Time for everyone to calm down over McAlpinegate

I am sleeping fairly well at night right now. I have never written a tweet implying Lord McAlpine was a paedophile. (Note: tweet is a common definition of a micro-blog post. Additional note: Paedophile is a term describing those attracted to children typically below the age of 13, though in Britain the word is used a little more liberally to refer to anyone who legally is not expected to pay an adult fare on public transport.)

In fact, I have never written a tweet bearing McAlpine's name, prior to his unveiling as the poor bloke BBC Newsnight meant when implying some shadowy relic of the Conservative Party was abusing children.

And despite witnessing many tweets directly claiming he was a paedophile (along with four or five regularly alleged others), I believed it was unethical to "retweet" any of them. (Note for those not familiar with micro-blogging websites: Retweet is the Twitter term for copying someone else's tweet into your own Twitter page for other Twitter members to view.)

There was one notable tweet bearing his name that I may well have retweeted, but it no longer exists, for the author (a highly respected Guardian columnist) has apologised and presumably removed it. For that reason, it is no surprise that I do not even remember if I retweeted it! However, I best apologise just in case.

The tweet in question did little more than question some of the dubious things written about McAlpine on the Internet, but I suspect in the current climate the author will be in trouble over that.

That author apologised in the form of a tweet and linked it towards a more detailed apology. I decided to retweet his apology to my followers - you know, just in case. I hope Lord McAlpine accepts it and that is the end of the matter.

Now that is clear, I add a caveat or two to the above summary of McAlpine vs Twitter. Firstly, I fear that having won the goodwill of the public in light of some rather diabolical allegations, McAlpine (and more significantly those representing his interests post-McAlpinegate) risk overplaying his hand. Secondly, even if McAlpine's response is legally tenable, it is very much in the context of laws that have not caught up with the demands of print and broadcast media, let alone the online variety. First, I shall deal with the former point.

I personally think McAlpine's response is understandable. If I had been subject to the allegations he has faced, I would be on television too, auditioning my croakiest voice and reminding the audience how devastated I am by the allegations. I would have been demanding the BBC justified its research. No question - I would have sought some compensation from the broadcaster.

Having said that, I also think McAlpine has already done very well. His settlement with the BBC must surely be some sort of precedent for dealing with libel through innuendo and cryptic messaging.

I dare say if the BBC was not so on its knees in the fallout of this and the Savile fiasco, they may have had more of a stomach for a fight. They wanted the episode over as quickly as possible and who can blame them?

So you would think that Lord McAlpine would be happy with the settlement for a mischievous report that caused a lot of harmful gossip, and a clear message sent to the world that he is not a paedophile.

No sooner had the BBC surrendered, his legal team outlined their plans to pursue up to 10,000 Twitter users over the publishing of defamatory tweets in what is described as potentially a libel action with the largest number of defendants ever. The response is hardly a surprise when the first defendant (the BBC) settled out of court despite not actually mentioning him by name, instead allowing public gossip settle that matter. I too would be trawling the cyber and the tangible trying to find my next catch.

His next catch seems to be ITV, who broadcast the segment where Phillip Schofield handed a list of paedophilic names to David Cameron. He (McAlpine, that is!) was believed to be on that list and it is rumoured a camera picked it up. (Note the deliberate use of 'believed to be' and 'rumoured' in that sentence.)

I would be absolutely fuming if I was on Schofield's camera-shot list, and understandably McAlpine must be fuming about it. However, has anyone actually seen names on the list? It may have been caught by a camera, but was that particular camera part of the broadcast feed at the time?

These are crucial questions, because as things stand, despite an apology aired on This Morning, nobody seems to have produced the offending screen caption. I would have thought with the millions of feral Twitter users, ready to shine a light on predatory paedophiles at any moment, the offending screencap would have been doing the rounds within minutes of the broadcast ending. I have not seen any image, and I practically live on Twitter at times!

We were told viewers might have seen the list. It seems nobody has seen it. Someone should tell Lord McAlpine. This time, he is in the clear!

Except nobody will, as his legal team looks towards holding anyone and everyone to account. It is an approach that risks McAlpine losing the goodwill he has earned in the aftermath. I do not have the biggest Twitter feed in the world, so it is not a representative tapestry of views, however I have noticed a change of mood among those I follow.

When BBC Newsnight originally apologised, there was a mixture of sympathy for McAlpine and irritation that a story about child abuse had been superseded by poor journalism. The sympathy towards McAlpine has fallen away on my Twitter feed, and I wonder if he should retreat from further action while he is ahead.

