I shall be contesting the Bedford & Kempston seat at the 2015 general election, so I was delighted to learn of Bedfordshire Men’s Forum, and their associated website http://bedfordshiremensforum.wordpress.com. On the website I was startled to read this:

Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association refuse to add a child residing with a father to the housing needs assessment. This means the child is invisible. The father has no chance of providing suitable social housing. Further impairing the chances of the child of having a relationship with their father.

Similarly, Bedford Borough Council also discriminate against fathers who have children residing with them. By refusing to pay housing benefit so the child can have a bedroom. Again the child is invisible. The child is likely to suffer from a diminished relationship with their father, and live in severe poverty when residing with their father for nearly half their lives.

So while the state bends over backwards for single mothers, it ignores the plight of single fathers. I shall be writing to the two bodies to confirm whether this appalling state of affairs remains the case.

I invite anyone interested in men’s human rights, and living in the Bedford area, to email me at mb1957@hotmail.co.uk.

The estimable (and indefatigable) Jack Day has just posted a short but important piece on a MHR website. All of us at J4MB would like to echo his sentiments, and to thank him and his colleagues for their sterling work. Over to Jack:

Men’s Rights social media groups have become some of the most powerful sources of information, and forums for debate, for people who are interested and willing to be active participants within this movement for equality under the law, characterised by merit and equity. We encourage you all to invite as many friends, relatives, and acquaintances as possible to participate with the many happenings, and to engage with the great people – men and women – who are motivated to create positive change for today’s men and boys.

Men’s Human Rights Movement
https://www.facebook.com/groups/453139488097300/

Friends of Protection for Men
https://www.facebook.com/groups/protectionformen/

Men’s Rights Movement
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mensrightsmovement/

Men’s Rights
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mensrightsgrp/

Men’s Rights News
https://www.facebook.com/groups/189922871066519/

Anti-Feminism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/antifeminism/

Anti Misandry
https://www.facebook.com/groups/antimisandry/

Male-specific cancer alliance
https://www.facebook.com/groups/396210803796133/

I’m occasionally asked if I’m anti-marriage. I’m not, although I’m against legislation and a justice system which uses divorce as a means to enrich women – particularly women with children – at the expense of men. I believe this is highly toxic to relations between men and women, and it’s hardly surprising that so many men today are disinclined to marry. The institution of marriage today gives men nothing they couldn’t get outside it, and it piles a mountain of risks on them.

In 2009, just before I started actively fighting the scourge of militant feminism, I wrote a book titled The Marriage Delusion: the fraud of the rings? It received plenty of reader acclaim, and testimonials from leading authors and psychologists:

A highly original and stimulating critique of the modern marriage crisis, supported by important yet sometimes uncomfortable truths.

Oliver James, clinical psychologist, broadcaster, author of Affluenza, Britain on the Couch, They F*** You Up, How Not to F*** Them Up

Mike Buchanan’s analysis of marriage in western industrialised society is courageous and thoughtful. His perspectives on the challenges associated with marriage, and solutions to them, draw on important scientific evidence and arguments from some of our leading psychologists and wisest philosophers. This is a ‘must-read’ for all concerned with modern marriage.

Alan Carr, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University College, Dublin, author of The Handbook of Adult Clinical Psychology, Family Therapy and Positive Psychology

The book’s a hardback (with a dust jacket). The first edition was limited to 500 copies, the last few copies of which are still available, if you’re quick.

The book received good reviews – almost all with the maximum 5-stars – from buyers on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marriage-Delusion-Fraud-Rings/dp/0955878454/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376142950&sr=1-1&keywords=the+marriage+delusion

If you’d like the book signed and/or a dedication added, please order it direct from the publisher’s website (link below). It costs £9.95 inc p&p for delivery in the UK, p&p is payable for delivery outside the UK.

http://lpspublishing.co.uk/titles.html

Some of the content is available here:

http://lpspublishing.co.uk/thefraudoftherings.pdf

A paperback edition was launched in 2010, with the title The Fraud of the Rings. It costs £6.00 and can also be ordered from the publisher’s website. In common with The Marriage Delusion, it will be signed and/or dedicated upon request.

