THE VOICE OF REASON
Solon, (born c. 630 BCE—died c. 560 BCE), Athenian statesman, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece (the others were Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Periander of Corinth). Solon ended exclusive aristocratic control of the government, substituted a system of control by the wealthy, and introduced a new and more humane law code. He was also a noted poet.
This is because any question can be answered in the affirmative or the negative to neutralise any libelous content within it, unless the question assumes the existence of some contested fact, eg "When did you stop beating your wife?" when it is being disputed by the person asked that he ever beat his wife.
No jury of right-thinking tweeting men and women would ever have decided that Katie Hopkins had caused Mx Jack Monroe "serious harm" or awarded damages in these terms at paragraph 80.
Taking account of all these matters, my award is £24,000. That is divided into £16,000 for the First Tweet and £8,000 for the Second Tweet.
Even if I was initially very sceptical of its ability to tell anything approaching the truth, already disgusted by the deliberate miscasting: ex-supermodel Rachel Weisz - the wife of James Bond, no less - playing the spinster who lives alone with a dog while Britain's ugliest actor Timothy Spall was chosen to play David Irving - an undeniably attractive man when younger with the looks of a matinee idol, I was very glad I saw it. I did enjoy David Hare's adaptation of The Master Builder at the Old Vic last year and had a vague memory of thinking Wetherby terribly profound in my youth.
The other annoying thing is that Rachel Weisz did not even have a proper dialogue coach so she could learn to speak with a proper Queens accent which is Deborah Lipstadt's and only had a very anodyne mid-Atlantic accent. The Queens accent is also the accent of Donald Trump, the Great Emperor of the West. Yes, I know it is a bit much expecting Rachel Weisz to talk like Trump, but like to think Miriam Margolyes would have done it better. Margolyes is obviously more suited for all sorts of reasons to playing the part of a spinster living alone with her dog.
Miriam Margolyes - the Jewish British actress who should have played Deborah Lipstadt in my view doing many Jewish accents on Johnny Carson. Isn't she just great? Rachel Weisz is not a patch on her. But perhaps it is not too late. A remake of Denial could be made, but this time told from David Irving's perspective, with a properly handsome actor playing David Irving setting women's hearts a-flutter ...
One cannot help wondering if David Irving managed to drag himself to the cinema to see it and whether he spotted his fatal error when he agreed to a judge-only trial.
In the film Anthony Julius and Irving are in front of the judge. (Julius had earlier told Lipstadt that getting a judge-only trial would be key to winning. Lipstadt asked how he would manage to get Irving to agree and Julius said he would appeal to Irving's vanity.)
Scene in the Judge's Chambers where Julius asks the judge for a judge-only trial:
Irving raises his eyebrows.
Julius points out that many of the facts the jury must understand in order to arrive at their verdict are technical and complex, requiring a lifetime's study. They cannot be expected to understand easily and quickly what it took Irving a lifetime to understand.
Irving immediately agrees.
I feel almost certain that a gentile English jury would have given David Irving the benefit of the doubt while a single judge would have succumbed to all kinds of dark forces trying to influence him to find against David Irving. Twelve jury members would be just a bit harder to nobble than a single judge, in my view.
Poor old Sally Bercow too lost her case because a single judge decided that she had libelled the late Lord McAlpine in a tweet. It is simply unimaginable that twelve tweeting jury members would have found an emoticon of a surprised face libellous, as Justice Tugendhat found.
I am no Holocaust bore and find the technicalities of whether there were gas chambers at Auschwitz or anywhere else frankly quite unintelligible, unconvincing on both sides.
The judgment was presented on 11 April 2000, although the lawyers had received the decision 24 hours earlier.
In the film, journalists outside the Royal Courts of Justice were complaining that, although they had read the judgment, they were quite unable to tell from its reasoning whom the judge would favour in his decision.
It is therefore still not clear to me how David Irving falsified the evidence beyond interpreting it in a way that departed from the official version and being guilty of infuriating the powers that be.
It was almost as if Justice Gray was given 1 + 1, but inexplicably said the sum was 3. Even more inexplicably, nobody has pointed out this error and everyone just went along with it.
In practice therefore, even though Holocaust Denial is not officially a crime in the UK, it is in fact treated as if it were one, so beware.
Alison Chabloz is mocking the "fake survivors" of the Holocaust in her song "Survivors", but it is actually legal to deny the Holocaust in the UK. However, will the Jews get her anyway on 24 March 2017?
