on behalf of the most reactionary forces in the Middle East.
This hideous combination of hypocrisy and moral self-righteousness has a long and inglorious history. The Left will readily forgive Irish Republicans for terror and even for Catholicism. They remain sentimental about Fidel Castro despite the show trials and the dungeons. They will pardon South Africa almost everything, including an incorrect attitude towards AIDS. Liberals still march beside Communists in various “broad coalitions” for “peace,” “civil rights,” disarmament, and other causes. But all the categories flip over and upside down when it comes to the BNP.
This probably accounts for liberal deference to the old Soviet Union, along with many of liberalism’s rhetorical tactics: Soviet rulers are called “leaders,” rather than “dictators” or “strongmen” – the opprobrious terms applied to despots of the Right. Refugees from countries ruled by right-wing regimes – Chile, South Africa, Nazi Germany – are recognized by liberals as authoritative witnesses; but refugees from Communism are dismissed as imbalanced and embittered, actually disqualified as witnesses by their very experience. Even Solzhenitsyn gets only a grudging hearing from liberals.
Legal Eagle: Guido may be an anarchist and a bit of an irresponsible nutter but he’s NOT any kind of a racist and never has been. He’s half Indian FFS.
I agree. Guido isn’t a racist. Nor would I describe his political views as being particularly conservative. He’s an anarcho-capitalist and an admirer of the influential historian, economist and natural law theorist Murray Rothbard.
Amir
If Guido Fawkes wants to keep his options open with regard to legal action for defamation he’d be a complete idiot to talk to Sunny - or any other journalist - about the allegations against him. Any lawyer would tell him that.
Leon,
You are a card, and I nearly missed it:
“Expect fireworks then, what we have now barely registers as a match being struck if you ask me…”
Good one.
*yawn* Amir. If I didn’t have better things to do with my life I’d sue your pathetic ass for trying to throw mud by using the word ‘fraternise’.
Jardine - agreed.
If Guido insists on responding to this puerile left-wing McCarthyism he might as well do it on Iain Dale’s blog. Sunny doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as Paul, let alone play the role of Torquemada.
‘fraternise’.
He was on your list of comrades, was he not?
Nice piece of mincing drama queen posturing by Amir there! Oooh listen to you.
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Yeah, whatever Jagdeep.
Anyone have any idea which planet Amir currently lives on? It doesn’t appear to be on my star maps and my telescope plainly isn’t powerful enough to see the edge of the universe…
C’mon guys, it’s amusing to watch Amir through the toys out of the pram. Any minute he’ll tell us how we’re all going to hell in a handcart unless the great lord Melanie Phillips is made prime minister.
Tim Worstall said something very similar on his own blog:
So, how many people are or have been in alliance with The Communist Party? How many are inspired by the ideas and ideals of the mass murder Leon Trotsky? Or have been in alliance with those who are? Praised Stalin and his massacres? Signed up with the remnants of the Baath Party?
My, my, under one or other of those headings we’d have to include the Respect Party, The Labour Party, The Home Secretary, Eric Hobsbawm, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and CND.
You can complete the list as you wish.
Or is alliance with left wing mass murders and their apologists different in some manner?
Amir - you fail to understand.
The BNP are *far* *far* *far* more evil than Stalin or Lenin could have ever even hoped to have been.
Amir, you’re hilarious. People make valid points on all sides, but Hundal really seems to get under your skin in a kind of personal and obsessive way. Anyway….
I posted on the other thread that I don’t even know who this Guido dude is, but the fact that he acted like a bully threatening legal action made him seem like a spineless and pathetic pussy to me, especially when he seems to be a man who mixes it up on his blog. What a twat.
Sunny,
Any minute he’ll tell us how we’re all going to hell in a handcart unless the great lord Melanie Phillips is made prime minister.
So here we are at the ad hominem stage, as usual. Melanie Philips is YOUR obsession, not mine. Let’s be perfectly clear about that. It is my experience that the alliances and hypocrisies I refer to above are very common, among people who believe themselves to be “progressive” and “anti-racist”. Admittedly, these alliances make it a lot easier to hold one opinion than another, but I can’t help that. People should know their own weaknesses before making fallacious accusations against others. Guido is NOT a racist. Full stop.
Well, jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Although one or two here seem keen to stir things up again.
