Bite the Ballot: The Nathan Barley of Political Engagement

In 2005 a sitcom was launched, co-written by Chris Morris of Brass Eye and The Day Today fame.  It focuses on a character, Nathan Barley, who is an incredibly overrated fashion conscious manchild. He only gets attention because he self-promotes through digital channels and is perceived to have the necessary ‘street cool’. The show, it seems, was well before its time as we now have a living, breathing case of life imitating art in the form of ‘Bite the Ballot’.

‘Bite the Ballot’ describes itself as “a not for profit organisation that empowers young people to speak up and act, to make their votes and opinions count.” Further down in its blurb we find something I’m sure was actually lifted from a Nathan Barley script – “Our core values when engaging those furthest away from politics are to be unconventional, inclusive and bold.”

They present themselves as studiously neutral. Which sounds nice given their current big hitting scheme is “Leaders Live”. The idea behind this is that they deliver questions to the main political leaders in the UK ostensibly provided from the general public via social media. In practice, most of the questioning occurs through an audience panel that is supposedly representative of the UK’s “youth”.

And it is the panel where this farce becomes completely unstuck. 

The second episode of “Leaders Live” featured Nigel Farage. The “representative” audience panel picked by supposedly “neutral” Bite the Ballot engaged in a solid hour of abuse, belittling, heckling and verging on violent interrogation of Farage. The role of the chair, Rick Edwards, during this episode appeared to be to primarily emulate Helen Keller as best as he could. 

The apparently in built anti-UKIP panel hostility was obvious to many who were commenting live at the time as well as the majority of the commenters on the archived Youtube video. The belligerence and bias was worse even than the most partisan BBC selected audience for Quisling Time I ever recall seeing. It was more embarrassingly (albeit unintentionally) self-parodying than Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s send up of the latter too.  

One only needs to watch the previous episode, with the Green Party’s Natalie Bennett to see the shocking divergence in the panel’s behaviour towards the two leaders. She was given a relatively easy time on the questions front, only really corned twice (e.g. on the performance of Brighton council) and even then she was treated with good manners and respect throughout. The panel seemed to like what she had to say, but then that’s easy with the Greens because they can promise spending on all and sundry without having to account for it. And of course this particularly appeals to the young and inexperienced who are more likely to opt for idealism and less likely to ask how one earth the Green’s apparently bottomless spending bonanza can be financed. 

A parody of panels

Who was on the panel for the Nigel Farage episode? That’s the million dollar question. It’s also one that ‘Bite the Ballot’ singularly fails to answer. Nowhere on their site or on the youtube channel is a list of the participants, never mind any biographies. This information is just a teensy weensy bit important.

As a result I had to piece together (occasionally making mistakes) who was actually present and their backgrounds. It is, frankly insane, that I had to do this. It is part and parcel of modern broadcasting that viewers are informed as to who is being questioned and who is doing the questioning. Not in this case though. 

So, who took part? Amongst those participating and including almost everyone who actually spoke on the panel I’ve been able to determine the following:

Piers Telemacque (@Pierschickenboy)
A vice-president of the NUS and active anti-UKIP activist.  You can see him here using crayon (how appropriate) to express his hatred of the party. He continues the proud tradition of NUS representatives in being thick and obnoxious. In between his slews of abuse towards Farage he claimed that Farage had worked for “Wall Street”. No, really. I’m sure there’s a bright future ahead for Piers in the greasy poleclimbers club that is the NUS and just like his predecessors will be willing to sell anyone out to get what he wants when he’s sick of being a bag carrier and useful idiot. 

Kenny Imafidon (@KennyImafidon)
Charming chap this one. Even more belligerent than Piers. He’s currently “Special Advisor on Youth Policy”. How did he achieve this august position? That makes for uncomfortable reading. Turns out he used to be a thug in a London gang. Ended up in the dock for murder. He was  however acquitted. Oh, that’s OK then?

Maybe not. It turns out the imprisoned murderer and accessory were actually his friends and part of the same gang. As he himself said, it “could have easily been me”. Oh dear. It is following this that events become truly bizarre. It appears that our establishment inexplicably decided that he needed special treatment,tea and biscuits. This gang-banging thug was elevated by our establishment, with money, education and status poured on him to become effectively an establishment selected “Community Leader / Representative” type. I’ve genuinely never seen anything like it.

Myles Dyer (@MylesDyer)
An employee of the Guardian.

Nothing else really needs to be said.

Mawaan Rizwan (@MawaanR)

A BBC employee. He’s a “comedian” apparently.

Another embarrassing belligerent on the show, this chap being the one who apparently really hates rich people with large houses.

Again, what more need be said. 

Russ Haynes (@monkeywithagunn)
Another “comedian”. This fellow was possibly the most belligerent of the lot and I genuinely thought he was going to get out of his seat to get at Farage at some point. He went heavy on the race card.

Rebecca Brown(?) (@beckie0)
Current/recent university (under)graduate. Massive youtube following – the largest of the lot as far as I can tell. I found a ‘Google hangout’ with some of these people discussing participating in ‘Bite the Ballot’ from 2013 where she made it clear she had not had any interest in politics until recruited by this organisation. She appears to be a relatively harmless youtube narcissist and was one of the politer panel members. 

