I do actually have a modicum of human sympathy for Denis MacShane today - my only real problem with the guy is that he's a pompous, sanctimonious windbag who invents 'facts' to support his feeble arguments and then just cranks up the pomposity and sanctimoniousness even further whenever anyone calls him out on the lies. I don't want everyone like that put in prison. But then those of us who don't go around blaming the most vulnerable in society for all of the country's ills, and who are willing to take account of mitigating circumstances that may explain those people's failings, are actually in a position to express sympathy for MacShane without being hypocritical. Tom Harris is, to put it mildly, not in such a position, and yet he still posted this extraordinary tweet a few hours ago -
"Thoughts are with my friend and former colleague @DenisMacShane on this awful day. A good man."
So it seems that, in Harris-world, teenage mothers, immigrants, the homeless and benefits claimants must be mercilessly condemned as the authors of their own misfortunes, but the Great and the Good must be understood. Remind me - just why did you join the Labour party in the first place, Tom? Ah, that's right, because it's not "some sort of charity set up to help the poorest in society". Yeah, I think a number of us are certainly forming that impression.
* * *
If the events of the day have put you in the mood, why not delve into the archives and try out the Scot Goes Pop Denis MacShane word-search puzzle? You might as well take the chance to limber up, because Word-Search Wednesday will be making a thrilling one-off return on Christmas Day!
Showing posts with label Denis MacShane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denis MacShane. Show all posts
Monday, December 23, 2013
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Denis MacShane : the solution
Actually, I'm not sure there is any known solution to Denis MacShane, but at least I can offer the solution to his word-search puzzle from Wednesday...
For a sneak preview of the identity of next week's Word-Search Wednesday star, try solving this anagram...
LONELY TRICK OR CRUELLY
For a sneak preview of the identity of next week's Word-Search Wednesday star, try solving this anagram...
LONELY TRICK OR CRUELLY
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Word-Search Wednesday : Denis MacShane's greatest hits
I'm still undecided about whether Word-Search Wednesday will be a regular feature, but after perusing Denis MacShane's Wikipedia biography it was extremely tough to resist this one...
One lesson I learned from the George Foulkes word-search is that these puzzles are much too difficult to solve unless the words to look for are provided, so I'm going to reveal them straight away this time -
Stalin : Denis once pointed out that left-wingers who campaigned against the Iraq War were just like the left-wing apologists for Stalin in the 1930s. Well, someone had to say what everyone else was thinking.
Nicolas Sarkozy : The candidate who Denis, as a well-known socialist, naturally wanted to win the French presidential election of 2007. Apparently Ségolène Royal was anti-Semitic, or something.
José María Aznar : The conservative Spanish Prime Minister who in 2004 appeared set to win the general election. Denis, as a well-known socialist, was naturally delighted, particularly because all those forlorn left-wing hopes that Aznar's support for the unpopular Iraq War might be his downfall were about to be dashed.
José Zapatero : The socialist who won the 2004 Spanish general election, partly because of Aznar's support for the unpopular Iraq War. Denis naturally professed himself delighted - it was what he'd wanted all along.
Khalid Mahmood : In the early days of the Afghanistan War, Denis penned an Observer article entitled 'The Five Myths Muslims Must Deny', but selflessly allowed Muslim MP Khalid Mahmood to take all the credit. It was just a favour for a pal, really - Denis had initially offered to do exactly the same favour for Lord Ahmed, who weirdly couldn't bring himself to accept such generosity.
"A giant red herring" : How Denis described Gordon Brown's famous "five economic tests".
"Jesus Christ, no" : How Denis responded when asked by the Scotsman if he had described Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
Survive in government : What Denis told the Scotsman would be impossible for anyone to do if they had described Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
It was on tape : The reason we know that Denis did, in fact, describe Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
"I have no idea why I was removed as a a minister" : Denis later candidly confessed that he was clueless as to why he didn't survive in government after describing Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
His garage : The place Denis claimed £125,000 worth of parliamentary expenses for.
Suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party : What Denis now is as a result of claiming £125,000 worth of parliamentary expenses for his garage.
Asperger's : Gary McKinnon, the man faced with the terrifying prospect of being caged as a "terrorist" in the US for the unspeakable crime of seeking information about UFOs, has this syndrome. Or, at least, that's the official story, but Denis reckons it's all a crafty ruse. What's that? You want evidence that the doctors got it all wrong? I'm appalled. Look no further than Denis' intellect.
