Here are all the comments on the scrapped Kuenssberg petition. You know, the petition David Cameron condemned in the House of Commons today because it was accompanied by a storm of sexist abuse? Well, here are the comments in their entirety and out of 35,000 people who signed, there is virtually nobody whose comment can be seen as remotely sexist. See for yourselves. Can you spot the one sexist comment I found?
The comments show the petition was overwhelmingly signed by decent, concerned people who were sometimes quite eloquent. Also that the petition supporters are gender balanced and several specifically identify as feminists, and as supporters of the BBC. But neither Cameron, the Guardian and mainstream media nor 38 Degrees itself has any qualm about writing off all these decent citizens as a misogynist rabble.
The data link was left by a commenter on this site – I strongly suspect a mole within 38 Degrees has got it out. It is absolute proof that the politicians and mainstream media journalists have been pushing a plain lie about the nature of the campaign, and that 38 Degrees have colluded.
David Babbs of 38 Degrees appears to be setting new standards for lying. Now that the comments are public, he has changed his story and told Media Lens the abuse was not on the petition, it was on connected social media. I have repeatedly asked 38 Degrees for the evidence of abuse, but they absolutely refuse to show it. We have had five people searching all day. So far we have one single tweet, which was nasty – it called Laura K by a expletive reserved for women. And it did refer to the petition. But it was sent by a young man, 90% of whose comments referred to football and 100% of whose tweets used similar expletives. I unreservedly condemn what he did, but he was hardly a supporter of Corbyn or member of Momentum, as all the media are telling us. So far that is it – one young idiot – we have found nothing else.
But even if there are more nasty examples of abuse, that is not the fault of the 35,000 good people who signed the petition. And there is a disconnect between two establishment narratives, both unproven. One is that Kuenssberg has been a victim of terrible misogynist abuse since appointment. The other is that the abuse was caused by the petition. I utterly condemn any such abuse, but it does not negate the genuine concerns of the petitioners. Regular readers know I myself receive constant abuse, somethimes death threats. It does not mean I am not frequently in the wrong!
Now the lies have been thoroughly exploded. Of course the fact Cameron has been involved in peddling the lie may now be leading to some creative design, backdating and history creation in assorted Government establishments.
Craig you’d better download it quickly
Craig, keep up the good work, we are looking at the twilight of the post war democratic state, it’s absolutely terrifying to think that we had so much taken from us in 6 short years. Whilst new labour were monstrous it’s easy to forget just how free and egalitarian life felt in 2009, compared to 5 awful years of the worst Goverment of the post war era followed by an even worse one.
I I just wish your dogged search for the truth was read by more people. I know flit between here, the canary, and off-guardian – if there were a way that you could combine efforts you’d have a powerful medium to take on the Corporate “liberal” media.
Member beneath the skin of every middle class “liberal” is a money grubbing fascist ready to pounce!
You spoil an otherwise good comment with your thinly disguised Tory hatred. The idea that all these problems suddenly started in 2010 is ludicrous.
He doesn’t say they started in 2010. He says they became much worse since then. Pretty accurate, in my opinion.
May I be permitted to off topic.
Political world is topsy turvey. It may be sun spots or in the stars but from HM gaffe to GOP going democratic and now in Wales Neil Hamilton’s UKIP and the tories have backed Plaid’s super star Leanne Wood to a 29 v29 vote draw for First Minster against Labour’s Carwyn James. I’m gob smacked.
Apologies for not waiting for page two and blighting a new thread.
What hope dare we have that someone will be held to account for this travesty? It is blatant and egregious use of the BBC for partisan political propaganda and then someone has pressurized the petition hosts to delete it and then lie about their reasons.
This is a small but important blog though hardly mainstream enough to make a dent.
It’s clearly made some dent or they wouldn’t be going into a free fall over it.
Sure. This blog is important and punches way over its weight. But I’d like to see questions in the house, MSM articles and news programs pick up the threads/cudgels/pitchforks.
BTW – it is utterly ridiculous to delete the petition because social media contains comments that are deemed offensive. This is obvious I suppose but if we extend it to everything online or on TV that leads to offensive social media comments then what would be left??
Im sure that’s the intention of some. Mr Murdoch hates social media and wants to see it dead. Seeing as he runs this country I’m sure he intends on getting his own way.
I do wonder if the Mail pick this up they love to punch the BBC and the Guardian. Sadly that’s not the help we need!
