Not all my readers are thinkers

A local hack writes that the Shakespeare classes taught at 'a local university' are 'third-rate' and wouldn't even pass O-level in the 1960s. I think he means me, because I moved from pointing out that he's a poor excuse for a journalist to detailing the class on Jonson and Shakespeare I'd just given, in which I discussed the multiple versions of Shakespeare each 'age' arrives at: the timeless Bard, the businessman, the uncouth provincial (he slipped out of performance for a surprisingly long time), the family man, the homosexual, the imperialist and the anti-imperialist. Standard stuff at this level, these days. 

Sadly, the columnist failed to provide his readers with any of these details, or explain how and why this would have been inadequate to pass an exam for 15/16 year old kids in the 1960s. I can't dig out 60s exam papers, but I'm fairly certain that any kid pulling out this level of cultural and historical detail would actually have done rather well, despite the reactionary and uninteresting nature of the O-level syllabus.

As luck would have it, I don't need to smear and guess: the distinguished Alan Sinfield did a rather splendid analysis of 1980s O and A-level Shakespeare questions, which you can read here.

I will point out in the question papers the two fundamental mystifications of bourgeois ideology. All the questions specified were set in 1983.

They aren't exactly inspiring: sexist, uncritical and dull. Most of them go along the lines of 'Why was Shakespeare so great?', which gets us precisely nowhere intellectually, is a-historical and promotes a very conservative model of literary history.

The main move is the projection of local conditions on to the eternal. As Rachel Sharp puts it, 'The power relations which are peculiar to market society are seen as how things have always been and ought to be. They acquire a timelessness which is powerfully legitimised by a theory of human nature ... Political struggles to alter present-day social arrangements are seen as futile for "things are as they are" because of man's basic attributes and nothing could ever be very different. This move is built in to the structure of the whole exercise, through the notion that Shakespeare is the great National Poet who speaks universal truths and whose plays are the ultimate instance of Literature. It is made also through the ways the questions invite the candidates to handle the plays. Almost invariably it is assumed that the plays reveal universal 'human' values and qualities and that they are self-contained and coherent entities; and the activity of criticism in producing these assumptions is effaced.

The effect of the model still extant in the 1980s is to rope Shakespeare off as a museum piece, or as a defender of the status quo - not one his contemporaries would have recognised, given his idenitifiable responses to the political, cultural and economic shifts of his milieu.

The appeal to absolute values and qualities is ubiquitous: 'At the centre of King Lear lies the question, "What is a man?" Discuss' (Oxford and Cambridge, A level); 'Beginning with a consideration of the following passage, discuss Shakespeare's presentation of Goodness in Macbeth' (Welsh, A level). Women, of course, are a special category within the universal (there are fewer questions about female than male characters): "The Winter's Tale is much more concerned with the qualities of womanhood, its virtue, its insight, and its endurance. Discuss' (Southern, A level). If women seem not to be
manifesting the expected qualities then that is a matter for comment: "'The men in Twelfth Night are ridiculous in what they say and do: it is the women who are full of common sense". Show how far you agree. ..' (Welsh, O level). The alleged coherence and self-containedness of the text re-enacts at the level of the particular reading the coherence and self-containedness claimed by ideology. 

In the examination questions almost no reference is made to the diverse forms which the play has taken-- and may take --to scholarly discussions about provenance, to the conditions under which it has been transmitted, to the different forms it takes today, from school editions to stage, film and TV productions. Even the occasional question about staging is liable to involve the assumption that there is a true reading behind the diverse possibilities: 'How, as a young actor, would you try to cope with the difficulties of playing the part of John of Gaunt' (Southern, O level- bad luck if you're an actress). The text is there; the most common form of question at O level begins 'Give an account of ...' and 'precise reference' is repeatedly demanded. That the text is to be regarded as coherent, either in terms of action or of dramatic effect, is frequently insisted upon. "'While we may hope for a happy ending to King Lear, Shakespeare's conclusion is entirely fitting. Discuss." (Associated, O level); 'Write about the dramatic effectiveness of the last act of Twelfth Night, and show how the ending is connected to earlier episodes of the play' (London, O level). Everything comes out the way it always had to, every incident is justified by its 'effectiveness' (one of the commonest terms on the papers).