Twenty-five thousand : The number of "sex slaves" (trafficked women) Denis claimed the Home Office had estimated were "working in the massage parlours and brothels" of the UK. No such estimate ever existed, and the true figure is likely to be a small fraction of the number Denis quoted.
A different journalism : What Denis suggested should report on prostitution in future, after struggling to answer the impertinent questions asked by journalism in its current form about where the twenty-five thousand figure had come from.
Apologise : What Denis once suggested Ossama el Batran should do for every killing of a Jew by Hamas. El Batran was not a member or supporter of Hamas, but rather an Egyptian postgraduate student at Cambridge University. However, he'd asked Denis a probing question, so deserved nothing less.
Mussolini : The democratically-elected President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was temporarily deposed by a military coup during Denis' fondly-remembered stint as Minister for Europe. Denis shrewdly realised that the best way of helping the situation was to call Chavez a "ranting populist demagogue" and to compare him to Mussolini, along with a strategic pretence that the military men were acting on behalf of "the people". This daring gambit paid off - democracy was restored within days, as Denis later jubilantly confirmed had been his objective all along. A grateful nation subsequently funded a statue of Denis in Caracas by popular subscription.
Indelible pink paint : What Denis was once undeservedly sprayed with after being undeservedly driven to a remote village and undeservedly stripped naked.
And that's the lot. I'll try to post the solution to the puzzle over the weekend.
(Click to enlarge)
One lesson I learned from the George Foulkes word-search is that these puzzles are much too difficult to solve unless the words to look for are provided, so I'm going to reveal them straight away this time -
Stalin : Denis once pointed out that left-wingers who campaigned against the Iraq War were just like the left-wing apologists for Stalin in the 1930s. Well, someone had to say what everyone else was thinking.
Nicolas Sarkozy : The candidate who Denis, as a well-known socialist, naturally wanted to win the French presidential election of 2007. Apparently Ségolène Royal was anti-Semitic, or something.
José María Aznar : The conservative Spanish Prime Minister who in 2004 appeared set to win the general election. Denis, as a well-known socialist, was naturally delighted, particularly because all those forlorn left-wing hopes that Aznar's support for the unpopular Iraq War might be his downfall were about to be dashed.
José Zapatero : The socialist who won the 2004 Spanish general election, partly because of Aznar's support for the unpopular Iraq War. Denis naturally professed himself delighted - it was what he'd wanted all along.
Khalid Mahmood : In the early days of the Afghanistan War, Denis penned an Observer article entitled 'The Five Myths Muslims Must Deny', but selflessly allowed Muslim MP Khalid Mahmood to take all the credit. It was just a favour for a pal, really - Denis had initially offered to do exactly the same favour for Lord Ahmed, who weirdly couldn't bring himself to accept such generosity.
"A giant red herring" : How Denis described Gordon Brown's famous "five economic tests".
"Jesus Christ, no" : How Denis responded when asked by the Scotsman if he had described Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
Survive in government : What Denis told the Scotsman would be impossible for anyone to do if they had described Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
It was on tape : The reason we know that Denis did, in fact, describe Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
"I have no idea why I was removed as a a minister" : Denis later candidly confessed that he was clueless as to why he didn't survive in government after describing Gordon Brown's famous five economic tests as a giant red herring.
His garage : The place Denis claimed £125,000 worth of parliamentary expenses for.
Suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party : What Denis now is as a result of claiming £125,000 worth of parliamentary expenses for his garage.
Asperger's : Gary McKinnon, the man faced with the terrifying prospect of being caged as a "terrorist" in the US for the unspeakable crime of seeking information about UFOs, has this syndrome. Or, at least, that's the official story, but Denis reckons it's all a crafty ruse. What's that? You want evidence that the doctors got it all wrong? I'm appalled. Look no further than Denis' intellect.
Twenty-five thousand : The number of "sex slaves" (trafficked women) Denis claimed the Home Office had estimated were "working in the massage parlours and brothels" of the UK. No such estimate ever existed, and the true figure is likely to be a small fraction of the number Denis quoted.
A different journalism : What Denis suggested should report on prostitution in future, after struggling to answer the impertinent questions asked by journalism in its current form about where the twenty-five thousand figure had come from.
Apologise : What Denis once suggested Ossama el Batran should do for every killing of a Jew by Hamas. El Batran was not a member or supporter of Hamas, but rather an Egyptian postgraduate student at Cambridge University. However, he'd asked Denis a probing question, so deserved nothing less.