Oh do come on Craig, who, in their right mind, believes a single word Cameron says?
Even the Queen hates him. I think she’s deliberately dropped him in it with the Chinese!
I would swear I made that comment some time ago, in anoher thread and yet it appears I made it today, in this thread. What the hell is going on Craig?
I believe I recall reading that comment in an earlier thread. Are you saying you didn’t write the above, about three hours ago?
I think you’ve confused yourself the front page of this blog is confusing it’s easy to think you’re clicking on one thing when you’ve evidently hit the comments box for the next thread.
As I said on the previous thread, even being incredibly generous with construing comments as sexist, I found 10 which could remotely be said to concern Kuenssberg’s gender, 4 at least of which were signed by women’s names. Excluding those, slightly over one half of one percent of 879 comments said anything at all about gender.
I’m beginning to grasp this concept of censorship by mudslinging. Sexism and anti-Semitic seem to work well. Any other easy tips and tricks to silence the oppo on any particular issue?
Government agencies here in the U.S. have used terror, drugs, pedophilia, and child pornography as excuses for attacks on constitutional liberties. They count on politicians being too afraid of being considered soft on these things to oppose such attacks.
Very true. And everything that worked in the States from “tough on crime’ to private prisons is imported to the UK. The States has become what the contributors to ALEC hoped it would, a tst bed for neo-liberal authoritarian legislation.
This is intersting too:
“It is utterly ridiculous to delete the petition because social media contains comments that are deemed offensive…”
Yes it is. By this sort of logic Parliamentary Debates could be held in secret on the grounds that words said there might be thought offensive.
The momentum of these coordinated campaigns is to shut down public discussion before it turns to substantive issues, such as old people dying of cold or youngsters committing suicide because they can’t find work, the government has cut off their benefits and they fear burdening their families. Or housing or health.
Dog whistle politics. Mobilising identity politics to close down legitimate debate. Not the first time this has happened in the last few weeks.
This is definitive evidence that the reasons given for taking down the petition are completely groundless, which in turn raises the obvious follow-up question of why it WAS taken down. Any serious answer to this question cannot avoid throwing light on the sources of the political pressures being applied to (and in turn, by) the BBC and to other media voices – pressures which are invariably denied. Hopefully, this exposure will begin to reveal the mechanisms of concealed power to a wider public which often seems asleep to what’s going on . . .
I keep meaning to say, but I am always being sidetracked or distracted, what an exemplary job Craig is doing by pursuing this issue doggedly and insisting on getting to the truth.
There used to be a profession called journalism, back in the old days, where reporters did this kind of thing. Now they just gather together and think up ways to discredit the Labour Party and suck up to Big Brother.
In those days too, when insiders saw that they could put wrongs right, things tended to get leaked to the public.
There is still good journalism about – on the net. Not much to be found in print or on the TV. I exclude the websites of formally or decreasingly printed media from the ‘good journalism’ umbrella.
Might seem obvious, but why not start a petition on 38 Degrees to get the original petition reopened…?
Great last few posts, Craig.
Kuenssberg epitomises just how closely aligned state and media have become. This is not very good for a society that still calls itself democratic.
Meanwhile, regime advances slow in Syria; NATO sets up shop in Eastern Europe; tensions with China increase.
The showdown that has to happen edges closer.
God bless global capitalism.
Craig, you work very hard to bring all this stuff to the attention of the public.
But a majority of the population is unconcerned about all this.
It doesn’t care as long as it doesn’t affect them.
The ruling class is extremely powerful and entrenched.
It has the police, the army, the judiciary, the media on its side.
And it is in the pocket of billionaires.
How easily they can manage to defeat the slightest challenge to them as you have seen with the petition.
A revolution is completely out of the question.
The only solution for the minority which does care is to put its money where its mouth is.
Start a campaign to boycott products, companies, sports, media, the sort of campaign that brought apartheid in South Africa to an end.
Start a campaign to stop buying unnecessary sweat shop produced cheap products.
Hard earned money only spent on things which benefit the local community and the nation as a whole.
Most of the people facing hardships don’t read your blog and fine on-paper principles.
Only something practical with a direct benefit to their lives can change society.
No point in talking to high profile figures.
If you want anything to change for the better, build up an army of volunteers and venture into the “Sowetos” of Scotland with your message.
YES.
Such things either play into a corrupt monetary system or washout – no – transilience is realized by resistance, protection and support, sadly we are useless at all three.
You got a better idea?
