Kerry McCarthy? She's a class act
Tuesday, January 5, 2010 This video marks the next stage of the KerryOut campaign, which is targeting Labour MP Kerry McCarthy in Bristol East. I must declare an interest.
Eighteen months ago (June 2008) Forest organised a party at Boisdale in London. The aim was to mark the first anniversary of the smoking ban in England with our own unique form of protest. Over 200 guests turned up including David Hockney, Philip Davies MP, Blackpool publican Hamish Howitt and the-then UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
Journalists present included Lynn Barber of The Observer, Michael White, political editor of the Guardian, and his colleague, deputy comment editor Libby Brooks.
A few days later, and in true Guardian style, Brooks wrote an article about Forest, smoking and class:
What troubles me most about Forest, which is now campaigning against proposed restrictions on the selling of tobacco, is that it completely fails to acknowledge that smoking is a class issue. When cigarettes initially entered the marketplace, it was the upper classes who first took them up. Smoking spoke of wealth and sophistication. But, as the product filtered down through society, it lost its class glamour. By the time that details of the serious health implications of smoking were made public, the rich were already predisposed to giving up.
Now smoking speaks of disadvantage. We know that those from lower socio-economic groups find it much harder to give up, despite the fact that they want to give up and try to give up at the same rate as other smokers.
Full article HERE.
Pejoratively (in this context), Brooks described Boisdale as a "smart private members' club" when it is in fact a public bar and restaurant open to everyone.
The day that the article appeared we were hosting another event - a small tea party at the House of Commons. To encourage people to attend we offered champagne as well as tea and cakes. Sixteen MPs and five peers turned up, a pretty good response.
One MP who wasn't there was Kerry McCarthy. Needless to say that didn't stop her writing about it on her blog:
"My recent post about the success of the smoking ban mentioned a reception by Forest, the pro-smoking group, at a private members club in Belgravia. And today they're having a champagne tea party for MPs in the Commons. Kind of bears out what Libby Brooks is saying in today's Guardian."
Not only did she misrepresent Boisdale, as Brooks had done, as a private members club; she also saw the word "champagne" alongside "tea party" and jumped to the same class-based conclusion. How prejudiced is that?
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I responded to her comments HERE with the result that her own blog was besieged with comments (over 200) and she received a fearful ear-bashing which she later responded to HERE.
A few days later I updated readers with THIS post. It's interesting because it contains an exchange of emails between myself and Kerry McCarthy to which I added the following comments:
Let's get this right. It's OK for elected representatives like Kerry McCarthy to praise the smoking ban (and imply that Forest is an elitist organisation), but it's not OK for Forest to alert people to her comments in order that they can give her a different perspective. In her eyes, that amounts to hounding.
Worse, she claims that "it's quite clear that your strategy is to mobilise supporters to hound those who have publicly supported the ban, with often quite abusive emails [my emphasis]". If McCarthy had bothered to read the posts on this blog she would know that I have gone out of my way to ask people NOT to send abusive emails.
Yes, a few went a bit too far, but the overwhelming majority were well within the bounds of civil debate. She should see what we have to put up with from anti-smokers. One local councillor - from Bristol, funnily enough - once sent me a scrawled note declaring "I hope you die of cancer". He's not the only one.
To top it all, she suggests that we "encourage" people to target blogs which then have to be shut down. Excuse me?! Is it too much to ask that she provide evidence of a single blog or website that has been closed down as a result of our alleged "behaviour"?
What we have here is an MP rattled by the fact that 200 people have had the audacity to take issue with her comments on an open blog - so she shoots the messenger.
Free speech? Don't make me laugh. The anti-smoking lobby doesn't know the meaning of it.
Since then McCarthy has become some sort of Twitter Tsar (!) but neither she nor her supporters seem to understand the democratic nature of the Internet. Only recently she blocked the likes of Iain Dale from following her on Twitter because ... well, I don't really know, or care.
All I know is that Iain had this to say about it:
I've always thought Labour's self styled Twitter Tsar Kerry McCarthy MP was one vote short of a ballot box. Now she's proved it. This afternoon she wrote a couple of vaguely insulting Tweets about Total Politics, Shane Greer and myself. Big deal. I've had worse. But I decided to take her to task. And now she has blocked me on Twitter. Oh the pain.
