Douglas Murray on denunciations and Lawrence Fox

[BovaryX]

Douglas Murray takes aim at the cancel culture and denunciation tactics at the heart of # no debate. Those who try to control and police what people think and say have dominated public discourse to its detriment. Many are aware of the existential threat to freedom of speech this faction represents.

Nothing that Fox said on Question Time was at all controversial. He suggested that the Labour party leader might be selected on merit and he suggested that Britain is not a racist country. Both these sentiments are held by the majority of the public. Yet so dominant have the minority-opinion pushers become that many people are persuaded that it would not just be career-damaging but socially fatal to say anything to the contrary. Even when that thing is the truth

"he (LF) is doing a gig in Bristol in February. Why is that? The most liberal city in the UK. For negative publicity.

He is seeking to be a poster boy for his own gain. That's all."

That really is clutching at straws to build a straw man!

LF is on a UK Tour: Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, London, Nottingham, Oxford, Brighton.

He is on tour because he has just released an Album

The contents show why he would be an obvious choice for Question Time as it would appear that they were looking for an anti-woke foil to identitarian orthodoxy.

I searched for "Laurence Fox UK Tour" and there were many results about the tour before I came to one that was about a specific venue: Oxford, due to his role in "Lewis".

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18147786.tvs-lewis-star-laurence-fox-returns-oxford-musician---taking-politically-correct-brigade/

"The album, called A Grief Observed, was written by Fox and contains lyrics and songs which reflect his personal experiences and thoughts over the past few years.

The album is a politically charged follow up to his previous album Holding Patterns.

One of the songs on the album, which goes by the name The Distance, was written as a form of backlash towards the rise of political correctness in the UK, and what Laurence perceives to be a decrease in freedom of expression.

Laurence says of the song: “This is about the desire to stifle expression. “To salute only the present orthodoxy; the dangers of throwing away old wisdoms in order not to offend the perpetually offended. It’s my attempt at an anthem in praise of free expression and how it takes people listening together to make a difference in life."

"The Distance" is a duet with Izo Fitzroy, who IMHO is much the better vocalist of the two!

They have put something in the water
They seek a cure for the conversation
They stole a march on your indecision

And the first to fall is laughter
Just to quell the unoffended
They seek to murder your opinion

And the light has been turned down on the age of reason
Replaced by blinding fires that burn wild across the region
For the wrong to rule
The good must just stand idly by

So I need you more than ever
Need your hands in this resistance
If we're going to go the distance
And if I ever doubt it
I think about my future
And if i want to live there

And the world outside is wondrous wide for a reason
If you can't decide, you must blow your own mind for that reason
For the wrong to rule
The good must just stand idly by
And that's no lie

It can be hard to know what feeling
What with all the lies that you're reading
If it's hard to say, you may mean it

Don't be lost thinking about tomorrow
When today is what you are living
Make today your new beginning

The light has been turned down on the age of reason
Replaced by blinding fires that burn wild across the region
For the wrong to rule
The good must just stand idly by

So I need you more than ever
Need your hands in this resistance
If we're going to go the distance
And if I ever doubt it
I think about my future
And if i want to live there

And the world outside is wondrous wide for a reason
If you can't decide, you must blow your own mind for that reason
For the wrong to rule
The good must just stand idly by
And that's no lie

So I need you more than ever
Need your hands in this resistance
If we're going to go the distance
And if I ever doubt it
I think about my future
And if i want to live there

Laurence Fox's Twitter feed is hilarious! @LozzaFox

He has been having a "spat" with the fictional Jarvis Dupont, who responded with this:

Jarvis Dupont: "All @LozzaFox has to do is crawl naked on his belly through a pile of horse shit while PoCs throw rocks at him as he screams: ‘I’M SORRY FOR WHAT I DID. PLEASE FORGIVE MY WRONG SPEAK. I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON.’ But he won't do it."

linking to this article:

"Laurence Fox made me go into hiding"
I called the FBI but so far they have not called me back

spectator.us/laurence-fox-made-hiding/

L Fox replied: "That’s FUCKING IT! The death threats I can take, but for @SpectatorUSA to give a platform to this deluded leftist horse snatch is TOO MUCH. I call on any and all advertisers of this once great magazine to withdraw their support immediately."

