Tag Archives: stella creasy

Stella Creasy is right – trolls who make malicious complaints should face consequences

Being a woman on the internet in possession of an opinion has long been a wild ride. For most women in public life, abuse is so much worse than a man would get. And I think most of us are so used to it that we barely flinch unless the abuse directly threatens us or the people we love.

The misogynistic trolls who spend so much of their time trying to make life miserable for women they don’t agree with rarely face consequences. Now one of them has found a new way to persecute a high profile feminist and has got away with it.

Labour MP Stella Creasy has described in today’s Times (£) how a misogynistic troll went as far as reporting her to social services, saying that her views on violence against women and girls put them at risk. How on earth wanting to make misogyny a hate crime puts anyone at risk is beyond me.

Thankfully her local social services didn’t take long to realise that it was actually Stella who was at risk. But when the MP complained to the Police, she was shocked at the outcome:

The police accept that his behaviour is harassing but aren’t treating this as a crime because “as you had kids he was worried that your views would affect their upbringing, this belief was genuine and not by any sort of hate”.

At no point have they expressed any concern about the impact of this incident on my children, instead claiming that, as I am an elected representative, I should “expect” to be challenged in this way.

As Stella says, this is just another example of the institutionalised misogyny of the Police laid bare in the Casey Report.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments

Babies in Westminster

Pub quiz question: Who was the first MP to take a baby through a voting lobby?

<spoiler alert>

 

 

The picture of Jo Swinson is a red herring.

It was her husband Duncan Hames, then MP for Chippenham, who carried young Andrew on one occasion when he voted in 2014.

Duncan and Andrew Hames make history

By the way, the reference to Harriet Harman turns out to be an untrue rumour, but neatly encapsulates the values 30 years before.

Four years after Duncan’s pioneering act Jo took their second baby (as seen in the photo) into the Commons for a debate, appropriately on allowing proxy votes for new parents. She wrote about the experience, and the backlash she received afterwards.

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 49 Comments

Caroline Lucas: Vince Cable could make you think eating babies was ok

It’s fair to say that this is not a headline I ever thought I’d be writing, but there you go.

The Guardian decided that it might be a good idea to take ten politicians and send them on a “blind date” with someone from a different party. They didn’t exactly push the boat out with this. The MPs met in the cafe in Portcullis House which is ok, but I prefer the public one off Westminster Hall. It’s always a joy to see what food combinations they come up with. They had an Earl Grey cheesecake one time I was there, which was a bit lacking in flavour, if I’m honest.

Probably the closest match politically was between our Vince Cable and Green MP Caroline Lucas. Afterwards, each MP had to say what they thought of the other. Caroline was generally very positive about Vince but made a bit of a strange comment:

My overriding feeling about Vince is that he’s so reasonable and so plausible that he could make eating babies sound an entirely rational thing to do.

The only thing is that Vince is generally right about stuff. If she thought that what he was saying about things like tuition fees and austerity was rational, it’s because it was. I was a bit miffed on Vince’s behalf by the baby-eating comment. She could have chosen a better analogy.

Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 14 Comments

Do Tweets win seats? – Micro-blogging and politics

Politicos use Twitter to communicate with voters, activists and the media. It’s sociable and fashionable. It’s useful but it has its limits.

And if this was Twitter I’d stop there, for the paragraph above is a 140-character summary of the popular micro-blogging service and its emerging role in politics. Having the luxury of a whole chapter, rather than a couple of lines, I can expound a bit. But sometimes I relish Twitter’s brevity and the way it gives me both the discipline and the excuse not to write at length.

Twitter was to the 2010 General Election what blogging had been to the previous one: novel, topical, conversational, personal. Blogging, in long and short form, is good for quickly spreading campaign messages, news and rumours and it’s freely accessible for anyone with an internet connection.

When I first subscribed to the service a couple of years ago, few news outlets or political candidates were tweeting, although the three main parties were already using it to link to party information and election results.

Over the past year, Twitter has been increasingly taken up by MPs and councillors, bloggers and journalists, even government departments, but crucially by thousands of people who are none of the above, but want to converse with them on an equal footing.

The parties continue to tweet, but now candidates, MPs and party leaders themselves are using the medium, with varying degrees of skill.

Posted in Online politics and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | Leave a comment
Advert



Recent Comments

  • Rif Winfield
    As some of you know, I have been consistently campaigning for STV elections for over half a century. But I urge you to be realistic. Whatever the outcome of nex...
  • Peter Martin
    @ Roland, You ask ”Why should I care?" Even those who lack empathy for others do nearly always have a their own self interest at heart. The 2008 global ...
  • Peter Martin
    Joe, Don't you see that by comparing the government's financial position to a "corporate entity", you are also engaging in household economics? A company can...
  • Mick Taylor
    Once again, it's everyone else's fault and not his. It's a suitable epitaph for a serial liar. I was a member of the campaign team in the Uxbridge by-election ...
  • John Waller
    The following is from my website: https://freedombooksandplays.com Wear a mask and care for the community From May 2020 to May 2022, early every morning I an...