The perils for a politician using Twitter are in full display this morning with Pete Wishart’s (perfectly fair) tweet lamenting how dull yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions was coming in for some strong attacks. It even made it onto the front page of The Sun, so I guess it’s still too early to count on SNP support from that paper then.
The tweet was: "Thought it would have been a more interesting PMQs first day back. Yawn..!" and the suggestion was that this was insensitive given that the Prime Minister had just read out the names of soldiers’ who had lost their lives in Afghanistan.
To suggest that Wishart’s online ‘yawn’ was a direct reference to those names being read out is pretty shabby. I fell asleep soon after the questions started in PMQs and after a quick check of the blogs, it seems I wasn’t alone in fighting to stay awake through it. A dull session with, incredibly, no reference to the Sir Thomas Legg review means Pete Wishart was perfectly within his rights, and within the bounds of decency, to regret how boring an affair PMQs was.
So job done from Labour. A shabby press release, picked up by the red tops and, depressingly, the Scotsman and a small hit is gained during conference season.
But there is a bigger question to address here. Taking the (big) assumption that people are going to be genuinely insulted by such comments, is it not more irresponsible to splash headlines repeating them across the front pages? Which is more acceptable, an off-the-cuff tweet that only a handful of people will read or exposure in a national newspaper that thousands will read?
I had the same thoughts regarding Al-Megrahi returning to Tripoli in Libya and the scenes of crowds with their saltires lining up to cheer the man home. ‘LOOK HOW OFFENSIVE THIS IS’ the headlines screamed and the news channels beamed ‘LOOK AT IT. HERE, WE’LL SHOW IT TO YOU AGAIN IN CASE YOU MISSED IT’
Personally it didn’t bother me, the Libyan exuberation all seemed rather natural given Al-Megrahi has protested his innocence for the whole time he has been in custody but if the sight of a dying man being welcomed home is offensive then why show it? What is the purpose of replaying images or reproducing lines that media outlets themselves have already deemed offensive?
I’ve read a few newspapers on my way up to Inverness this morning and I have to conclude that those that covered this silly non-story are in a lower league to the quality publications that don’t indulge in such nonsense, reserving their outrage for weightier matters.
And while I'm on the subject, I can't help but think that Jan Moir will be sitting back this evening and thinking 'job done'. Her admittedly ignorant and insulting post on Stephen Gateley resulted in a predictably shrill and self-indulgent bout of protests on Twitter when an uncaring silence would have been a more appropriate response. Furthermore, doesn't tolerance work both ways? Extending to freedom of any and all opinions?
Maybe Tweeters were already feeling overly motivated to let out the untapped outrage after the #Trafigura affair.
By all means be outraged by Tweets, released convicts and Daily Mail columnists, but knowing what to do with that outrage is the difficult part.
Carla in bronze
1 minute ago
16 comments:
I think it would be better all round if politicians refrained from tweeting.
It just gets them into trouble and makes non-tweeters like me wonder why they can't sit still instead of tweeting, when they should be listening, no matter how boring it may be.
I didn't know about Pete's comment on twitter till I read it on your blog.
But most people thought that PMQ's was very subdued and sombre due to the naming of so many killed in action in Afghanistan over the summer recess. Jeff, Pete called it wrong, and then compounded it by twittering.
Some times even an SNP MP can make a pratt of themselves on twitter, its not just the preserve of those that belong to other parties. Take Ben Bradshaw's stupid comments earlier.
Don't worry, another politician will be along quickly to make a twat of themselves in front of thousands.
It would certainly help if you could actually make a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about a piece of nationally published hate speech (which I understand is illegal) that breaches their code of practice on three points.
Instead all we can do is write MPs and bitch about it on Twitter.
Guess which one is easier.
It seems to be the one people are actually paying attention to, as well.
I appreciate Jan Moir has as much right to free speech as anyone but as a public figure in a national publication -- especially that one -- she has an obligation to not incite intolerance and hatred for other people. As individuals and as a society, we have an obligation to call people out when they say or do something unacceptable. (Let's say she wrote an article in support of child abuse -- should that have also been met with silence? It's just as ludicrous.)
Homphobia, casual sexism, racism -- these things are damaging and should not be tolerated. They affect all of us and damage society.
I believe that it has been analysed time wise and Wishart's comments had nothing to do with Brown's faux respect for the dead names he read out.
But nonetheless it's evidence that even innocent twitterings can get you into trouble.
"I believe that it has been analysed time wise and Wishart's comments had nothing to do with Brown's faux respect for the dead names he read out."