Perhaps my hack correspondent is right: a student taking Sinfield's view would have failed: not through stupidity, but because she would have challenged the use of Shakespeare as a weapon in the hegemonic struggle against cultural authority. Or as Sinfield and Anderson have it:

As Perry Anderson showed, this Leavisite strategy demands (whilst lamenting the absence of) one crucial precondition: a shared, stable system of beliefs and values'; what actually happens is that candidates are required to take up a certain system of values --those we have been identifying--in order satisfactorily to answer the question.

The exam question is the culmination of a system of oppressive power in which the successful student shouldn't think, but regurgitate a set of learned answers to authority. Agree and pass, disagree and fail. Any student who obeys is trained to obey the powers that be in non-literary matters too: on the street, in the voting booth and anywhere else independent thought it frowned upon. The exam system proves to be a fundamental point of contradiction: while individual literary judgement is condemned to failure, the questions promote an anti-social individualism of savagery:

The second fundamental mystification of bourgeois ideology is the construction of individual subjectivity as a given which is undetermined and unconstituted and hence a ground of meaning and coherence: 'In effect the individual is understood in terms of a pre-social essence, nature, or identity and on that basis s/he is invested with a quasi-spiritual autonomy. The individual becomes the origin and focus of meaning -an individuated essence which precedes and --in idealist philosophy --transcends history and society.' Eternal values can no longer be ratified securely by religion, but now they are grounded in their perception through authentic subjectivity. This relationship is figured precisely in the question: 'There are moments in King Lear when the insights of individual characters seem to provide a key to the play's deepest themes and preoccupations. Consider this claim in relation to one of the following "insights"' (Oxford and Cambridge, A level). The individual and the universal are constituted in a mutually supportive polarity. 

The examination papers construct Shakespeare and the candidate in terms of individuated subjectivity through their stress upon Shakespeare's free-standing genius, their emphasis on characterisation, and their demand for the candidate's personal response.

What kind of person does this doctrine produce?

We may envisage, then, the intellectual cast of the successfully socialised GCE candidate. She or he will be respectful of Shakespeare and high culture and accustomed to being appreciative of the cultural production which is offered through established institutions. '~he or he will be trained at giving opinions -within certain prescribed limits; at collecting evidence -though without questioning its status or the construction of the problem; at saying what is going on --though not whether that is what ought to happen; at seeing effectiveness, coherence, purposes fulfilled -but not conflict. And because the purposeful individual is perceived as the autonomous origin and ground of meaning and event, success in these exercises will be accepted as just reason for certain economic and social privileges. 

It all seems perfectly adapted for the fastest-growing class fraction, the new petty bourgeoisie working in finance, advertising, the civil service, teaching, the health service, the social services and clerical occupations. The new petty bourgeoisie (unlike the old, of artisans and small shopkeepers) is constituted not by family but through education: 'The various petty bourgeois agents each possess, in relation to those subordinate to them, a fragment of the fantastic secret of knowledge that legitimises the delegated authority that they exercise. Hence the belief in the 'neutrality of culture', and in the educational apparatus as a corridor of circulation by the promotion and accession of the "best" to the bourgeois state, or in any case to a higher state in the specific hierarchy of mental labour." The combination of cultural deference and cautious questioning promoted around Shakespeare in GCE seems designed to construct a petty bourgeoisie which will strive within limits allocated to it without seeking to disturb the system-"it does not want to break the ladder by which it imagines it can climb" (Poulantzas, p. 293).

In short, exactly the kind of selfish, individualist, obedient, Philistine reactionary the Express and Star admires and courts. If I produce Shakespeare-loving rebels, I'm on the side of the angels.