John (surname?) (@JazzaJohn)
Another youtuber and LGBT campaigner as far as I can tell. Came across perfectly reasonably on the show. 

 Hannah Witton (@hannahwitton)
Another social media narcissist.
Current/recent university (under)graduate

Jamal Edwards (@jamaledwards)
Millionaire rapper. So, yeah, “representative”. Spoke during the Natalie Bennett interview previously but as far as I can recall did not ask a question of Nigel Farage. Which is probably just as well as the remainder of the panel appeared to be going on for a full on ‘soak the rich’ attack and things could have got awkward quite quickly especially if Nigel knew who he was otherwise….
I originally mixed him up with Kenny Imafidon – primarily because information was so thin on the ground about the panel I was resorting to comparing still images after confirming Jamal was on the show. 

Ben Hanlin (@benhanlin)
Magician. Employee of ITV (noteworthy especially in this case as this whole enterprise was arranged with ITV as a partner). 

Tom Harwood (@tomhfh)
Probably the single most neutral representative panel member I’ve been able to identify so far.  Follows the usual Youtube narcissism pattern but has a following comparable to many people I know myself on social media who have just been around for a while. 

Lucy Moon (@meowitslucy)
Another youtuber. Her twitter timeline makes it clear she’s another serial UKIP hater. She’s also noticeably more narcissistic than the others going by the evidence there and she’s only 19 (the majority of others seem to be in their 20s upwards). Not good. She was the most ill-tempered of the female panel members.

There are a handful of others I’ve not had the time to track down yet (so far its 11/15 – though only 14 of those appeared on the episode in question). However, as far as I can tell I have managed to include everyone who asked questions from the panel on the Farage episode.


Where was everyone else?

Where they weren’t diehard lefties and UKIP haters (that covers the people who spent most time heckling, interrupting and abusing) the panel members were major social media narcissists and/or media luvvies. Are these really the people who are most appropriate to be representing the UK’s “youth voice”? If there could even be said to be such a thing? Where were the political right wingers, the young people working in trades, armed forces, front line services? Why do only graduates, youtube personalities and “comedians” get to speak? You know – where’s the missing 50% of British youths who did not go to university and also did not become youtube superstars plucked from obscurity?

How desperately unfunny must the “comedians” on the panel be if all they can do in this situation is effectively act as simple hostile hecklers? Speaking as a fan and regular attendee of the London comedy circuit I can’t imagine any of the performers I’ve seen behaving like this. Even if they were out to undermine Farage they would have prepared some funny zingers rather than behaved like two year olds on the verge of tantrums, violence or both. 

A full third were committed UKIP haters and there are question marks over several of the others. It was a shockingly biased panel and the aggression towards Farage was left completely unchecked. It’s worth noting that all of the ethnic minority panel members who spoke up were persistently interrupting and belligerent. If your goal was to portray the young left-leaning members of the UK’s BME communities as know-nothing, belligerent gobshites then this episode was a major success. GREAT JOB guys!

It would appear to most of those commenting on ‘Bite the Ballot’ youtube videos that, as commenter ‘Venimus Vidimus’ put it, the panel

“were chosen because they're simple minded, desperate to be liked, malleable, sycophantic, photogenic, glib and left-wing (the latter trait being a direct result of the former traits).”

The boss weighs in 

As if it wasn’t already enough of a Nathan Barley episode with the student left drama queens and social media narcissists on the panel, the “Big Boss” of ‘Bite the Ballot’, Michael Sani, has since written about the panel make up. He has in turn delivered the very quintessence of exactly the kind of purified, distilled, thoughtless idiocy that seems the characterise these kind of enterprises and was mercilessly mocked in Nathan Barley. 

It is at this point that the mutual masturbation circle now turns into a full on circular firing squad.

In case they have a sudden injection of sense and delete the piece, I’ll quote you the section I consider most apposite:

“On the first: yep, I agree. At times, even I was calling for Rick to step in to keep control of people’s emotions – but to be fair, it was arguably the hottest debate we’ve ever seen with Nigel. It was refreshing to see people’s emotions on show, especially from this age group. One thing’s for sure – it’s becoming harder and harder to say ‘Young people don’t care’: because last night they proved they do. And now we build upon it, collectively.

Before I go into how, let’s address the idea of our unrepresentative audience. The audience was selected because of the networks they represent – many of whom have thousands of fans, followers and subscribers. You name it – they have them. These debates are pilots. We are trying to find a format where the few can represent the masses, and we are consistently perfecting the model because – like with everything BTB – we are not afraid to try, reflect, then try again. Yes, one member of the audience, Myles, has a day-job with a certain left-leaning print media house, but he didn’t mention that during the event, and more importantly, he brought in the views of his YouTube, Twitter and Facebook subscribers. That has always been the aim.

As for the chap from NUS, yes, it’s disappointing that he’s posted rude, anti-UKIP pictures on his social profile. He was supposed to be in a position of representing a mass of students. The thing is, we all have to work and support one another here. NUS need to be clear on what is – and is not – acceptable for their officers; and from BTB’s side, we need to think about how we brief audiences ahead of these debates so they don’t lose their electricity (and protect us from being picked apart).”

Holy non-sequiturs and complete-lack-of-self-awareness Batman! Would you like a dirty dripping contempt salad and a side order of sneer with your order, sir?

