Aaronovitch Blusters to a Well of Silence 1213


Why Rupert Murdoch considers it worth his while to pay David Aaronovitch a large six figure sum for such puerile antics as tweeting that I am insane, is a conjecture I find difficult to resolve. Today this exchange occurred on twitter:

David Aaronovitch: This suggestion that if elected Corbyn could be quickly ousted is utter bollocks. Democracy allows Labour to commit Hara Kiri.

Mark Doran: @DAaronovitch I hope everyone is watching how these servants of the micro-elite try to paint “attracting popular support” as “committing suicide.”

Mark Doran: @DAaronovitch Craig finds the elite-serving contortions every bit as funny as I do

David Aaronovitch: @MarkJDoran I tend to find Craig Murray unpersuasive on the grounds of him being unhinged. I can see why you like him, though.

Mark Doran: Says the man who managed to find Bush and Blair credible. I can see why you liked them, though.

It is remarkably ironic that on being referred to an article which argues that views outside a very narrow neoliberal establishment narrative are marginalised and ridiculed by the media, the Murdoch hack’s response is that the author is unhinged. Aaronovitch could not have more neatly proved my point.

But something else struck me about the twitter record. Aaronovitch’ twitter account claims to have 78,000 followers. Yet of the 78,000 people who allegedly received his tweet about my insanity, only 1 retweeted and 2 favourited. That is an astonishingly low proportion – 1 in 26,000 reacted. To give context, Mark Doran has only 582 followers and yet had more retweets and favourites for his riposte. 1 in 146 to be precise, a 200 times greater response rate.

Please keep reading, I promise you this gets a great deal less boring.

Eighteen months ago I wrote an article about Aaronovitch’s confession that he solicits fake reviews of his books to boost their score on Amazon. In response a reader emailed me with an analysis of Aaronovitch’s twitter followers. He argued with the aid of graphs that the way they accrued indicated that they were not arising naturally, but being purchased in blocks. He claimed this was common practice in the Murdoch organisation to promote their hacks through false apparent popularity.

I studied his graphs at some length, and engaged in email correspondence on them. I concluded that the evidence was not absolutely conclusive, and in fairness to Aaronovitch I declined to publish, to the annoyance of my correspondent.

Naturally this came to mind again today when I noted that Aaronovitch’ tweets to his alleged legion of followers in fact tumble into a well of silence. I do not even tweet. The entire limit of my tweeting is that this blog automatically tweets the titles of articles I write. They are not aphorisms so not geared to retweet. Yet even the simple tweet “Going Mainstream” which marked the article Aaronovitch derided, obtained 20 times the reactions of Aaronovitch’s snappy denunciation of my mental health. This despite the fact he has apparently 10 times more followers than me. An initial survey seems to show this is not atypical.

In logic, I can only see two possible explanations. The first is that my correspondent was right and Aaronovitch fakes twitter followers like he does book reviews. The second is that he has a vast army of followers, nearly all of whom find him dull and uninspiring, and who heartily disapproved en masse of his slur on my sanity. I opt for the second explanation, that he is just extremely dull, on the grounds that Mr Aaronovitch’s honesty and probity were never questioned, m’Lud.


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1,213 thoughts on “Aaronovitch Blusters to a Well of Silence

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  • MH17

    BTW Mary, am an admirer please disregard the resident evil ! We need your truth posts.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    Republicofscotland

    “I’m unhappy at the fact no one has gone to prison over the mass selling of PPI.”
    ________________

    That does you credit, RoS.

    But have you stopped to consider why no one went to prison?

    Could it be because the mis=selling, reprehensible as it was, was not a criminal offence?

    You obviously have a Charles Bronson attitude to the law. 🙂

  • Mary

    Aa has retweeted this.

    Yair Rosenberg ‏@Yair_Rosenberg · 21 hours ago
    .@schraubd lays out the argument for Israel to demolish the homes of Jewish terrorists:

    http://dsadevil.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/housing-demolition-and-price-tag-terror.html

    ~~~

    Make of that what you will. Everything to go up in flames seems to be the solution.