His reputation has ironically been enhanced, as a weak and feckless media (in part brutalised by arcahic libel laws) made huge steps to apologise to him and stress that he is not a paedophile. Many people were quick to sympathise with him.

My second point regarding the post-Newsnight fallout is that I feel that libel laws in the UK need to catch up with the reality of the Internet, or it is going to destroy what is good about websites like Twitter.

Twitter enables lay members of the population to debate, discuss, talk, have a laugh, sometimes troll, sometimes troll aggressively and sometimes troll unlawfully. It is a big room where everyone can shout at anyone, with the rather obvious drawback that whatever is shouted is rendered into cyber-memory. Those words are there forever.

I am no legal expert, but my understanding is that British law is often cast through precedent. There will be many precedents needed in light of McAlpinegate if we are to prevent an online crisis of communication.

First of all, there will need to be an acceptance that although journalists and writers publish on Twitter and other sites, so do people who are not used to their copy being checked by lawyers before they hit the send button. (Note: Journalists have their work checked, and yet they have been known to wrongly accuse – the Chris Jefferies case springs to mind.)

Any developments of law that see thousands of people with a few dozen Twitter followers going to court will be to the detriment of ordinary people, many of whom who already have enough to worry about in day-to-day life. Lord McAlpine certainly would not have the same anxieties and worries that they face.

There is going to need to be a clear post-multimedia agreement governing Internet use which does not penalise ordinary people. I cannot offer much help to those who are directly tweeting allegations about people. As I already said, I am not a legal expert, but I am now old enough to know by now that to call someone a paedophile requires a stack of irrefutable evidence.

I can offer suggestions for those who have retweeted, or wrote implied comments. By letter of the law, it would seem that those who retweet gain responsibility for taking that tweet to their followers, but how many people know this? Any retweet is clearly marked with the original author's name. Ignorance being no defence is a harsh principle to reply here. This is not as black and white as knowing that violence or sexual abuse is legally wrong.

This is important, because there may be no end to this. Courts could find themselves being a revolving door for trivial Twitter actions, with judges having to rule on who retweeted someone else's innuendo. The fact of the matter is that people could potentially be sued for retweeting a comment by a respected Guardian journalist originating from a rather dubious news report by the respected (but heaven knows why!) BBC.

That is the reality, and it seems wrong because it is wrong.

I would suggest that judges become familiar with the Twitter architecture. It is clear how the site works. If someone tweets something potentially libellous with 100,000 followers in tow, then it is obvious that it is going to be spread much wider. This puts the onus on the original author to get it right. Retweeters do so with the original source of their tweet clearly marked, and those retweeters who are clearly not media-savvy should not be punished for not knowing the rules of engagement. If some of those who are media-aware (and legally-aware) cannot get their Twitter activity right, what chance the rest of us?

One logical conclusion is that people will not just be sued for tweets and retweets, but they will also be sued for mentioning the names of high-profile people who are tweeting potentially libellous material elsewhere on the website. For example, Sally Bercow has come in for a lot of unfair criticism for also being little more than careless about who she saw "trending" on the website (McAlpine, since you ask). Assuming her tweets are deemed unlawful, what fate could befall anyone who simply tweeted the text “I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today?"

Most of the "chattering classes" know who Sally Bercow is.

To find out what Sally Bercow has been writing, she is well-known enough to be the first twitter result if anyone enters "Sally Bercow" into the search box.

If I wrote a tweet "I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today," there is the argument that I am effectively signposting people to her page containing lots of questionable tweets.

This could happen to a lot of other people too. This is why the law as it stands cannot work.

I also fear what the consequences of these issues could be for opinion. A lot is written about high-profile Members of Parliament, for example, Nadine Dorries, who has recently been a resident of a jungle somewhere on the other side of the world. Dorries has always attracted a lot of criticism from those on both the left and the right because of her unconventional approach to public office.

Nobody can expect to be sued for describing her as a ghastly, awful woman, as it is an opinion that is not necessarily damaging. However, some may feel that Dorries has gone on a TV show to boost her own profile. They may argue that she is deserting her constituents while doing that. They may believe she is not fit to be an MP on that basis.

My fear is that Dorries may consider those viewpoints to be damaging and contest them on that basis. If a portal is opened to sue people for expressing such sentiments on Twitter, then the whole principle of debate is at risk.