“It was refreshing to see people’s emotions on show”

- Yes, wonderful. Portray the representatives of “the youth” as ignorant brutes determined to get their way through shouting others down, along with a distinct implied violence. And even the boss was calling for the chair, Helen Keller (sorry – Rick Edwards), to notice something was up and step in. But he did nothing of the sort. Why?

“let’s address the idea of our unrepresentative audience”

- The “idea” of an unrepresentative audience. Got that? It’s just an “idea”!

“The audience was selected because of the networks they represent”

- The “networks” many of them represented were followers of a social media narcissist. In case you’re unfamiliar, Michael, with what narcissism entails, the narcissist does not “represent” their following.  They expect to bask in their reflected glory from sycophants. 

“We are trying to find a format where the few can represent the masses, and we are consistently perfecting the model because”

- This is just pure delusional talk. There is no model or format at work here beyond pulling in a social media circle jerk. The folks you picked represent some quite specific cliques and you’re excluding, at a minimum, 50% of the UK’s “youth”.  I fear that by “perfecting it” you mean pull in people who have more followers and shares on social media. I don’t think you understand the meaning of “representation” here, Michael.

“Yes, one member of the audience, Myles, has a day-job with a certain left-leaning print media house, but he didn’t mention that during the event”

- Ooh. A “certain left-leaning print media house”. There’s not even a hint of contrition here is there? I can almost feel “Boss Man” Michael’s sneer in his words. And you also appear to be frighteningly oblivious to the fact, Michael, that it is definitively your responsibility to inform your viewers of such details.

- I think the Guardian’s Myles Dyer has realised there’s trouble ahead as he is currently busy clowndancing in the youtube comments making out that he’s actually a really neutral, reasonable guy. One glance at his twitter timeline during and just after the event though and anyone can see the real picture: One of Myles revelling in so much backslapping over his perceived success in ‘operation get Farage’ that it’s amazing he hasn’t taken time off to see a chiropractor. 

“and more importantly, he brought in the views of his YouTube, Twitter and Facebook subscribers. That has always been the aim.”

- And there you have it. It’s all about the hits…sod accuracy, representation, bias…Never mind the fact that the bulk of followers are likely to subscribe to a similar viewpoint thereby exacerbating the bias even further.

“As for the chap from NUS, yes, it’s disappointing that he’s posted rude, anti-UKIP pictures on his social profile. He was supposed to be in a position of representing a mass of students.”

 - Right. Because you had no idea that this is what he was all about. And the very idea of NUS reps actually representing the mass of students rather than the speech-code obsessed authoritarian harpies? Hoho – pass the smelling salts, please dear!

“NUS need to be clear on what is – and is not – acceptable for their officers;”
 
- Pretty much anything acceptable to the far-left goes at the nutty NUS. Including opposing motions against ISIS initiated by (Muslim) Kurds because of  - er - “Islamophobia”. 

“and from BTB’s side, we need to think about how we brief audiences ahead of these debates so they don’t lose their electricity (and protect us from being picked apart).”

- Translation: we need to ensure our biased selectees know how to obscure their biases from easy discovery!

This all simply beggars belief. “Boss man” had the opportunity to pull back from the precipice. Instead he hits the accelerator pedal and flies straight over the cliff, smashes into the rocks below and bursts into flames.

No acknowledgement of an issue, no contrition and no prospect of rectification at all. The ostensible goal of this “neutral” organisation is to teach and inspire young citizens about politics and voting. If the mission here was to teach young people the lesson that, in UK politics, you can expect to be unashamedly and outrageously deceived right from the very start, then this has been an absolutely stellar success.

The cat is out of the bag now, Michael.

You had a duty of care to inform the audience. You failed spectacularly.  

The most important currency in politics is trust. Once it is gone it can take a generation to win it back. ‘Bite the Ballot’ have demonstrated that they are wilfully biased. Worse, they have clearly expressed that they simply do not care that they have been outed and intend to carry on as before. Notice also the lexical register that Michael Sani uses. It is very childlike, blasé and pompous. It reminds me very much of how Russell Brand happily masturbates his own ignorance and anti-intellectualism in his own inscrutable writing. And this man is the “Big Boss”. God help us.

Tories should be wary

There’s no love lost between myself and the Tories. However in spite of my general dislike of the party and my specific issues with Cameron himself, I do not think he or they deserve to be put through this idiotic farce. Dave is so far the only party leader to have not confirmed a date with ‘Bite the Ballot’. In all seriousness I think, now the outright bias of the show is on full view, that he would be wise to withdraw. 

It is arguable that Cameron could be in for even worse treatment than Farage. Why? Because the visceral hatred of UKIP and Farage from this lot is what I would refer to as “fashionable hate”. It has become a popular past time, to impress your mates and be seen to make the correct noises for herd approval to claim to hate UKIP even if you know little about them and even less about the issues they raise. Yet there is something that is somewhat fleeting here.

The tories on the other hand face what I would call “institutional hate”. Despite not even having been born when Thatcher was still in power, many of this lot seem to uncannily pop out of the womb with a built in hatred of her and need to blame the country’s current ills on a prime minister who has been out of power for decades. You know how it goes. Everything is Fatcher’s fault, innit bruv? You instinctively support manual frackers (miners) but inexplicably hate and fear hydraulic fracturing. The tories were so evil they even caught the Teletubbies going for a poo. They had the Brighton bombing coming. The Falklands was worse than Iraq. And yes, the Belgrano was a fucking cruise liner.