Pink News has joined in, suggesting that Fox was unaware that Jarvis DuPont is a parody account and reprinting some of the insults they were flinging at each other

"Laurence Fox – the white man who thinks racism is ‘boring’ – is now deliberately misgendering a fictional trans woman"
Archive version - so you do not have add to Penis News' viewer stats:
archive.ph/1jklk

I hope Fox's tweets are being archived in case he gets taken down - way funnier than Ricky Gervais. Unlike Gervais, it is obvious that he isn't doing this for comedy effect - he genuinely finds the wokerati belly-achingly amusing and does not give a flying f&ck what anyone thinks!

LF is also offering a prize for the best roast of his music

twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1219272135585280001

Laurence Fox - The Distance via @YouTube

ticketmaster.co.uk/laurence-fox-tickets/artist/1831834…

Hope to see you there. 2 free tickets to any venue for the person who comes up with the best roast of my music. 😘😘

@BovaryX the same visceral contempt for Leave voters up North described as "gammon" which lost Labour the election.

BovaryX the same visceral contempt for Leave voters up North described as "gammon" which lost Labour the election

Absolutely. Meanwhile, in other news, an Oxford historian who specializes in the working class and women requires security because she has been threatened by trans activists. Professor Selina Todd has been subjected to a campaign of malicious complaints and threats by people who don't like her research conclusions and her feminist analysis. This is happening in the 21st century, in one of the world's premier universities. On the anniversary of George Orwell's death

This should provoke outrage in anyone concerned with freedom of speech, academic freedom and the increasing misogynistic bullying of women. Which isn't condemned. But encouraged. The aim is submission and compliance Thinking of speaking out against the new orthodoxy? Some want to make that impossible. Pour encourager les autres

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/oxford-university-professor-given-security-guards-lectures-threats/

Amara123
How do you explain Chinese (or East Asian) privilege then? Because they do better than anyone in the nasty Wacist West. Why is starting out with relatively nothing and still doing well in life only a problem for certain ethnicities?
White privlege does not exist.

I note a comment below the Murray article which quotes Suzanne Moore:
"I live in London but I leave it often enough to know that parts of the country are pretty white, enough to scare my "white" children because they are just not used to such a monoculture and find it disturbing, unreal and, to be frank, lacking.". The Guardian has been churning out this nonsense for years and now we get the backlash which means years of Tory rule.

This contempt for the working class perhaps first gained currency with Blair and immigration. David Blunkett put it well.

"The sillier end of the Labour Party has always been the best ally of the Conservatives. All my time in politics has shown me that when a party moves away from the concerns of ordinary people it fails.

As a politician in Sheffield, I know that people can be both worried about the effects of uncontrolled immigration and yet welcoming to the newcomers they encounter. Fear and reality are often two very different things."

Whatever someone's views on immigration were, it would be hard to deny that there were huge impacts on some agricultural market towns and the poorer areas of some cities, whose character changed rapidly. Though equally there were benefits, for example it could be argued that immigration improved some London schools by raising aspiration. Unfortunately the topic, and thus the detail, became #nodebate, with policy seemingly driven by a left wing middle class urban elite. Any working class dissenters were written off as racist, yet these were the people who in most cases were welcoming their new colleagues, neighbours and school mates. The failure to debate did not help ensure policy around key social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and housing was properly influenced by people's concerns.

Voting Brexit or Tory has looked like the best way to be heard. As the Brexit results came in a senior Labour politician said on TV that Labour needed to start listening. The journalist reminded him/her that the same had been said at the previous election, when did Labour plan to start?

I don't think they have started yet. On too many topics the urban elite seem to be relying on their own ideology, restricting conversation and name calling rather than listening.

People are not stupid. I have just spent a decade responsible for a mother, never an easy character, living with dementia. My brother, very active within his left-leaning London CLP, did virtually nothing. (Ok his wife once tweeted something about how important it was to value our elderly, but that was about it.) I did it, in part, to demonstrate to my own children the importance of family and thus viewed Meghan, to the extent that she had any relevance, from that perspective. Racist? If you say so, perhaps. In the same way that voting Brexit because you are concerned about the democracy and direction of the EU project makes you racist.