Admittedly, criticising someone's fitness for office is not comparable to calling someone a paedophile, but the recipient could still fight the Twitter membership on the basis they feel it is damaging to their future employment opportunities and reputation. There are stakes here that are much bigger than context of one accusatory episode where this is located. The law must reflect that.

For now, I believe everyone has to calm down a little. We must cool down with the feral accusations. I can understand why feelings are running high though. I used to think, and still do to some extent, that Brits are extremely paranoid and irrational when it comes to the issue of paedophilia.

The Sun mixes up coverage of right-wing politics, international affairs and celebrity gossip with regular titillation stories from the courts about paedophile activity. If the stories look peculiarly out of place outside of the context of a local newspaper, it is because they are. In some ways, the newspaper's obsession with the issue is borderline creepy.

It has been known for innocent people to be attacked in the street because they happen to resemble a paedophile mugshot published in the tabloid press. This is not on.

I do believe though that Britain has a bigger paedophile problem than I originally thought. In some ways, the Internet has flushed them to the surface in much the same way as rain brings out slugs. Without being rumbled by an eagle-eyed computer repair engineer, Gary Glitter would still be enjoying regular paedophile holidays to the Far East, unchecked.

Shouting out the names of presumed paedophiles on Twitter is not the answer. We need to apply pressure to get these high-profile child abuse cases re-opened and re-examined, so the offenders can be brought to justice.

It is not just ordinary citizens, many of whom are worried parents and people with good hearts, who need to cool down though. A little understanding needs to be shown by those who are trying to control what is published on the Internet.

Let us not forget the public was wound up by this story by the very classes now trying to stamp down on Twitter activity – those in the media. The wind-up process started earlier in the day of the Newsnight report into the child abuse scandal, when someone connected to the report tweeted to tell people it was likely to be screened and involved an old Tory.

The idea may not have been to cause feverish speculation, but it had that effect.

When the news report went out and (quelle surprise) nobody was named, that raised anger levels further. Bearing in mind Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards paedophila, this outcome should not have surprised anyone, apart from maybe the most moronic of TV executives.

So whereas the Twitter community needs to calm down a little now, so must also those who are the most condemning of us.

The BBC's long journey to restore trust and its purpose

Regular readers of this website will be long aware of how critical and disillusioned I am with the BBC's efforts as a public service broadcaster. I am critical of the BBC because I love it, but it is a hard beast to love at the moment. The way it handled the report into the North Wales Care Home scandal, and the testimony given by Steven Messham - a former abuse victim, and clearly someone who is a vulnerable man - was disgraceful.

The BBC is in the wrong whichever way you look at it, and I can see at least two ways of looking at it.

Firstly, assuming the truth that Messham wrongly identified Lord McAlpine as one of his abusers (and we have to learn to question everything now), then the original report into the North Wales Care Abuse on Newsnight was an appalling misjudgement.

Secondly, and conversely, if the sceptre of legal action has bullied Messham into submission, leading to the BBC to cowardly shelve their story and prepare a hasty apology, then the behaviour of those at the BBC is appalling in that sense as well.

Either way, the BBC is in the wrong. Either way, Messham has been treated badly.

The crisis has led to questions about the BBC's purpose, and the future of public service broadcasting in this country. Well, it beats having to indulge in the uncomfortable question of how we are going to get to the bottom of the problem of child abuse when the mere suggestion of legal action sends researchers and investigators on the run.

One problem in particular is trying to unravel the following question: How can we on the left be taken seriously when we cannot even get our story straight as to what the BBC actually is?

On one hand, we are fighting its corner on the grounds it is a treasured institution and provides a public service, or at least it is meant to be when it is not either (a) wrongly making indirect paedophile allegations, (b) backtracking from legitimate allegations when the kitchen gets hot, or (c) both. We justify our position on the basis that the Tories would love to dismantle the BBC. On the other hand, we complain that it has become a Tory mouthpiece, that is complicit in the protection of establishment figures, perhaps like the one mentioned above.

We bemoan that fact that Andrew Marr is like Jeremy Paxman when confronted with a Labour MP, but becomes Phillip Schofield when confronted with a Tory (at least before Phillip Schofield decided that his This Morning sofa would no longer be a cosy seat for politicians).


The truth is we are trying to save an institution that is presently not on our side. Has it ever been really? Have we been admiring of an institution that has been contemptuous of us all along? This is the broadcaster that provides employment for Chris Patten, Andrew Neil, Jeremy Clarkson and a plethora of other people whose views are far removed from the left's ideal.

