Beeston is a major population centre in the Broxtowe constituency, in which Ray Barry is standing. My thanks to Tim for pointing me to a blog piece by someone who presumably lives there, and brazenly lied about the content of our leaflet (‘bogus stats’) and our manifesto – here.

I’ve just left the following comment, and it’s awaiting moderation.

April 22, 2015 at 21:58

To put it mildly, you’re a blithering idiot. I, too, have no idea why I’d ever want to befriend you on Facebook (if indeed I did). Maybe we have some mutual friends, though that seems unlikely.

For anyone who wants to discover what’s REALLY in our manifesto – here.

Have a nice day.

Mike Buchanan

JUSTICE FOR MEN AND BOYS
(and the women who love them)

http://atomic-temporary-215937230.wpcomstaging.com

This afternoon we reported how Ray Barry hadn’t been invited to appear on the BBC Radio Nottingham hustings, while all the other candidates were. The BBC identified all the other candidates by name on its website, along with their parties – here.

I’ve just checked on the website to see how tomorrow’s Ashfield hustings are being presented – here. You’ll note that none of the candidates (or their parties) are named:

Sarah Julian broadcasts live from The Festival Hall in Kirkby-in-Ashfield. She’s joined by a panel of candidates standing for election in the Ashfield Constituency. Hear a range of questions from the audience including the hunt for the vital women’s vote [our emphasis].

The bottom line is that anyone naively depending on BBC Radio Nottingham for information about forthcoming programmes wouldn’t learn of the existence of Ray, myself, or J4MB. The BBC had the power to select both the presenter and the audience of 12 people, and it selected 13 women.

The people running BBC Radio Nottingham should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

I had a call last Friday from Ray Barry, our candidate in Broxtowe. He was justifiably angry at not having been informed that a BBC Radio Nottingham debate with the Broxtowe candidates was taking place, and by the time he learned about it, it had already taken place.

The non-invitation of Ray to the debate is typical of the relentless anti-male bias shown by the BBC in many areas over many years. Last year we complained about a Newsnight piece about domestic violence which showed only female victims and only male perpetrators. We wrote a complaint outlining how the piece had violated 54 of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines, and the complaint was rejected.

For some weeks I’ve had in my diary a BBC Radio Nottingham debate with the other candidates in Ashfield, which will be broadcast live tomorrow, 23 April, 18:00 – 19:00. I had heard nothing about the proposed venue or format, so was surprised by something Ray told me about the event. I emailed my senior (male) contact at BBC Radio Nottingham the following:

(Name redacted), good morning. Has a venue been decided for this debate? I heard on the grapevine that the theme is to be ‘What will your party do for women voters?’ which I can scarcely believe, given all parties (other than J4MB) focus on representing the interests of women (and girls), and none give a damn about the interests of men (and boys) – hence the 20 areas in our manifesto in which the state assaults the human rights of men and boys, while assaulting the human rights of women and girls in none.

He replied:

Here are the details for next week.

DATE: Thursday 23rd APRIL, 2015

VENUE: Festival Hall, Hodgkinson Road, Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottingham NG17 7DJ

TIME: Arrive by 5.30pm. On air live 6.05 until 7pm.

PANEL: Five candidates standing in Ashfield have been invited to attend.

AUDIENCE: There will be an audience and they will be invited to ask questions to the panel. Unlike the Broxtowe and Sherwood hustings this audience will be smaller and will have been vetted by the BBC to ensure there is no political bias.

SUBJECTS: This is a CONSTITUENCY debate. We want to talk about issues affecting Ashfield. However, this does not mean we’ll be ignoring national issues like immigration. There will be questions about women voters but equally there’ll be plenty of time given to subjects like health (with reference to King’s Mill hospital) and other areas.

Many thanks again and looking forward to seeing you next Thursday.

I replied:

Thanks . No question(s) about male voters, in the interests of balance?

He replied:

The format we’re going for is a more informal form of hustings.

The audience will be made up of 12 women voters who will have gone through a vetting process (my colleague will shortly be sending you details of how you can nominate people you’d like to attend).

The first part of the evening will be on why women’s votes could be so important at this election. But it will not take up the whole of the evening. We want to talk about King’s Mill hospital and regenerating places like Kirkby and Sutton.

I replied:

(Name redacted), this is even worse. No male voters in the audience? Will the people I can nominate have to be women too? This is a deep insult to half the voters, the half ignored by all political parties (with the exception of J4MB) and the mainstream media. It’s a complete farce.

Will there be an opportunity to make a speech, even a short one, at some point?

He replied:

It is going to be an audience of women so you’d have to nominate women.

It will be a live debate broadcast on BBC Radio Nottingham between 6 and 7pm on Thursday 23rd April.

Before the debate begins each candidate will have the opportunity for an opening statement – no more than one minute. The position of when you make your statement will be decided by picking names from a hat. At the end there’ll be an opportunity for a closing statement, again one minute in duration, the order will be the reverse of those of the opening statement.

His (female) colleague then emailed me the following:

Thank you for agreeing to take part in the BBC Radio Nottingham debate in Ashfield. You have an opportunity to put some potential audience members forward to attend the event. This debate will be different is style to most, the audience will consist of about 12 women. We want to hear from women from all ages and walks of life, to find out what really matters to them. Topics might include the economy, NHS and Education.

In accordance with BBC national guidelines regarding due impartiality each audience member must be vetted. Details and the vetting form are below could you send on to potential audience members. The choice of who you invite is down to you, but they need to be ‘rank and file supporters’ (normal voters) rather than campaigners or party activists.

