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Johann Hari apologises over plagiarism and hands back Orwell prizeAward-winning columnist to take leave of absence from Independent and undertake journalism training



reddit this Lisa O'Carroll guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 September 2011 19.29 BST Article history

The award-winning Independent columnist Johann Hari has apologised for plagiarising the work of others to improve his interviews and will take unpaid leave of absence from the paper until 2012.

Hari also apologised for editing the Wikipedia entries of people he had clashed with, using the pseudonym David Rose, "in ways that were juvenile or malicious", saying he was "mortified to have done this". He admitted calling "one of them antisemitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk".

Hari is also handing back the George Orwell prize he won as "an act of contrition for the errors I made elsewhere, in my interviews" and will undertake "a programme of journalism training" during his leave of absence.

It is understood that provided no more damaging revelations emerge about the journalist during his unpaid leave, the Independent editor, Chris Blackhurst, will allow him to return to the paper.

In a statement, the paper said that Hari "admits the central accusations made against him, that of embellishment of quotations/plagiarism, and that it was he who used the pseudonym David Rose to attack his critics".

His apology comes after an internal inquiry into the allegations against him conducted by the paper's former editor Andreas Whittam Smith.

In a formal apology published on the Independent's website, Hari admitted he did "two wrong and stupid things" – the first, inserting quotes that were not his own into interviews, and the second, deliberately editing the entry on himself in Wikipedia and using an alter ego to edit other people's entries.

"I took out nasty passages about people I admire – like Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown … but in a few instances, I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious: I called one of them antisemitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk." He added: "I am mortified to have done this, because it breaches the most basic ethical rule: don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. I apologise to the latter group unreservedly and totally."

Hari was suspended from the Independent in the summer following accusations on Twitter and blogs that some of his interviews were not entirely his own work.

Hari responded in an Independent blogpost that the accusations were "totally false" and said he had never taken words from "another context and twisted them to mean something different". But he admitted he had substituted quotes he had got from his own interviews with similar quotes from the author's own work, or from other interviews if they were more clearly expressing the same point. In his apology, he said he admitted that was wrong to say the practice of substituting quotes gained through a face-to-face interview with other quotes was justified because it gave "the clearest possible representation of what the interviewee thought".

"An interview isn't an x-ray of a person's finest thoughts. It's a report of an encounter. If you want to add material from elsewhere, there are conventions that let you do that," Hari said. "You write 'she has said,' instead of 'she says'. You write 'as she told the New York Times' or 'as she says in her book', instead of just replacing the garbled chunk she said with the clear chunk she wrote or said elsewhere."

In one interview, with journalist Ann Leslie, critics claimed more than 500 words of Hari's near-5,000 word piece came from an article she wrote in the Daily Mail.

When the allegations first surfaced the then editor of the paper, Simon Kelner, described the plagiarism row as "fabricated anger" and "politically motivated".

His successor Blackhurst took a different view, suspending the journalist and ordering an internal inquiry headed by Whittam Smith.

Hari said "the worst part" was thinking about "readers" who admired his articles and believed in the causes he championed. "I hate to think of those people feeling let down, because those causes urgently need people to stand up for them," Hari wrote.

He said he also felt bad for his colleagues at the paper. "I am horrified to think that what I have done has detracted from the way they get it right every day," he wrote. "I am sorry."

THE ORWELL PRIZE
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The Prize is very grateful to its partners – the constituent bodies which are part of governing the Prize – and its sponsors.

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Media Standards Trust

The Media Standards Trust is an independent registered charity which aims to foster high standards in news media on behalf of the public. We’re a ‘think-and-do-tank’, conducting research on important media issues but also running projects to promote quality, transparency and accountability in news.

We believe high standards of news and information are critical to the health of our democratic society. These standards are being challenged by the enormous, revolutionary changes in the production, funding, packaging, delivery and consumption of news and information. Although the radical transformation of the news ecosystem threatens standards as never before, there is also a real opportunity for innovation in journalism.

In addition to administering the Orwell Prize, the MST has published two influential reports about the system of press self-regulation in the UK; developed www.journalisted.com to help the public navigate the news and journalists to manage an online CV; launched the Transparency Initiative, in conjunction with Sir Tim Berners Lee and the Web Science Trust, to make searching and assessing online news easier and more intelligent; and organised a series of events on why journalism matters, the future of news and other topics.

