From the Telegraph, WOW! MPs should stop whining about abuse from online trolls and celebrate free speech

Democracy doesn’t just mean putting an X in a box once every four years — it also means allowing everyone to express their opinion, however rough and ugly it might be

'Stop the War' supporters protest against plans to extend the UK air strikes against Isil from Iraq into Syria, in Parliament Square, London Photo: LNP

By Brendan O'Neill
11:35AM GMT 07 Dec 2015

So, now we know what MPs really think of their constituents, and of the public more broadly: that we are insufferable trolls whose political anger has no place in public life.

That’s the take-home message of the bizarre moral panic over the trolling of MPs following the Commons vote on bombing Syria.


"The redefinition of political anger as trolling, and messaging MPs as bullying, is utterly unacceptable"
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MPs who voted in favour of bombing have faced what they call “online trolling”: irate and abusive messages on Twitter and Facebook from anti-war people.
And like overgrown school telltales — those kids who'd run to teacher if someone so much as cracked a blue joke in their presence — they’re complaining about being “bullied”.

Look, it is not okay to send death threats to your MP, or anybody else. That is ugly and also illegal. Any of the angry-about-Syria folks who have done that need to get a grip, or a slap.

A 23-year-old man has been charged with sending a “malicious message” via Facebook, reportedly a death threat, to an MP who voted for bombing. If that’s true, then the guy’s an idiot.

But a lot of what is being splashed across the papers as “abuse and intimidation” is not death threats: it’s just colourful, furious political criticism.

It’s the kind of scabrous, leader-mocking commentary that has been a key, brilliant feature of British political life for centuries, from when the radical 18th-century hack John Wilkes stirred up the democracy-yearning mob with tales of sexually depraved priests and politicians to the recent re-imagination of David Cameron as a fornicator with pigs.
  Photo: Paul S Jakubovic/Instagram


Some MPs have been sent photos of injured or dead children from warzones, with messages like, “Remember this image”. That might not be big or clever, but it is a political comment — a visceral one.

Other examples of so-called trolling have included pro-bombing Labour MPs being branded “traitors” and “warmongers”.
Labour MPs have complained about receiving messages calling them “Red Tories”, “baby killers” and “mass murderers”.
None of those insults is a well-thought-through critique of Western interventionism in the Middle East, no. But they all fall into the category of political fury, political speech.

The insanity of the trolling panic is captured by this line in a newspaper report about the alleged horrors faced by Labour MPs: “Far-left campaigners have labelled them ‘warmongers’.”

I’m sorry, but if you think being called a “warmonger” is bullying, then you probably aren’t cut out for the rough, tumble and occasional madness of political life.


"Churchill called politicians ugly. Michael Foot called Norman Tebbit a 'semi-trained polecat'. Ken Livingstone said Thatcher was scarier than a serial killer"
[url=http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text="Churchill called politicians ugly. Michael Foot called Norman Tebbit a %27semi-trained polecat%27. Ken Livingstone said Thatcher was scarier than a serial killer"&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/12036977/MPs-should-stop-whining-about-abuse-from-online-trolls-and-celebrate-free-speech.html?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_pq_tw_20150423?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_pq_tw_20150423][/url]

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In the late 1960s, anti-Vietnam War protesters chanted about US President Lyndon B Johnson: “Hey, hey, LBJ / How many kids did you kill today?”

They were branding Johnson a kid-killer, calling him a murderer. Trolling? Abuse? Or just political fire?

The extent to which the trolling-of-MPs thing has been a moral panic is clear from how much myth and misinformation built up in a matter of days.

Media reports told us that anti-war protesters gathered at the home of Labour MP Stella Creasy. They didn’t.
Conservative MP Lucy Allan caused a stir when she revealed she received an email from a constituent angry about her support for action in Syria, which ended with the lines, “[T]here is no hope. Until you die.”

But it turns out the emailer never said, “Until you die”. Allan added that bit. To my mind, such dishonesty from an elected parliamentarian is infinitely more worrying than the fact that some members of the public say maddening things online.

Labour MPs have said that abuse has “no place in politics”. But this is categorically untrue. Abuse, insults, barbs — they've been the lifeblood of politics for centuries.