The thing is, people actually elected this woman to represent them, yet she seems incapable of rational argument or debate. If you disagree with her she cries foul and accuses you of being nasty. And yet she doesn't understand it's her own brand of nastiness which causes people to react badly to her. From subsequent Twitters and emails I have received it seems I far from alone in being blocked by her.
See HERE.
That's one reason to support the KerryOut campaign but you don't have to look far to find more. Judging by her comments about Forest she is a class warrior of the old school (how tiresome they are), and she's no liberal, witness her enthusiastic support for a blanket smoking ban.
So, two more reasons to support the KerryOut campaign. I'll leave you to think of others. (Nothing libellous, please.)
Update: a Labour supporter explains why he supports the Kerry Out campaign HERE.
Simon Clark
Liberal Vision's Sara Scarlett has written a thoughtful piece HERE about the KerryOut campaign and the future of political campaigning.
Simon Clark
Reader Comments (14)
As this woman is a vehement anti smoker that says it all to me. Out of touch, the smoking ban is not popular, it is only popular with a small minority of bigots.
Isn't the fact that she is blocking people from her twitter site if they don't agree with her tantamount to Fraud? Seeing as she is an MP and therefore more likely to be read on a wider basis than ordinary twitterers, surely she should have the guts to respond in an appropriate and civil way to whatever comments people make, so long as they are not full of foul language and insults. Blocking these people however just shows that she has no rock solid argument to back up her beliefs on the smoking ban!
Kerry is a self serving ****. I poured out my heart on this issue on her blog, as did others, she said she would definately take into account my comments on exclusion/discrimination when "this issue comes up in Parlt again." She lied and like a sheep, voted for the tobacco display ban et al because she is too terrified of the NuLab machine to do anything other than what she is told.
Kerry can dish it out but she can't take it. It is OK for her to be as insulting or abusive as she likes about other people, but if you say one word she doesn't like about NuLab or Gordy, she threatens to block you.
I have blocked her and defriended her as quite simply a waste of internet space. She is of no consequence. Her little blog would still be getting zilch, zero, nil comments had Simon Clark not highglighted her patronising comments about "poor smokers" on this blog. Only when smokers visited to educate her about discrimination and exclusion did her blog begin to take off and all that has followed thereafter is because of this.
McCarthy needs to come down off her own self-important pedestal and realise that she should reps the people of this country and not the other way around. We are not here for her convenience or her Govt's. They are about to be repaid and thrown into the electoral wilderness for stabbing their core supporters in the back over the smoking ban and I will take some comfort in that at least.
I only hope the damage this loony veggie and her mates have done to this country can be put at least some way back to right before my generation dies.
I got involved on her blog about a year ago (maybe longer) when there was a discussion about the smoking ban. What struck me then was that she was basically thick and ignorant, and couldn't debate her way out of a paper bag. I got a similar feeling when I joined another debate on the odious Paul Flynn's blog. The behaviour of these two MPs, along with the smoking ban itself, were enough to make me resign my membership of the Labour party and vow to have nothing to do with them again.
My thoughts exactly, Rick S. However, I didn't bother to debate with Flynn. I didn't think he had the maturity given that he edits not only his own writings on his blog but those of his commenters as well. I guess that is NuLabour for you.
As someone who has exchanged private emails with Kerry McCarthy, I am a little less condemnatory about her. I do think that Labour are in a bit of a corner as the blogosphere is dominated by the centre-right and libertarians.
I think Kerry's problems is she is too sensitive to criticism and tends to over react. She was very proud of the Labour Party's smoking ban and thought that all was rosy in the garden but got buried in well reasoned argument.
However my bile is reserved for Paul Flynn who failed to publish comments, edited and altered others he disagreed with. That is a disgrace.
Forest, Taking Liberties and other people involved in the pro choice movement should be proud that a Labour flagship policy thought to be a triumph is like an aged aunt round for Christmas, incontinent and dribbling down its blouse.
I've exchanged private emails too, Dave - my condemnation stands!
Dave, I think one of the reasons why the blogosphere is dominated by the centre-right and libertarians is that NuLab (and particularly their flagship smoking ban) have forced a lot of people in that direction - people who didn't necessarily think that way before!