Then the #nodebate around TWAW. If there is a need to amend the GRA let's talk. What are the concerns? Is the need based on the £100.00 fee, some dodgy suicide stats and a desire to be validated. I assume not, though its hard to hear the rest above the shouting. Equally let's hear women's voices on the subject of risks and safeguarding. Transphobic? If you say so.

I don't know much about Fox and am not that interested in him. However I get his frustration about controlled language and the use of name calling rather than debate. And I get the frustration of northern voters who felt the need to vote Tory.

Weirdly, and despite all the research resources available to them, there seems to be no indication that the Labour leadership candidates, understand at all. That learning from election results, promised so long ago, has yet to happen.

@Needmoresleep. Excellent post. Anyone who had any scepticism about the direction of the EU was deemed a heretic or a racist or, perhaps worse, a fascist. Though the EU is very lenient when it comes to the behaviour of the Polish and Hungarian Governments.

would object publicly to the daft use of “Asian

Someone already has. Hardeep Singh was accused of being in the BNP by the usual foaming hysterics on Twitter

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/its-time-to-have-an-honest-conversation-about-asian-grooming-gangs/

That is from The Times. One of the most shocking things about this case is that the girls in care were deliberately targeted because of their vulnerability

I agree with much of what you say, but it's important to remember that most of the grils were not in care, and that in some cases SS only became involved when the parents of the girls requested it.

Hardeep Singh's critique needs to be taken one step further. Islam is the common factor amongst the groomers. And institutional misogyny the common factor within the police, social services and the way in which the victims and whistleblowers were treated.

I never said most of the girls However, one third of the 1400 Rochdale victims had social service involvement. That is significant. The Jay Report specifically refers to a recurrent theme being girls picked up from children's homes The victims of this systematic sexual abuse were deliberately targeted because of their social and economic vulnerability

Is Hardeep Singh the same as Hardeep "Handy" Singh Kohli?

If so, I wonder why he's dropped the Kohli?

Nauticant
I have just googled and from what I can make out, yes it seems to be. I still think he makes a fair point in the article, but was pretty surprised by that.

Yes, he's talking sense in that article BovaryX.

These days I find it quite liberating to agree with what's said even if I'm not keen on who is saying it.

These days I find it quite liberating to agree with what's said even if I'm not keen on who is saying it

Absolutely agree nauticant though I was surprised by it. I think it's particularly liberating because of the immediate reversion to ad hominems which defines much of the #no debate squad......

I never said most of the girls However, one third of the 1400 Rochdale victims had social service involvement. That is significant. The Jay Report specifically refers to a recurrent theme being girls picked up from children's homes The victims of this systematic sexual abuse were deliberately targeted because of their social and economic vulnerability

Yes it is significant but how many of those girls with social services involvement had none prior to being victims of the gangs. The reason some had SS involvement in the first place was directly because they were victims of the gangs. Some parents begged SS to take their girls into care and hide them away.

I fear this labelling of the girls as 'vulnerable' detracts from the predatory nature of the perpetrators and suggest that only vulnerable girls of a certain socio economic status are at risk. Which is not the case.

Video from House of Lords question on grooming gangs. Scroll through to
B Williams response at 1 min - vulnerable girls are the problem and crimes committed by people not men.

Racist? If you say so, perhaps. In the same way that voting Brexit because you are concerned about the democracy and direction of the EU project makes you racist.

What I don't get is I have read several articles in left win publications saying that many people in these smaller towns were happy about the longer standing ethnic communities in their towns, and these articles very much took the approach that gosh, aren't these people stupid, they don't realise that the people in this other community are black and come from immigrant stock too, so as racists they should also reject them.

When the obvious explanation is the issue isn't really about race or being from some other place, and that is why the people are differentiating.

I note a comment below the Murray article which quotes Suzanne Moore:
"I live in London but I leave it often enough to know that parts of the country are pretty white, enough to scare my "white" children because they are just not used to such a monoculture and find it disturbing, unreal and, to be frank, lacking.". The Guardian has been churning out this nonsense for years and now we get the backlash which means years of Tory rule.

Why do you think this is "nonsense" MsSafina?

I grew up in a very "white" part of the UK, rural and small market towns. However, the nearest big cities were within easy travelling distance and very ethnically diverse.

I moved to London in my 20's. For the usual reason of horrendous problems finding anywhere to live with rental agreements longer than 6 months, I moved around a lot in London over the next 10 years. When I first lived in areas where white faces were very few and far between, I found it a bit strange to begin with.

