My mate, Spiral, said that the best way to combat the fear of action from the people one reports on, is to make them up. Even the UK courts would have trouble awarding damages to a fictional character.

@Chir0n

I'm sure Spud Middleton can speak for himself, but I'll guess he "spends so much time reading and critiquing Ms Penny" because he is decent working class left fed up of the realm of left wing thought being eaten up by a middle class, self absorbed, hyperbolic fruitloop like Miss Penny. Has she ever written anything in the Staggers that might have the slightest relevance to, say, a builder's labourer in Cannock? No it's all about her student mates playing revolutionaries, whinging that the police are doing their jobs, with a few film noir scenes of these cool cats smoking (sometimes weed, wow!) and coming out with something "profound" she's clearly thought up afterwards.

Where I grew up we had a phrase for it, and that phrase was "pretentious tossers".

I'm reading the Cohen book...I'd thoroughly recommend it. You could learn a lot from it Laurie..like not making up imaginary stereotypes to fit your narratives...you know the sort of thing...like the ongoing picaresque outings of your 'anarchist friends'.

"Why British journalists are taught to be dishonest..."

...or did someone teach you that you should do that?

Was it Johan Hari?

Test: I know where you coming from and fully empathise. There do need to be more left-leaning, working class commentators, but find me someone that fits the bill.

The bigger issues behind whether or not we can reconcile liberal freedom with the right of others to feel offence are key here - there's a great debate with sociologist Frank Furedi, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, and historian Lord Robert Skidelsky on the limits of freedom. http://iai.tv/video/limits-to-liberty

What do people think?

"Bought a ticket to see her talk about Karl Marx at the ICA. Not sure what to expect now"

I bought a ticket to see Ricky Hatton give a talk on medieval Flemish tapestry at the ICA...I suspect you're in for a similar experience.

A very candid piece of commentary. I remember listening to Ian Hislop speaking at a select committee (I think it was) highlighting how investigative journalism was being stifled. I remember the point he made that local papers simply wouldn't touch it because of the potential costs.

chir()n

#I'm curious - if this is how you feel about her work, why do you spend so much time reading and critiquing Ms Penny?#

You kidding...she's just one of five I have a go at...two allegedly of 'the left', a self-righteous 'progressive' philosopher who couldn't actually choose a side or take a stand if a fuckin axe-wielding psycho was battering down his door to turn his kids into mince..."Can we honestly call him evil...his brain is wired differently...what is evil?...it would make as much sense to hate him as to hate a hungry wolf who..." blah fuckin blah..

and a couple of Tories...and now and again I nip on Guido Fawkes to trade obscenities with one of its more extreme correspondents...I don't spend that long as it goes...sorta 10 minute slots...it's cheap, entertaining and a lot more rewarding than watching the telly... I tend to lay off if there's a book I'm really into or working nights.

Oh penny baby what a tangled web we weave, our whole society is based on dishonesty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Kjtp4sA9E..cheer yourself up spud you misery guts.

"But Spud, anytime you want to set up a 'Pepsi' challenge. I'm willing to give it a shot"

I'll have to have a think about that...it was more rhetorical tbh...apart from anything else you could just whack each paragraph into google and find who wrote it. Mind you I think you're right...this is getting a bit pointless; I mean, she is what she is...much as the whole thing might irritate me, it all comes down to other people's credulity and the seeming determination of media organisations to recruit their talking heads from the same small incestuous middle-class Oxbridge pool.

Mind you it'll always grate on me that Laurie Penny and the great liberal herd have coopted and appropriated 'the Left' to their own selfish small-minded ends; stripping it of all notions and concepts of class. It's as though a crack team of deconstructions chefs have taken egg and chips and remodelled it devoid of any potato based or poultry derived components.

It might be thought gauche in some effete circles but I'm never gonna be able to just sit there and act as though everything's normal and cool. At some point you've gotta say "Yeah, but what have you done with the fuckin egg and...I want some chips you useless bourgeois tossers."

stuart

I'm not miserable...far from it...had a good week...knocked off at half one today...home...kip...big dinner etc. Off to pub in 10 minutes. If you're lucky I'll probably be back around half elevenish to call you a few Belgian-lager-inspired expletives. Up the Workers-Down-the-Stella...Vive-la-Kebab...God's in his heaven and all's well with the world...oh- except for the slapped-arse visage of every radical-chic Oxbridge pseudo-anarchist who can't quite grow up.

I offered it you on a plate Spud and you jibbed it. You could have picked anything that predates the riots or that is published elsewhere, and I am too honest to google them, not to mention lazy.

Way I see it is that if we are always going to have privileged people telling us what's what then I'd rather one who rebels against their background: 'egg a la chips' if you will. And in fact that Conservative MP looked rather silly by contrast, banging on to Pacman about the BBC. Pft!

Anyway, my good man, we were supposed to be talking about Libel.

Sure 'when he wanted', but you neatly elide the fact that in 'A Clergyman's Daughter' the old maid is used as background to rebellion - not much romantic about Dorothy ramming a pin into her arm; we would call that self-harming.

I hadn't realized the site was satire either. It wasn't that funny. Also:

'See the thing with satire is, it's made up.'

So while you linked it in to show how people feel the same as you about Laurie making things up, you admit that it is itself 'made-up' and only intended to sound good and be funny.

