Thursday, March 11, 2010 

Boycotting boycotts.

There are times when I wonder just what some of my blogging comrades have been smoking. Why else would some respond in such a vehement fashion to the decision of Total Politics magazine to interview Nick Griffin, of which they have a perfect right to do and which really ought to cause no ructions whatsoever?

To call the justifications and calls for a boycott of TP's blog awards piss-poor would be putting it far too kindly. As an extension of the "no platform" position, it errs on being arguable, until you note that "no platform" has been an ignoble failure. No platform not only fails to confront the BNP for what it is, it also gives them carte blanche to claim that they're persecuted simply for who they are and for what they stand for; adhered to not just by Labour but by others, it's doubtless helped to result in two BNP MEPs and their highest ever number of local councillors. Just what do those proposing a boycott of TP's blog awards hope to achieve through doing so?

It equally doesn't follow that allowing Griffin to appear in TP will be a "further acquiescence to the BNP message being accepted as a normal part of British political discourse". We don't know how TP is going to approach the interviewing of Griffin: one suspects that he's hardly going to be given a soft soap interview. It's also an attempt to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted: unfortunately, Griffin and the BNP now are a normal part of British political discourse, and that they haven't been before has only added to their lustre in any case.

Lastly, it's claimed that this doesn't fit with TP's mission statement to be “unremittingly positive about the political process”. Even if you don't accept that bringing the BNP into the political process to expose them for what they are is a good idea, then why shouldn't a magazine which is dedicated to politics interview the leader of what is a major political party even if it isn't necessarily positive? The grouping continues by arguing "[L]est we forget, this is a party which abuses that process". As opposed to our current representatives, held in the highest esteem by everyone, and whom would never sink to such levels of political skulduggery. Rather than getting involved in daft, half-baked boycotts, we'd be better putting our collective efforts into exposing the BNP's manifesto for the general election when it arrives, which might just achieve something. Letting Iain Dale hang himself with his own rope is in any event a far better option.

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008 

Time for a Diana-free zone.

With perhaps the exception of the campaign against apartheid South Africa, boycotts tend not to work, and the one I'm proposing here (somewhat prompted by this post by Roy Greenslade) most certainly won't. I've made a number of posts in the past about the undead princess, and the extraordinary press relationship which is now still going strong after ten years, but this week's latest non-revelations at the inquest into her death seem to have at long last turned a corner in some quarters.

As the Guardian leader points out, just what does the fact that Diana's mother called her a whore have to do with her daughter's death? That she is now also dead, and probably still insulting her child for going around with "effin Muslim men" in a distant corner of hell while hopefully being sodomised with a ladle makes it even less relevant. The latest supposed amazing piece of new information that has emerged is that the police didn't bother to investigate a complaint from Diana that she feared being bumped off. That they most likely already had contingency plans for protecting her and treated it with the contempt that such narcissistic paranoia deserved isn't worthy of a mention.

It's time therefore in my view that we initiate a complete boycott of any mentions of Diana or the inquest from now on - and completely ignore the farce continuing at immense cost for the benefit only of Mohamed Al-Fayed and the tabloid press which plagued her until her dying day. The Grauniad ought to practice what it preaches and cease any coverage, although it deserves to be congratulated for its far from serious or sincere reporting of what has been going on by Stephen Bates. Al-Fayed's other main reason for demanding this circus, apart from his vendetta against the establishment for refusing him a passport is his endless lust for publicity; without it his ignorant and insulting conspiracy theories would never have reached such a wide audience, even if most rightly reject them and are similarly disgusted by the continuing almost necrophilia-like obsession of the popular press. Stopping perpetuating it in any way, including even mocking it, is more likely to bring this tasteless, morbid and revolting spectacle to an end than anything else.

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Friday, August 10, 2007 

Another petition.

Via Justin and Tim W:
“I will boycott any company that wins a contract to deliver the National ID card but only if 500 other people will do the same.”

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