Unlike Amir i won’t bother re-posting my responce to his rant in the other thread.
Jagdeep,
I don’t even know who this Guido dude is, but the fact that he acted like a bully threatening legal action made him seem like a spineless and pathetic pussy to me.
Tim Ireland’s accusations could ruin Guido’s career. There’s nothing “spineless” about protecting one’s reputation. We all know what happened to that silly ballerina, don’t we?
Leon - OK, now I see who isn’t calm:-)
Well, this has certainly put a rocket under some people. I hope it won’t fizzle out like a damp squib as it’s a cracker, but will continue to sparkle before it goes out with a bang.
Well, this has certainly put a rocket under some people. I hope it won’t fizzle out like a damp squib as it’s a cracker, but will continue to sparkle before it goes out with a bang.
Heh I just love all these Guy Fawkes references!:D
Amir, if he has to resort to bullying and threats of legal action he is a pussy, and so are you for defending him. He has a blog and not inconsiderable influence it would seem amongst some people to make his case. He could have come here and made his case. And seeing as how the article in question was freely accessible to everyone in the Guardian archives via Lexis or whatever it’s called, this dudes threat to put a writ on Sunny for simply bringing it up makes him seem like the prizest pussy about. Which makes you, for defending him, the pussy’s bitch, which is an amusing mixed species metaphor to end this post with.
Jag, you just reminded me of that scene in Team America…
Leon, I know what scene and speech you mean, and that movie just cracks me up.
Rioting in the blogosphere - what fun!
Jagdeep,
Which makes you, for defending him, the pussy’s bitch, which is an amusing mixed species metaphor to end this post with.
Ho ho ho! Aren’t you witty? I’m sure the sewer rats will pay good money to see your filth on stage.
Yup me too.:)
Jagdeep,
The worst thing about your lot is that they have such a high opinion of themselves. This self-belief is the root of the strange paradox by which a group of people who still think of themselves as “anti-racist” and “egalitarian” are often among the most intolerant of authoritarians, contemptuous of mass opinion and petulantly dismissive of those who get in their way. Liberals, according to the popular stereotype, are supposed to be gentle and herbivorous, not arrogant, bullying and narrow-minded.
The BNP are *far* *far* *far* more evil than Stalin or Lenin could have ever even hoped to have been.
Do me a lemon Chris. Don’t post again until the magic mushrooms have worn off.
God it’s like a 1970s playground hissy fit — all the old stale left v right stuff.
Amir — you are passed your sell by date. Most of us on the left have moved on from being vainglorious Soviet apologists.
Jardine,
Where you get your legal degree from? The University of Eurodisney? Why would someone sue a blogger when there is the treasure trove of a national newspaper to go after — huh? Tonto capullo.
>> The BNP are *far* *far* *far* more evil than Stalin or Lenin could have ever even hoped to have been.
Chris, are you serious or being sarcastic?
El Cid,
“Amir — you are passed your sell by date. Most of us on the left have moved on from being vainglorious Soviet apologists.”
“Moved on”? “Moved on” to what exactly? The Ummah? Multiculturalism? Hezbollah? Abortion? Salma Yaqoob? George Galloway? The “heroic” resistance in Iraq? Economic stupidity? Social engineering? Cultural Marxism?
“Most of us on the left have moved on from being vainglorious Soviet apologists.”
Wonderful, wonderful!
Well that’s OK then.
Can you imagine anyone writing “most of us on the right…Nazi apologists”?!
Partly because very few on the right were ever that way inclined - unlike, of course, too many to name on the left who were nothing more than Soviet apologists.
(Maybe - Lenin’s Tomb - some still are.)
There are mistakes and mistakes.
If I had made a mistake that big I might now consider having the humility to keep my mouth shut!
Amir, you’re hysterical mate.
What you need is a slap and a bit more like that lady in the spoof film Airplane.
He’s got your number, El Cid, you multi-culti, social engineering marxist abortion-happy ummah-bunny.
Amir,
‘The worst thing about your lot is that they have such a high opinion of themselves.’ Yes, we should take lessons in humility from you.
‘Liberals, according to the popular stereotype, are supposed to be gentle and herbivorous,’ Well, Sunny’s a herbivore, but as for most of ‘our lot’ (?) that’s wishful thinking.