Orwell Trust

The Orwell Trust – the George Orwell Memorial Fund – was founded in 1980. When approached by Sonia Orwell to write the authorised biography of George Orwell in 1974, Bernard Crick secretly granted the hardback rights in trust to Birkbeck College. When David Astor, Orwell’s friend and editor, matched Crick’s grant in 1980 (as the book was published), the first trustees of the George Orwell Memorial Fund were appointed.

At first, the Trust gave small grants for projects by young writers, but was diverted in 1985 to endow memorial lectures at Birkbeck and the University of Sheffield and to making grants for departmental Orwell occasions. The Sheffield Lecture was discontinued in 2000.

In 1993, in conjunction with Political Quarterly, the Trust launched the Orwell Prize in its current form. The Trust continues (with Birkbeck College) to run the annual George Orwell Memorial Lecture. D. J. Taylor succeeded Sir Bernard Crick as chair of the Orwell Trust in 2008.

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Richard Blair is the adopted son of George Orwell. He writes: ‘I first became involved with the Orwell Prize many years ago. It had been set up and organised by Sir Bernard Crick for a number of years prior to my coming on board. The awards had grown in stature and were taking on a life of their own. It became obvious that more people needed to be involved in organising the whole affair. Whilst I was happy to allow those with better connections than I when it comes to recognising the right people to get involved with the awards, I am very much in favour of it going onwards and upwards as Orwell’s relevance is still as important today as it was when he was alive. It is to this end that I will do all in my power to help achieve the status that the awards deserve.’

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Home > The Orwell Prize > Short lists > Richard Webster The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt
Richard Webster
Orwell Press

In 1991 journalists on broadsheet newspapers began to publish stories claiming that Bryn Estyn, a home for adolescent boys on the outskirts of Wrexham, lay at the centre of a network of evil – a paedophile ring whose members included a senior North Wales police officer. A massive investigation was launched which, over the next ten years, spread to care homes throughout Britain. Thousands were accused, hundreds arrested, and the prisons began to fill up with convicted care workers. Had we at last faced up to a horrifying reality? Or was there another, even more disturbing story that remained to be uncovered? Had leading journalists on quality newspapers themselves helped to set in motion a new kind of witch hunt, one that was unable to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent?

Sunday, 4 October 2009
'We have not a shred of evidence . . . '
THE TRUTH, IT WOULD seem, is finally out. As the result of the publication of another article by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday, we now know a great deal more about why Lenny Harper, the officer in charge of the Haut de la Garenne investigation in Jersey, embarked upon his sensational excavation of the grounds of the former children's home. Thanks to Rose and to Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Gradwell, who took over the reins of the investigation from Harper when he retired last August, we also know that there were very good reasons for not digging. These reasons were set out by a senior Jersey police officer just eleven days before the dig began.

On 12 February 2008 the senior officer in question made his own sober assessment of the state of the evidence in an email to Jersey forensic services manager Vicky Coupland. There was, in his view, no reason even to contemplate embarking on an excavation. 'We have not a shred of evidence to suggest there is anything there,' he wrote.
According to any 'reasoned assessment', the officer in question went on to write, it was hard to see how a child could have been buried in concrete in an institution full of children. There was also the near inevitability that any excavation would throw up a series of false trails which could only have the effect of diverting the inquiry from its real object - that of investigating allegations of sexual abuse, 'There is going to be blood from spotty teenagers,' the officer wrote in his email. 'We could end up being massively distracted by small bits of blood that have no relevance. In all the statements and intelligence we have not even a suggestion that there may be or have been bodies.'


So what was the identity of this senior Jersey police officer, who assessed the folly of embarking on an excavation so soberly and so well? Curiously enough it was none other than Lenny Harper himself.

Given Harper's momentary wisdom, the question which needs to be answered is how it was that he came to change his mind. Since Harper's original instincts were so sound, whose forensic intelligence took over and eventually came to drive the entire investigation? The picture at the beginning of this post provides a clue. For more details read David Rose's article.