I grant you, getting the idea across is a huge challenge, especially as society is now so fragmented that word-of-mouth is obsolete (perhaps intentionally) and the accessible media are controlled.But BDS is not without effect, and the system runs on margins. Squeeze the middlemen (buy direct if you can, and have to) – if they’re suffering, they’ll want a rethink of the system too. The current world economic fragility is a golden opportunity. It will be much harder to do anything when people are enjoying the next boom and pretending that the following bust won’t happen – as it always does.
The role the Guardian has played in this appears questionable at best.
It seems to have been the first major media outlet to report the “campaign” against Kuenssberg of sexism, making the petition guilty by association (of course the petition was not part of any wider “campaign”), in this article: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/10/bbc-laura-kuenssberg-jeremy-corbyn-petition.
The article is completely bizarre – it provides absolutely no evidence of the alleged abuse, deciding instead to quote at length a random former IoS political editor broadly attacking the “hard-left” for sexism. Its headline claim of the campaign being generally “accused” of sexism seems to rest entirely on a single tweet by Jess Philips. It has pretty much none of the attributes of a proper piece of news journalism. Rather than reporting the news, it appears to be trying to make it by generating a storm over the petition. Basically it seems to have deliberately manufactured the controversy out of almost nothing and based on no literally no evidence whatsoever.
Very shortly after the piece was published 38degrees pulled the petition. The Guardian then instantly jumped in with multiple comment pieces justifying the move.
Exactly Komodo fragility is the elephant; the idea is to plan for the inevitable implosion. We will resist the struggle for status quo. We will protect the vulnerable and we will support a renewal. We all have some gifts, some skills. We need to hone them. We have to be primed. We have to inform.
The hourglass cannot be turned again. No more boom – only bust.
I have been getting more and more frustrated with the Guardian over the past two years. I didn’t have a horse in the Scottish Indie race, but I could see what a travesty of real journalism their coverage was. With Corbyn, they have just lost their minds completely, and for a long time, I have only read comments rather than articles. They have been addressing that by keeping most articles closed to comments now.
Yesterday evening, I wondered what issues had been covered in PMQs. But a Google search showed me that the only way I could find out from any mainstream outlet was by wading through an article the bulk of which was about how terrible Corbyn is at PMQs, with nothing at all about what the issues were, what was behind the question, and whether Cameron’s answer addressed the issue. I think the election result last week has led them to crank up the hysteria about him several more notches.
These things, for me, are the last straw. I went cold turkey on the Guardian yesterday. It is going to take a lot of willpower to stay away. I have found this place, the Canary and Off-Guardian, but any other recommendations for decent coverage of British political news would be most welcome.
>> any other recommendations for decent coverage of British political news would be most welcome.
Medialens is a very good place to start.
Follow their Facebook &/or Twitter feed and you’ll get a steady stream of news, plus you’ll pick up on other sites they repost/retweet.
>> I went cold turkey on the Guardian yesterday. It is going to take a lot of willpower to stay away.
I stopped buying the Saturday Guardian (which I had been in the habit of buying for years) when the Corbyn smear campaign opened my eyes. It took me a few months to stop reading the online version, although that was mostly to read and contribute to the comments, which were becoming more and more opposed to the journalists. I feel a fool for saying so, but it was a bit like grieving for a lost friend: my father and my grandfather read the (Manchester) Guardian. But it’s over, gone forever. Now if I accidentally see the Guardian front page I feel the same visceral distrust and distaste that I’ve always felt for the other papers.
Yes, I share that feeling. I have read the Graun regularly since my student days in the 1980s. It is a travesty of what it once was.
Thanks for the suggestion of Medialens. I will give it a try.
I stopped buying the Guardian when I first saw it claim pickets attacked the police in the miners strike when I had witnessed the exact opposite. The idea that it has recently gone downhill is simply not true. It has long, if not always, been an establishment rag marketed at lefties.
I do agree it’s brand seems increasingly tainted. Even dodging tax it’s going bust anyway. I bet a new pro-establishment popular ‘left’ media of some sort will appear over the next few years to replace it. Online presumably. Something like a UK focused Intercept. We’ll be able to hear it whilst driven in computer cars.
Private Eye is fortnightly, but contains more investigative political material than all the dailies do in the same time. Very often years ahead of them, too. Fairly impartial, on the whole, and will rip a Tory belly as happily as a Labour one, though it’s not a comforting read for the SNP or UKIP.