Nice to see you back, by the way.
Seeing as you’re screaming hysterically again Amir - could you point out where exactly I or anyone else called Guido a racist?
As for the reference to Tim Worstall - I don’t remember siging up to or supporting Stalin or any Communist Party. So this is a straw-man. Secondly, the BNP is a party known for spreading anti-semitic and racist literature, known for starting riots and their members frequently convicted for all sorts of offences. I don’t recall many other British organisations on the left doing that (unless you provide proof) and really, that doesn’t even mean one automatically supports the Soviet govt.
Your arguments are so far up your own arse you’re only embarassing yourself with all this desperate attempt at clutching straws. My advice - go back and do some work. Go back into hibernation. Stop making yourself look stupid.
El Cid,
“What you need is a slap and a bit more like that lady in the spoof film Airplane.”
I asked a simple question: “Moved on to what?” There’s nothing hysterical about my curiosity. So I’ll take your threat as a compliment. My very existence is upsetting and inexplicable to quite a lot of people. Hence the misrepresentation and name-calling against which I must constantly defend myself.
Chris - Lenin’s Tomb used to be on Sunny’s “Comrades list.” Ideologically, they have much in common.
Now: Imagine if Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes put Nick Griffin or David Duke on their blogroll…
The outrage would be unbearable.
Any more silly arguments on this thread and I’ll close it to comments.
Amir, why are you banging on about leftist hypocrisy? And talking about Ummahs, old stalinists? How is this relevant to this guy getting angry that someone republished a guardian article that discusses his political links to the BNP? You say he’s moved on, fine, what’s the big deal?
Amir, for some strange reason in the past you have indicated on this blog that you admire me. I refer to a couple of postings in which you congratulated me for some posts that probably accorded with your own view on something. I thought then, as I always do, that easily excitable people are generally to be avoided, and your lasts few posts bear that judgment out, so filled are they with resentments against a whole host of individuals and positions which bear no relation to my thoughts on any matters or the issue at hand. Never mind — let that be, I am not going to make an issue out of your triviality.
I had never heard of this Guido man before. So I had no opinion of him. But I do have an opinion of him now, and that is that a self declared libertarian who acts like a pathetic little bully after a blogger posts a freely available to the public archive article is worthy of contempt as an individual. I think he’s a pussy and I think you’re his bitch. I can’t be bothered to respond to the rest of your posts because like a bi-polar depressive you seem to range from suicidal hatred of someone who disagrees with you on a certain issue to a hysterical manic who tries to kiss my ass when I criticise occasionally the target of your particular obsession (Hundal)
Guido is a hypocritical bully and a pathetic little gutless pussy for threatening legal action against a blogger for posting a freely accesible article about him. That he wanks himself off as a righteous libertarian makes him a bigger hypocritical bully and a prize twat.
I was only joking Sunny — I mean he really is hysterical. It sounds like he’s foaming at the mouth and needs help fast before his rhetorical spasms overpower him.
Jagdeep - perhaps Sunny could put that to him in the interview!!
I too am disappointed with his behaviour in this case…let’s see what he has to say for himself.
I hope so Chris. I don’t have any opinion on this man who calls himself Guido, but his behaviour stinks to high heaven of chicken-shit cowardice and bullying. Everyone would have listened to him and accepted his explanation if he’d just come here and explained himself or refuted the Guardian article. I certainly would have. But threatening Hundal with legal action makes him appear to be a pathetic little hypocritical bully. The extra piquancy of the hypocrisy is that this man calls himself a libertarian and like a thug tries to intimidate someone who posts a freely available to the public archive article.
I was wondering if Sunny has a set number of questions in mind or if he’d appreciate (hopefully legally aware) questions left in the comments here for him to consider putting to Paul Staines…
Jagdeep - your guttersnipe abuse repulses me. Go and clean your mouth out with a bar of soap. And stop trying to “psychoanalyse” me or Guido. I’m sure the Open University offer a course in clinical psychology if you really want to patronise people with your psychobabble bullshit.
Sahil - thanks for keeping things civil. The situation is very, very complicated. Wait until Paul makes an official statement. As for the “Ummah” remarks etc., I was merely making a point about hypocrisy and double-standards. Sunny has shared his ideological bed with some pretty repulsive individuals.