Rhodes: the next chapter

The offending article

Peter's still a little miffed:

"This morning I updated the piece to make it clear that I don't think poor suffering Pete is a racist, just an ill-informed reactionary know-nothing. "
No you didn't,. You removed the offensive words and apologised because you got it wrong and were frightened to death  about the consequences, like a little boy caught with his catapult next to a broken window. As you put it in your email to me: "OK, hands up: my satire was too broad in this case and I apologise."
Today, inexplicably, you dig yourself into a deeper hole by posting "comments" suggesting I am lying about my CRE award.
As one who presumes to teach media studies, you really should be more thorough. I am astonished that both you and your emailers are so hopeless at using Google. It really is very simple. You type in "Peter Rhodes" and "Commission for Racial Equality" and there it is.
And if that is beyond you, you can take it from me that I won first prize (Regional and Local Newspaper category) in the 1997 CRE Race in the Media Awards. The award was for a "body of work," a number of features written during the year and it was presented, as I recall, by Meera Syal.
Now, if you are big enough, you will remove the comments from your blog.
Incidentally, wouldn't  this be the ideal time to assure your readers that you have never, ever sought to write anything for the "racist" Express & Star?

1. 'Wrong' is an odd word for subjective opinions.
2. I'm not frightened of any consequences. If Peter wants to sue over satirical comments, he's very welcome. This, let's remind ourselves, is a man who equates supporting equal marriage to shovelling Jews into the gas chambers.
3. I haven't posted comments. Readers have posted comments. I don't censor comments.
4. I spent a good long time searching for Peter's award. It doesn't appear anywhere. I invite you to do the search he recommends. There it… isn't. 
5. A prize! In 1997! Presented by someone famous from an ethnic minority! Well, some of my best friends are black too, as the saying goes. 
6. My history with the Express and Star: 
a) I complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the paper equating Travellers with animals. They got away with it because the code - conveniently written for newspaper editors by newspaper editors - said that you can say what you like about entire ethnic groups: you just can't attach racialised commentary to individuals. That's a hell of a loophole. 
b) The Express and Star approached the university looking for a piece about the American election. It was suggested by the university that I co-write it with my boss. The Express and Star rejected this because it doesn't like me. I certainly didn't approach them. 
7. Is the Express and Star racist? Well, it suggested that Travellers are congenitally criminal, which sounds racist to me. It gave notorious racist Enoch Powell a column for many years. It demonises ethnic minorities and religions. So yes, in my subjective view, it is. 
8. I won't be removing comments. Peter has emailed me again:

You are responsible in law for every item appearing on your website. Shouldn't you know this sort of stuff?

I do know my stuff (and nothing posted by my readers is libellous anyway).

Blogger is hosted in the USA and comments are therefore held to be posted there. Under 47 USC 230, I am only responsible for comments made by employees (I have none), comments which breach criminal codes (which none of mine do) or comments I've edited substantially enough to change the meaning (which I don't do). As I'm sure you're aware, libel is a civil matter. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 stipulates that

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Of course, one might dispute jurisdiction: Vole is readable in the UK so its content is actionable here. In which case I would refer you to Google v. Pamiz, in which a British judge decided that blog comments were the responsibility of their authors rather than the platform (in this case, Pamiz's own blog: he objected to libellous comments made about him and sued Google - and lost). UK law isn't completely clear, however. 

(New reader? Start here).

Woah… this guy bites

A while back, I criticised Peter Rhodes' column in the local press, which called advocates of equal marriage and supporters of immigration 'Blackshirts' and liberals 'Fascists'. 

The offending article

Apparently that's reasonable commentary while my satirical response is 'defamation' (I can tell you're not legally trained, Pete) and 'character assassination'. This morning I updated the piece to make it clear that I don't think poor suffering Pete is a racist, just an ill-informed reactionary know-nothing. 

A man with a public bully pulpit in the form of a column in two newspapers seems curiously thin-skinned judging by this morning's email:

You are quite sure about this?

Regards,
Peter Rhodes (former winner of the Commission for Racial Equality "Race in the Media" Awards)

and later today

That's an apology? Still looks like defamation to me. Thank the Lord no-one actually reads it.
But it does occur to me that on the one occasion we met, you did not stand up for your principles and harangue me as a frustrated bigot (incidentally, where on earth did you get the idea that I resented never going to Fleet Street?) but shook my hand and smiled sweetly.
How very easy it must be to indulge in character assassination from the safety of an anonymous website.  But it's a bit cowardly, isn't it? Hardly a proper job for a grown-up.