Once the form is returned to me and if they are successful I will send out a ticket.

I replied with the following, and didn’t get a response from her.

(Name redacted), thank you. This premise of the programme is outrageous, but I shall still attend. You write:

“The choice of who you invite is down to you…”.

No, it’s not. You’ve excluded one entire gender from the audience.

You write:

“BBC Radio Nottingham is giving the women of Ashfield the opportunity to be part of a live political debate.”

Put another way:

“BBC Radio Nottingham is not giving the men of Ashfield the opportunity to be part of a live political debate.”

I invite you to listen to the programme from 18:00 – 19:00 tomorrow. It should be possible to listen to it ‘live’ over the internet. A link to the station is here, simply click on ‘LISTEN LIVE’. Regardless of the cynical format of the show, I shall not be silenced with respect to issues affecting men and boys.

The last of three pieces by Peter Lloyd for the print and online editions of the Daily Mail.

For the past two or three weeks I’ve been receiving a large number of emails daily from individuals and organizations asking whether J4MB supports various policy positions. Many concern issues on which we have no official positions, and we simply don’t have the time to respond to more than a few of them.

Yesterday evening I received the following email, my response follows it.

“Dear Candidate,

This election, please support the Jewish community’s Ten Commitments.

In your capacity as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the General Election, I wanted to draw to your attention the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ 2015 General Election Jewish Manifesto, which you can access here.

The Manifesto includes an extensive range of Jewish issues including Religious Freedom, Antisemitism, Israel, Education, Social Care and Social Action. The Manifesto also includes a list of the community’s top ten ‘Policy Asks’, which have been encapsulated into the Manifesto’s Ten Commitments.

I would value your response to the Board of Deputies’ Ten Commitments, listed below.

Please send me your response to these issues and, if you feel able, please share your support for these Ten Commitments on social media with the hashtag #TenCommitments @BoardofDeputies:

1. Defend the right to a Jewish way of life, including kosher meat; religious clothing; circumcision; and flexible working to accommodate Shabbat and festival observance.

2. Oppose all forms of hate crime, including Antisemitism, Islamophobia and other types of racism, promoting and enhancing community safety.

3. Promote good relations, understanding and cooperation between all of the UK’s communities.

4. Support efforts to remember and understand the Holocaust, and strive to prevent any future genocide.

5. Advocate for a permanent, comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, resulting in a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state.

6. Promote peace projects that unite communities, and resist boycotts that divide communities.

7. Affirm the importance of faith schools within the overall provision.

8. Support the provision of religiously and culturally sensitive youth and social care services.

9. Promote a more just and sustainable future in the UK and abroad; supporting efforts to tackle poverty, climate change and human rights abuses.

10. Celebrate and support Jewish heritage and cultural Institutions.

Please do take the opportunity to review and consider the Manifesto. I would very much welcome further discussion on any of the issues and look forward to hearing your feedback and the areas on which you feel able to commit.

If you would like to discuss the document further, please do not hesitate to contact me, or the Board’s Parliamentary Affairs Officer, at , telephone .

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Truly…

<Name redacted>”

I replied with the following, and copied all the other Ashfield candidates on the email:

“<Name redacted>, thank you.

If you check out our election manifesto you’ll see one of the state’s 20 assaults on the human rights of men and boys – through its actions and/or inactions – about which we campaign is male genital mutilation. If your religion required the mutilation of the genitals of eight-day-old girls, the state wouldn’t permit it. Genital mutilation is a barbaric assault on males, and making it illegal on religious and/or cultural grounds is underway in Europe (e.g. Finland). We shall pressure the UK government to follow suit as soon as possible.

I invite the other Ashfield candidates to reply to you, copying the other candidates, showing they support the human right of males not to have their genitals mutilated shortly after birth – or indeed before the age of 18, without their full consent. Should they fail to do so, as I predict they will, they will be displaying their lack of concern for the human rights of half the population.”

Another excellent piece from Belinda Brown. I have it on good authority that in the paragraph starting ‘Furthermore…’, ‘1Z4’ should read ‘1/4’.

One of the greatest pleasures of attending the AVfM conference on men’s issues near Detroit in July 2014 was meeting a number of Honey Badgers – female non-feminists, anti-feminists, or men’s rights advocates. I resolved before flying to the US that when I met Karen Straughan (GirlWritesWhat, who doesn’t know that by now?) I wouldn’t stare at my shoes and mumble, ‘Er… um… er… big fan, Karen…’.

I may possibly have failed in that resolution. Karen was very kind, I imagine she’s used to MRAs staring at their shoes, and mumbling. The end of her speech at the conference, which covered the issue of Honey Badgers, had me crying with laughter, along with many others in the audience.

It was also a great pleasure meeting other Honey Badgers, including Alison Tieman. She was an utter delight, as was her husband, who appears right at the end of this video. I’ve been very tied up in the past week, but the gist of the story is, so far as I understand it, that Alison – along with other Honey Badgers – was banned from the Calgary Comic Expo, ‘CalEx’. The video is well worth watching. Enjoy.

Good news. A tip of the hat to HEqual.

Ray Barry is inviting J4MB supporters to join him at the vote count and declaration over the late evening of May 7 and early hours of May 8. If you’re interested, please email him at raybarry@blueyonder.co.uk or call him on 07905 502856.

The second in a series of three articles for the Daily Mail by Peter Lloyd.