Mike Buchanan

All of us at J4MB are grateful to the BBC for the exposure they’ve given us on TV and radio, but their almost relentless anti-male and pro-feminist narrative regularly leaves us exasperated. Other broadcasters are even worse, to be fair. I honestly think Channel 4 News passes its proposed content by the Fawcett Society for prior approval.

I digress. My attention has been drawn to a quite outstanding video on YouTube (link below). Its prime focus is on a recent Newsnight piece where an outrageous statement by an American militant feminist – ‘Men are raised to hate women’ – was not only unchallenged, but Paul Mason then proceeded to partake in a censoring exercise and approved of the exercise. You must find 17 minutes in your busy schedule for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0dZIQZIfkg

This is gutter journalism, and as taxpayers – funding the BBC – we should be up in arms about it. I invite you to make a formal complain to the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints. Thank you.

The YouTube video was posted by ‘Thunderf00t’. His extraordinary video channel’s here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t/videos

The other day I posted a piece about how some women in Florida are pressing for a change in the alimony laws… because they’re paying alimony to ex-partners, not receiving it from them. The story didn’t surprise me, because it only confirms the eternal social paradigm that money and other resources must flow from men to women, and not vice-versa.

It remains the social paradigm even though women have had the same job opportunities as men for many years, and a minority of women are now out-earning their partners and former partners. The blog post attracted far more ‘hits’ than I’d anticipated, so I thought I’d put up a new post on the matter, prompted by a piece in the Miami Herald of 26 April 2013:

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/04/two-dozen-women-urge-scott-to-veto-alimony-bill.html

An extract from the piece:

Florida Governor Rick Scott has less than a week to sign or veto a controversial alimony bill, ‘SB718’. SB 718 would put an end to permanent alimony, and require judges to split custody evenly between divorcing parents, unless one parent could make a convincing case otherwise. One key point of contention appears to be whether it could affect contracts made in the past.

On Friday, two dozen women urged him to ‘dust off his veto pen’. ‘If the governor wants to look pro-family, he should definitely veto this bill,’ said women’s rights activist Barbara DeVane.

A google search of ‘Barbara DeVane’ led me to:

http://news.wfsu.org/term/barbara-devane

Feminists evidently have no shame in recruiting very young girls to drive emotion-laden rather than reason-based narratives. We shouldn’t be surprised. Feminists have no shame in any areas, so far as I can see. The ends always justify the means.

Let me see if I have Ms DeVane’s position clear. ‘Pro-family’ means:

– denying fathers equal custody of their children; and

– forcing men to support ex-wives until the day they die regardless of the reasons for the breakdown of the relationship. In old parlance, women continue to demand a ‘meal ticket for life’, even though they’ve long had the same employment opportunities as men.

So, what impact did feminist opposition to the bill have? As we’d expect, Governor Rick Scott vetoed the bill:

http://news.wfsu.org/post/alimony-reform-supporters-shocked-veto-say-theyll-be-back-another-bill

While paying lifetime alimony to a future ex-wife remains a possibility, you have to ask yourself the $64,000 question, don’t you?

Why would any American man marry?

Any American man planning to marry – along with men in a similar position in many other countries, to be fair – must be mad. Howling-at-the-moon mad. The possibility of lifelong alimony payments is just one consequence of that madness. We can only hope that one day a bill like SB718 passes, and sanity starts to gain some traction in Florida, and in time the rest of the world.

Glen Poole runs ‘Helping Men’ http://helpingmenblog.blogspot.co.uk and he’s going to be the lead host at the National Conference for Men and Boys, in Brighton and Hove, in late September https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/national-conference-for-men-boys-2013/. He’s just had an interesting article published by the Guardian on the hot topic of abuse on social media:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/07/online-abuse-gender-misogyny-male-victims

In our public consultation document – link below – we outline a proposal for compulsory paternity testing at birth. A large number of men financially provide for many years for children, after been misled into believing the children are biologically their own. The proposal’s on p.11 of the document:

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/our-public-consultation-exercise-2/

Further indications of the extent of this form of paternity fraud in the UK are revealed in a letter received today from the Department of Work & Pensions, in response to our recent Freedom of Information Act request. The first of the following links will take you to the original document, the second includes my commentary.