Benjamin Disraeli said of William Gladstone: “If he fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune. If anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity.” Death threat? Or just biting commentary? It really isn’t very different to what some of the angry-about-Syria people have been saying to MPs.

Asked about his regrets, the seventh President of the US, Andrew Jackson, said “that I didn’t hang John C Calhoun” (his vice president). He’d be arrested today.

Churchill called politicians ugly. Michael Foot called Norman Tebbit a “semi-trained polecat”. Ken Livingstone said Thatcher was scarier than a serial killer. Tory MP Alan Clark wondered if Douglas Hurd might have a “corn cob up his arse”. Slings, attacks, cusses: the stuff of politics.


It is thought — but not proven — that the “abuse” of Labour MPs who voted for bombing has been orchestrated by Momentum, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaigning arm. Corbyn’s deputy Tom Watson branded these people a “rabble”.
There. That R-word sums up what is motoring the hissy fit over ugly tweets: a fear of the rabble, the blob, the little people with their coarse tongues.

The political fear of trolls is indistinguishable from when those 18th-century MPs looked out their windows at the pro-Wilkes mob demanding democratic rights and almost puked into their teacups.

The redefinition of political anger as trolling, and messaging MPs as bullying, is utterly unacceptable. It is a stab at sanitising political life. It’s about ringfencing our leaders from the plebs. No way. Democracy doesn’t just mean putting an X in a box once every four years — it also means allowing everyone to express their opinion, however rough and ugly it might be.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/12036977/MPs-should-stop-whining-about-abuse-from-online-trolls-and-celebrate-free-speech.html?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_pq_tw_20150423

Struck a chord with me, as I had a furious run-in with Tom Watson today lol

Muslim convert threatened to drop bomb on MP's house over Syria vote


A Muslim convert threatened to drop a bomb on an MP's house and "show her what it's like to murder innocents" after she voted in favour of Syria air strikes.Craig Wallace, 23, appeared in court charged with the offence of malicious communications, after launching a tirade of abuse on Facebook aimed at Tory MP Charlotte Leslie, who represents Bristol North West."I'm going to smash her windows then drop a bomb on her house while she's tucked up in bed. You dirty f****** pig-shagging slut," he wrote."I'm going to find her and show her what it's like to murder innocents. You dirty pig-f****** whore," he said in a second post on December 3, the day after MPs voted to authorise the air strikes.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12038214/Muslim-convert-threatened-to-drop-bomb-on-MPs-house-over-Syria-vote.html

perhaps you could aim your comments at veya, sassy
HE's the one who whould stifle freedom of opinion more than anyone else on here....

Lord Foul wrote:perhaps you could aim your comments at veya, sassy
HE's the one who whould stifle freedom of opinion more than anyone else on here....

Up to Veya what Veya does, and I don't think he stifles opinion, think he tells it exactly as he sees it, that doesn't stifle anyone.  Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't.  He always makes me want to shout YAY though lol

no, just HE would bomb the EDL??

see he;s all for freedom of opinion...as long as its HIS opinion

Lord Foul wrote:no, just HE would bomb the EDL??

see he;s all for freedom of opinion...as long as its HIS opinion

He said he would bomb the EDL?  Didn't see that but sound like Veya lol.   Personally I'd find a very large hole and dump them in it to fight it out between themselves.  I have a preconceived well established bias against idiots and fools, and they fit the description beautifully.

sassy wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:no, just HE would bomb the EDL??

see he;s all for freedom of opinion...as long as its HIS opinion

He said he would bomb the EDL?  Didn't see that but sound like Veya lol.   Personally I'd find a very large hole and dump them in it to fight it out between themselves.  I have a preconceived well established bias against idiots and fools, and they fit the description beautifully.

Yes, he did say that. I said he was inciting violence against British citizens.

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:

He said he would bomb the EDL?  Didn't see that but sound like Veya lol.   Personally I'd find a very large hole and dump them in it to fight it out between themselves.  I have a preconceived well established bias against idiots and fools, and they fit the description beautifully.

Yes, he did say that. I said he was inciting violence against British citizens.

Well, if he wanted to incite violence against British citizens, the EDL seem a good place to start lol

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Yes, he did say that. I said he was inciting violence against British citizens.

Well, if he wanted to incite violence against British citizens, the EDL seem a good place to start lol

If someone said that Muslims should be blown up, they'd probably be banned.