Grayson Perry Watch: Separated At Birth?

DEPUTY Labour leader Harriet Harman today revealed she was mistaken for cross-dressing artist Grayson Perry after a fringe event during the party’s annual conference.

The Scotsman.

I’m used to people coming up to me and saying well done on the Olympics, because they think I’m Tessa Jowell. But I didn’t quite know how to react when this time I was leaving a fringe and on the way out I overheard someone say “why has Grayson Perry just made a speech at USDAW?”

From her speech to conference yesterday.

Daily Mail: PIEgate latest!

Zzzz...

Daily Mail: Sorry?

Steve Bell in The Guardian.

Does anyone honestly think that Ms Harman could ever have been some kind of a cheerleader for child-abuse? Of course not. And if we don’t think that, and if we do think that it was through inattention that, as an officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties, she didn’t spot the unwisdom of a dodgy lobbying outfit’s association with the council, then for pity’s sake what’s all the ruckus about? But lacking further evidence against her, we rant at her “refusal to apologise”.

She was silly not to apologise, but can’t you understand her sense of righteous indignation that her reputation should be impugned by the suggestion that there might be something morally suspicious about her behaviour? Her anger at these newspaper attacks stung her into playing into the hands of her tormentors by trying to tough it out and take no notice.

Easy to say, though, after the event. Sometimes taking no notice works, and it’s difficult to say when the tactic will or won’t backfire. Being attacked by the Daily Mail is rather like being mobbed by bullocks when crossing a Derbyshire field. The standard advice is to take no notice but walk confidently through the herd, which, seeing you’re unafraid, will shrink back. And (the standard advice continues) if they do run at you, run back at them, preferably waving a stick. They’ll back off. Whatever you do (the advice concludes) don’t run away or, emboldened, they’ll run after and trample you.

Matthew Parris, The Times.

Daily Mail: Sorry?

This is the Daily Mail at its worst.
As before, it's an old story.
And it's a non-story - there are no 'links'
It's just a smear story on Labour and Liberty.
Still the Mail Online has filed ten stories in the last 24 hours alone.
And so hypocritical as the Mail loves publishing sexualised images of young girls saying they look "all grown up".
Pathetic.

Politician slammed for links with known paedo

Jack Dromey: Oops!

Guido Fawkes

A front bench Labour MP is under pressure to explain how he has "favourited" gay porn websites on his Twitter account.

Jack Dromey, the husband of Harriet Harman, the Labour Party deputy leader, has blamed the messages on a "technological mix-up".

In September, the shadow policing minister favourited a message about black porn stars having sex.

When he was challenged Mr Dromey, 65, claimed he had accidentally clicked on the message, which included the name “Paris”, while researching a romantic holiday with his wife, it was reported on political gossip website Guido Fawkes.

However, he was left facing further questions when he favourited a second explicit message last week, which showed a picture of two men engaged in a sex act...

Daily Telegraph.

Have to say Mr Paul Staines - Guido Fawkes - can come across as rather prudish for a self-styled "libertarian".
This story was also picked up with great relish by the Daily Mail.
Like the Telegraph, the Mail's coverage of hardcore gay porn is otherwise usually quite patchy, I've found.

PS The Telegraph reported in September; Nearly 300,000 "attempts to access websites categorised as pornography" were made from computers within Parliament in the last year, official records show.

Bear this statistic in mind next time you hear an MP tut-tutting about Paul Flowers being caught with porn on his council laptop.

And as with Flowers, the reaction of any grown-up here surely should be; and so what if he did?

Daily Telegraph: The War Against Equality

In a leader today The Telegraph welcomes Theresa May's dropping of the duty to equality, and her potentially seismic semantic shift from talking about "equality" to "fairness".
It is worth quoting at length - not least because it sounds to Fagburn like an opening salvo.
"Speaking in a south London community centre this week, Theresa May argued that equality has become not a noble goal, but "a dirty word… associated with the worst forms of pointless political correctness and social engineering". Harriet Harman, take a bow.
"The Home Secretary was announcing her decision to scrap the clause in Miss Harman's Equality Act that placed a duty on all public bodies to take account of "the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage" at all times – so sweeping a requirement that it was labelled "socialism in one clause". This is welcome news: as Lynne Featherstone, a Lib Dem Home Office minister, told Parliament yesterday, "all the policy would have been was a bureaucratic box to tick… another form to fill in".
"We urge Mrs May to be similarly ruthless towards the other clauses that await her approval. These include the need for the public sector workforce, across 27,000 separate bodies, to be monitored in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality and disability, and the lifting of a ban on positive discrimination in recruitment."
And do you think the demands for overturning equality laws will stop there?
It looks like there is a new front opening in the Tories' war against equality - gay adoption...

Equality Law: Now You're Just Being "Ridiculous"

The Tories class war continues apace.
'Fury as Theresa May scraps equality law' - The Daily Mirror.
"Home Secretary Theresa May was accused of a shocking attack on the poor yesterday after scrapping an equality law.
"Councils will no longer need to consider disadvantages and inequalities in their policy decisions."
Of course this has pleased those on the right.
'Theresa May will today scrap a ‘ridiculous’ Harriet Harman equality law dubbed ‘socialism in one clause’' - The Daily Mail
May's speech about ending "Harman's law" was "leaked" to the Mail.
Reading between the lines, more worryingly the Conservatives seem to be abandoning any commitment to equality - now they will talk of "fairness".
The Home Office press release announced;
"Controversial rules that would have forced all public bodies to focus spending and services on poorer areas at the expense of better-off communities were today scrapped."
But in a piece of spin as obvious as an iceberg it adds;
"The speech also underlined the government’s ongoing commitment to equality and fairness."
Really? Do go on...
"This included the Home Secretary announcing that a measure in the Freedom Bill will allow people who were prosecuted for having consensual gay sex at a time when this was illegal to apply to have their convictions deleted from criminal records."
May also said in her speech; "...we will give schools the power to take tough action to tackle bullying, including homophobic and transphobic bullying."
Verily, the Conservatives giveth and the Conservatives take away.
Even if they don't say how they will giveth in practical terms.
Would anyone fall for this?
"Minister for Women and Equalities Theresa May has spoken out on a new equalities strategy, announcing that those harboring convictions for consensual gay sex should soon be able to apply to have their records cleared," Jamie Tabberer writes on PinkPaper.com.
"She added: “We will give schools the power to take tough action to tackle bullying, including homophobic and transphobic bullying."
"May will however scrap an inequality measure that would have called for public bodies to address class inequalities introduced by Harriet Harman, labeling it 'ridiculous'."
Pink News' headline reads; ''May scraps ‘ridiculous’ equality duty but promises new action on anti-gay bullying'
Ridiculous innit?