Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[framed]

Is this you?

According to that report, her name was Dave Barnett before she went up to Oxford...

 

[Delroy Booth]

just a quick reminder

Now I've answered Laurie's questions in good faith, perhaps you'd return the favour and answer a few of mine?

1) What do you think about the spat between the NUJ and the New Statesman? Are you a member of the NUJ?

2) Did the decision to run the advert from the homophobic christian group in the New Statesman make you reconsider working for them? And do you know where the proceeds of said advertisement ended up?

3) Why did you give Stephen Lennon of the EDL a platform, at a point when the EDL is in terminal decline and where his agenda, ie using you and other journalists to try and revive it (whilst getting a good free scran too) was blatant from the outset?

Laurie Penny, she who gives platforms to fascists and who works for a scabbing, homophobic liberal paper, scratching her head with bemusement at why a forum riddled with anarchists, anti-fascists, socialists and trade unionists are often critical of her.

The one thing they definitely don't teach in Oxbridge is self-awareness.

 

[love detective]

It's incredibly creepy that you found that.
Yes, that's me. I legally changed my surname at the age of 16 to my mother's family name, rather than my father's. A feminist thing. Do you have some sort of problem with that?

I have absolutely no problem with you changing your name, I do have a problem with the kind of dishonest crap you come out with though about your background, for example:-

August 2002:
"Laura hopes to go to Oxford and is interested in the possibility of a career as a writer."

May 2012:
"For instance, in 2003, I was informed by a teacher that I would be applying to Oxford. I was the smartest kid in a smart school which needed to boost its Oxbridge figures: there was no question."

So how come in 2012 you lied about being forced to apply to Oxford like you had no choice in it, when ten years previously in an interview for a local newspaper you informed them that you hoped to go to Oxford. Where you lying in 2002 or 2012?

 

[butchersapron]

It's incredibly creepy that you found that.
Yes, that's me. I legally changed my surname at the age of 16 to my mother's family name, rather than my father's. A feminist thing. Do you have some sort of problem with that?

Where you unaware that this had been put out there before? Think.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Careful now, violent misogynist fantasies.

I'll happily admit to having violent fantasies, but they're not misogynistic, unless David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith, George Osborne, Eric Pickles, Ed Miliband, Liam Byrne and several dozen other neoliberal members of the political classes have undergone gender reassignment recently.

 

[lauriepenny]

I have absolutely no problem with you changing your name, I do have a problem with the kind of dishonest crap you come out with though about your background, for example:-

August 2002:
"Laura hopes to go to Oxford and is interested in the possibility of a career as a writer."

May 2012:
"For instance, in 2003, I was informed by a teacher that I would be applying to Oxford. I was the smartest kid in a smart school which needed to boost its Oxbridge figures: there was no question."

So how come in 2012 you lied about being forced to apply to Oxford like you had no choice in it, when ten years previously in an interview for a local newspaper you informed them that you hoped to go to Oxford. Where you lying in 2002 or 2012?

For fuck's sake. I both wanted AND was encouraged to go. If I hadn't, there'd have been a problem. This petty bullshit is really uninspiring.

 

[framed]

I'll happily admit to having violent fantasies, but they're not misogynistic, unless David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith, George Osborne, Eric Pickles, Ed Miliband, Liam Byrne and several dozen other neoliberal members of the political classes have undergone gender reassignment recently.

What have you got against men Panda, you mad feminist bitch!

 

[weepiper]

I have absolutely no problem with you changing your name, I do have a problem with the kind of dishonest crap you come out with though about your background, for example:-

August 2002:
"Laura hopes to go to Oxford and is interested in the possibility of a career as a writer."

May 2012:
"For instance, in 2003, I was informed by a teacher that I would be applying to Oxford. I was the smartest kid in a smart school which needed to boost its Oxbridge figures: there was no question."

So how come in 2012 you lied about being forced to apply to Oxford like you had no choice in it, when ten years previously in an interview for a local newspaper you informed them that you hoped to go to Oxford. Where you lying in 2002 or 2012?

Mm. I was told I was applying to Oxford and Cambridge too, but I said 'no ta' because I knew it'd be miserable for me coming from my background and went to Edinburgh instead. My school would have killed to get a kid into Oxford. But it was pretty easy to say no if you didn't want to.

 

[love detective]

For fuck's sake. I both wanted AND was encouraged to go. If I hadn't, there'd have been a problem. This petty bullshit is really uninspiring.

So you wanted to go to Oxford, fine. Why make out in 2012 that you were informed that you would be applying, 'no question'. Why no mention in the 2012 article that you wanted to go? why the omission?

Why did you say that in 2003 you had been informed by a teacher that you would be applying as though it was some kind of imposition put on you, when a year earlier in 2002 you had already expressed your desire to go there?

 

[alfajobrob]

Just on my own merit, oddly enough. I've never had any personal or family connections at any paper or magazine I've worked at.

Really, that makes it even more shocking then.

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind man as my grandad used to say.