130809 Paternity fraud – FOIA request response by Dept of Work & Pensions

130809 Paternity fraud – Dept of Work & Pensions response to a FoI request, MB commentary

The case for compulsory paternity testing at birth just became stronger.

Earlier today we posted a link to an article written by Suzanne Moore and published in the Guardian yesterday, titled ’10 rules for managing your penis’. The perfect riposte to her article has just been written and published by JudgyBitch, a leading American anti-feminist blogger. It’s titled, ’10 rules for managing your vagina’, and it’s far superior to Suzanne Moore’s misandrous article. It’s intelligent and witty, for a start:

http://judgybitch.com/2013/08/08/ten-rules-for-managing-your-vagina/

I’ve received an email from a former military man in Afghanistan, Alexander Perkins, great-grandson of William Churchill, asking me to sign a very worthwhile petition, and to publicise it. I’ve just signed it, and would urge you to do likewise (it takes very little time). Thank you. The link to the petition:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/foreign-secretary-william-hague-protect-all-afghan-interpreters-who-served-alongside-british-troops-and-give-them-opportunity-to-resettle?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=30897&alert_id=MYVJeoxlfj_EupdKMUWnk

The rest of this post was supplied by Alexander Perkins:

I served in Afghanistan in 2008-2009 and then again in 2010. These were tough days in Afghanistan for all that were there. We relied on the help of local Afghan interpreters who were with us on every patrol and an integral part of our platoon.

The interpreters took great risks to help us, putting not only their lives but the lives of their families in danger of Taliban reprisals — but now the UK Government has turned its back on the interpreters. It is refusing to give support or resettlement to interpreters who completed their duties between 2006 and 2011.

My great-grandfather Winston Churchill, who spent a large part of his career in the army, would have been shocked by the way our government is treating men who risked their lives to help British forces. By denying our interpreters entry into the UK the government is condemning them to persecution and almost certain death at the hands of the Taliban.

That’s why I’ve started this petition on Change.org calling on Foreign Secretary William Hague to review the British policy for Afghan interpreters.

The interpreter I remember most was Barri. For all sense and purposes he was one of the lads. When we left Afghanistan Barri’s father and brother were killed by the Taliban but the UK government didn’t help him. His mother and sister died whilst trying to get to western Europe when their boat sank in Mediterranean. For two years Barri and his last remaining brother have been held in a detention centre until they were eventually granted asylum in Germany. Other interpreters are not even as lucky. They have been forced into hiding in Afghanistan or are locked in foreign detention centres, their lives in limbo.

There are certain codes we uphold in the military. Two of those are: “loyalty & honour.”  So I am appealing to Rt Hon William Hague and Rt Hon David Cameron  – do the honourable thing and remain loyal to those who stood shoulder to shoulder with British Forces.

It is morally reprehensible to force these men to stay in a country that we are counting down the days to finally leaving. By leaving them in Afghanistan the only thing they can look forward to is a life of looking over their shoulders.

Huge public pressure convinced the Government to offer resettlement or support to some Afghan interpreters. We need the same pressure to extend the policy and make sure no interpreter is forgotten.

Please sign my petition and make sure all Afghan interpreters get the support they need.

Suzanne Moore is a columnist with the Guardian, and notoriously glum even by feminist standards. I find myself sinking into a deep gloom whenever I see her interviewed on TV. Her article in yesterday’s edition:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/07/10-rules-managing-penis-sexting-wine-toaster

Would the Guardian – or any national newspaper – publish an article written by a male columnist, ’10 rules for managing your vagina’? And if they did, how would women respond?