Don’t do it to yourselves. Yes there will be mass hysteria by the self-righteous New Left, but their teeth grinding and childishness will only prove the point.

The children of Orwell and Huxley

One final issue that really bugged me. Because this attempt at imitating Nathan Barley was struggling to be so in touch with the supposed social media zeitgeist, all the panel participants were glued to their spyphones and tablets. The occasional full frontal shot of the panel was actually quite unnerving. When they weren’t send spittle flecked tirades Farage’s way, they were looking down with crooked necks at the miniature portals in their laps.

At any one moment the majority of the audience was simply not paying attention. In human communication terms this is a significant step backwards and not a practice that should be actively encouraged. ‘The Youth’ have become inheritors of the worst of both Orwell’s and Huxley’s fears. Continually policed Newspeak (and, increasingly, prudery too) combined with hypnotising, addictive yet numbing behaviours of performance and approval carried out via devices that are used to spy on us. 

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a social media network’s glow from a backlit display occupying a dulled, distracted, inattentive human face, forever.

Once upon a time in Bexley.....

Fellow blogger and member of the awkward squad, Olly C, has as I'm sure many of you already know, been slapped with a custodial sentence as a result of calling a Bexley councillor a "cunt" on twitter. There's a lot of history here and I've already seen some lightweights casually dismissing it because they believe the council's line that he was "harrassing" them.  For a short readable version, pop by Max's place. For a lengthier treatment, go to Spiderplant - which gives a fairly detailed and dispassionate breakdown. If you're unfamiliar with this case, Olly or Bexley council, then you really owe it to yourself to dig deep into this and as such just have a quick browse through Bexley is Bonkers for examples of mendacity from the council that are legion. The blogs just for April will give you enough of a taste. Rather than add my own summary of the situation, I'd rather highlight some particularly striking points from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' site.

First, however I would like to speculate on something. And I'd ask people to please share this speculation far and wide. Remember though, given how easily speech - especially online - is criminalised in this country, it is only a speculation.It goes as follows: Olly is due to be sentenced at Bromley magistrates court on May 9th. WOULDN'T IT BE AWFUL if Bexley council, and certain councillors in particular, were on the receiving end of a "mass cunting" on that day. That is to say - that they were inundated with emails, tweets and phone calls indicating that many of the general public considered them - well - "cunts". Spread the word about this speculation......I'd be interested to see if it comes true.

Secondly I wanted to highlight that the story is now being picked up by as diverse sources as Reddit, Stephen Fry and Sunny Hundal. That's good. These censorious attacks - especially in online media - have got to the point where they are simply beyond belief. I certainly wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me 10 years ago that this would happen. So a cross-partisan left-right shitstorm in response is exactly what we need, as we've had on (too few) occasions in the past such as when left and right blogs joined forces to support Craig Murray against Schillings.

Now - those two points I wanted to highlight, lifted verbatim from the 'Bexley is Bonkers' April 2012 blogs:

"When Eric Pickles’ department wrote to all councils in February 2011 telling them “citizen journalists” should be allowed to Tweet and film in council meetings even the most hard line of secretive Conservative councils like Barnet and Westminster caved in. Bexley however changed its Constitution to exclude all forms of recording at meetings. All their Agendas repeat the prohibition and when questioned they say it is to protect members of the public from appearing on tape. They sheepishly offer the excuse that permission may be granted on request but not a single request has been approved, not even for an audio only recording at a meeting where the public is not allowed to speak."

And as to why / how the judge on friday effectively threw the book at Olly:

"the charges were those prepared from the original false allegations that included flaming torches, pitchforks, petrol bombs and Olly writing on Bonkers. All of that was untrue; made up and distorted stories by Bexley council aimed at getting both Olly and me in trouble. The prosecution could find no evidence for any of those allegations which is what you might expect since they were all false and Olly was found not guilty last December. All the nonsense invented by Bexley council was put before the new Judge as fact. Worrying."

Did I mention that the judgement against Olly was made at a court in Bexley?

Time to consider this a war footing I think.

And my personal message to Bexley council is:

You can support the Open Rights Group...as long as you're not white and male

UPDATE 3 (27/03/12) - Jim Killock, Executive Director of ORG responds in the comments (Comment #10). Response is as expected - no condemnation of Nishma's views. My response follows in comment #11.

UPDATE 2 (26/03/12): Nishma Doshi responds on twitter. Comment #8 below.

UPDATE 1 (26/03/12): Mealy mouthed response from and twitter exchange with ORG advisory board member Owen Blacker added - comment #7 below.

I'm done. I've absolutely had it with attempts to work with the activist left in this country. No more.

The Open Rights Group held its conference 'Orgcon' yesterday. It's a hub of activity and interesting talks for anyone interested in the crucial issues facing us in the digital realm in general and with regard to the internet in particular. ORG have worked for many years now to raise awareness on issues such as the Digital Economy Act and ACTA and have run many campaigns to get people involved. These are causes that affect everyone and there is good reason for people of all political persuasions to get involved.