Posted by RW at 09:25
3 comments:
Richard said...
Here we are in the middle of April 2010. Nothing has been done to bring Harper and Graham Power to book. Harper retired last August. Power remains suspended.He goes in July and the clock is ticking to that end, and yet questions remain as to why Power, as Chief Constable, didn't intervene or show any leadership, when his deputy was so obviously in control. Was Power constrained for some reason? Both have contributed to the rambling hate filled political blog of self exiled Senator Stuart Syvret.He has remained in London,despite a trivial driving license offence, supported by some very unworldly Liberal Democrat MP's.Though I doubt they support him now.Harper's lone investigation to seek murder, torture and complicate political pedophilia has cost Jersey dearly.The cost of that investigation is almost a third of the budget deficit.

17 April 2010 21:04
Gazza said...
http://thehautdelagarennefarce.blogspot.com/

11 July 2010 07:48
Richard said...
Now that the Wiltshire police report is out and clearly demonstrates a catastrophic failure in all aspects of the Jersey abuse enquiry and no culpability for those police officers, whom are allowed to retire on full pensions, something might be learnt in the future.

17 July 2010 00:08

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The Great Children’s

Home Panic



by RICHARD WEBSTER

_________________________________




The Orwell Press,

Paperback Original, pp. 70, 1998







DURING THE LAST TEN years an entirely new kind of police investigation has evolved. Conducted on a massive scale at huge public expense, its main aim has been to gather retrospective allegations of sexual abuse against care workers. Thousands of such allegations have now been collected and slowly but surely our prisons are filling up with care workers who have been convicted as a result.



Have we at last faced up to a horrifying reality? Or have we unleashed a witch-hunt which is unable to discriminate between those who are guilty and those who are innocent, and which is, because of the huge power of individual police forces, already out of control?



*



Published in 1998, The Great Children’s Home Panic was the first book to raise serious questions about a kind of police operation which has used up hundreds of millions of pounds of public money and resulted in allegations being trawled by the police against thousands of former care workers and teachers.



To mark its publication I wrote, together with the investigative journalist Bob Woffinden, an article for Guardian Weekend, ‘Abuse in the balance’, which focused on the cases of four innocent victims of trawling – Terry Hoskin, Brian Hudson, Danny Smith and Roy Shuttleworth. In this article we wrote that ‘The evidence now emerging suggests that retrospective investigations into care homes have led to the gravest series of miscarriages of justice in modern British history.’



Bob Woffinden has since written about police trawling in other articles, including Unsafe convictions and Trawling goes on trial, but who pays the price?



Some two years ago, after reading The Great Children's Home Panic, the journalist David Rose became interested in the problem of police trawling. Together with producer Gary Horne, he mounted a full scale investigation into the case of Roy Shuttleworth. This led to the making of a BBC Panorama film, In the name of the children, shown in November 2000, which established beyond reasonable doubt that Shuttleworth could not have committed the offences he was convicted of and that all eight of the men who made allegations against him in his criminal trial had fabricated their complaints. The transcript of this programme, the responses of viewers , and the Observer article which David Rose and Gary Horne wrote about the case are all available online.





David Rose has since written an Observer­­ news story about trawling and an in-depth investigation of the case of Brian Ely.




Following the transmission of the Panorama programme, and the acquittal of former Southampton football manager David Jones, who had faced a number of trawled allegations, Merseyside MP Claire Curtis-Thomas took a special interest in the problem of police trawling. She eventually became chair of an all-party committee looking into false allegations. Among the members of this committee are former Crosby MP Baroness Shirley Williams, and Earl Howe, who initiated a House of Lords debate on false allegations which took place in October 2001.


As a result of gathering pressure, including that exerted by the grass-roots campaigning organisation F.A.C.T. (False Allegations Against Carers and Teachers), the issue of police trawling was, after twelve long years, placed on a real political agenda.

In January 2002 the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of Chris Mullin MP, announced a full-scale inquiry into the practice of police trawling. David Rose, Bob Woffinden and I were invited to give evidence to the first session of this inquiry which took place on 14 May 2002. Details of subsequent sessions can be found on the Home Affairs Committee website.

At the beginning of April 2002 the spectacular collapse of Operation Rose, the massive trawling operation conducted by police in the north east, added to the growing disquiet about such investigations.

Some observers, including lawyers, believe that nationally as many as a hundred completely innocent men, and at least two women, have been convicted in the last ten years and are serving sentences of up to fifteen years. These miscarriages of justice are the result of police methods which have themselves evolved in response to a number of highly dangerous developments in the law.