    PS Aa now claims 78.1k followers, LOL,and is flogging a new book out in January. Will ‘Party Animals’ turn out to be as dire as ‘Voodoo Histories’? The blurb for it.
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Party-Animals-Growing-Up-Communist/dp/0224074717

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    “BTW Mary, am an admirer please disregard the resident evil ! We need your truth posts.”
    ___________________

    I quite agree with you, MH17, she provides good value even if not of the kind she might imagine.

    As indeed do you (eg, “The devils,incl cameron, are trying to punt the inquiry into the 50 year long grass..etc, etc..”).

    Please keep posting and feel free to disregard me. 🙂

  • MJ

    “Some believe in fairies, ghosts, gods or what they read they read on Russian Insider and some don’t. I am in the latter category”

    Oh no, did you click on the CBBC link this time? The polonium. In Litvinenko’s plane and Berezosky’s office. Any views?

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    ” Will ‘Party Animals’ turn out to be as dire as ‘Voodoo Histories’? The blurb for it.
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Party-Animals-Growing-Up-Communist/dp/0224074717
    _________________

    I hope, Mary, that his new book will be as excellent as “Voodoo Histories”.

    The reason some on here so dislike “Voodoo Histories” is because it holds a mirror up to their foolish and credulous faces.

    I shall certainly buy a copy.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    MJ

    “Critical minds should be addressing the implications of the polonium found in numerous other locations, including Litvinenko’s plane and Berezosky’s office.”

    ____________________

    Well, MJ, you obviously think you’re one of those “critical minds”, so off you go, start “addressing”!

    Illuminate us, there’s a good chap.

  • Mary

    Michael Howard chairs the board of directors of Soma Oil and Gas which has just been referred to the Serious Fraud Office for investigation.

    http://www.somaoilandgas.com/page/board-of-directors-and-management

    Soma Oil and Gas investigated by Serious Fraud Office
    4 hours ago
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/33747169

    ~~~
    The Business of Lords
    How the House of Lords Mixes Politics and Business
    Nov. 21, 2014

    ‘Lord Howard, the chairman of Soma Oil & Gas, is one of several lords working for companies active in Somalia, whose natural resources are drawing prospectors following years of violence. He got involved with Somalia after a long political career. He held cabinet positions under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and when he retired from Parliament after the 2010 election, new Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron named Mr. Howard a lord.

    Three years later, a London investor and party donor named Basil Shiblaq started a company to explore for oil in Somalia. He asked Lord Howard to become the chairman. Mr. Shiblaq said he hired Lord Howard for his high profile.

    Former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, now a legislator in Britain’s House of Lords, ran unsuccessfully against Labour’s Tony Blair in the 2005 U.K. general election. Pictured, Mr. Howard and his wife, Sandra, enter a polling station near Folkestone, England, May 5, 2005.

    Lord Howard’s stature helped sway the Somali government to sign a deal with Soma, says Abdirizak Omar Mohamed, then Somalia resources minister and now a government adviser to Somalia’s president. “It increases the credibility of the company when you have someone who was a leader of the Conservatives,” says Mr. Mohamed.

    The deal between Soma and the Somali government—a no-bid contract with undisclosed financial terms—drew criticism from U.N. officials. Somalia’s auditor general, Nur Farah, said in an interview he is concerned because Soma has no prior experience searching for oil. Soma’s CEO said the contract is fair and transparent.

    “It increases the credibility of the company when you have someone who was a leader of the Conservatives” — Abdirizak Omar Mohamed, adviser to Somalia’s president

    Lord Howard, who has a stake in Soma, said he sought assurances from U.K. officials that the company’s deal was consistent with Britain’s policies toward Somalia. He briefed the U.K.’s Africa minister on Soma’s plans, and had the U.K. foreign office’s acting Africa director brief him, according to U.K. government documents reviewed by the Journal. The U.K. publicly neither supported the deal nor declined to support it.’

