Owen Jones has relentlessly persecuted women online, including his own colleagues. An external investigator brought in by The Guardian has found him guilty of bullying a female columnist.

It's not even a draft of the statement.

The quotation marks suggest it's a draft of someone reporting what he or she heard an unnamed "Guardian spokesman" say.

Yep, that's looking like a draft, via email.

Do we have any confirmation that statement originated with the Guardian and not on the laptop of someone with a vested interested in defending their reputation?

Cross-post.

So this is not the final read-only version at all, and we have not even seen one of those yet. I think that's significant.

Be right back, I've just got to type up a really incredible reference about myself...

Looking again, is that a grammatical reminder to tell the reader/writer that there should be a comma after story?

So this could be a screenshot of a document that isn't cleared for public release yet.

I reckon it's just a grammar check in whatever software the statement was written in. Probably wants a comma after "story" or similar.

LOJ is being uncharacteristically quiet over on Twitter.

I wonder if he's taking some time out to have a little think.

He comes across as such a petulant child
Which is rather unedifying in a man approaching his forties.

"it’s about class. Owen went to Oxford and was a bag carrier in Westminster before being handed a national newspaper column. So many of these hard-Left types have no life experience and it shows."

There's a longer version of the Jones/ Nimco Ali encounter where Jones talks about his friends who grew up in poverty and Nimco comes back with, "you saw it, I lived it". Later he says, 'These are people I grew up with, my community" to which Nimco replies, "you grew up with them, I was them." Just perfect.

From about 7.15 onwards: www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50728428

Also, (from the clip), "I grew up under a Conservative government." Owen Jones was twelve when the Blair government came to power. All his teenage years were spent under a Labour government. He did not grow up under the Tories. He is lying.

Suzanne makes a really good point in one of her tweets - either you believe countless women or you believe one man.

Interesting that she specifically names Hadley Freeman too:
It’s a place where writers like me and Hadley Freeman can no longer be columnists.
I've seen Hadley make veiled references to what it's like at the Guardian but nothing as outspoken as that - presumably she's bound by their social media code. I'm guessing Suzanne wouldn't have written that without her say-so.

Certainly his social circle seems to stick to a particular demographic - ‘Ladz Ladz Ladz’ with the occasional visit from Ash Sarkar. That article is brilliant, by the way.

This is interesting in Suzanne's piece:

"it’s about class. Owen went to Oxford and was a bag carrier in Westminster before being handed a national newspaper column. So many of these hard-Left types have no life experience and it shows."

When you put that next to the lack of interest in women's issues that she sets out, and the problems of social media at work - perhaps especially in a place of work where you use it for work - there's a depth to what seems to have gone on.

Anyone who's worked with someone who is on paper very bright will recognise what happens when that kind of academic experience leading to some cushy number comes up against Real Job With People Who've Been Around The Block.

They get told no. They discover they're not as amazing and brilliant as they'd always found themselves to be. And that can lead to an actually bright and knowledgeable woman who they could learn from but instead decide is Wrong and Evil and must be punished firmly in their firing line.

Go Suzanne Moore

He doesn't like a black working class woman disagreeing with him; he needs her to perform according to his script or it undermines everything. I guess that's why he went on repeatedly about the homophobic slur (as if it had been Nimco who'd used it rather than Boris Johnson) - he's trying to make the point that he's also oppressed. Otherwise it'd just be a privileged white boy berating a black working class woman, which would not look great.

Which is a bit of a reach given that OJ was only 13 when that article was written.

[quote NotBadConsidering]Suzanne Moore has written about it:

unherd.com/2022/04/how-the-guardian-enables-owen-jones/[/quote]
She's taken her gloves off and gives no fucks now!

Suzanne Moore has written about it:

unherd.com/2022/04/how-the-guardian-enables-owen-jones/

I do wonder if the guardian spokesperson has the initials "O" and "J"

He doesn't like a black working class woman disagreeing with him; he needs her to perform according to his script or it undermines everything. I guess that's why he went on repeatedly about the homophobic slur (as if it had been Nimco who'd used it rather than Boris Johnson) - he's trying to make the point that he's also oppressed. Otherwise it'd just be a privileged white boy berating a black working class woman, which would not look great.

The other thing is how shallow he is. He just doesn't listen. He has no ability to think; it's all knee jerk responses and one eye on the optics. Tedious. He's a bright lad, if he actually stopped worrying about how he looks and took time to maybe think a bit he might one day mature into someone who is passionate and sensitive and able to contribute something to the world.

Or he might just fade into shock-jock youtubing obscurity.

Unless any other news outlet picks this up, we may have to wait another fortnight for an update from Private Eye.

Is there any sign of the statement that OJ posted a shot of on Twitter on the Guardian's website, or anywhere else? It's not listed on their press releases page on the site. How is it a statement if it's not actually been circulated by the Guardian?

I went back and read the thread about his spat with Sali Hughes. I'd forgotten about that. Sali isn't even (as far as I'm aware) a gc feminist. He just seems to hate everyone. I expect he'd have a fight with his own reflection if he could.