You might be reading this and passively wishing I'd included links to ORG and their useful summary pages on the Digital Economy Act and ACTA. That was a conscious choice not to and I won't be doing so again for the forseeable future. Tomorrow I will be cancelling my donations to them.

Let me tell you why.

For many years now quite a number of us on the libertarian right have made attempts to reach out to the broad left on issues of common concern. In my personal experience it was mainly for anti-war actions and campaigns. In every single case there would be at least one person amongst the left-wingers who would say that we "weren't allowed" to join them, and worse. I've known of so many attempts to hold out the Olive branch - and all from the right-libertarian - that have been rebuffed, and often with menaces.

I know this kind of attitude has put many of my libertarian and libertarian-leaning Tory friends off ever going to events run, or largely dominated, by lefties just for this very reason, even if the case for common cause is compelling and possibly necessary for any chance of victory. One of the clearest examples of shooting themselves in the foot in recent memory was in the battle over AV. The lefties refused to work with Farage and UKIP on this despite common cause. As a result the case for AV was seen largely as something exclusive popularised by the Guardian reading metropolitan lefty elite. And people were, it seems, right to think that. This is not to say had they made common cause the vote would have been won, but I suspect the pro-AV vote would not have been so embarrassingly small either, and the turnout perhaps a little better (and the debates from the AV side less childish too).

A couple of friends I'd mentioned the Orgcon to had already declined on the grounds that they didn't want to end up in an argument with left-wingers who would tell them that they were 'evil' and not welcome and blah blah blah. Yeah, you know the rest. But I thought I'd give it a go. I've been a supporter of ORG and their work for some time so now I'm based back in London I thought I'd finally make it to one of their major events.

Unfortunately I groaned almost as soon as I joined the - very long - queue to get in to the conference. Being the gregarious kind of chap I am I decided to start getting to know the people nearby in the queue. An older bloke behind me was ranting to a friend - I was about to say 'hi' but paused to listen first. He claimed, first, that the cuts on pensions would be 'given to the bankers at Canary Wharf' and second, claimed he had met a "right wing sociologist" whose secret task was - apparently - to "destroy the working class". It was a classic facepalm moment and I wondered if I was going to make it through the day without putting someone's head through a window.

Fortunately throughout the day I met a handful of friendly left leaning people with whom I found a lot of common ground. Interestingly they were generally older and also not UK natives. The two keynotes - by Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig were particularly good and well worth watching when they go online. (I'm sorry I refuse to post links and give ORG traffic from this blog). Particularly notable was an argument made by Lessig - he made it clear that it was a mistake to regard these issues as left/right in any way and that the only division that mattered was those within the political class and those without. I thought he was very clear on this. Apparently not.

In the early evening most of the attendees went to the pub. Three libertarian pals joined me at the pub, though (lucky for them) two had to leave a little earlier at which point the two of us left retired to the back room of the pub to continue drinking and chatting.

It was then I encountered Nishma for the third time.

When she breezed in, whilst chatting to my friend, I passively noticed how the group of (white, males) reoriented around her and she became the centre of attention. That's nothing new in left-activist circles as I've observed over the years, though it is relevant for what was about to pass. Despite lots of fine rhetoric about being open minded and the women not wanting to be "objectified", that soons slips when it suits and I witness a ritual even more painful than most I've seen after 13 years of looking after nightclubs full of drunk idiots. I do honestly wonder how many of the men get laid in these circles and how dull their sex lives must be.

Anyway, I digress. Nishma was ranting loudly about Tory bastards this and Tory bastards that and at one point turned to the two of us and asked something about hating right wingers. I said 'well, there's two of us right here'. A stunned silence ensued until one of her compatriots said "libertarians". At which point she seemed to relax slightly. (The underlying implication being that whilst we had some credibility in their eyes, Tories were not allowed full stop! As many of you know there's no love lost between myself and the Tories but I still find much of the left attitude towards them utterly repugnant not to mention often completely wrong).

She then proceeded to tell us how libertarianism "excludes women of colour" (how?) and how everything was the fault of us evil white men. My (female) libertarian friend, to her eternal credit, then leapt to my defence and pointed out what a hypocrite Nishma was. Nishma then came out with the classic line we're all used to now that it isn't racist or sexist if it's white men we're talking about. Both of us started laughing at which point she also then said "and then there's colonialism too". The mutual recriminatory exchange only got worse from then on until she flounced out of the room.

At this point something inside me just gave. I'm done with putting up with this, or just putting it to one side for the perceived greater good. She was surrounded by four (white) men who - as per fucking usual in these groups - just passively accept this offensive concentrated bullshit. But of course they do - they all want to get into her pants and its hard work when the odds are 4 to 1 and they have to pay lip service to not "objectifying" her and taking their licks as "evil white men". If they were confident men and not emasculated craptivists they would have done one of two things - either i) backed up her position or ii) told her to stop being so offensive to almost everyone present and shut up. They did neither. They made a very quick exit, with one muttering "I'm getting out of here!". Fuck 'em. They're welcome to their sex starved lives of constantly having to self-flagellate for being white and male and beg for approval.

Now here's the second important bit:

Nishma Doshi is the Community and Events Organsier at the Open Rights Group.