I never buy a newspaper and truly get what you say about the Guardian on-line.
Even the bloody sport is London biased . I still go there for the comments because there is a wealth of information of disparate views and some good links – this site is one ..
Thank you Spaull for Canary and Off-Guardian – if I find others I’ll post them. I don’t do social media , just the net.
The Grauniad seems to have attracted the Sun readers that can write , LGBT, metrosexuals and middle class charity fans who are looking for someone to pity . Oh, and journalists that don’t give a fuck for ought but clickbait…and lovely Owen.
Someone called her a witch. Thats it. The only one I could find after dumping the data into Word and carrying out various word searches.
Two uses of ‘cow’. Not nice but pretty minor stuff. Even ‘witch’ which is worse is not as bad as ‘bitch’ which was not applied. To be honest – misogyny has more biting slurs than these and isn’t afraid to use them.
Misogyny is markedly absent from these comments. What is present is righteous and very well founded indignation and the BBC bias.
Maybe people should refuse to pay their licence fees until the BBC issues some redress?
This from a woman hating sexist PM where woman in the Cabinet are as rare as teeth inside the mouth of a tortoise?
Hilarious, after a matter of hours the Laura Bates piece on the Guardian is now being closed for comments…
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/11/the-laura-kuenssberg-petition-should-be-condemned-not-just-removed
… probably because the vast majority of comments didn’t quite fit what the Guardian wanted.
Once again I’ll repeat what I said in a previous thread, and invite Natalie Hanman, the Editor of CIF, to respond to comments on Craig’s blog.
Brilliant. Well done for exposing the s… we have to put up with from the BBC, the government and controlled? campaign organisations
Well done to all those who have been sleuthing to find the relevant information showing that 38deg. are part of a bigger misinformation campaign organised by a split Tory Party.
Anti Hypocrite most of your points are a given and your suggestions are well meaning, but somewhat misplaced as you are not here to be part of your own suggestions.
Do you believe that only something that benefits the great de-politised masses, some of who are working day in day out, or not working, will stop them spending their precious money on booze and fags?
Lastly, did you forget to mention the ultimate expression of public no confidence in a system, the withdrawal of funds to run it? or did it not occur to you?
For that to work effectively you will have to ingratiate the next level of establishment victims, the middle classes, so there is a job to be done at every level of society.
I think it more likely that 38 degrees were duped and that they Tories are enjoying seeing them discredited.
Duped into seeing misogynist comments on their own website that don’t exist? How does that work, exactly?
Initially it could have been argued that “all” they are guilty of is that they caved in ridiculously early to wholly unjustified attacks. That is a terrible thing for an organisation that is supposed to be helping people hold the establishment to account to do.
But when they then went on the Guardian to support the establishment lies about what they had done, they completely destroyed themselves.
Congraulations Craig – you got a Guardian pick on the David Babbs thread.
There must be a mole at the Graun too.
It appears the avalanche created by some 3 million relentless snowflakes has yielded to prevarications. How very lamentable for the tried-and-true that power the majority of 38 Degrees campaigns. I guess we must wait until the rooster crows.a second time before we weep over their demise.
Mark,
My wife and I are now going slugging in our back garden. Its the perfect time to do it…
Its been raining…the slugs and snails have been breeding an awful lot over the very mild winter…
There was no hard frost – and both my wife and her 70+ year old (now occasional partner from Yorkshire – they are both Grannies now)
GROW FOOD
Our Garden is Teaming with Slugs and Snails…
If we don’t kill them…they will eat all our food..
The easiest way to kill them is to identify them with a strong search light…you can buy them from China for a couple of quid including 18650 battery..they are incredibly bright…
and I occasionally use a litter picker too
I will spare you the final gruesome details
But my wife taught me – and all the kids she looked after as a childminder…
was to do the Twist…
The Slugs and Snails go under your heels on the stone path..
No drugs involved…
The Birds Love The Feast in The Morning..whilst our Cats look on..
My Wife was brought up on a Farm in Lancashire
I Love Her To Bits
Tony
Most farms are owned by the banks Tony_0pmoc which is handy for us to embrace and grow food when the system collapses.
While some of us provide protection from looters and maniacs, growing skills from others will take up the challenge of renewal.
Thank-you
Why not start a new petiton on change.org or even a UK Parliament petition?
You could sign this one if you like:
https://www.change.org/p/david-babbs-get-38-degrees-to-release-the-kuenssberg-evidence?recruiter=46366728&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
You beauty.