This is really a very positive result from what could have been no more than irrelevant hissy-fit with lawyers. Staines is apparently seen as one of the most influential right-wing bloggers in the UK and Sunny has an established presence as a progressive. That the two should sit down face-to-face and respond in a serious, adult way is a step forward. Those who are caught up in playground chants of ‘Fight,fight,fight.’ are just confirming the most negative stereotypes of political blogging.
Meanwhile no mention of *any* of these exciting events on Guido’s own site!
Amir your pomposity is classical in its witless grace and amusing in its mincing little drama queen outrage, which reminds me of those transvestites from Little Britain, the one played by David Walliams who gets upset when someone points out that he looks like a man.
Last time you interacted with me here you were like a hyperventilating girl because I said something that aroused your g-spot. Get a grip, boy. Acting like the gimp for a hypocrite who wanks off about his libertarianism then threatens a blogger with legal action for posting a freely available archived article sets new standards in camp idiocy. Control yourself boy.
Don - I’ll stop it now. I just wanted to make a point.
I hate double-standards; I can’t stand it.
Good lad.
Jagdeep - I’m not going to engage with you again. I think you’re a nasty-piece-work. A hot, blustering bully.
If Sunny’s going to pick a fight with another blogger, he can’t expect others just to stand by with patient watchfulness.
That’s all I’m saying.
…a freely available archived article
This is the bit that doesn’t make sense: either the fellah is not being entirely truthful about the retraction, or The Guardian needs to look at its archiving policies a bit more carefully.
Guido doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.
#58 from what I’ve seen, no one has said that. So why are you freaking out? Like you said, the interview tomorrow will be interesting.
Amir, you’re nothing but a bi-polar blowhard. Last time you were like a puppy dog because I said something about multiculturalism that gave you an erection. Now you’re acting the gimp for a pathetic little bully who threatened Hundal for posting a free and publically accesible article on his blog. Yes that’s right, a libertarian who made threats of legal action for that. A bully. Yes that’s right — a hypocritical little bully. Get over yourself boy.
‘I hate double-standards; I can’t stand it.’
Heh heh, sort of reminded me of Gloucester’s speech in Richard III, Act II, Scene I.
Sahil,
Yes you’re right.
Maybe I jumped the gun a bit. Blogging tends to produce an immediate and instinctive response, which may, or may not, be counter-productive.
I’ll wait until the interview.
Amir and Jagdeep - get a room, guys.
This is a tad sad now guys.
Ah shaddap Anas.
I see no hypocrisy, Jagdeep. Since when did being a libertarian automatically entail believing in the abolition of all libel laws? Some might, others wouldn’t.
Secondly, are you seriously suggesting that bloggers (even ones who trade in gossip) have no moral right to prevent lies being told against them, however damaging? So if someone accuses Staines of being a paedophile or a gun smuggler or experimenting on primates for research purposes - or anything else that would lead large numbers of people to hold him in contempt - he should simply sit on his hands.
That is a strange, and somewhat foolish position.
Has everyone calmed down?
The article is in the public domain and freely accessible to the public Suresh. Once you understand that you’ll understand why your examples are somewhat strange and foolish.
No he should just come out and deny it…
Holy shit! I spend the day shopping and worshipping the g!d of lurve, and come to back to Amir and Jagdeep ripping each other’s throats out.
People, it’s a day for love.
I’m not sure why you are holding back your original allegations. See the comment here at 11:57 pm on 11 February 2008. The whole thing was reported in the MSM two years ago:
http://www.chickyog.net/2007/02/11/guido-fawkes-and-the-bnp/#comments
See the comment here at 11:57 pm on 11 February 2008.
Comments from the future? I heard comment is meant to be free, didn’t know it could now time travel!
Anyway, Paul Linford (check out his excellent podcast when you get the chance) attempts to give his opinion while remaining, as he puts it, on the fence:
So where’s the 400 word Guardian retraction Guido Staines was supposed to materialise b 10.30 this morning? Or would that be speculating and pre-empting his own attempts at shifting goalposts?
Sid - the original smear was posted on Pickled Politics, Bloggerheads and Tom Watson MP.
All removed it on legal advice. I suspect all have now seen David Rose’s retraction.
Why don’t you set up a website and republish the libel instead of goading others into doing so?