Did no-one read it? Well, I'm up to 154,000 readers cumulatively, and I get about 180 a day. I can't be that 'anonymous': Peter managed to find my personal e-mail address and worked out that Plashing Vole is someone he met before. And by the way Peter, blogging isn't my job. It's a hobby. Whereas you call people with whom you disagree 'Fascists' and 'Blackshirts' for money. The only differences between you and I are that I have a grasp of history and you distort things for cash. Are you suggesting that only newspaper columnists are allowed to bandy around strong words? If I were you, I'd look up the terms 'fair comment' and 'satire'. And I'd really consider how silly it would look for a newspaper columnist to take legal action against a mere reader before you bandy around legal terminology. 

Why didn't I spit upon Peter and his terrible opinions when we met? Well, for a range of reasons. Firstly, I'd never heard of him then: if I'd known you were a frustrated bigot, I'd have called you him on it. I do distinctly remember, however, mourning the fate of your newspaper, founded as a progressive organ and turned into the mouthpiece of Enoch Powell and his racist, reactionary followers. And I'm generally polite. And because we were in a radio station discussing other matters. I suspect that if Peter met one of the liberals he calls 'Blackshirts' and 'Fascists', he wouldn't be rude to them either. 

Why do I think you're a frustrated Fleet Street hack? Because your 'style' is a third-rate version of the ill-informed poison purveyed by characters like Clarkson, Moir, Littlejohn and all the other Little Englanders who infest the pages on the grubbier end of the national trade. 

All clear now?

And a final update:

Actually, I am legally trained (all real journalists are) and I know a clear case of libel when I see it.  I am a long-established columnist working in a racially- mixed area. I have a commendation for the quality and balance of my work from the Commission for Racial Equality. Yet you blog:"Rhodes and his friends spend their time muttering darkly about 'them'. They promote Section 28 and dream of the days of Empire when black people contentedly cut sugar cane for white people's tea and didn't moan about having their countries invaded by the Bwana."
Under the circumstances, it is hard to imagine a more wicked and damaging allegation. If this came to court, the lawyers would wipe the floor with you.
However, I am a proper journalist with a proper disdain for this country's draconian libel laws and would never dream of suing. You have been man enough to apologise, and I accept that. Sleep soundly.

I meant legally-qualified actually. Still, that'll do. Not sure what he means by 'real journalist'. I'm not claiming to be one by profession and he's simply a columnist: offering opinions, such as that people who support gay marriage are the same as Blackshirts who wanted Jews exterminated. I offer opinions, but they're a) free and b) better-informed. But I'm still not a journalist. 

And yes Peter, I sleep very soundly indeed. Despite being 'wicked'. 

Local journalism at its finest.

One of my agents in Shropshire (I have agents everywhere) sent me a classic piece of local opinion journalism, by a chap called Peter Rhodes. He's like a toxic mix of Peter Hitchens and Jeremy Clarkson, only more embittered because he's never made it on the national reactionary stage. He has columns in the Express and Star (popularly known as the Express and Swastika for obvious reasons) and its sister paper The Shropshire Star.

That's right! Even though he calls you Blackshirts (that's the treasonous British Union of Fascists, by the way: Hitler's Jew-hating UK wing), you're the one who doesn't believe in 'reasoned debate' and uses the 'vilest terms' while trying to establish a 'tyranny' through the… er… fascist tactics of standing for office and expressing opinions in public.

I can't link you to Peter's article because his employers don't think it's worth wasting pixels and bandwidth on, but it's a classic of the Reactionary Paranoid White Man kind. Hence a short letter from yours truly to that paper. I'm guessing they won't print it.

Sir,Peter Rhodes' latest lazy effort ('scratch a liberal, find a fascist') omits to mention that liberals have not as yet resorted to gas chambers. They were built and operated by a group which did hate immigrants, ethnic and sexual minorities. Peter Hitchens and Mr Rhodes invent liberal bogeymen to hide the fact that what they fear is difference of any kind. If it's any consolation, the world still appears to be run by angry heterosexual white men like themselves. They aren't (sadly) a persecuted minority. 

Much as the Peters might like to think otherwise, angry white heterosexual conservatives are still quite powerful – from the press to politics to business. I'd been inclined to guess that they form the majority of reporting and editorial staff at the Shropshire Star. The 'freedom' they tend to espouse is usually the freedom to silence people who aren't like them. That's the difference between Peter and us liberals and lefties.