She's responsible for PR, outreach and is the main point of contact for many people with ORG. As such she's very much a bona fide spokesperson for the organisation and just not some random nutter amongst the supporters.

As I mentioned, earlier I'd ecountered her already at least twice that day. She'd already said something offensive about everyone in the room being "white males" at one of the workshops but I let it slide again in the interests of getting something out of the session. No more. Other greatest hits from this white hot intellect included - in response to her being asked why she thought Boris Johnson was corrupt, it was because "he went to Eton" and during the "hacktivism" workshop she shared her - barely out of teens years of experience - clue for working out who the police informants and undercover agents were. They're socially awkward apparently. This was said to a room full of techie geeks.

With someone this openly bigoted, dogmatic, sexist and racist, following the usual cultural marxist script in such a sensitive position at ORG it is reasonable to assume that her views are at least passively tolerated.

Well that *is* intolerable to me, especially after having promoted and supported ORG for so long and joined in on their various campaigns.

So I'm sharing this blog with all of my libertarian and right wing friends and asking them to share further and boycott ORG unless and until Nishma Doshi no longer works for them and they release an official statement to the effect that they apologise and do not endorse her views and that people of all political persuasions (and white men) are welcome to get involved. I will be cancelling my donations to ORG tomorrow and writing them a formal letter explaining why and what it will take for me to consider ever associating with them again in future.

Laying the ground for an assault on Freedom of Information

Reading the opinions of "civil servants" in the RearGuardian today, I see the ground is clearly being laid for an attack on the current status quo on the Freedom of Information legislation. Moreover, the complaints being made are coming from those with a direct conflict of interest (remember they were said to be "shit scared" at this proposed development previously).

It should be noted that a full on assault on FOI is in progress in Scotland (which has its own FOI commissioner).

Their claims deserve nothing less than a complete fisking:

"The Freedom of Information Act has failed to increase understanding of government"

- Utter crap. The majority of journalists and researchers may have failed to have used it, but the minority who have managed to use it to great effect and have pulled the curtain back on all sorts of issues. I think what the "civil servants" mean here is that it 'failed to increase a general appreciation of *their* understanding of government.'

"may have reduced trust"

- Well yes. Because it has served the essential role of exposing you - exactly as it was intended to do.

" and has done little to improve decision-making in Westminster"

- This at least may be true. Our Parliamentary Muppets certainly act as if they don't fear the outcome of a FOI request - I recently had one returned from the Cabinet Office that confirmed there was no 'draft treaty' for the Boy Cameron to have vetoed. It hasn't stopped the Tories repeating the lie continually. However, this is an issue of exposure as much as anything. They most certainly do fear exposure on Guido's site for example and there's no reason FOI responses could not contribute to some of his exposes.



"Civil servants are also calling for the introduction of higher fees for users of the act. The ministry suggests that the costs do "not adequately reflect the total amount of time spent in practice in compiling the information".

- OK so now you're trying to close this valuable tool down by pricing people out. If you kept better records it wouldn't be so onerous would it. Why do you keep such bad records? Because you know you're unlikely to be held to account for them. Oh.

"Research commissioned by the Ministry of Justice also found civil servants believed freedom of information was not being used to increase accountability, but instead by journalists fishing for a story."

- Fishing for a story? Really? For god's sake. Why is this considered illegitimate? It's not as if the journalists who submit FOI requests are the paparazzi.

"The report found: "It was well recognised by most that journalists have started to use other email accounts in requesting information as a way of masking the origin of the request."

- Diddums. I failed to read the part of the FOIA legislation that stated those making requests were obliged to identify themselves and their interests. You guys have got that Public servant <--> Public relationship the wrong way around again haven't you? Mendacious idiots.

"The chairman of the justice select committee, Alan Beith, said he was a supporter of the act, but added that he was aware some ministers and civil servants wanted to rein in what they regarded as a costly burden on the government."

- It's that relationship confusion again here isn't it? You're already a frighteningly bloated bureaucracy (not to mention increasingly redundant as the EU continues to encroach further). It is frankly offensive that being expected to be transparent and accountable is seen as a "costly burden".



"The report says: "Most officials agreed that the same issues would have been discussed and the same decisions reached had the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] not been in place."

- Indeed. Because you don't actually care what we think. You'll go ahead anyway with your own plans. The way you administer (not to mention completely fail to publicise) "consultations" as pathetic exercises in  confirming what you were going to do anyway, is regular proof of that. At least with the FOIA us Proles get to see some of the inner workings you would rather not were exposed to sunlight.

"The memorandum finds a "very small proportion of the public requests information, whilst media coverage of FOI requests is rarely on policy-decision topics (ie it is far more likely to cover a topic like expenses, crime statistics and so on)".

- Given that you have already admitted you can't always identify journalists amongst the requests, how on earth do you provide this estimate? And yet again you cry like spoiled brats that the media narratives don't necessarily go your way. "Policy-decision topics"? Piss off!

"Overall, the ministry claims, there "is little evidence to suggest the FOIA has increased public participation in government. The number of individuals making requests is insignificant in terms of the UK population. Those who make requests are normally already engaged with government: campaigners, journalists and politicians for instance."