Amazingly, the funding mechanism that props up the BBC, and which many leftists are trying to preserve, is its very problem. Implicit in any relationship between BBC and government is where the broadcaster would be left if the licence fee was abolished - something the present Tory government has exploited fully. This makes it a state broadcaster, not a public service broadcaster. And it was a state broadcaster, as opposed to a public service broadcaster, that I witnessed as the BBC provided its interminable apology during Friday's Newsnight, as Messham's testimony was safely returned to the bottle it came out of.

Abolishing the licence fee is a form of commercialisation (not the same as privatisation, as the BBC could still have its own corporate structure) and one which I feel would benefit the broadcaster and the public it is supposed to be serving. The broadcaster could be truly independent and not the publicity wing of the Conservative Party, employed to prevent Lords, MPs and other establishment figures. The public would no longer have to pay a household tax for the privilege of watching television, regardless of whether their home is flat or a castle.

Who knows? With a little self-financing, the broadcaster may be able to restore the many events it lost to Sky, ITV and Channel 4 - cricket, golf, football, horse racing and Formula 1 to name a few. If that does not earn a little goodwill, then nothing would.

Another problem with our argument on the left is we support the BBC, not because we are happy with it, but because it supposedly represents what Rupert Murdoch is not. I have never bought into this "enemy of my enemy is my friend" belief. We cannot accuse Rupert Murdoch and his publications of hypocrisy over their criticisms of the BBC handling of the Savile and McAlpine issues if we are hypocrites ourselves.

After Murdoch's institution was found to be hacking people's phones, we were calling for the splitting Murdoch's press on the grounds that the family of publications had become too big and unmanageable. The BBC seems to be cursed with the same illness - bloated, huge and unmanageable. It allowed Savile to stalk its corridors for years, taking his prey back to dressing rooms to rape them. This is of course unless the BBC has since cowardly decided (after speaking to a lawyer or two) that Savile did none of these things after all and can now rest in peace.

Yet whenever I mention the possibility of splitting the BBC, I get quite a reaction. The idea of splitting the BBC is immediately conflated with dismantling the BBC. This is not what I am suggesting, though in the defence of my critics I have not been able to make this clear.

What I suggest, is that if the notion that running The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and (then) News of the World is too big a task for the Murdoch family, then BBC's radio, TV, local, commercial and news departments also should be split. Each can have their own management. Each still be nationalised, but funded commercially. Each operating in the public interest. Each still operating under the banner of the BBC.

As I keep saying though, there are aspects of the BBC I do love, but the news operation is now seriously dragging everything else down. Maybe the BBC should stick to what it is good at, and dispense with the current affairs.

I get through my work days thanks to Radio 2 - Britain's top radio station for good reason. Chris Evans has a cheery voice which starts the day well. Simon Mayo (my favourite of all the broadcasters) has a reassuring delivery with a wicked sense of humour, and that's not to mention Ken Bruce, Jeremy Vine and others. Radio 5 does sport extremely well, and allows the broadcasters (such as Alan Green) the creative freedom to be as critical as they wish.

Meanwhile, over on the television, some of the documentaries and research the BBC brings us is amazing. If BBC Four was ever abolished, I would probably fall out with the BBC for good!

So, I am not against the BBC. However I would be lying to say I am happy with it. Many are complaining the BBC is in disarray after a disgraceful process leading to poor Messham's discredited testimony (which has also served to knock back the cause of child protection for at least three decades). However, we are witnessing is the first steps by the BBC to repair itself, as only corporations can.

George Entwistle, who must be the shortest-lived Director General ever, has rightly resigned. In a way, I have a lot of sympathy with him. He was handed an unenviable inbox. His handling of it was appalling though. His appearance in front of MPs in light of the Savile fiasco was weak. The BBC's handling of the Messham evidence was no better.

Many employees within the BBC promptly gave a character reference about what a nice person Entwistle is - and I believe them. Sadly, I have heard it all before. They are the same parting gifts given to a football manager who loses seven of his last eight games in charge and is shown the door. "Nice fella, but we couldn't get results."

I am certainly no apologist for the previous Director General, Mark Thompson, either. I have no doubt though he would have come out fighting. We may never know if he would have sanctioned the Newsnight apology for running the story, but there must be a chance he would have stood firm. Notably, there is the unresolved question: Why is the BBC apologising for Newsnight, despite the name of the alleged abuser being circulated around the Internet, rather than the BBC? I am not certain if anyone at the BBC can answer that one either.