Much as I fantasise about putting Mr Rhodes in a prison camp and subjecting him to twenty four hours of Julian Clary, Malcolm X and Shami Chakrabarti's greatest hits, we tend to shake our heads and hope that reasoned argument will change their minds. Rhodes and his friends spend their time muttering darkly about 'them'. They promote Section 28 and dream of the days of Empire when black people contentedly cut sugar cane for white people's tea and didn't moan about having their countries invaded by the Bwana. Rhodes and his friends see every effort to treat subaltern groups equally as some kind of Stalinist plot to make them contract gay marriage and salute the North Korean flag every day. And they get paid very well to stoke these fears too. I wonder if he's descended from famous imperialist conqueror Cecil Rhodes?

It must be tiring to be so bitter and paranoid all the time.

As luck would have it, I'm reading some academic papers today which would make Peter's head explode. They're about Jackie Kay's wonderful novel Trumpet, which features a black! Scottish! trans-sexual! jazz! trumpeter and celebrates the claim that racial, national and sexual identities are unstable and all the richer for it!

I am available to give Peter and his friends remedial classes in Coping With Post-Medieval Life. Give me a call.

Update! Peter has indeed contacted me (via email rather than in the comments like the hoi polloi:

You are quite sure about this?
Regards, Peter Rhodes (former winner of the Commission for Racial Equality "Race in the Media" Awards)

So I'm happy to offer a clarification. Peter is definitely a reactionary who doesn't know his political arse from his historical elbow. And his newspaper is racist. But he is clearly not a racist. He just doesn't understand the irony of British people opposing immigration while celebrating an Empire built on over-running everybody else's countries. Nor does he see equating advocates for equal marriage with the Blackshirts who wanted Britain to put Jews, homosexuals, trades unionists, communists, Roma, Jehovah Witnesses and assorted others in gas chambers just like their Nazi masters as at all inaccurate or offensive.

Peter: 'liberals' are for things. Fascists are against things. You're against gay people marrying and people immigrating into Britain (except for the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Norwegians, Normans, Huguenots and Dutch, I presume). You may not be a racist but it's clear which side you're on.

Another Scoop for the Express and Star

My local paper managed to scoop all the international media organisations with its front page yesterday: HUNDREDS DIE AS EARTHQUAKE HITS NEW ZEALAND.

Very impressive for a paper which struggles to accurately report events in The Dark Place's suburbs, let alone several thousand miles away.

Still, a scoop's a scoop. With one small wrinkle. The NZ government last night confirmed 39 deaths and warned that the number will go up (this morning it's 55). Not hundreds. As even the E+S reports, 200 people are believed to be trapped, which makes it almost impossible for 'hundreds' to be killed. If they all die, then it will be 2 hundreds. Awful, but not quite the apocalypse the headline writer wanted. 


This horrible little rag is only in line with the other media: each white death is worth about 10 of other races, and each English-speaking death is worth 5 of any other white people.

Take that, bigots

I had a letter published in the local rag yesterday, objecting to their coverage of Travellers. The Press Complaints Commission brokered the deal: the Express and Swastika had to publish it or we go through the full PCC procedure - they accepted it.

Here's the text. No doubt the online paper has a comments box full of racist comments, but I can't get to it.

Your recent front page article, ‘Security stepped up as travellers move in’ (18 Sept) incorporated the following sentence:

"Security has been stepped up after travellers who have plagued Wolverhampton for six months set up camp alongside three city centre car showrooms."

I strongly object to the use of the word 'plagued' as inappropriate in a factual story for its negative and medicalised connotations: plagues are diseases to be eradicated rather than people with rights and responsibilities. Furthermore, your undifferentiated reference to this 'plague' of Travellers implies that all Travellers are responsible for the behaviour of some individuals: I feel that this indiscriminate approach encourages your readers to view Travellers as uniformly criminal and unwelcome. Tensions between mobile and static communities are by no means novel, but your reportage fails, in my view to reproduce the complexity of relations between these communities. Some acknowledgement of our social failure to accommodate or respect Travellers (and most local authorities' failure to fulfil their legal requirement to provide legal stopping sites) would do much to defuse the bitterness felt by both sides. 