    /..
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-house-of-lords-mixes-politics-and-business-1415693056

    The article continues to relate how Soma were given permission to hire armed guards and boats in contravention of a UN arms embargo. Fallon, now Defence Minister, was consulted.

    A correction says:
    Michael Howard, chairman of Soma Oil & Gas, said he sought assurances from U.K. officials that Soma’s activities were consistent with U.K. government policies toward Somalia. An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that Lord Howard said he sought assurances that British officials would support a Soma deal in Somalia. (Nov. 21, 2014)

    So that’s OK then. The usual.

  • Daniel

    Monteverdi,

    Notice how the emphasis is on the potential for reaction to the murder, not on the repellent nature of the murder itself. Unsurprisingly for this rabid Jewish extremist propaganda rag, the killing of innocent people by the ethnic cleansers is completely underplayed.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    Temperature in Tel Aviv is 27 degrees C this evening, very pleasant and it’s buzzing.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Oh no, did you click on the CBBC link this time? The polonium. In Litvinenko’s plane and Berezosky’s office. Any views?

    I clicked on both your links, concluded you were disagreeing with Goss, amd left it. However, I am wondering if you read either, or knew that Litvinenko was close to Berezovsky, who had helped him when he came to the UK. You possibly hadn’t noticed in the first piece that the police had been called by a security company, who realised Litvinenko had visited them. When isn’t stated, but after being contaminated but before dying would fit. There would have been nothing untoward about his visiting Berezovsky in the same time frame: if he did, and he had decided to kill his associate and fellow-objector to Putin, why didn’t he do the deed then?

    Meanwhile, there is polonium pretty well everywhere Lugashenko and the other hood went. If the Russian state (to put it politely) had no involvement, why was Kovlun’s appearance at the enquiry blocked – and indeed why was Luguvoi put beyond the reach of any prosecution? By Putin?

    Lastly, the enquiry has presented the UK’s official case, which is that Putin was the begetter of the operation. Given the abysmal relations currently existing between Russia and us at the moment, I can’t see anyone letting this one out into the media unless it was true, or something like true.

    Still, (here’s a summary for ya)

    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33725868

    No conclusive evidence was heard in the inquiry as to who might have given the order although various theories were raised.

    Secret evidence heard by the chairman of the inquiry, Sir Robert Owen, may include further intelligence on this specific issue, which is why his willingness to point the finger will be so closely watched and may determine how much diplomatic fallout there is from the inquiry.

    Let’s see.

  • Daniel

    “Are you feeling alright?”

    Absolutely joyful at the news that the ethnic cleansers have killed a baby.

    Next.

  • Resident Dissident

    Thank you Baal – for pointing out MJ’s self made trap The Guardian article made it clear why there were traces of polonium in Berezovsky’s office and the BBC one made it clear who was leaving traces on planes. I wonder if MJ’s views will change now that the facts have?

  • Mary

    Those interested in Somalia’s resources.

    http://www.somalia-oil-gas.com/speakers/robert-sheppard/

    Soma’s representative, their CEO, has connections with Ukraine, BP, Blackrock, DTEC, etc etc.

    A warning here –
    Somalia is probably not ready for oil development. With excellent access to shipping lanes and supposedly massive untapped wealth (perhaps as much as 110 billion barrels) it is no surprise that multinational oil companies are intrigued, but responsible investors would be wise to think twice. The underlying political instability and security challenges of Somalia will likely inhibit the long term feasibility and profitability of these projects. It could also cause backsliding for the hard fought improvements in Somalia’s government.
    http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/somalia-the-next-oil-superpower-12041

    Perhaps that’s why I could find no connection with Soma to Blair!

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    Daniel

    ““Are you feeling alright?”

    Absolutely joyful at the news that the ethnic cleansers have killed a baby.

    Next.”
    _____________________

    Yes, you probably are. After all, it feeds into your narrative, doesn’t it.

    You appear to belong to those commenters for whom every bit of bad news is good news if it gives support to their obsessions.