19 comments:

Zoompad said...

"Saturn 5 said...
Dear Followers

We will have a new post up soon but it's just that over the past week we've decided to take a bit of a break.

November 09, 2011 "

That's a good idea, make the most of your freedom whilst you have it, because I shouldn't wonder if the police will soon be bang bang banging at YOUR door pretty soon. Hopefully, to coincide with Stuart's release!

Zoompad said...

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Nine activists sentenced in first day of Airport protest trial
Article published: Monday, December 6th 2010
Nine climate activists who pleaded guilty to obstruction of the highway for their part in a demonstration at Manchester Airport last May have been given fines at Trafford Magistrates Court today.
The varying levels of fines and costs imposed by the District Judge average around £350 per defendant. The defendants were involved in a road blockade of the World Freight Centre using two tripod structures. The court heard how the protest had been a “response to a flawed planning process” that had approved plans to demolish local homes at Hasty Lane and that the “democratic process being thwarted.”

A further two defendants, Amanda Walters and Mark Haworth have pleaded not guilty. Their trial began after the sentencing and will continue for the next two days. Lib Dem Councillor Martin Eakins is expected to appear as an expert witness.

The defendants were joined outside court this morning by local supporters, including local Hasty Lane resident Peter Johnson. Margaret Westbrook, a Trafford resident who came to court to support the defendants said, “The campaigners needed to take direct action due to the devastating environmental impacts of expanding Manchester Airport. It was a reasonable use of nonviolent direct action to protest against the demolition of local homes and rising emissions especially since they have tried every other political avenue.”

Ali Garrigan, from Manchester Plane Stupid, said, “Today the defendants have taken responsibility for the protest and been accountable for their actions. Meanwhile, Manchester City Council refuses to take responsibility for the emissions from the airport by excluding them from its Climate Change Action Plan and the aviation industry as a whole operates free of VAT while communities face drastic cuts.”

A public campaign titled ‘Manchester Airport on Trial’ is being run around the two court trials. The defendants have received support from members of the public, local groups, academics, barristers, Independent journalist Johann Hari, as well as prominent national politicians such as Heathrow Labour MP John McDonnell, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and Conservative Party MP Zac Goldsmith.

A second group of six protesters who blockaded a Monarch Airline jet at the same time as the protest in May will stand trial for aggravated trespass separately in February 2011.

Zoompad said...

Damian Thompson
Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke.
How Prince William resisted Johann Hari's advances
By Damian Thompson Royal family Last updated: September 14th, 2011

In all the fuss about Johann Hari, everyone has forgotten perhaps his most extraordinary claim of all: that he nearly tore apart the Royal family. This is from his 2002 book God Save the Queen?:

Anyway, let me cut to the chase, because I don't want to reproduce too much copyrighted material and be accused of nicking someone else's intellectual property.

Hari has the top secret meeting with his royal mole, who had hinted that William might give Johann an Andrew Morton-style briefing. But the mole checks with William and it's bad news: the Prince "hated" his article and wouldn't speak to him. Johann asks why he hated it so much…

Of course he was!

(H/T: A Telegraph colleague who'd rather his Wikipedia entry was left alone.)
Tags: Gospel truth as usual, Johann Hari, Prince William

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=johann%20hari%20secret%20family%20court&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fdamianthompson%2F100105089%2Fhow-prince-william-resisted-johann-haris-advances%2F&ei=wwm7Tv_tLsXTsgaB0ZEu&usg=AFQjCNEe1ze9XoPZCilhpDwyHKOhjy7JuA&sig2=YXFORlskRqQrvnyMic6CFg

Zoompad said...

FROM THE THIRSTY GARGOYLE BLOG:

14 September 2011
Even if Johann Hari said he knew where the bodies were buried...
Would anyone believe him?

I'm afraid I've had no sympathy for Johann Hari over the last few months; indeed, uncharitable though I've surely been to think such a way, I've found it hard to look on his predicament with anything other than a cynical sense of schadenfreude. Yes, I know he's not well now, but that aside, the last few months have simply struck me as a shoddy journalist getting something that's been coming to him for a long time.