If they do manage to nail her for Holocaust Denial when there is in fact no law against Holocaust Denial in this country, would that not be a blatant display of Jewish power?
And if this Jewish power is displayed, why are Jews - who are supposed to be a clever people - surprised that the gentiles subject to this Jewish power in their own land in which the majority of people are gentile would resent it?
Is their resentment not increased exponentially when they are told they cannot complain or criticise those whom they feel have the whip hand over them?
If I were a Jewess exercising such power over the majority of gentiles, I like to think I would have the good grace to allow them to complain about me. If you allow people to complain about you, you would have a greater understanding of their grievance than if you arrogantly dismissed all complaints as motivated from people who not deserve to have their concerns and grievances aired. Most unwise. However much you despise the goyim hoi polloi, they are still the majority and understandably wish to enjoy the right to free speech in their own land, which is supposedly part of the Free West in which free speech is enjoyed.
John 8:44 "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
Why do so many Jews hate any sensible move or gentile leader if he says or does anything to protect his national interest?
I seem to remember Hitler often conflating with Jews with Liberals in Mein Kampf. Perhaps there is an argument that only observant Jews are Jews. Unobservant Jews should not even be alive, according to http://biblehub.com/exodus/31-14.htm This means that the halakha, which states that a person is Jewish if his mother is is a damnable innovation, because the Torah should trump all other competing and subsequent views on who is a Jew.
A Liberal Jew is an assimilated Jew.
An assimilated Jew is a Jew that has assimilated into degenerate goyim liberalism.
Will I now be accused of anti-Semitism?
These days, you are accused of being an anti-Semite if a Jew hates you!
If liberals hate truth and logic, then it follows that an assimilated liberal Jew would also hate truth and logic. Sensible observant and Orthodox Jews tend to agree with me, I find.
Irving mentions Lipstadt from the 17th minute
From the 29th minute, I ask him questions about his libel action and Denial, which he hadn't seen, to my annoyance.
The vows annulled at Kol Nidre do not include vows made to people and this includes gentiles, only to God. In other words, the purpose of Kol Nidre is not a licence to not keep promises to people, but is intended to make the promisor think which vows to God he will renew after Kol Nidre and which he will allow to expire, if they are found to be foolish or redundant. This is an excellent idea giving us a chance to perform an annual review of promises made to God and decide on their necessity, folly or redundancy, which can only increase our wisdom and self-knowledge.
Below is a talk by Rabbi Sacks on the nature and purpose of Kol Nidre. It does not mention my suggested reason, but my theory hangs together better, in my ever so humble opinion.
Who discourages promiscuity in Britain? No one at all.
Out of male MPs only 48% voted for gay marriage, less than half of them.
But out of the female MPs an overwhelming 83% voted for gay marriage.
These disgusting women are the pornocracy of course, and they wield a disproportionate amount of power and pull the strings of their compliant puppet husbands.
Affluence over an extended period -> Arrogance -> Corruption among masses -> Corrupt Leadership -> the Social Laws abandoned -> eg gay marriage, SSMs, house-husbands, no-fault divorce the norm, Increase in Poverty -> The Fall of the Civilization. A civilisation takes centuries to fall.
Actually maybe John Bercow could perk things up a bit at home by taking sexiness lessons from Clinton and his friend Tony Blair
— Sophia Money-Coutts (@sophiamcoutts) February 5, 2014
Sophia Money-Coutts, Feminist and Boxer
By the same token, when a wife gets old and fat, dump her and get a new model, eh?
Is Sally Bercow the best advertisement against feminism?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is Sally Bercow the worst example of a political wife?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Why would any ambitious male politician marry a woman like Sally Bercow unless he is led solely by his sex organ or is just mad and silly?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
What is our view of male politicians who would marry a wife like Sally Bercow? Merely contemptible or utterly beyond contempt?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is someone paying Sally Bercow to trash her husband's career, or is she doing it for free?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
What would you do if you were an ambitious politician and had a wife like Sally Bercow?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is Sally Bercow a sadist or is her husband just a little masochist who enjoys being publicly humiliated?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
@JEDmc5 I am sure John Bercow is also privately humiliated.