Mussolini : The democratically-elected President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was temporarily deposed by a military coup during Denis' fondly-remembered stint as Minister for Europe. Denis shrewdly realised that the best way of helping the situation was to call Chavez a "ranting populist demagogue" and to compare him to Mussolini, along with a strategic pretence that the military men were acting on behalf of "the people". This daring gambit paid off - democracy was restored within days, as Denis later jubilantly confirmed had been his objective all along. A grateful nation subsequently funded a statue of Denis in Caracas by popular subscription.
Indelible pink paint : What Denis was once undeservedly sprayed with after being undeservedly driven to a remote village and undeservedly stripped naked.
And that's the lot. I'll try to post the solution to the puzzle over the weekend.
Serious parralels
As a small appetiser for a post that will be along later today, I spotted this tweet from Rotherham's finest -
"In serious HoC exchanges on arab crisis SNPer seeks parallels between Sudan referendum and Scotland. Trivial, cheap, unworthy"
Note how it's taken as read that, while exchanges about Arab affairs are by definition "serious", Scotland can only ever be "trivial" in comparison. If the more thoughtful members of Labour are ever looking for subtle clues as to why they may have lost in May...
Incidentally, although I didn't hear the debate in question, it's worth noting that southern Sudan is an integral part of a sovereign state, but will become independent on July 9th after a single referendum was held on the matter. I really can't begin to imagine what relevant parralels the SNPer thought there were to draw.
"In serious HoC exchanges on arab crisis SNPer seeks parallels between Sudan referendum and Scotland. Trivial, cheap, unworthy"
Note how it's taken as read that, while exchanges about Arab affairs are by definition "serious", Scotland can only ever be "trivial" in comparison. If the more thoughtful members of Labour are ever looking for subtle clues as to why they may have lost in May...
Incidentally, although I didn't hear the debate in question, it's worth noting that southern Sudan is an integral part of a sovereign state, but will become independent on July 9th after a single referendum was held on the matter. I really can't begin to imagine what relevant parralels the SNPer thought there were to draw.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
If you're a sex worker or cleaner and think you know your own mind, forget it
Is there a more satisfying sight known to man than that of Labour outcast Denis MacShane making a prize idiot of himself - again? My previous favourite example was when he wrote an article in the run-up to the 2004 Spanish general election, gloating that his own party's socialist allies were going to reap no reward for opposing the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq. A few days later, the socialist leader Zapatero was Prime Minister-elect of Spain, and the country's troops were looking forward to an unexpectedly swift departure from Iraq. MacShane characteristically brazened it out, hastily redefining the outcome as yet another unalloyed triumph for the Third Way!
His latest foot-in-mouth moment came when he went off on one in the House of Commons about an LSE professor of feminist political theory who asks her students as part of their course to consider whether there is any difference between women hiring themselves out as "low paid and often badly treated cleaners", and hiring themselves out as prostitutes. MacShane denounced this as the peddling of "poisonous drivel", but there was just one snag - the professor in question, Anne Phillips, actually does believe there is a fundamental distinction between the two concepts, as her extensive writing on the topic confirms. To a degree, therefore, she is actually on MacShane's side, but was he intelligent enough to spot that? Was he intelligent enough to even consider the possibility? To him, someone who isn't prepared to close down all thought and debate on the subject must be an apologist for the trafficking of women and exploitative prostitution.
And that, in a nutshell, is what is so wrong with Labour's approach (and indeed the approach of some politicians from other parties) to prostitution and other aspects of gender politics. It was no surprise that when MacShane finally made a less-than-gracious apology for insulting Anne Phillips, he revealed himself to be yet another Labour supporter of the Swedish model on prostitution law, which on ideological rather than rational grounds defines even the most scrupulously consensual and non-coercive transaction between a sex worker and client as "male violence against women" - including, perversely, when the "perpetrator" is not male, or when the "victim" is not female. Adherence to this warped logic invariably goes hand in hand with an unshakeable belief that a huge percentage of sex workers are trafficked and/or coerced. When the often patently ludicrous statistical "evidence" offered in support of this belief is challenged by the likes of Laura Agustin, the response is generally the rough equivalent of MacShane's hysterical reaction to Phillips' encouragement of debate. You cannot challenge what we already know to be true! Thinking is not permitted! Those who think are on the side of men who abuse and exploit women!