 

[Bakunin]

I'll happily admit to having violent fantasies, but they're not misogynistic, unless David Cameron, Iain Duncan Smith, George Osborne, Eric Pickles, Ed Miliband, Liam Byrne and several dozen other neoliberal members of the political classes have undergone gender reassignment recently.

They haven't yet, but I can always provide assistance involving the top of a well-rusted tin can if that would help at all.

 

[butchersapron]

For fuck's sake. I both wanted AND was encouraged to go. If I hadn't, there'd have been a problem. This petty bullshit is really uninspiring.

It's not supposed to be.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I dunno we could do with some hardened lizard fighters, just in case y'know?

Obviously, when I referred to my "thick proletarian hide" earlier, I was in no way confirming or denying that my thick hide is at all reptilian.

 

[Steel Icarus]

If only we were kids of colour from that Brooklyn.

 

[lauriepenny]

It wasn't an omission, because that article wasn't about me - it was about how private schools construct and perpetuate class privilege. The fact that anyone bright is automatically put on the oxbridge route unless and sometimes even if they raise serious objections is part of that process.

 

[framed]

For fuck's sake. I both wanted AND was encouraged to go. If I hadn't, there'd have been a problem. This petty bullshit is really uninspiring.

The 2012 quote from you suggests that you were coerced by teachers/school in order to take up a place at Oxford, whereas the piece from 2002 reports you as being proactive in applying to Oxford and quite enthusiastic at the prospect.

Sort it out Dave.

 

[rekil]

I think the problem with the British Left is that it's riddled with bitterness and barely acknowledged misogyny. And I think that this thread is the perfect example of all of those things.

Can you stop calling us misogynists please? Look at the rest of the site ffs. We know you get a load of genuinely awful shit from filth elsewhere but sexism is not tolerated here and in fact one of this thread's large derails was about taking a certain Labour party hack to task about some unacceptable shit he came out with about a LibDem guardian woman (who shall remain nameless for fear of further derail lunacy)

 

[butchersapron]

It wasn't an omission, because that article wasn't about me - it was about how private schools construct and perpetuate class privilege. The fact that anyone bright is automatically put on the oxbridge route unless and sometimes even if they raise serious objections is part of that process.

How else do they do that? How can you stop it?

 

[inva]

It wasn't an omission, because that article wasn't about me - it was about how private schools construct and perpetuate class privilege. The fact that anyone bright is automatically put on the oxbridge route unless and sometimes even if they raise serious objections is part of that process.

i wasn't put on the oxbridge route.
not bright
edit
oh you said private schools

 

[SpineyNorman]

Smartest kid at a smart school.

 

[stethoscope]

It wasn't an omission, because that article wasn't about me - it was about how private schools construct and perpetuate class privilege. The fact that anyone bright is automatically put on the oxbridge route unless and sometimes even if they raise serious objections is part of that process.

"That's coercion, Sir!"

 

[ViolentPanda]

I did press spokesman work for a couple of groups during my activist days. Does that mean I'm on The List or does my having gone from gamekeeper to poacher save me from making said List?

There's a great deal of difference between publicising your own activism on the one hand, and shovelling shit with sugar frosting onto capitalists, their ideas and their products in order to sell them to the public.

 

[Belushi]

i wasn't put on the oxbridge route.
not bright

We didn't even have a bloody sixth form

 

[TruXta]

Smartest kid at a smart school.

Broken Britain. FEB.

 

[love detective]

It wasn't an omission, because that article wasn't about me

why mention any personal details about you at all then if it wasn't about you (and by the way, you're articles are always about you, whether you realise it or not)

face facts, you've bene caught out lying, lying about personal circumstances to suit whatever story you happen to be writing about

you will now dress up these exposures as internet bullying and continue to do more of the same of the above

 

[Steel Icarus]

If nothing else, Laurie, if you don't read and understand and even get a VAGUE idea of why this thread exists (this thread which is NOT ostensibly about you and you alone), then just know that a major problem is that for all your causes and shouting and righteous anger etc the perception of you is that you're still one of THEM, speaking first and foremost about and for us, and not to us. Like so many others. It's easy to bounce in and out of other people's struggles. That on its own wouldn't be too much of a problem as far as provoking ire was concerned. But to appropriate these struggles as your own; well, it might fool more impressionable people than on these pages but here it doesn't wash.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Posh schools aren't 'smart' schools by the way. They churn out exam results, sure, but some of the thickest fuckers I've ever met got straight As at private schools. You don't really need to be smart with the best education money can buy.

 

[ViolentPanda]

According to that report, her name was Dave Barnett before she went up to Oxford...

"You're my wife now, Dave!"

 

[frogwoman]

why would it have been a problem not to want to go to oxford? nobody forces you to go, or to apply there, there are people who get offered a place and then turn it down

 

[ViolentPanda]

What have you got against men Panda, you mad feminist bitch!

That's "mad feminist bastard", thanks.
And it's not ALL men, just right-wing men.