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Sally Bercow: "I can’t wait until John finishes being Speaker, maybe then the media will leave me alone'. http://t.co/8wDmwucNxh
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 5, 2014
I think this is unbeatable, as far as selfish narcissistic bitches go. Do not forget that our pussywhipped uxorious male politicians have wives who are these selfish narcissistic bitches and will do their every bidding. They are also terrified that their wives would divorce them while they are in office too.
It happened to Putin in Russia, so we can't expect narcissistic malicious selfish British women to hold back for either party or country, because they just wouldn't get it or wouldn't care even if they did. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22817368
MPs have a register of interests. Perhaps it is high time that PM as well as MPs also have a register of their wives' political interests if we are not to be led by the nose to doom and damnation by these irresponsible and immoral selfish narcissistic women.
Plenty of coy noises about Sally Bercow hint the real shock is that she's snogging a black man. Without daring say it. This is 2014, yes?
— KateMaltby (@KateMaltby) February 3, 2014
Even if you don't want to marry me, you will piss her right off if you buy me a few nice dinners, the way Charles Saatchi did with Trinny at Scott's. I haven't been there in years.
I sort of look like this, and don't behave like white trash at all.
Is Sally Bercow the best advertisement against feminism?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is Sally Bercow the worst example of a political wife?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Why would any ambitious male politician marry a woman like Sally Bercow unless he is led solely by his sex organ or is just mad and silly?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
What is our view of male politicians who would marry a wife like Sally Bercow? Merely contemptible or utterly beyond contempt?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is someone paying Sally Bercow to trash her husband's career, or is she doing it for free?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
What would you do if you were an ambitious politician and had a wife like Sally Bercow?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Is Sally Bercow a sadist or is her husband just a little masochist who enjoys being publicly humiliated?
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
@JEDmc5 I am sure John Bercow is also privately humiliated.
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 4, 2014
Sally Bercow: "I can’t wait until John finishes being Speaker, maybe then the media will leave me alone'. http://t.co/8wDmwucNxh
— Claire Khaw (@1partyst8) February 5, 2014
I think this is unbeatable, as far as selfish narcissistic bitches go. Do not forget that our pussywhipped uxorious male politicians have wives who are these selfish narcissistic bitches and will do their every bidding. They are also terrified that their wives would divorce them while they are in office too.
It happened to Putin in Russia, so we can't expect narcissistic malicious selfish British women to hold back for either party or country, because they just wouldn't get it or wouldn't care even if they did. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22817368
MPs have a register of interests. Perhaps it is high time that PM as well as MPs also have a register of their wives' political interests if we are not to be led by the nose to doom and damnation by these irresponsible and immoral selfish narcissistic women.
Bercow is the perfect demonstration of how having principles would help us, especially if we want a career in politics.
How can we respect the judgement of a man who knowingly gave up his political career because he chose to marry a woman who is a constant embarrassment to him?
How can we respect a man who gave up his principles to marry a woman who admits to having been promiscuous, is photographed posing provocatively like the attention-hungry harlot she is?
What about "Why is Lord McAlpine trending. *sad face*"?
What about "Why is Lord McAlpine trending. *happy face*"?
What about "Why is Lord McAlpine trending. *wink*"?
Even if she were asking the question maliciously, she would not be asserting that Lord McAlpine was a sex offender. She could just have been glad that an innocent man had been accused.
Justice Turgendhat:
"The allegation was made by a complainant, a Mr Messham, who was *undoubtedly* abused when he was a boy living at the Bryn Estyn care home in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s."How would Justice Turgendhat know?
In any case, it should be quite easy to explain even to a schoolchild learning the rudiments of grammar that a question can never ever be statement, because a question enquires (whatever the intention and malice of the person asking, whether or not the question is rhetorical or leading), while a statement asserts.
A statement asserts the truth of what it asserts, and a question, however, maliciously asked, always gives the answerer the option of contradicting whatever it was that was being suggested.
Why didn't her lawyer argue that??
I don't even like the woman, but this verdict really really bothers me. If I had a spare hundred thousand or three I would bankroll her appeal.
I am not saying that no question could ever be defamatory. If Sally Bercow had tweeted
"Why is Lord Acton a sex offender?"
she would be making a statement that he is one.
"Why is God angry with me?"
would be a statement assuming and stating the existence of God.
One that lawyers would be familiar with is:
"When did you stop beating your wife?"
This assumes that the accused has been beating his wife.
"Why did you kill your wife?"
