My thanks to Chris, Alistair, and Lynton, for joining me to promote the conference outside Wembley stadium yesterday, a very cold day, before the Arsenal v Man City game. Please email us (info@j4mb.org.uk) if you wish to join us at future fixtures outside major London stadiums.
We start with some great news. Steven Svoboda, a highly respected longstanding campaigner against MGM, will be giving a talk at the conference. We’ve just added his details to the speakers’ page on the website – here. Those details:
J. Steven Svoboda, Executive Director, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child – “Genital autonomy, gender equity, and the world”
Steven presented to the United Nations on male circumcision. He’s the National Coalition for Men’s (NCFM’s) Public Relations Director and longest serving board member. He graduated with honours from Harvard Law School and has published 40 peer-reviewed articles. His interview with Cassie Jaye for Red Pill/Raw Files is here.
Now for some unfortunate news. Two German speakers – Prof. Gerhard Amendt and Tom Todd – were planning to share one speaking slot. Sadly they’ve had to withdraw, for professional and personal reasons.
A piece in the current edition of The Spectator. The start of the piece:
I am boycotting Center Parcs. Admittedly, this is not going to have an enormous impact upon my life. It’s a bit like announcing with great pride and fervour that I am boycotting Clare Balding or Pakistan or goat’s cheese. All of those things I am perfectly able to live without and already do so. I will never eat goat’s cheese, visit Pakistan or watch Clare Balding.
Very good (audio, 12:10).
Our thanks to Stu for spotting this (video, 31:13). It’s attracted over 9,000 views. The Desiree Burch section, including her interview of Mike Buchanan, is over 15:39 – 23:24.
Our thanks to Sean for this (video, 3:00). Hilarious, and oddly compelling.
DCI Leanne Pook
Sami Ullah, the trial’s key witness
Appalling. Extract:
A senior policewoman is facing questions over her links to the key witness in a failed female genital mutilation prosecution that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds.
DCI Leanne Pook took control of the investigation after campaigner Sami Ullah claimed a minicab driver had told him he had allowed his daughter to undergo the barbaric practice.
But last week, a judge threw out the ‘deeply troubling’ case, which prosecutors had hoped would bring about the UK’s first FGM conviction.
And today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that DCI Pook is a trustee of the anti-FGM charity where Mr Ullah worked and has known him personally for several years. [J4MB: The article goes on to reveal she tweeted messages including, “Seems right to end a fantastic day by highlighting the very fabulousness that is @sami_ullah13. The man is walking talking Rescue Remedy!”]
Last night, critics said Avon & Somerset Police must explain why it allowed DCI Pook to head a case involving a friend and even take a formal statement from him.
Local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger told The Mail on Sunday: ‘That is unbelievable – it’s a total conflict of interest. This shows there are major issues at Avon & Somerset Police – the force is losing credibility with the public it’s there to serve.’
We clearly need more women in the police.
Last Monday, on the BBC Today programme, John Humphrys interviewed an Icelandic imam and, more importantly, Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir, an Icelandic MP, about the possibility of the Icelandic parliament making MGM illegal. We linked to the piece on BBC iPlayer but many couldn’t access it, particularly our overseas supporters, so we’ve put it on our YouTube channel – here (audio, 4:34). Our thanks to E for capturing it.
Eight days ago I was interviewed by the American “comedian” Desiree Burch for almost two hours, for her slot on the BBC2 TV series The Mash Report. Even by BBC standards the show, fronted by male feminist “comedian” Nish Kumar, 32, is woefully unfunny. At the best of times Kumar is as funny as a broken leg, but he’s reliably feminist-supportive and PC, so he gets plenty of work at the BBC.
Burch’s section of the show is over 15:26 – 23:12, on iPlayer, here, for people with BBC licences. Kumar and Burch are on the offensive from the outset, as you’d expect.
The interview took place on a very cold day in the unheated Bush Hall in West London. Ms Burch suffered with the low temperature more than myself.
In their efforts to edit a hit piece from almost two hours of footage, in which the conversation ranged over a wide variety of important issues, the BBC managed to put together a piece barely three minutes long, which we’ve just posted on our YouTube channel – here. We thank Zeppotron Ltd., the production company behind the show, for copyright clearance. Please post any comments you might have there, rather than here. Thanks.
Zeppotron also make what I consider one of the funniest shows on TV for many years – 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, for Channel 4. As on Countdown, Rachel Riley (below) “does the numbers”. There should be more mathematicians like Rachel Riley.
Times caption: Donalda MacKinnon, director of BBC Scotland, will investigate why women are being held back
A piece by Matthew Moore, Media Correspondent, in yesterday’s Times. Emphases ours:
Senior women at the BBC could get lessons in self-belief and “building a personal brand” as the corporation launches a review of why female staff are being held back. [J4MB: The false premise is made that “female staff are being held back”. No evidence is provided to support the premise. The reality at the BBC is the complete opposite. The careers of female staff at the BBC have been accelerated, the careers of male staff held back – for years.]
Part-time and flexible working arrangements are also likely to be expanded as a result of the project, [J4MB: So women, the least work-centred class, will be promoted ahead of men, the most work-centred class. That seems fair. What possible adverse effects could this have?] which comes after a revolt against gender pay inequality by hundreds of women working at the BBC.
Donalda MacKinnon, director of BBC Scotland, will compile recommendations to remove barriers to female advancement [J4MB: Barriers which don’t exist] and report to Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director-general, by June. She will investigate whether schemes adopted by other organisations or BBC departments should be extended throughout the corporation.
One option could be to expand a programme in its nations and regions division that seeks to fast-track women just below management level by developing self-belief, work-life balance, personal brand and influencing skills.
Last summer it was revealed that two thirds of the BBC’s highest-paid stars were men. The corporation’s gender pay gap is half that of the national average, but many staff feel this figure masks the true scale of pay inequality. [Hmm, many staff “feel”… might these staff be of the female persuasion, so feelings trump mathematics?] Lord Hall has vowed to close the gap and have women in half of senior management and on-air roles by 2020. [J4MB: The man is a gold-plated blithering idiot. Two independent reports showed there was no systemic gender bias at the BBC for setting pay, but like the tame mangina he is, he still committed to “solving” the non-existent problem.]
The licence fee will rise from £147 to £150.50 in April, it was confirmed yesterday. The increase was calculated using the consumer prices index rate of inflation, measuring the average CPI over the year to September. The government said in 2016 that the fee would rise in line with inflation for five years.
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Justice for Men & Boys 