There are many gunning for the BBC at the moment. The newspapers, led by the Murdoch press, would love to see a weakened BBC. They are leading with hypocritical headlines about the chaos. Make no mistake, they have no right to take a moral position. Innocent people suffered when the Murdoch press published photographs of sex offenders, due to the fallibility of human judgement when faced with someone who vaguely resembles one of the Murdoch mugshots. Yet, if the BBC does not reform, people like Murdoch will win. If the BBC does not appoint a strong leader in the wake of Entwistle's resignation, again their enemies will win.

Despite Entwistle's fate, much more needs to be done at the BBC to restore lost trust in the broadcaster. A sacking is not going cure this mess. There is still a lot a lot of goodwill out there towards the BBC, as tweets from my friends on the left reassure me. This goodwill is not infinite though. I sign off with a question with words to the effect of those asked by an excellent user of the oft-maligned twitter website: "How did Savile get away with has paedophilic behaviour for so many years? Look at what has happened over the past seven days, and you will find your answer."

Why feminism must free itself from people like Louise Mensch

Louise Mensch, former Conservative MP for Corby, never struck me as much of a feminist, despite what she may say. Real feminism engages with serious issues, such as the vote, pay, workplace and violence. Yet, when put to the test, self-styled feminists such as Louise Mensch fail to campaign effectively for their comrades. Her feminism, if it can be described as such, is more of the individualist variety.

Other than pointing out occasional outbursts of male chauvinism, I am uncertain what her principles are. That is, of course, a more general criticism of her that Labour, and even some Tories, would offer. On the whole, the sum total of her feminist achievements seems to be a demonstration that she can climb up any corporate ladder. That is not solidarity though with women who are aiming to achieve equal pay, trying to campaign against domestic violence, or protesting for more effective rape convictions.

Unfortunately Mensch is not alone. From the heavyweights of the past, we now have those who write about matters so trivial it barely qualifies as feminist scholarship. A great place to start for the evidence gathering is Mensch's Twitter page. (No link provided - it's easily searchable, and I do not wish to give her any more hits than necessary.)

The page is a masterclass in light Internet trolling. It is not the sort of trolling associated with vile people who, for example, threaten others. It is trolling of the variety where Mensch, as a conservative, has digs at her political opponents, then retweets the inevitable reactions she gets. Dare I say it, some of the responses use sexist language.

Bravo! That's how to change the world! Mensch tweeted and retweeted reactions for hours because Labour peer Lord Sugar called her "dear" on Twitter. This was certainly not the most outrageous act of sexism that Mensch has been subjected to, but of course she - as Sugar's political opposite - was deeply offended by it. I am frequently called "dear" by older women. I am no longer sure how to interpret it. Maybe I will dismiss it as a generational thing and be a little less chippy than Mensch.

The problem is, there is something decidedly "me, me, me" about Mensch's individualist ravings. The truth is, as someone on the right, Mensch cannot begin to appreciate the oppressor/oppressed dynamic that often constructs gendered interactions.

When put to the test, Mensch falls down. While her feminist comrades are campaigning for The Sun to abolish the antiquated (and rather embarrassing, it has to be said) daily topless page 3 girl, Mensch is writing for the newspaper.

This is the newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch - the man who she was drafted upon to interrogate as part of a parliamentary committee into the conduct of his newspaper researchers in the phone-hacking scandal. The outcome saw Mensch as one of the MPs who publicly distanced herself from the eventual report condemning Murdoch's suitability to run a newspaper. Now she is working for Murdoch.

That is not just a middle-finger to the feminism she supposedly stands for, that is a sequence of events ripe for a parliamentary inquiry.

Also counting against Mensch is her decision to quit as an MP little over two-years into her term for family reasons, something else which is not going to help the cause of other ambitious women hoping to enter Parliament in future. However, apart from marriage, little seems to have changed in her circumstances. It is now widely reported that it was fear of inevitable defeat from the embarrassed and angered Corby electorate that led Mensch to step down.

In summary, I feel that feminism is better off without Louise Mensch. However, as a male, I am no feminist writer and as I explain in this article I believe it is not for the place of men to speak on behalf of women. Therefore, all I offer here is mere advice, and a narrative into how I believe one particular bad apple can bring with it many contradictions.