We all know the story, of course, of how a couple of bloggers noticed how Hari's interviews, as published, seemed to have been a hybrid of original and previously published material -- the latter being books and interviews conducted by other people, in the main. Then we had Tim Worstall reeling off a litany of Hari's fallacious claims, and the Spectator's Nick Cohen describing some very peculiar experiences on Wikipedia in connection with a ridiculous review by Hari of a book Cohen had written. David Allen Green, then, began digging further into Wikipedia, exploring the deeds of the peculiarly obscure 'David Rose', who was so keen to promote the brilliance of Hari, and who appeared to have a sideline in underage incest pornography.

Zoompad said...

Why does one chubby journalist matter?
The dominoes began to fall, as the extent of Hari's behaviour became clear. Smart people pointed out that given Hari's influence as a journalist, real answers and serious action were called for:
'I said before about Hari that I didn’t think he was a cynical liar out for the main chance, but a well-intentioned bullshitter. That’s why I quoted Peter Oborne, whose book is excellent on the subject of Good Cause Corruption, with particular reference to the career of Mr Tony Blair. If you have moral right and a good cause on your side, then surely inconvenient facts are just a distraction. Accuracy is pedantry. This is positively dangerous from politicians, with dodgy dossiers and the like potentially leading to lots of people getting killed. Which is why you need a press that’s honest, accurate, even pedantic. When journalism falls prey to Good Cause Corruption, it just becomes propaganda. Hari himself once said that he viewed his job as being a paid advocate for the causes he believed in, which might indicate some of the issues behind his journalism.'
Hari is a classic example of somebody who thinks facts and accuracy don't matter as long as you believe your cause is just.* He wrote a particularly offensive and inaccurate piece around the time of last year's Papal visit to England and Scotland, a piece which was carried far and wide, going no small way towards creating the poisonous atmosphere that surrounded that trip. As Caroline Farrow put it:
'This article was syndicated everywhere, even the Daily Mail published it, and it was responsible for a surge of criticism. Catholics everywhere were dismayed by Hari’s distortions, his hysteria and his patronising language. Hari’s implications were clear. Catholics were obviously very stupid if kindly and generally benign individuals who didn’t understand their own religion. Hari would condescendingly deign to explain to them what the Gospels really meant, what Jesus would really think and he would have absolutely no problem with them being Catholics, so long as they didn’t agree with a large portion of their Church’s teaching and they attempted to get their leader arrested on his say-so. “Catholics, I implore you” he bleated. If Catholics didn’t agree with him, they were either ignorant, bigots or defenders of child abuse, probably a mixture of all three, but to be despised at any rate.'

Zoompad said...

Others dismantled the article directly, whereas I used a day sick in bed to write an insanely long Facebook post so any friends of mine who were being fed lies by the likes of Hari, Richard Dawkins, Terry Sanderson, or Peter Tatchell could actually start to look at the facts for themselves.


I wrote a piece about him last February, but never posted it, mainly because I'd wanted to accompany it with an illustration I couldn't find. It strikes me that tonight, in the aftermath of Hari's mealy-mouthed and weasel-worded 'apology', might be a timely opportunity to post it, tweaked ever so slightly...



* * * * * * * * *
Unearthed from the Unused Pile...
I have a friend who once described his politics views as being left-wing, but not to the extent that he's able to read the Independent without occasionally wincing. Granted, the Independent is a mixed bag, and its columnists can be far from progressive in their opinions, and I'm not sure there's a better foreign correspondent out there than Robert Fisk, but I think my friend may have had the likes of Johann Hari in mind.

I'm no fan of Hari. I think he's a bore, and a sloppy one to boot, a journalist with no respect for factual accuracy. I don't think I've ever read a column by him that hasn't had me gritting my teeth in frustration at his claims. A few weeks ago, for instance, in an article which posed a decent question in response to one of Melanie Phillips' screeds, he claimed that:
'In every human society that has ever existed, and ever will, some 3 to 10 percent of the population has wanted to have sex with their own gender.'
The thing is, of course, that this statement is completely speculative. It's impossible to make such a claim with any degree of historical certainty. We have no statistical evidence for the prevalence of homosexuality in any societies other than, well, our own one for just the last half century or so. Hari's claim might well be right, but it's utterly unprovable.

Zoompad said...