  • Habbabkuk (la vita e' bella)

    Resident Dissident

    ” I wonder if MJ’s views will change now that the facts have?”
    ________________

    You must be joking. He probably models himself on Mr Goss.

  • Daniel

    My “narrative” is the narrative adopted by all decent people – apologists for child killers excepted.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    I wonder if MJ’s views will change now that the facts have?

    I wonder if MJ’s views are MJ’s views….

  • John Goss

    “If the Russian state (to put it politely) had no involvement, why was Kovlun’s appearance at the enquiry blocked – and indeed why was Luguvoi put beyond the reach of any prosecution?”

    Ba’al perhaps it is because it is a UK Inquiry, and the Russians have read about Hutton, Gibson, O’Donnell и так далее. Our government sets up an Inquiry to prevent the truth emerging.

    I note you read both articles, as I did, and the Guardian report, but you came down in agreement with the BBC – an organisation which lied to us over Iraq, failed miserably to report the full circumstances of the genocide in Ukraine (which incidentally has not ended) and took down a report from their Moscow correspondent which appeared briefly but reported that a fighter jet had been seen accompanying MH17. I know which story I believe.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Well it was a test of Free Speech in The UK wasn’t it?

    So far as I can see despite the many failings of the USA, Free Speech is more respected in The USA, than The UK.

    Not that I am in the slightest bit surprised.

    Chris Spivey will be sentenced on the 27th of August.

    Meanwhile, this American wrote almost the direct equivalent of what Chris Spivey wrote about Woolwich in the UK, about Boston in the USA..and so far as I am aware, he has not been arrested or charged with anything and his website has not been closed down.

    You don’t have to read his blog. No one can read Chris Spivey’s blog cos it has now been deleted on order of the judge (no witnesses present to cross examine on the charge of harrassment).

    Justice?, Free Speech? In The UK?..You are having a laugh.

    Don’t read this, it might get you arrested – on the charge of being a thought criminal.

    From “The Center For An Informed America”

    “The Boston Marathon Bombings: Fully Exposed
    (Formerly titled The Curious Case of the Man Who Could Only Sit Down)”

    http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr114.html

    Extract..

    “The Boston Marathon bombing incident produced an exceedingly bloody, gore-filled scene. We know that because virtually all avenues of the mainstream media, as was obvious from the very first reports, wanted us to know that. Never before can I recall seeing so many blood-soaked images being so prominently displayed. Newspapers and network and cable news broadcasts seemed to be on a mission to bring you the bloodiest, most graphic images they could come up with. The most disturbing of those images, by far, all involved a guy who had reportedly just had both of his legs blown off. The most heavily circulated and iconic of those images are of the legless guy being rolled away from the scene in a wheelchair, his unbelievably graphic wounds uncovered and on full display for the waiting cameras.

    How crazy would it sound to suggest that that did not happen by accident — to suggest that not only were his injuries staged, but that they were specifically designed for that high-profile wheelchair ride? Pretty crazy … right? After all, I have in the past been rather critical of other researchers who have alleged that the victims of high-profile mass murders are actually actors. Nothing, it seems to me, could possibly serve to better alienate and offend the general public than attacking the victims as being part of the conspiracy. But what if the evidence is so overwhelming that it simply cannot be ignored?”

    Have a Nice Day,

    Tony

  • Resident Dissident

    For those who really care about the health of Kara Murza rather than the scumbags using fascist terminology who call the Russian opposition fifth columnists please see the attached link – Google translate gets the drift across.

    http://sobesednik.ru/obshchestvo/20150729-kara-murza-st-syn-byl-otravlen-no-stal-sluchaynoy-zhertvoy

    As you will see the father believes that he was poisoned and does not believe the Putinista lie about anti-depressants being responsible having contacted the manufacturer. Mr Goss of course will always take the official KGB line as being more reliable when it comes to the personal affairs of those who oppose Putin. And despite what he thinks Russian doctors are sufficiently capable of doing the right thing without reference to Putin.

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