Doubtless some Travellers, like some settled people, break the law for frivolous reasons or because they feel they have no other option. Ascribing criminality or antisocial tendencies to people simply because they are Travellers is inflammatory and unacceptable and would not be acceptable in reference to other distinct social or ethnic groups. I look forward to the Express and Star approaching the subject with a little more balance and accuracy in future. 

For once, buy the Express and Star

because your very own Vole has a letter in it tomorrow - the Press Complaints Commission told the E+S to do so as settlement of my complaint about their appalling treatment of travellers.

Cue the hate mail from local bigots…

Express and Star: round 2

You may recall that I objected to our despicable local newspaper using the medical term 'plagued' to refer to a group of travellers in a news report.

I asked our local police to look at it: he said it didn't constitute incitement to hatred, but he was sufficiently concerned to advise the rag to moderate its language.

I also complained to the Press Complaints Commission, under the discrimination and accuracy clauses, as the piece seemed to ascribe criminality to membership of a particular group. It turns out, however that you can say what you like about groups (all West Bromwich natives are paedophiles, for instance, is perfectly acceptable; you can't say X is a paedophile because he's from West Bromwich). It also occurs to me that the Express and Star has made an appalling error due to lazy journalism: it hasn't proved that the many reports about traveller 'criminality' refer to the same people. In this sense, it has therefore fostered the belief that all travellers are antisocial criminals, which is disgraceful and deeply inaccurate.

Anyway, Faber - the editor - has come out fighting, mostly through distorting my argument, either by design or because he's not very bright. Click on it to enlarge.

I particularly enjoyed the suggestion that I'm against press freedom because I want the Express and Star to 'self-censor'. Actually matey, I'm calling for some 'editing'. And the idea that a publication as biased and reactionary as the Express and Swastika doesn't already self-censor by choosing to publish only articles which suit its rightwing agenda is ludicrous.

This is my response to the Press Complaints Commission:

Dear William, 

thanks for your e-mail, and for forwarding Mr. Faber's letter, which seems to consist of distortions of my complaint, which is essentially that the use of 'plagued' in a news piece is editorialising and inciting. I don't recall stating that the travellers definitely were an ethnic group, I enquired about the possibility (though Irish Travellers and Roma are distinct recognised ethnic groups). I was also struck by the collective abuse applied to these people, as though any criminal events were the responsibility of the entire traveller community: collective guilt is not known to the law. I am quite disturbed by the ad hominem and aggressive tone he uses in your letter.

I am fully aware of the PCC's remit: I drew the attention of the local police to the article. While they didn't feel it constituted incitement, they were sufficiently concerned to promise to have a word with the newspaper about its use of language. 

Nobody is asking the Express and Star to self-censor when it comes to reporting news (although given the poor quality and naked political bias of the publication in question, it seems that objectivity is in short supply there). All I would like is some editorial recognition that groups such as travellers are more than plagues: the medical terminology dehumanises them in ways familiar from twentieth-century history. Mr. Faber's list of articles about them doesn't demonstrate newsworthiness alone: it might easily be diagnosed as an obsession. 

I note that Mr. Faber's list of articles about travellers doesn't include any indication of whether the antisocial behaviour has been committed by exactly the same group of travellers or not. If not, then he is apparently claiming that all travellers are criminals, and therefore the pieces are inaccurate because they are unsubstantiated. Certainly the article about which I complained made no effort to discriminate between individuals or particular groups of travellers. How is Mr. Faber quantifying 'huge', by the way?

I would be happy to have a substantial letter or piece in the newspaper as right of reply: I note however that a letter I did write to the newspaper on this subject was ignored. I am prepared to settle the matter amicably: from Mr. Faber's letter, it appears that he is not. 

I am happy for you to forward this response to Mr. Faber. 

I also enjoyed his defence of 'we've published loads of articles about travellers which proves it's a plague'. Er, no. It proves that you've got some obsession with travellers.

The PCC have suggested I have a letter printed - I'll accept that if it comes off. Isn't this exciting?