The Guido Fawkes saga continues…and no one gives a shit…
Picklers appear to be all fired up by this explosive situation.
Except a bunch of hyperventilating Tories.
The gossip monger knows that if even if you suggest, by means of insinuation, a certain factoid, however untrue, then that insinuation will always stay like a stubborn stain on people’s reputations. Which is why there will now always be the bad smell of BNP affiliation associated to the pseudo libertarian, absurdly litigious Guido Fawkes.
Make all the threats for legal action you want, goosip-monger, but what goes around…
Picklers appear to be all fired up by this explosive situation.
Heh heh there’s no smoke without fire, you play with fire and you get burned, etc
Does anyone know what this 400-word retraction actually said? I ask because the Sunday Telegraph’s apology to Samih Ahmed yesterday managed to include, in about 100 words, a full retraction, an apology and a statement that they were paying him damages. What made the Guardian’s one about Mr de Laire Staines four times as long?
I’ll try again:
a freely available archived article
This is the bit that doesn’t make sense: either the fellah is not being entirely truthful about the retraction, or The Guardian needs to look at its archiving policies a bit more carefully.
Thing is, can anyone find the original Guardian article anymore? I can’t. Can anyone else? If not, have the Guardian really messed up that much? Oh dear, Private Eye could make interesting reading this week. I might buy it for once.
Btw Sunny your article is still cached on Google. My wife who knows a lot about these things and about digital media tells me it will take ages to go away, unless you call them.
Talking of the BNP - the Burnley Bombers were due in M/cr Crown Court today facing charges after having been found with an RPG and the biggest haul of explosive making chemicals yet.
Or have the Mteropolitan muttering classes been so far up their own arse examining what was said 20 years ago in the Guradian about a sad wanker like Paul “Semen” Staines to get on with the real news ?
Busy no doubt gasping at the pap fed by Comand Control to Major Tom with DVD’s of beheadings and Islamofascistjihadist qat munchers.
There are a number of factors to consider, in my opinion, all of which have their own validity.
Firstly this Guido character has a right to go legal if he so feels.
Secondly, the so called blog wars are nothing more than a battle for circulation.
Thirdly, the political motivation if there is such comes not from Sunny, or probably a number of the others, but from an invisible hand who see the bloggers as tools.
All of this is similar to what you’d expect in the tabloids. From my side, no one comes out with any merit.
And Amir if anyone should be taken to task, its you.
Most of what you’ve said above I find deeply depressing, and not in the style I’d have expected.
Pushing all the ‘right’ buttons: Salma Yaqoob, Ummah, Islam, Lenin, Stalin,Jamal etc etc did not add one iota to your argument. To the contrary it exposes more of what you think would work on Pickled Politics.
I am impressed as to how PP has ‘progressed’ from an unquestioning self-opinionated bunch repeateding the same mantra to a group of regular contributors who have learnt a lot about each other and the mechanisms of propaganda and mis-information.
So I am depressed even more since what you have posted is very much like what your drunken turbanned flatmate would have posted on CiF.
Now on the issue of going legal, if Guido had simply responded on a posting here it would not have meant a thing. Blogs being what they are, a comment amongst a hundred others is irrelevant. Multiply that with the number of blogs running the same story a falsely accused person does not stand a chance.
What Guido has done is laid down a marker which all of us should take note of should any one of us fall prey to the tabloids and their online blog equivalents.
As for the allegations, I have no idea what they mean. Do I want to know what they were? I couldn’t be bothered. If on the other hand the Guido has influence and he has prejudices which has resulted in his own enemies well then so be it.
One thing I would add which favours tabloid bloggers as opposed to tabloids proper is that any lies and deceit reported which damages an individual can be challenged legally or otherwise directly.
I am sure this would also apply to posters.
Finally, Sunny and PP circulation will be the winner. Sunny is no one’s fool. I see an Andrew Neil in the making.
Completely random i know, but this all reminds me i have to finish the Scottish nationalist piece i promised Clair. I’ve just re-read the two pages id previously written and its pants
I’m afraid its probably going to be a collection of thoughts rather than a brilliantly concise work.
Andrew Neil? I hope Sunny doesn’t copy is “hairstyle”.