"When a writers own output is often inadvertently indistinguishable from satire then what does that say?"

Nothing because I never agreed they were indistinguishable. You said '...she makes stuff up...that's something you can't really say about the piece I linked to."

But now you say it is satire and 'See the thing with satire is, it's made up.'

Spud

One link looks like an argument based on the dubious ground of two interlocutors arguing about which of them said what.

I'm staying out of it, except for a direct quote: 'I’m a bit of a show pony, and sometimes the politics slides to the rhetorical over the realistic.'(http://zetkin.net/journalism-subjectivity-movement/)

"The other contains this little gem:

'This is the basic plot of most of her work; scare-mongering about the state and society based on weak facts and rumour whilst pontificating in such a romanticised way, that it seems like an excerpt from a George Orwell novel. Britain, in general, is a fucking boring country. Nothing happens, really. There are no revolutions, political corruption is not much more than a duck house and a few bags of ready salted crisps, and freedom of the press is used for such things as Page 3 and Sudoku." (http://www.shoutingatco.ws/2011/05/04/laurie-penny-the-left-...)

Please read this latter one more than once and apply the level of criticism you routinely afford Laurie.

Laurie, deary, whatever happened to 'publish and be damned' ?!

".. then I'd rather one who rebels against their background."

sort of agreed...if she's still doing it in 20 years...at the moment she's making up for all of her lost adolescence. When every one else was out getting drunk, laid, wasted and stupid and she was in her room learning quotes from the Tempest and getting bolshy when her mam brought in the cocoa, gave her a hug and told her not to overdo it. If she's still as 'angry' once she's finally grown up I'll reconsider...but while she's still trying so desperately and lamely to give us all a vicarious thrill by dropping scandalous details of her skunk-smoking anarchist comrade's anomie, then I'll pass, if it's all the same.

" And in fact that Conservative MP looked rather silly by contrast, banging on to Pacman about the BBC. Pft!"

'in fact'...a Conservative looking a bit silly!! Whatever next!!

...and I'm still working on the challenge...best I can come up with is this. How about if I write the alternative stuff? Or is that cheating? The reason I ask is that I had a quick look and the likes of, say, Craig Brown is so clearly a public school middle-aged man channeling something which can only be the product of the mind of a...erm...kinda public-school middle-aged man. See...now,me...I'm in touch with my inner 20 something public school female wannabe revolutionary...Stella does that for you. I love beer. Fuck knows why I smoke stuff. 7 pints of Stella knocks 20 years off me...if only women could understand that...take Mrs Spud, for instance, she just lacks the nuance and intellectual dexterity to appreciate the sublime intricacy of my repartee or the sexual heights of...oh fuck it...I'm boring myself..

"Anyway, my good man, we were supposed to be talking about Libel"

Well, I'm cool talking about libel but I'm still reading the Cohen book...bout 2/3 through. It's really very good...and perhaps the only low-point for me is this article which just kinda shamelessly coat-tails it. I've a fair bit of time for Cohen as it goes. Obviously that makes me a Zionist neo-con blah blah...but the guy's consistent...I wouldn't say I always see eye to eye with him...but consistency's important...maybe not to a 20 something useful-idiot-change-with-the-wind radical...but I respect consistency...like a pig respects shit.

Peter "The discussion is deplorable:"

Fair enough, I'm out.

But Spud, anytime you want to set up a 'Pepsi' challenge. I'm willing to give it a shot,

When a newspaper proprietor at the Leveson Inquiry smugly states he doesn't understand the meaning of the word ethics, can we really be surprised at the levels of dishonesty displayed by the fourth estate?

Has anyone ever been sued for slanderous chanting?

There is only one reason for the existance of the current libel law in the UK and that is to protect the rich and the powerful. There have been countless recent examples of this (including super-injunctions)which are nothing but an attempt to curb free speech and investigative journalism.

It is rotten to the core.

Make Legal Aid available for libel actions. Or have I missed something?

If the English law of libel is no longer enforceable in America, then why are the American criminalisations of breach of copyright and breach of contract still enforceable through the courts here, in that they continue to order extradition in such cases?

"How about if I write the alternative stuff? Or is that cheating?"

Hmmm, so the wager is modified a bit. Now you propose that I will mistake something of Laurie's for something you made up, thus proving your point that made up stuff is less hyperbolic. Am I right?

Very well, and there's no need for five, but I'll leave that choice to you - just say how many of each I should be looking for - or is that cheating?

Taught to be duplicitous?

So all the over-egging of 'police brutality' and sterotyping of those with opposing points of view is just how you were taught to play the game?

They're fine words Laurie - but forgive me for thinking that they sound somewhat hollow when you consider how disengenous and deliberately misleading you have a habit of being in your writing.

I think its a shame. You're clearly bright and capable and don't lack courage. Cudos for that. You also write very well. More than can be said for many journos.

But your pieces are invariably hyerbolic and misleading rants that pay scant attention to any real facts. Stats are selectively chosen, opposing points of view grotesquely charictured and quotes selectively edited (if many of your interviewees on the 'front line' are to be believed). I know you are far from alone in this - but you do seem to think you hold yourself to a higher standard than, say, a Quentin Letts or a Richard Littlejohn. Frankly I see very little difference.