And finally…

A few more pictures (rest here). Click to expand.

Got to love pollution when it gives you sunsets like this

The Magistrates' Court

I wanted to get the letters, with no hint of the building

Deliberately out of focus - I think it works.

Shame the 'newspaper' is such a reactionary racist piece of filth.

While taking this shot, I realised that the guy who asked me if I was 'alright' actually meant 'please stop taking photos while I deal crack unless you want to buy some yourself'. 

A snatch of Uppal news

He's featured in the local Uppal-loving hard-right racist 'newspaper', flogging his deeply dubious claims of suffering electoral fraud - he's clearly on a mission to discredit the decent former MP, Rob Marris.

My readers won't be surprised to hear that Uppal's peddling the same farrago of untruths and distortions, or that the Depress and Scar hasn't bothered to do any checking themselves. If they had, they'd discover that the Electoral Commission isn't investigating any fraud claims, despite what Uppal untruthfully said to Parliament.

It does say, however, that the police isn't investigating: a grudging line coming after several paragraphs devoted to smearing an honest man with innuendo.

I shouldn't be surprised by Uppal or the Express and Swastika - Tory Scum both.

Another victory for press regulation

A lesson in media studies: what matters is how you write the rules.

I complained about the local paper, the Express and Swastika, describing Travellers as 'plaguing' the area. I felt that this was discrimination and incitement to racial hatred.

There are problems with this - Irish Travellers are a recognised racial group under the relevant legislation, but not merely Travellers. Fair enough.

What I wasn't expecting was to be told that under Press Complaints Commission rules, Clause 12 (banning discrimination) only applies to individuals. This means that you can't publish an article which reads

Joe Bloggs is mean because he's black/Jewish/Northern/insert stereotype of your choice here

but it's perfectly acceptable to publish an article which reads

All Jews/Blacks/heterosexuals/Northerners are mean.

The only recourse is to challenge the article on grounds of accuracy, as the PCC told me when I proposed this formulation:

The phrase 'all Jews are mean' could be challenged under accuracy but, insofar as Clause 12 goes, it could not be considered a breach.  This is the same for all groups, be they ethnic, religious, gender etc etc.

Got to admire the newspaper industry's skill at setting its own rules. As far as I can see, this means any newspaper can be as racist/discriminatory as they like, as long as they don't single out individuals.

The Express and Star reverts to type

How do you feel about this?

Security has been stepped up after blacks who have plagued Wolverhampton for six months set up camp alongside three city centre car showrooms packed with luxury vehicles.

Or perhaps try this:

Security has been stepped up after Jews who have plagued Wolverhampton for six months set up camp alongside three city centre car showrooms packed with luxury vehicles.

Anything seem a bit racist about that? I think so. You wouldn't get away with it, legally. Blaming behaviour on social/cultural/ethnic origin is clearly unacceptable. But apparently this is fine:

Security has been stepped up after travellers who have plagued Wolverhampton for six months set up camp alongside three city centre car showrooms packed with luxury vehicles.

is perfectly acceptable on the front page of a daily local newspaper - unsurprisingly, the comments underneath are deeply racist. Another burst of letter-writing hoves into view…

Welcome, lost leader

Cynical Ben has honoured us with his presence in Wolverhampton, and seems to believe that it's not the most vibrant, beautiful city on earth. Is he right? Perhaps - though it's a bit cheeky for a man from Cheslyn Hay.

We celebrated his apotheosis with cheese, moules mariniére and fine wine, as though we were sophisticated, suave young gentlemen, instead of a bunch of assorted wastrels doing little other than waiting for death - and where better to embrace our common mortality than Whitmore Reans, where a violent demise edges closer the longer we stay? When I arrived in this benighted burg almost 10 years ago, I knew only that my cell was located there. Imagine my joy at the railway station when I picked up the local Depress and Scar (also known as the Express and Swastika for its 'robust' views) and saw the screaming headline 'Crack and Guns Haul in Whitmore Reans'. I can't find that story online, but here's some more lazy journalism about the area.

Does anybody fancy a meeting of Wolverhampton bloggers? Cynical Ben went to one for Mancunians and had a great time - though they were very sophisticated types from all accounts.