The same article claims that Christian religious texts mandate bigotry against gay people -- even though there was no concept of 'gay people' or indeed of homosexuality as a distinct phenomenon in Biblical times, and then, in a rhetorical flourish claims those same religious texts that allegedly mandate bigotry against gay people, also laud a god who feeds small children to bears.


Elisha and the Bears
Now, I'm not for a moment saying that 2 Kings 2:23-24 isn't what a friend of mine has called 'a challenging passage', but it simply doesn't describe God feeding small children to bears.

It describes an episode in which the prophet Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, is accosted by a large gang of youths. The words the King James Bible translates as young children are the Hebrew words nah-ar and yeh-led; the former word means 'boys' and could be used to describe children, servants, soldiers, and even a man such as Isaac in his late twenties; the later means 'young men'. Elisha was being harassed by dozens of these young men. He prays for assistance, and two bears appear, attacking and mauling 42 of the youths; the sense of this is that were more than forty-two youths, and there's nothing in the story that says that the forty-two died.

Like I said, it's not an easy story to ponder, but it's certainly not a case of small children being fed to bears.

Zoompad said...

Because it's not okay to lie about Mormons either...
It goes on to say that until 1975, when the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, Mormons didn't believe black people had souls. This, of course, is nonsense too: Mormons certainly held that black people couldn't be priests in their church, but they never said they didn't have souls; furthermore, while they did change this policy in the 1970s, but this was in connection with them expanding into other countries and having to face the reality of largely black congregations. I'm not saying they weren't racist, just that they weren't racist in the way Hari claims. How on earth does he believe the American Supreme Court could ever be empowered to rule on the doctrines and beliefs of any religious group anyway? Does he do any research?


Or about Muslims...
Anyway, today he's off on one about the Anglican bishops in the House of Lords, as though this matters, putting the boot into Nick Clegg who he regards as a hypocrite for not getting rid of them, and indeed for considering expanding the numbers of Lords Spiritual by adding rabbis and imams etc.


Or about Anglicans.
I hold no candle for the Anglican Church, but I happen to think removing its bishops from Parliament would be a bad idea. Well, I think it'd be a bad idea for the United Kingdom; I think it might well be the making of the Church of England.

He opens with:

'Here's a Trivial Pursuit question with an answer that isn't at all trivial. Which two nations still reserve places in their parliaments for unelected religious clerics, who then get an automatic say in writing the laws the country's citizens must obey? The answer is Iran... and Britain.'
He means the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of course, but even so, this is a bit on the disingenuous side, isn't it? Presumably it's meant to make us think that the Iranian parliament is stuffed full of unelected Mullahs, whereas the reality is that there are five seats in the parliament reserved for unelected clerics from the 2% of Iranians who adhere to a religion other than Islam! The Mullahs hold the reins in other respects, of course, but not in Parliament.

Zoompad said...

As for the UK, sure, 26 out of 786 members of the House of Lords, which at this stage has power only to delay for a year the implementation of laws passed by the Commons, are indeed bishops of the Church of England, but I think a 3% presence in an essentially advisory chamber isn't something to worry about.

Onward he goes, claiming that the 26 Anglican bishops vote on the laws that bind us, whereas they usually just vote on a small number of them, and proclaiming that they 'use their power to relentlessly fight against equality for women and gay people'. There are many of things of which people can accuse the hierarchy of the Church of England, but putting all their efforts into misogyny and homophobia really isn't one of them.

Onward he burbles:

'But let's step back a moment and look at how all this came to pass. The bishops owe their places in parliament to a serial killer. Henry VIII filled parliament with bishops because they were willing to give a religious seal of approval to him divorcing and murdering his wives – and they have lingered on through the centuries since, bragging about their own moral superiority at every turn.'
Now, I'm no fan of Henry VIII, but to call him a serial killer for having had two people executed seems a bit -- well -- extravagant. But think about the general thesis here: we shouldn't have bishops in Parliament because Henry VIII, who was a nasty man, put them there. Well, look at the events that gave rise to the key features of the British Constitution: the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution. Should you throw them out because Cromwell was a genocidal nut and because James II was driven from his throne because he wanted to introduce freedom of religion?

And do the bishops really proclaim their moral superiority? Really? I'd like to see some quotes in support of this. Real ones, not ones Johann's just plucked out of his backside.