The great German writer Thomas Mann (who supported Germany in World War I but left the country when the Nazis came to power) once said, ""I am a man of balance. I instinctively lean to the left when the boat threatens to capsize on the right, and vice versa". I can identify wholly with that sentiment. When the Tories introduced the Poll Tax I joined Labour - now that NuLab are punishing their own core supporters, I've had enough of them. They deserve everything they get.
Rick, I wish there was a way of counting the number of one-time labour supporters (in my case pretty active) like you and I, and bringing the number (and reasons for leaving) to the attention of the smug people in our old party.
Perhaps then they'd finally stop to ask themselves whether something has gone wrong. I was one of the happiest people on earth on 1/5/1997 and I never dreamt I'd be sickened by the likes of Kerry McCarthy, and casting around to try to find someone else to vote for, little more than 10 years later.
Rose, sadly they're not going to listen to us. In my resignation letter I gave them both barrels, accusing them of destroying the hospitality industry, causing widespread depression, attacking the elderly and the poor, and reneging on their 2005 manifesto pledge. This was the answer I got back:
"I am sorry you believe you no longer identify with the party and you feel that the Smoking Ban introducted in July 2007 has caused irreparable damage. The UK is now smoke free with no smoking in almost all enclosed public places and workplaces, and the legal age for buying tobacco has been reaised from 16 to 18. A recent Omnibus survey reveals that 89 percent of people visit pubs either as often, or more frequently, than they did before the ban was put in place in July 2007, suggesting that the large majority of people support the legislation. The NHS has supported hundreds of thousands of smokers to quit and this remains something which the Labour Party is proud to have implemented. By removing the display of tobacco products at the point of sale, and preventing underage access to cigarette vending, Labour is trying to discourage young people from smoking."
Like you, I was ecstatic on 1/5/97 but have become disgusted at the way all the high hopes we had then have turned to dust.
Rick S -
I sympathise with your powerful sense of disillusionment - but that IS Socialism for you !
Especially of the softly-softly Fabian variety.
The reply you received was interesting, though: the Omnibus survey indicates (if you turn it round) that 11% of people visit pubs LESS often than before.
Hardly a statisitic to celebrate.............
Fifth-formers can now agree to be sodomised by middle-aged tobacco-sellers, but are considered too immature to buy a packet of fags from them.
Hardly a model of philosophic consistency.....
Labour seeks to 'discourage' young people from smoking.
Hardly an expression of faith in the notion of 'parental responsibility'......
Yep - that's Socialism for you - WHICHEVER Party Label it wears at the time.
Things can only get better...................
(Somebody should write a song with those words).
Its hard to keep ones sanity when having to listen to that verbal diahorria from the likes of Kerry McCarthy and the Labour party when they try to defend themselves for bringing in the smoking ban.
They know full well they have shot themselves in the foot with this one, they only have to look at the state of the pub trade to know that no matter how much they rearrange their figures for purpose, the pub business is bottoming out.
But as Kerry McCarthy and the rest of her quislings in the Labour party are just career politicians and in the game for the job and perks from the beginning, why should we expect any other response from them than the palavar they spew at us.
They aint never going to go against the Party line.
And when you cut through all the bullshit talk, bottom line is - their jobs could be put at risk.
And it just aint profitable for them.
I've been debating with some Tories about the smoking ban. They are as bigotted as NuLab on this issue. Some have even called me names such as "dim" and "stupid". If that is the smokers' best hope in the election then we might as well all pack up and leave the Uk now. We are not wanted in our country - not by the Tories, not by the IlLiberals and not by NuLab. The intolerance and justification for personal abuse astounds me. What on earth has happened to our once fine land of fair play? I despair :(
To keep it really simple, pub trade is down 11 %. My bank manager used to drive me nuts with "Remember it is the last pound which is your profit".
Wetherspoons boss calculated that (if memory serves) about 60 - 70 % of his "take" went in various taxes and government imposts.
Dodgy maths here, but 30 % to run the place, pay for stock and staff, reduced by 11 % lower t/o, anyone surprised so many pubs are closed ?
I am a dedicated NON-smoker, but even more a dedicated NON-bossinesser.
Alan Douglas