Then I moved to one of the least ethnically diverse cities in the UK and I found that strange and, after many years, I still do. It was not just the "visuals" but finding that local music radio was dominated by heavy rock rather than reggae - that was a big loss as far as I was concerned and very "lacking".

My mother visited me soon after I moved there and I took her around the city centre to show her the sights. After about 30 minutes she stopped dead in her tracks and said, "Well! I don't think much of this as a "City"!" When I asked her what she meant, she said, "Where are all the black people?!"

Some years ago (10? 20?) I read an article about aspects of this stereotype in the UK, ie. "Black people live in cities; Cities are where black people live; Black people are 'out of place' in the countryside." It brought me up short because I suddenly remembered when I lived for a year out of London in a small, ethnically diverse city, where I had a black boyfriend and was sharing a house with two white women and two black men.

The six of us used to go out together, usually playing tennis, and there were couple of "wind up the racists" games we used to play to amuse ourselves. The "winter game" was to go to random country pubs and stroll in chatting. Without fail, everyone would turn their backs on us and the bar staff would stride off leaving no one to serve us. The "game" was to see how many ash trays and empty glassed we could steal while chatting noisily to each other, admiring the decor, speculating on how old the building was, etc. then exiting still chatting, ashtrays and glasses stuffed in our pockets and under our coats

The "summer game" was visiting posh, rural tennis clubs in our tennis whites to make the Club Secretaries squirm. Leaving the boys in the car, us three girls would go in carrying rackets, swishing our blonde locks and batting our eyelashes, asking if we could enrol as members and were there any courts free so we could play right then as visitors?.

Every time, we would have some slavering old git fawning over us and bringing the Visitors Book to sign us in. At which point, one of us would call go out and call to the boys that we were in luck and we could join and play, while the other two cooed their thanks and explained that we wanted to play mixed-doubles.

In walked the lads and we would just stand and watch the squirming and back-pedalling, "mistake, fully booked, not taking any new members at the moment, etc." Then we would head back to play on the Council Courts.

Having said ALL that - when I was living there I was driving through the surrounding countryside to work one day and in the middle of nowhere passed a black man waiting at a bus stop. It was such an unusual sight that my mouth fell open!

So, I do not find the comment quoting Suzanne Moore unbelievable "nonsense" though the language is a bit "pass the smelling salts!".

I do not find it odd to suggest that people, adults or children, notice dramatic changes in their environment that are out of kilter with their expectations.

If they notice that something is "missing" then they would, by definition, perceive that as something "lacking".

Would they find it "disturbing"? They did not expect to find themselves outside their "comfort zone" so maybe they did find it unsettling?

"Unreal"? Perhaps they had had until then what amounts to a parochial upbringing, although I am pretty sure that that is not how a Guardian journalist would characterise growing up inside the M25. If true that they did find it "unreal" then it was not before time that they were taken out of their bubble to experience the diversity of "lived experience" in the UK.

Children in those "white" parts of the UK that Moore refers to might well have had more experience of visiting places in the UK with greater obvious, visual, ethnic diversity than her children had of "white" parts of the UK. In which case, they would have a better understanding of diversity within the UK than her children and be better equipped to function comfortably wherever they found themselves.

Moore's language overly dramatic language made me think of the CEO of the Lake District National Park, who is fretting that the visitor profile is not more "ethnically diverse". Maybe he should also be be putting on "therapeutic diversity" holidays for the children of white Guardian Journalists, with psychotherapists on call in case they get too disturbed and detached from reality??

“ I live in London but I leave it often enough to know that parts of the country are pretty white, enough to scare my "white" children because they are just not used to such a monoculture and find it disturbing, unreal”

Did Suzanne Moore really say that? That’s shocking if she did.

No wonder Fox is getting death threats. That’s the pattern isn’t it...speak out, get death threats, pipe down because of your family. What an awful place we’re in.

Complaining about lack of diversity in a single place is a little weird, isn't it? If I head off to Nairobi, or to some rural town in Japan, I'd be kind of an ass to complain there aren't enough white people to make it diverse. (Actually I have a vivid memory of some elderly relatives complaining about Nairobi being taken over by the natives which I found quite shocking at the time. )