Speaking of which, he's shameless with his next claim:

Zoompad said...

'According to Christopher Hitchens, though I haven’t been able to source this quote elsewhere, in 1965, the then Archbishop of Canterbury (Michael Ramsey) scorned the people who were campaigning for nuclear-armed countries to step back from the brink, on the grounds that "a nuclear war would involve nothing more than the transition of many millions of people into the love of God, only a few years before they were going to find it anyway". A previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, is reported to have said something similar a few years earlier and it may be that these sentiments should be attributed to him instead. In 2008 the incumbent Rowan Williams, said it would be helpful if shariah law – with all its vicious misogyny, which says that women are worth half of a man – was integrated into British family courts.'
Look at that. He doesn't even bother to source his quotes. He just throws them out, like a loud teenager in a student bar, confident that if he shouts loud enough nobody will challenge him. And did Rowan Williams really say that it would be helpful if shariah law -- 'with all its vicious misogny' -- were integrated into British family courts? Or did he say that he thought the adoption of certain aspects of it might be helpful and was, in any case, inevitable? In fact, didn't he -- in making those comments -- explicitly speak out against the misogyny of some aspects of Shariah law?

I know, I know, you can prove anything with facts.

I could go on, but it's hard to struggle through the gibberish of a bigot who claims that the Anglican bishops' prime motivation is to deny equality to women and gays, and that their 'second greatest passion is to prevent you from being able to choose to end your suffering if you are dying.'

I'm pretty sure it's not. I'm pretty sure that if you asked them what they care most about they'd talk about Jesus, saving souls, evangelisation, and helping people here on earth. The phrase 'social justice' might come up. It's entirely popular that tea, cake, wine, gin, or football would appear too. 'Opposing euthanasia' probably wouldn't make their top ten, though they might well mention having a belief in the sanctity of human life, such that they believe it's wrong for anybody to end any human life unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

They might say that. I wouldn't put money on it.

Zoompad said...

And with that, I left the post to gather dust. I didn't get into how the bishops are chosen, or the fact that they can't vote in parliamentary elections, or what obligations are imposed on local Anglican churches by virtue of being established state churches. As far as I can see, the British State gains far more from having a tame established church than the Church of England gets out of being so established. Of course, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even were I drunk as a lord spiritual, I'd not be as wrong as Johann Hari.






*You know, like the Enda Kenny and the rest of the Irish Government, seemingly

Zoompad said...

2 comments:
Anonymous said...
Yes, Hari is an irremediably unctuous pipsqueak. From the slithering tone of his mea culpa it seems obvious that not only has he not learned anything, but that he is well on the way to recasting his misdemeanours as the foundation of a future, still more virtuous self; one that will be able to lecture us all the more effectively on truth and morality because, don't you know, unlike the pope say, he's learnt what he knows the hard way. Ass

And what a Hitchen’s toady he is! It brought to mind a great article by David Bentley Hart about just this type of vacuous smarmer. If you haven’t already, and you find the time, be my guest… http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not

September 15, 2011 10:24 PM
The Thirsty Gargoyle said...
Oh yes, that's a superb piece. I'd forgotten how good it was.

It's since been pointed out to me, and I must have been dozing when I first drafted that piece in February, that it wasn't Henry VIII who'd introduced bishops to the Lords. They'd been in the Lords since Edward III made parliament bicameral, and had been part of the older version of parliament too.

If anything, Henry had reduced the power of the clergy by getting rid of the abbots. Perhaps Hari would favour the restoration of their presence in parliament, as having been gotten rid of by somebody he disliked.

It's really hard to retain any respect for the Independent over this whole affair. If nothing else, though, it's always good to be reminded so forcefully of how paper doesn't refuse ink.

September 16, 2011 12:02 AM

Zoompad said...

FROM THE BLOG OF DOOM 10TH NOVEMBER 2011

"Anonymous said...
Leave these idiots to it.

If they think attacking Sir Philip Bailhache will go down well with the 17,000+ Jersey people who voted for him last month then it just demonstrates how thick these people actually are and that includes the deputies who think they speak for the people.

On another note, amazing how the white van men haven't taken Zoompad into care yet, the woman's trolling posts spread all other the blogs show she is totally mental. Perhaps for once Ian Evans does have a observation that can't be argued with?