Analysed time wise? Don't you think that is getting a bit desperate?
He called PMQ's dull on the day that 37 dead soldiers names were read out, and that was just those that died over the summer recess?
And yet you describe his comment as innocent while Brown showed faux respect while reading the names out!!
Fitalass, do you not think it's a bit narrow-minded to suggest that at any time on the day when 37 soldiers' names are read out nothing negative can be said about Parliament and its proceedings?
very narrow minded indeed - it was sad to hear the names and then the session went into the question session and it was very dull to say the least. Are we to re-write history to say it wasn't dull?
Fitalass the 37 dead should have been mentioned in a Parliamentry statement on that and that alone, not getting mixed up with PM's Questions.
Are you daft hen? He was using that.
Jeff i would rather the SNP had the support of the Broons than the likes of the Sun. The paper is mince but i still hold it in higher regard than the Scotsman.
That said paper takes its tweets from snooping unionists who have little to do and then publishes them.
I think a wiser politician might have seen this coming. He handed the press a stick to bash us with and in conference week, it was dumb.
Of course I don't think for a minute he was being disrespectful to the dead. That would be stupid with a capital S and I'm sure he's not.
But, Pete, we don't pay you £65,000a year to be amused. Being bored is a part of many people's jobs. Most of them don't get a third of what you do.
All of that said, I wish the press in this country were not quite so pathetic. It would be nice to have some grown up stuff to read.
Catty: I always find it sensible not to get in too much of a state about anything written in the Daily Mail. In my world it really doesn't count for much.
Observer: Spot on. There's no one as devious as Brown. It took several minutes of his questions and he knew it would be hard for Cameron to batter him into pulp with these guys' names still reverberating round the place.
He's the lower than a snakes belly, that one.
OMG OMG OMG Jeff, i have just noticed your part of the Steamie consortium.
Go on, give me your log in details and let me do a Maddox is a cun# article, i promise i wont swear lol.. :)
Hoi you wrote you have yet to be convinced about independence on your profile ?
How much did Maddox pay you to write that ? Jesus that's the very fabric and core of the SNP,s very existence, naws wit urs meens ? :)
Haha, I think I can safely say that won't be happening ever AMW.
It's Friday night, I've had a few shandies and I'm immersed in SNP chat so this was probably your best chance too!
This morning Brighton's Nikki Bayley (@nikkib on Twitter) made one of the first complaints in the country about the Daily Mail's vile columnist Jan Moir and here cowardly homophobic attack on Stephen Gately. Here's the Press Complaints Commission's response http://tiny.cc/aPipa
Jeff..
Och thats a shame, it would had been a top class article and it certainly would had got the blogging community talking again :)
Enjoy the rest of the conference, Saturday should be worth waiting for when Salmond does his speech. I think it will probably be his best yet.
"Fitalass, do you not think it's a bit narrow-minded to suggest that at any time on the day when 37 soldiers' names are read out nothing negative can be said about Parliament and its proceedings?"
Jeff, just glad my relative got home from his deployment to Afghanistan safe and in one piece earlier this year!! It certainly does concentrate the mind as to what is important, and Pete's thoughtless comment was just that, thoughtless and lacking in the basic understanding of the enormity of that list at the start of PMQ's.
Jeff,
I'm not sure what to make of this whole Jan Moir affair - mainly as I haven't read the article, and don't intend to.
One thing I'd suggest, though, is a 'mile in our moccasins' approach: Jan Moir is accused of implying that Gately's homosexuality was the cause of his death. It goes without saying that this opinion being voiced in a prominent media outlet is going to freak gay people out. Do people still believe that we can be killed by 'gay'? That opinion - if that's what Moir was getting at - as ludicrous as saying that Princess Diana's death, or the actions of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr discredit heterosexuality. And, to a degree, offensive. So of course the LGBT community is going to crack up when people read this. Any right, such as freedom of speech, comes with a responsibility - it's the old shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre argument. Does freedom of speech necessarily entail a freedom to offend people? I'm not sure.
But I do agree with you that the outrage is ridiculous, mainly as, well, she's writing in the Daily Mail! What in blazes was any member of the LGBT community doing reading the Daily Mail, one of the most conservative institutions in the country, besides looking to be offended? The thing about freedom of speech is its flip-side: freedom of listening. You don't like the Daily Mail? Don't buy it. You don't like Jan Moir's opinions? Don't read them.
The answer for the LGBT Community is not to call for Moir's head, but to simply avoid buying the paper or visit the website. If anyone reads something they already knew would horrify them, then they have only themselves to blame.
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