As Janet Street Porter pus it in the Independent on Sunday today:
One columnist has said that the “steady drip” of information about [Ian Tomlinson's] background is designed to denigrate an ordinary man.
The drip drip has been of information such as Ian Tomlinson having a drink problem and living in a hostel. It’s intended to appeal to that authoritarian agenda, so beloved often by some tabloids, traditional Conservatives and New Labour politicians, which thinks, “Drunk? That’s all his own fault then.”
Leaving aside the absurd idea that just because someone has been drinking alcohol, it’s ok for the police to hit them and push them to the ground, the irony for me in all this information is that – despite the problems he faced – he had a job.
Isn’t someone who faces personal problems and still sticks at it with earning a living behaving just the way that right-wingers and New Labour authoritarians are repeatedly lecturing us about? Far from seeing these personal problems as an excuse for police behaviour, they should be seeing them as all the more reason to give credit to him. He was doing just what they lecture others to do all the time. Far from being seen as an excuse to diminish the tragedy of his death, they should be seeing his life history as a reason to find it all the more tragic.
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The worrying point is the origin of these smears. Do they come from the apologists for the police? There are plenty of them and many have nasty minds and they don’t need any further assistance to denigrate the target. Are they planted by the police themselves? This seemed to be the case with Jean de Menezes. Certainly the willingness of police sources to claim a hail of bottles from the protesters, the initial denial of any wrong-doing (the MET’s claim that it did not intend to mislead anyone is beyond laughable) and the drip feed out of aspects of Mr Tomlinson’s life make me suspicious. I certainly do not subscribe to any innocent explanation of them.
There is a big difference between prescribing how the poor should organise their lives and having any respect for them, whether or not they follow that prescription.
Of course, for right-whingers to do that they’d have to think coherently & consistently & mean what they say. Accordingly, it won’t ever happen.
Which Conservative, traditional or otherwise has ajudged Mr Tomlinson in the way Mark McPack suggests?
On this of all weekends, such stupid and puerile partisan innuendo.
Letters from a Tory is one example. Assuming that I must have just made it up (and hence making the final comments, after your question) seems to me a bit closer to the puerile behaviour you’re wanting to criticise
Which Tory?? Either name and quote or accept your article is a smear.
I don’t think you’ve got the balls.
Old Hack – read any Sun article on the Tomlinson death. The implication and tone of the paper suggests – and I accept not overtly – that Tomlinson in some way brought it on himself.
Old Hack – I did name one; Letters from a Tory. I don’t know his real name, but that’s the name he blogs / comments under. It does seem to me a bit weird if your response to me naming one, is to, err…, complain that I haven’t named one? Maybe not your finest comment!
So one obscure anonymous blog that could be authored by a troll is the best you can do?? Journalism this most certainly isn’t.
Do you really think it is fair or liberal minded to caricature the any sector of the Conservatives on such a flimsy pretext?
Frankly, it’s the sort of behaviour I would expect of say, Whelan, McBride, Draper….
“Obscure”. Really? Well, it frequently features in lists of top Tory blogs and its one of those included in the PoliticsHome feed of top blogs for example. Trying to dismiss it as obscure says rather a lot about how weak your argument (or how narrow your knowledge) is.
Again, it seems to me you’re heavy on the anger and insults, but light on the facts. Indeed, isn’t that just the sort of behaviour (monotone anger and insults, skipping past the factual errors, never admitting you’ve made a mistake) that you should be criticising rather than so keenly indulging in yourself?
Typical Liberal Democrat. Insult your critics intelligence when you know that you are caught.
In summary, because of one comment on one Tory blog all ‘traditional’ Conservatives (whatever that means) are ‘authoritarian’ and supposedly sympathetic to or condone the mistreatment of an innocent bystander by the Police?
Come on!
Just admit you are using the sad death of one man to engage in a bit of mindless Tory bashing – bit like a blundering Liberal thought policeman.
Oh dear, there you go again Old Hack with getting your facts wrong. “One comment on one Tory blog”? Nope, it wasn’t a one-off statement on that blog, and was also a line repeatedly pursued in subsequent comments across more than one blog too, for example. I gave that as just one example, but what you’ve given us is repeated examples of you making a comment with the fact(s) in it being wrong. I think there’s a lesson to draw from that… To use your phraseology, “Typical anonymous commenter. Insults your critics’ intelligence when you know that you are caught. Every comment you’ve made has had a factual error in it. Come on! Just admit you are engaging in a bit of mindless commenting – bit like the very behaviour you claim to criticse.”