Straight on the Guardian comments – hope it sticks.
It’s not the first time Cameron has taken it upon himself to defend a media female whose dishonesty was obvious to all.
Is this the dawn of a new age of chivalry, where instead of the garter holding up her tights, a knight wears the worn-out elastic holding up the lies of a biased MSM female commentator through the gauntlet of the High Court or House of Commons?
Compared to these medieval feudal loyalties, Corbyn looks modern, progressive even. let’s hope Cameron gets himself into the kind of knots he got himself into with Rebekah Brooks and Piers Morgan.
I notice The Guardian has closed comments on all its articles since it’s been called out on the evidence.
That’s a self-destructive move, isn’t it? It works for me.
After threatening to abandon the Graun to its fate for some time, I got the Indie’s legacy tabloid offering, ‘I’, for the first time today. No more bloated thinkpiece misery, tight layout, portable, no huge ads for 7 days sampling the delights of Insert-Heria (half board, dinner on arrival, excursion to the Cathedral of St. Boatface) not a lot of wittering about the feminist perspective on quinoa, no discount Guardian-branded vegan sandals. Granted, mostly agency news, but does what it says on the tin: it’s a newspaper. All it needs is Martin Rowson. Mildly recommend.
Not quite , my friend this is still open :
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/12/bbc-bias-labour-sir-michael-lyons#comment-74114526
have fun.
Can someone start a petition on 38 Degrees protesting about the removal of well supported petitions without any evidence?
Chortle
Ta.
Note that is not all 35,000 signatures. There are about 880 in the list dating from 5th May to the 10th when 38 Degrees erased the petition from view – so it is a very strong sample. Just correct the idea that this is all of them before the dishonest ghouls responsible make hay of there being another 34,000 of them which we aren’t allowed to see anymore…
Or maybe that is all the comments sorry. Amazing – well done!
“The role the Guardian has played in this appears questionable at best.”
My theory is that the whole thing-after the original petition began to attract signatures quickly- was a carefully choreographed campaign which began with the article in The Guardian, then quickly moved onto the crucial exertion of pressure on the petition site (and there is quite a story there I’ll be bound, involving personal contacts, job promises and intimidation). Then, when the petition is taken down, there is a shit load of rubbish just waiting to be dumped in the various media.
Not unlike, in a minor key, the Nuneaton ‘study’ complete with bogus focus group, which was 90% press release and six per cent sociology. Or the election night ambush itself.
All of which incidents was preceded by the defenestration of Ken Livingstone by an agent of hasbara.
Conspiracy theory? You bet it is. And it describes a conspiracy as obvious as a whitewashed Royal Commission glowing in the dark (Coming Soon.)
Ha! 😀
Ken Livingstone’s contribution was an entirely self-inflicted wound. It does not matter how historically accurate what he said was. It was still a damn stupid thing to say, that gave Labour’s opponents an open goal.
But for the rest of it, yes, I agree with you. And I find it very interesting how passionately supposed Labour MP Jess Phillips defends Kuenssberg.
Spot on . This turd has the Cameron/Murdoch stamp all over it .
Craig I can’t thank you enough for all the invaluable work you have done on this in the last 24 hours. I have been reposting your stuff all over the place and getting very favourable responses. Hope that’s ok. Solidarity mate 🙂
Thanks Simon. I do this stuff purely to help public debate, The more you spread it around the better.
All of your readers who oppose the taking-down of this Petition can sign this one. ‘Don’t down our Petition’, https://www.change.org/p/adam-mcnicholas-don-t-down-our-petitions?recruiter=90685306&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-md-share_for_starters-no_msg&fb_ref=Default
Considering the petition comments comprised an open unmoderated forum on the internet it is notable how well-behaved the comments are. But it is stunning that 38 degrees have folded here. I am really disappointed.
They are pulling out all the stops to stop Corbyn
I imagine that ’38 degrees'(what does that mean?)was set up as a false front from the beginning, to help identify ‘trouble-makers’, for future reference. If you cannot see the contours of the future, fully fascist and violently repressive state that the neo-liberal authoritarians will introduce when economic implosion, ecological collapse and geo-political chaos make the current phony ‘democracy’ untenable, then you are not really paying attention.
Looks like we can have another shot at it. Here’s petition No.2 http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/05/11/tough-luck-media-stooges-theres-another-petition-to-rid-the-bbc-of-laura-kuenssberg/