- Again. How in hell do you measure this? It has certainly increased my participation - and the participation of many people I know. And if the number of requests is "insignificant" relative to the population then STFU about how "onerous" it is. And the fact that most requesters are likely to be "already engaged with government" is not only redundant but also no surprise.

"The survey also revealed a frustration at the way in which "serial or vexatious requesters waste time and money by pushing their request through the internal review process and up to the information commissioner". Some believed that such cases should incur a higher fee at a lower threshold of civil service time."

- They just don't let up do they? Poor them, eh? The review process was in place to serve people who want the information, not those who have to provide it. And of course they generally only become vexatious if you stonewall them in the first place.

"The memorandum also suggests the cost of censoring documents for public consumption is so costly that more documents should simply be deemed to be too expensive to publish."

- What? You folks do have the use of computers, right? And aside from personal contact details, perhaps you should just censor *less* in the first place. It's not as if you have anything to hide. Is it?

"The report also cites evidence that some charities and non-profit service providers are holding back from using FOI requests out of fear that it will antagonise the public authorities they rely on for funding."

- Oh really? Is it ANY surprise at all given all the whining already cited above? I've actually wondered the same thing myself when submitting more than one FOI request to the same entity, despite the fact that I am fully within my rights to do so regardless of all other factors.


"Civil servants also claimed their internal discussions were being hampered by the act, saying "some people were recording less information and … internal communications had become less detailed and informative" than before freedom of information."

- Uh huh. And WHY would you want to avoid taking note of certain details?

"Ministry of Justice statistics show that central government departments currently receive a total of about 2,000-2,500 FOI requests a year,"

- W-what? 2-2.5 thousand? That's it?

"Nearly 700,000 requests had been made to local authorities between 2005 and 2010, with the number now reaching 200,000 a year."

- Ah. That's more like it. Quelle surprise - requesters are more interested in their local government. I suspect part of the reason is that Council Tax provides one of the government's few weakspots for collecting revenue (which is why their powers to claim it are so draconian). People might - just might - think they have legitimate reasons for with-holding payment given the multiple spending clusterfucks that Local government is famous for. This is something Richard North has been heroically chronicling for some time. They also - probably rightly - perceive that their local representatives are potentially more accountable and accessible unlike those in the Westminster bubble (and let's not mention the even more distant Brussells bubble, eh?)

After that torrent of Bilge, the top rated comment by davidabsalom at the RearGuardian does at least summarise it best:

"Well they would say that, wouldn't they."

UK Customer Service - get things done by "promising not to use offensive language"

This is a story for everyone (probably meaning all of you) who have been on the receiving end of appalling customer service, possibly involving an endless problem with no solution in sight.

Here is a solid gold rant from a friend of mine on such an issue with Virgin Media regarding internet bandwidth that, owing to its ferocity looks like it might actually achieve something as long as he "promises to not use offensive language in future". This might be the future model for us consumers in the modern age of de rigeur bureaucratic resistance.

Also of great interest is the fact that his very angry email was sparked by the fact that Virgin Media apparently place close attention to comments made about them on Twitter. The Virgin staff watching Twitter contacted him after noticing angry tweets condemning their service.

After being invited to phone a particular member of staff directly to deal with his issue, he was further reprimanded for "offensive language" for referring to the staff he had previously dealt with as "lackeys", leading to him writing in his conclusion that:

"To be honest, this wound up being one of the most surreal conversations I think I’ve ever had with a living breathing human being. At one point, I briefly considered whether or not this could be some sort of prank, the sort of pseudo-comical prank call the Fonejacker or a radio station might make, but even then it was simply too imaginative, too ludicrous for that. Instead, the insanity can only be the reality - that this genuinely was the way Virgin Media dealt with angry customer complaints, like an offended schoolteacher telling you off for using the word tits in front of the girls."

If that resonates with any of you, I highly recommend you read the entire rant, complete with the angry email he sent where he blew his top.

The song you should hear whenever they speak

It has now reach the point for me that whenever I hear British officials, Eurocrats or climate catastrophists speak, alarming us with some new supposed crisis or other, all I can hear in my head is this song. I find it a great palliative and recommend its regular use:

(Small) bonfire of the Quangos

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, the government has announced the list of quangos that it intends to abolish. See here in the Independent.

One of those quangos is Ufi - the parent company for Learndirect and the disastrous UK Online. It was with the latter (UK Online) that we first learned about the government's actual attitude to talking to it's citizens online - - censor them if they don't agree with you.

Now if you were to look at the sites listed above it would look like Ufi/learndirect actually did some worthwhile work. It did in it's first year or two, very successfully in fact. But then the targets bullshit culture took over and it morphed rapidly into a horrific tax eating monster filled to the brim with completely pointless jobs and ever changing "targets" and "priorities". It sucked in taxpayer money from one end and out the other produced - literally - tonnes of patronising acronym-filled meaningless bullshit.

Also, most of the actual teaching took place in independent learning centres, previously private businesses that then became effectively Ufi franchises. This would have been OK if the said businesses hadn't been jerked around constantly by changing targets and funding models that would alter sometimes within months of the last regime being imposed. As a result lots of previously good learning centres went to the wall or became completely ineffectual.

I came to despise the organisation with a passion after working there for two years and as it seems to be receiving it's long overdue and richly deserved destruction I thought it was the perfect time to share my resignation letter from five years ago, which I sent to the entire company.