This question assumes that the accused killed his wife.
Supposing Sally Bercow had tweeted:
"Lord McAlpine is trending on Twitter because has been named on Newsnight. *grinning with malice*"
There is no way it can be said this statement indicates that the maker of this statement assumes his guilt. At its highest, it only displays malicious pleasure that he has been named. To be accused or arrested does not mean one is automatically guilty.
In the name of liberty, investigative journalism and press freedom, Sally Bercow should have appealed against this perverse and irrational decision.
Usually a defamation case will be tried by a jury. The exceptions are when both sides agree for the case to be heard by a judge without a jury or when the judge decides that a jury will complicate matters. This could be, for instance, because explaining the complexities of certain defamation cases to a jury of laypeople could be too time consuming.
Firstly in a libel case with a jury, the judge will rule whether or not the statement in question is capable of bearing a defamatory meaning. If the judge rules that it is, only then will a jury be called upon to decide whether or not the statement was defamatory. The jury takes into account the circumstances in which the statement was made e.g. the jury examines an explanation of the meaning of the exact words in the context in which they were originally used.
Finally, if the jury finds that the statement was defamatory they will then decide how much the publisher will pay in damages to the individual, company or organisation about whom the statement was made.
Lord Lipsey giving his speech on Political Wives not being what they once were
Lady Jane Rayne
Susan's daughter, Sheila
Michael Barnes, retired-MP for Brentford and Chiswick
Robert Posner
Lord Lipsey
Ellen Craig and others
The Wimpole Room, Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street
Robert Lacey of "Majesty" with Therese Lawson drawing on her smokeless cigarette
Robert Lacey, Lady Jane Rayne and Therese Lawson
Ellen Craig (left), Diana Melly (right)
Perhaps this is the funeral Ed Miliband, the current leader of the Labour Party, should have attended, if he cared anything for the ideological traditions of his party, for Susan was the widow of the late Tony Crosland, the Labour Cabinet Minister who wrote The Future of Socialism. It was he who famously declared that he would "destroy every single fucking grammar school in England". Perhaps Ed was too busy struggling to recreate Labour ideology to come. I did hear that he in fact rang to give his condolences and that he would "send something". (I do not know if he did or if he did what it was.)
I remember Ed made a speech on the subject in Grimsby in 2006 http://www.fabians.org.uk/events/speeches/why-does-ideology-matter peppered with references to the "good society" without bothering to define it. It was then that I noticed what a beautiful young man he was with his long well-formed limbs. His speech however was stupendously dull and went over the heads of those long-suffering Fabians who attended. One of them confessed to me in the ladies that she didn't really know why she turned up any more.
Friday was cold, blue and bright. I walked up the elegant and undulating path of West London Cemetery (formerly known as Kensal Green Cemetery), immortalised in the lines of G. K. Chesterton's poem The Rolling English Road from his book The Flying Inn:
"For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen;
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green."
I saw Robert Posner and Verushka Wyatt. Verushka appeared to recognise me. We shook hands solemnly and I mentioned how I first met her and her late husband at a Literary Review party in happier times. Woodrow Wyatt (who was also another Voice of Reason) has been dead for 14 years, she told me, and she is no longer in that big house. It is odd to even think of describing such a distinguished old lady as "fresh-faced", but that was how she seemed, though a little fragile-looking now. She has the look of woman once known for her beauty (which at the time of our last meeting I had not noticed particularly) and I remembered her for her liveliness and humour, and the way she teased Woodrow at the party.
The old reprobate and charmer Robert Posner (who had been Business Manager of the Literary Review) looked just as he did 10 years ago at Auberon Waugh's funeral, smelling of cigarettes. We sat together at the service.
Lady Jane Rayne (whom Susan always mentioned with affection and gratitude) told us of the occasion when they were in a restaurant about to leave. The waiters overheard Susan expressing regret that she would take an age to make her way to the exit of the restaurant on her crutches. Without further ado, two waiters came and lifted Susan's chair (with her on it) to the exit, just as if they were her litter-bearers. (I did not catch the name of this restaurant.)