Any ideology that can only sustain itself by shutting down thought and disallowing awkward questions must be a weak one indeed. With that in mind, it's highly significant that it was the specific comparison with unpleasant cleaning work that hit such a nerve with MacShane. After all, his ideology won't permit the possibility that some prostitutes might legitimately dissent from his view that sex work is always demeaning and can never be consensual - if they believe they feel differently, it's by definition a kind of 'false consciousness'. And yet, of course, virtually any other kind of work is regarded by Labour on equally dubious ideological grounds as an all-purpose boon for the well-being of the individual. Once again, they have the phony evidence at their fingertips to 'prove' it - David Blunkett can recite it backwards. Cleaning toilets for eight hours a day cures depression and banishes all suicidal thoughts! Nothing is better for a bad back than some good old-fashioned manual labour! Any kind of work at all is better for the sick and vulnerable than (gasp) being on benefit. And if they don't realise that, well...they simply don't know what's good for them, do they, and must be 'helped' to see things as they really are. Sound familiar?
So to sum up : prostitutes who take a personal view that their work is not demeaning or exploitative are not entitled to that opinion. But cleaners who take a personal view that their work is demeaning, exploitative or bad for their health are not entitled to that opinion either. Little wonder, then, that some people are so scared of allowing rational thought to be brought to bear on this authoritarian and absurdly contradictory belief-system. Of course, it also begs the question of exactly what pay-grade you have to reach before you're allowed to know your own mind about what you do for a living. Suspended Labour member of parliament, perhaps?
His latest foot-in-mouth moment came when he went off on one in the House of Commons about an LSE professor of feminist political theory who asks her students as part of their course to consider whether there is any difference between women hiring themselves out as "low paid and often badly treated cleaners", and hiring themselves out as prostitutes. MacShane denounced this as the peddling of "poisonous drivel", but there was just one snag - the professor in question, Anne Phillips, actually does believe there is a fundamental distinction between the two concepts, as her extensive writing on the topic confirms. To a degree, therefore, she is actually on MacShane's side, but was he intelligent enough to spot that? Was he intelligent enough to even consider the possibility? To him, someone who isn't prepared to close down all thought and debate on the subject must be an apologist for the trafficking of women and exploitative prostitution.
And that, in a nutshell, is what is so wrong with Labour's approach (and indeed the approach of some politicians from other parties) to prostitution and other aspects of gender politics. It was no surprise that when MacShane finally made a less-than-gracious apology for insulting Anne Phillips, he revealed himself to be yet another Labour supporter of the Swedish model on prostitution law, which on ideological rather than rational grounds defines even the most scrupulously consensual and non-coercive transaction between a sex worker and client as "male violence against women" - including, perversely, when the "perpetrator" is not male, or when the "victim" is not female. Adherence to this warped logic invariably goes hand in hand with an unshakeable belief that a huge percentage of sex workers are trafficked and/or coerced. When the often patently ludicrous statistical "evidence" offered in support of this belief is challenged by the likes of Laura Agustin, the response is generally the rough equivalent of MacShane's hysterical reaction to Phillips' encouragement of debate. You cannot challenge what we already know to be true! Thinking is not permitted! Those who think are on the side of men who abuse and exploit women!
Any ideology that can only sustain itself by shutting down thought and disallowing awkward questions must be a weak one indeed. With that in mind, it's highly significant that it was the specific comparison with unpleasant cleaning work that hit such a nerve with MacShane. After all, his ideology won't permit the possibility that some prostitutes might legitimately dissent from his view that sex work is always demeaning and can never be consensual - if they believe they feel differently, it's by definition a kind of 'false consciousness'. And yet, of course, virtually any other kind of work is regarded by Labour on equally dubious ideological grounds as an all-purpose boon for the well-being of the individual. Once again, they have the phony evidence at their fingertips to 'prove' it - David Blunkett can recite it backwards. Cleaning toilets for eight hours a day cures depression and banishes all suicidal thoughts! Nothing is better for a bad back than some good old-fashioned manual labour! Any kind of work at all is better for the sick and vulnerable than (gasp) being on benefit. And if they don't realise that, well...they simply don't know what's good for them, do they, and must be 'helped' to see things as they really are. Sound familiar?
So to sum up : prostitutes who take a personal view that their work is not demeaning or exploitative are not entitled to that opinion. But cleaners who take a personal view that their work is demeaning, exploitative or bad for their health are not entitled to that opinion either. Little wonder, then, that some people are so scared of allowing rational thought to be brought to bear on this authoritarian and absurdly contradictory belief-system. Of course, it also begs the question of exactly what pay-grade you have to reach before you're allowed to know your own mind about what you do for a living. Suspended Labour member of parliament, perhaps?
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