Read it here

The economy of the Digital Economy Bill

'Economy' in the title here is meant in the sense of 'making savings' - for that is exactly what our wonderful Lords and Masters have done in following appropriate procedures for consideration of this legislation. For, almost as awful as the legislation itself is the contempt our politicians have shown us in the way they pushed it through.

The Digital Economy Bill, now Digital Economy Act is shortly to become law. Whilst some of the worst draconian provisions have been removed or amended, many still remain. And like so much government legislation, contains a number of 'reasonable' (as far as any fresh legislation can be said to be so) provisions, along with a number of extremely dangerous clauses that never would have passed muster if proposed alone.

Much has been written already on the issues with the Bill. The long and the short of it is that it hands the government an enormous amount of power with regards to shutting off people's internet access and blocking websites that are accused of "copyright infringement", all on the basis of a bare minimum of evidence. It has 'bad legislation', 'law of unintended consequences' and 'guaranteed abuse' written through it like a stick of seaside rock.

For what I consider to be a highly optimistic (and unlikely to my mind) account of what the Act will now mean read the Register's article here. For a more realistic and wide ranging analysis, try this telegraph blog.

Their contempt for us is total

What really struck me about this legislation however, is in spite of the valiant efforts of organisations like ORG, is how it demonstrated just how much contempt the political class hold us in. This is possibly the most important and controversial piece of legislation under the aegis of this government since the Lisbon Treaty was ratified.

Here was parliament for the second reading of the bill:



And here was parliament for the third reading of the bill:



Notice a problem? That's right - most of our so-called "representatives" are missing. In the second reading, no more than 50 MPs were present. So nearly a whopping 600 could not be bothered to show up. The third reading, when the vote was taken, was not much better and also demonstrated one of those MP behaviours that makes me want to smash their teeth out with a hammer - a handful of dedicated politicians actually debate the bill, then when it comes time to the vote the numbers swell to approximately 200 so the MPs can vote according to whatever the whip tells them. Given the severity of this legislation this is absolutely unforgivable.

In any case, if you want to check to see if your MP was there, pop by the public whip. If they did not even turn up, perhaps when they are campaigning for your vote you might want to ask them why the fuck they weren't there and why anyone should vote for them if they can't even be bothered to do their job and turn up to debate and vote.

You'll note that the CHAMPION, nay the LION of civil liberties, Nick Clegg was absent. I checked his whereabouts and according to his itinerary he was in Westminster that day for Prime Minister's Questions. Why he couldn't stick around for the evening debate and vote I'd really like to know - I guess the Vote-grubbing tourbus and its groupies was too much to resist. I'll be pursuing this one for sure and have already written to him, though I think the best explosion can wait until I can catch him in public again. Here are the details of my last encounter with the Cleggover.

Miserable enough yet? There's more!

If you're ready to beat your head on the desk until unconscious, read this article. You'll see there that our "Digital Tsar" - 'Minister for Digital Britain' and chief cheerleader for the Digital Economy Bill, Stephen Timms writes the most colossally embarrassing drivel for someone in his position. The fact he obviously has NO CLUE what Internet Protocol (IP) is should be grave cause for concern for our entire political establishment and everyone that suffers under its yoke.

On the bright side.

There is an upside - I thought this comment over at boingboing was particularly apropos and funny, maybe even practical:

"This is great news, it will bring about a new era of lols.

I offer a reward of 1 million internets to the person or group who manages to disconnect a member of Parliament or recording industry executive for an alleged copyright infringement."

And another:

"No effort must be spared in getting MPs and their families banned from the internet with only accusations, no proof..."

Particularly impressive is the official position of TalkTalk, who have publicly stated that the company will resist the Act on behalf of its customers:

our pledges to our customers:

* Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer’s details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
* If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we’ll see them in court.

I can only hope their bravery will gain them lots of custom and inspire others to resist this, truly, the most awful and corrupt of all parliaments.

Londoner stopped by bullsh*t

Watch here to see a U.K. citizen stopped and searched recently under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Hopefully, this ballsy video capture of the police in action will actually bring home the meaning of "anti-terrorism" to more people.

A less choppy version of the video can be found here if you're having trouble with the above version. It is worth looking at the first link however for the comments.

Note that he has no choice about whether he can consent to being searched and have his property rifled through (including one of the officers apparently taking note of the details on one of his credit cards). He must either comply or be arrested (and subsequently face all of the additional consequences such as having his fingerprints and DNA taken and put on the national database).

Remember, if you are stopped under Section 44, Liberty currently have a search monitoring form that you should fill in. If enough of us do this Liberty will have some kind of statistical evidence for highlighting the bullsh*t that it is.

It is also worth noting the Police's own propaganda on this issue.

While I'm at it - here is a comprehensive debunking of the "nothing to hide" 'argument'.

If your initial response to all of this is to say that the police are just 'doing their job', you might want to refamiliarise yourself with the Nuremburg defence.

Here is a link to the author's blog, where he considers his reaction to the police.

And hat tip to John Sabotta over at Samizdata for this quote:

"So passed, to all appearance, from the minds of men the strange dream and fantasy called freedom."

- G. K. Chesterton, EUGENICS AND OTHER EVILS