Lord Lipsey made a most interesting political speech on the subject of political wives. Susan was not a socialist, he declared. Her interests were rather wider than socialism and her ability to attract many more friends outside socialism than within was testament to that. Nevertheless, she was a good political wife and helped her husband win Grimsby, which was rather ironic considering her extremely privileged background of being a Vassar girl and a member of the New England gentry. He did not mention the egregious Sally Bercow who is proving to be the ruin of her husband's career. In politics, one disastrous personal decision - such as marrying a woman just because you fancy her, without concerning yourself too much about her character or her morals - can be the ruin of one's hopes and future. It would not be so bad if John Bercow was a talentless bore, but he is one of the few members of Parliament still capable of the well-turned phrase, so it is sad indeed to have a promising political career destroyed by the fancies of a man's lust.
It made me wonder whether if I were to marry Peter Mandelson as I so dearly wish to do, how well I would be able to carry out that role. However, since Peter has always been a pragmatist and is pretty much an ideology-free zone, I think I could do OK, as long as we agree to disagree about my views and my political connections, which are probably wider and deeper than his, now that my tentacles reach all stratas of British society.
I did once ask Susan if she had met Peter and she said she had, remarking that she found him to be "very pleased with himself."
The service ended when we were told to applaud Susan while the curtain above her coffin slowly came down.
Fortunately for everyone else, I successfully resisted the temptation to shout "encore!"
Michael Barnes the retired MP of Brentford and Chiswick very generously gave me a lift there. His wife who also attended the funeral did not come because she had to walk the dog.
Robert Lacey of Majestyhttp://www.robertlacey.com/book/majesty and http://www.robertlacey.com/book/inside-kingdom was there, discussing the King's Speech with Therese Lawson, who was sucking on one of those smokeless cigarettes. (This was the first time I had seen one of those things.) Therese informed us that her mother was complaining, rather like Peter Hitchens, that the whole story had been sexed up for the vulgar crowd, which made her very cross. Robert Lacey however declared the film to be historically accurate. Therese recommended a restaurant in Winchester, but I forget its name now.
It was only afterwards that I realised that Rosemary Lamont who introduced herself to me was the heroine of this story at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1401546/Lamonts-ex-wife-challenges-gunman.html. I feel very privileged indeed to have met her, and we briefly discussed the subject of political wives and how one keeps in touch with everyone else anyway just because one plays bridge. I trust she had a very enjoyable dinner with her ex-husband Lord Lamont that evening.
The red wine was very good and the hot canapes delicious. They were Susan's favourite, apparently.
I wonder if it is anything to do with my suggestion I made to Peter Bazalgette for an X FACTOR or BIG BROTHER for philosophers or people who may wish to claim they are wiser than others.
I think Alan de Botton and Mark Vernon and I would have great fun being Big Brother Housemates. Other candidates for housemates:
Jane Garvey
Nick Griffin
Nigel Farage
Dan Hannan
Katharine Birbalsingh
Ed Miliband
Philip Blond
Anjem Choudary
Sally Bercow
Rabbi Zvi Solomans
Dame Edna Everidge
Katie Hopkins
Peter Mandelson
Justine Roberts of Mumsnet
Justine Thornton
Joan Bakewell
Bound to be a hit, don't you think, Dear Reader?
At least we will know that such a show will be an oik-free zone, however objectionable their views are.
For Men, Boys, Wannabe Men, and Women Who Are Disappointed In Their Man,
If you are with a woman who is numb towards you, and is rude, cruel, moody, angry, defensive, crazy, flirts with other guys, cheats on you, has a history of cheating on other men, won’t have sex with you, uses sex as a weapon, uses you for money, disrespects you, humiliates and embarrasses you, or makes you afraid of her tantrums or put-downs and looks down on you as a man, then I have the knowledge you need to turn things around and be a REAL MAN!
But if you are with a woman who takes pride in her ability to NOT care about you, who doesn’t care if she hurts your feelings, who defends her choices that cause you hurt, who doesn’t care that you even have feelings, then reading this letter just got very urgent for you. Being with a woman like this will suck the life out of you unless you know how to handle it with brilliant expertise.
You don’t want to get divorced or break-up, you just want to know how to handle the situation, right?
It doesn’t matter what mistakes you have made or how you have been hurt, it’s all okay, I am here to help you become a better man no matter what you are going through.
He after all has a taller wife who insults him and his beliefs every day with her Tweets.
Bishop Venner is a courageous man. Tony Blair is a madman, for thinking he could get away with telling us the truth: that he would would have found any reason to invade Iraq, and expect us to admire him for it. Who does he think he is? Sally Bercow?