November 10, 2011 "

Zoompad said...

Oooooh, haven't I just hit a raw nerve!

The Doomblogging Paedoscum are in a high state of dismay and consternation now, and are making oblique threats about setting the Courts of Corruption oops I mean Protection onto me (as they have done with Anne Greig).

Oh dear, what shall I do? I know, I think I will just tell my Heavenly Father, as I usually do when the big bad bullies plot against me! But he already knows, because he can see everything these nasty naughty boys do!

Well, I know what they've been up to now, all right, but, whats more important, so does Stuart, because I've told him!

PRAISE THE LORD!

Zoompad said...

FROM RICHARDWEBSTER.NET:

Sunday, 4 October 2009
'We have not a shred of evidence . . . '
THE TRUTH, IT WOULD seem, is finally out. As the result of the publication of another article by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday, we now know a great deal more about why Lenny Harper, the officer in charge of the Haut de la Garenne investigation in Jersey, embarked upon his sensational excavation of the grounds of the former children's home. Thanks to Rose and to Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Gradwell, who took over the reins of the investigation from Harper when he retired last August, we also know that there were very good reasons for not digging. These reasons were set out by a senior Jersey police officer just eleven days before the dig began.

On 12 February 2008 the senior officer in question made his own sober assessment of the state of the evidence in an email to Jersey forensic services manager Vicky Coupland. There was, in his view, no reason even to contemplate embarking on an excavation. 'We have not a shred of evidence to suggest there is anything there,' he wrote.
According to any 'reasoned assessment', the officer in question went on to write, it was hard to see how a child could have been buried in concrete in an institution full of children. There was also the near inevitability that any excavation would throw up a series of false trails which could only have the effect of diverting the inquiry from its real object - that of investigating allegations of sexual abuse, 'There is going to be blood from spotty teenagers,' the officer wrote in his email. 'We could end up being massively distracted by small bits of blood that have no relevance. In all the statements and intelligence we have not even a suggestion that there may be or have been bodies.'


So what was the identity of this senior Jersey police officer, who assessed the folly of embarking on an excavation so soberly and so well? Curiously enough it was none other than Lenny Harper himself.

Given Harper's momentary wisdom, the question which needs to be answered is how it was that he came to change his mind. Since Harper's original instincts were so sound, whose forensic intelligence took over and eventually came to drive the entire investigation? The picture at the beginning of this post provides a clue. For more details read David Rose's article.


Posted by RW at 09:25

Zoompad said...

3 comments:
Richard said...
Here we are in the middle of April 2010. Nothing has been done to bring Harper and Graham Power to book. Harper retired last August. Power remains suspended.He goes in July and the clock is ticking to that end, and yet questions remain as to why Power, as Chief Constable, didn't intervene or show any leadership, when his deputy was so obviously in control. Was Power constrained for some reason? Both have contributed to the rambling hate filled political blog of self exiled Senator Stuart Syvret.He has remained in London,despite a trivial driving license offence, supported by some very unworldly Liberal Democrat MP's.Though I doubt they support him now.Harper's lone investigation to seek murder, torture and complicate political pedophilia has cost Jersey dearly.The cost of that investigation is almost a third of the budget deficit.

17 April 2010 21:04
Gazza said...
http://thehautdelagarennefarce.blogspot.com/

11 July 2010 07:48
Richard said...
Now that the Wiltshire police report is out and clearly demonstrates a catastrophic failure in all aspects of the Jersey abuse enquiry and no culpability for those police officers, whom are allowed to retire on full pensions, something might be learnt in the future.

17 July 2010 00:08

Zoompad said...

"Anonymous said...
Only a matter of time before the staffordshire police get Zoompad sectioned I reckon.

November 10, 2011 "

Mora abuse directed at myself, from the Bloggers of Doom. All carefully saved.

Zoompad said...

"Anonymous said...
I am surprised the pipe fitter and Zoompad aren't an item yet, after all neither could do any better by the looks of it!

November 10, 2011 "

And yet another.

How is it that the police could come thundering round my house last year, for allegations of non existant emails I was supposed to have posted, and yet these devils post nasty bullying comments all day long and lines are drwan under it all?

As for Rico, he'd be a good catch for any young lady, he's clever, hardworking and nice, unlike the morons posting this bile.

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