Sid,
Unless this is all bollocks — which I hope it is — your last post, though insightful, might conceivably be used to illustrate Mr Guido’s case.
Don’t shoot the messenger now.
Sunny’s face is his autobiography. Melanie Phillip’s face is her work of fiction.
-Sid O’Flaherty Fingal Wilde
Kulvinder, as Jo Moore once said this is a good time to publish a bad article
On the other hand, it might be a good idea to hold off for a couple of days until Guidogate dies down
Hehehe this made me laugh: http://bread-and-circuses.net/?p=110#comment-676
El Cid, It could well be. This is why Gossip-Monger Staines is so desperately wanting to quash this particular factoid. This is also the horseshit that Staines has built his reputation on. Now it cuts both ways, he runs for his lawyers.
“Andrew Neil? I hope Sunny doesn’t copy is “hairstyle”.
Or end up embroiled in another Pamelagate type of thing.
Imagine that - Sunny and The Guido fighting over someone’s favours.
Leon,
That’s funny, and a good perspective.
Glasshouse Lessons…
So a sort of peace has broken out in the recent “blog war”. Whether it is a temporary peace or something more enduring has yet to be seen. In all honesty such an outbreak of hostilities was inevitable. The Labour……
‘Completely random i know, but this all reminds me i have to finish the Scottish nationalist piece i promised Clair. I’ve just re-read the two pages id previously written and its pants’
Ah Kulvinder,
I thought you’d forgotten! I’m sure it’s a good article and if you get your skates on. I’ll put it the Scottish Blog Round up which I’ll be hosting next week.
“As for the reference to Tim Worstall - I don’t remember siging up to or supporting Stalin or any Communist Party. So this is a straw-man.”
I didn’t suggest that you did and no, the argument is not a straw man.
I’m merely suggesting that people are a little selective at times in what they get outraged about. The BNP are seen as being untouchables because they are regarded as the successors to the vile idiocies of the various Fascist movements.
I would rather hope that people also regard various other groups as untouchables because they are regarded as the successors to the vile idiocies of the various Baathist and Communist movements.
That’s all: Nothing about Guido or Sunny per se, rather that if one bunch of mass murderers are regarded as being beyonf emulation in civilised discourse then why aren’t all such bunches of mass murderers?
What other groups regarded as successors to the Baathists operate today in the UK?
I’d say that at least certain parts of the Respect Party seem to like them.
So if someone accuses Staines of being a paedophile…
Oh the irony.
Tim - so shall we all agree that, should these allegations prove true, that would put Guido on the same ethical level as George Galloway? I think I’d be happy with that.
I think I know the thrust of your argument. But you’ll be in danger of suggesting Saddam sponsored Bin Laden next and that’d a silly Bush-ism.
I think you’ve confused Baathists with Islamists. The Baathists were Arab Socialists who later morphed into Iraqi and Syrian nationalists who attacked Shia Islamist politics of post-Shah Iran and the Egyptian Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood alike.
The RESPECT party are sympathetic to Islamist ideologies of Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood and NOT pan-Arab Socialism - which in any case is a dead dodo. RESPECT are very different from and very converse to Baathists and as far as I know, there is no such tendency operating in the UK today.
The history of the Ba’ath Party, well at least the Iraqi version, demonstrates they will jump into bed with anyone.
They certainly benefited from the CIA/UK coup in 1963 which took out Qasim - their future leader even helped draw up lists of communist, academic and other opponents for his CIA paymasters so they could be hung from lamposts in Baghdad. Not that it stopped the Iraqi Ba’athist’s and Communists jumping into bed with each later on when it suited them.
As for Respect, it’s always seemed to me that if the SWP or groups like them did not exist the UK security services would have to invent them - and they probably did. Alan Bleasdale even wrote a play on the theme.
Iraqi Ba’athist’s and Communists jumping into bed with each other seems a lot less unnatural than Ba’athists jumping into bed with Syed Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood. Although, nowadays with the advent of some rather good lubricants, anything is possible.
[The BNP are seen as being untouchables because they are regarded as the successors to the vile idiocies of the various Fascist movements.]
Not sure of this at all. The BNP are untouchables because they are widely seen as a) being in favour of policies that the majority of the electorate regards as abhorrent and b) not being very honest about a).
Maybe I’ll go to my local university library this weekend and read the article.