At present, GM rice is not grown commercially anywhere in the world. But Bayer, the German chemical giant, has genetically manipulated rice to withstand higher doses of a toxic pesticide called glufosinate, which is considered to be so dangerous to humans and the environment that it will soon be banned from Europe.
In just a few weeks, the European Union will decide whether or not this GM rice can enter EU countries, appear on supermarket shelves and end up on our dinner plates. If the EU approves the import of Bayer GM rice, farmers in the US and elsewhere may soon start planting it.
My first post titled Irony was quite good, and involved Iain Dale. But this one is a cracker. And involves Iain Dale again.
(I was going to call this post something else and now this first bit doesn’t really work. I’m lazy and I like that post linked to so it stays.)
Mr Watson complained of an article by Iain Dale, headed “Smears, glowering henchmen-like the Nixon White House” published in the Mail on Sunday on 12 April 2009 in which it was stated not only that Mr Watson was copied into emails sent by Downing Street press adviser Damian McBride to Derek Draper, but that he “encouraged” them. The emails were reported to have made serious and false allegations about the private lives of a number of Conservative Party MPs in the course of discussing proposals for a new website to be known as “Red Rag”.
As the Court heard today, Associated Newspapers Limited now accepts that these allegations are entirely untrue. In fact, Mr Watson was not copied into any of the emails exchanged between Mr McBride and Mr Draper. As Mr Watson has already publicly made clear, he had no involvement in or knowledge of the “Red Rag” website and he did not condone the content of the emails and, indeed, regarded them as completely inappropriate.
…and then gives a couple of different stories about having already apologised to Tom. Once in this post, which has no apology at all, and this one here that nearly has an apology. Well, Iain says an apology is owed, but never gets around to actually saying ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I apologise’ or anything similar that says sorry.
Smug? Oh I’m just happy you forced Associated Newspaper to pay out “substantial damages” and its now on the record that you have smeared people without fully knowing the facts.
But Iain doesn’t just smear people and let other people do the same in his own comments, he likes to control other peoples comments, one of the things that he used to accuse Tim of regularly…
Comment amended upon request. So far she has not offered any explanation for claiming the amount of expenses. Comment amended upon request.
Comment by jailhouselawyer — Sunday, May 17, 2009 @ 11:47 am
I hope you will delete that comment from JHL. It is entirely untrue and probably libellous.
Comment by Iain Dale — Tuesday, May 19, 2009 @ 7:33 pm
Iain I have amended the comment. However, when I consider some of the comments I have seen you allow on your blog which attack other people on issues of both sexuality and on mental health, I think you should be paying far more attention to your own comments.
Comment by The Morningstar — Tuesday, May 19, 2009 @ 8:23 pm
Only last night self proclaimed leading UK blogger Iain Dale accused me of allowing an untrue and potentially libelous comment to be posted on this blog, here. The comment was aimed at one of his friends, that doyen of political blogging Nadine Dorries, I stupidly just gave in and amended the comment without consulting the author. At the time I didn’t want to start a ridiculous fight over a comment, mental health issues can suck the fight right out of you, but when I realised the the comment was essentially factual I Apologized to the author and posted a link to the relevant news paper story.
So Iain Dale lied to me, on this blog, in order to get a comment removed that was factual.
So, I present to you the King of Irony, Iain Dale.
Apparently newsquest were only doing it because they were under duress…
A salesman at Newsquest who said his name was James, said that Newsquest was obliged to carry advertising from the BNP as it was a “legitimate political party” and that not taking any money would be against “democratic rules of party political advertising” or some rubbish like that. He said, at any rate, that Newsquest was obliged to take money from the BNP and carry their ads because it was a political party. He referred me to the Advertising Standards Authority, who he said had codes that they had to follow.
When Sunny asked the ASA about this, he was told that no codes like that existed and the press (politics?) are exempt anyway. On Sunny went the electoral commission who stated…
“Under electoral law there is no obligation for a newspaper to carry any party political advertising. They are free to reject them if they wish to.”
Tell you what. I’ve found the party I’m gonna vote for in these European elections.
It’s the fucking United Kingdom Independence Party!
How mental is that? But look, ok. They may be a little rough around the edges, not entirely credible and maybe a little xenophobic, but look…
UKIP leader Nigel Farage has registered the name of rival political party Libertas with the Electoral Commission. It effectively prevents Libertas from fighting the European elections next month under its own name, instead having to use the less than snappy Pro-Democracy Libertas EU.
Have some of fucking that, pro-Euro scum!!
You may be wondering why Our Nige has decided to do the electoral equivalent of cybersquatting, but it’s not really because he’s registered the name for a *very* good and noble reason…
it [UKIP] feared Libertas ‘would masquerade as a Euro-sceptic party when its true agenda is that they want a bigger EU.’
See? Now how bloody noble is that? Protecting the electorate form having the wool pulled over it’s eyes? It doesn’t get much more altruistic than that, does it? It’s things like that, true British values, that bring a tear to my eye and make me proud, proud I say, to be English.
And just like them lying pro European scum, gotta try every trick in the book to make us Brits look bad. Really, you couldn’t make it up…
South of England Libertas candidate Chloe Woodhead: ‘Incredibly, they offered to sell us back our own name for £10,000. It’s not just underhand, it’s pathetic.’
See? Sell? Sell? They’re not selling the name back to you, Ms Woodhead. You see, now there’s been all this exposure, all this couple of inches in the press, the whole of the UK will be wise to your tricks and know you want to behead our beloved Queen and make us drive on the right so they’ll let you have it, for nothing. See Altru-fucking-tistic. The £10k is just, er admin fees.
Via Adam Bienkov (aka ToryTroll), I’ve found that Newsquest, the parent company to pretty much all of my local newspapers, free and paid, weekly and daily, are now taking the fascist schilling.
The adverts are big banners across the top of the page completely dwarfing the title of the paper it is on…
After spending ten minutes looking at the sites of the Newsquest publications that serve my area, non turned up the BNP ad. Which is good.
As Adam notes…
Ironically enough Newsquest were heavily praised last year after deciding to no longer accept adverts from the sex industry.
But while they no longer make money out of exploited and vulnerable women, they now seem more than happy to make money out of prejudice, hatred and fear.
If you want to point out that maybe the carrying of the BNPs’ ads may not be quite compatible with Newsquests equality and fairness policy, and mission…
to publish market-leading newspapers which reflect the views of the communities they serve.
The other day, the BNP had a political broadcast on the box. I wasn’t in my beloved homeland at the time, but I heard about it, via internet chuckles of derision. Fellow geeky types tweeting about the poor production values. I looked it up on YouTube. Sure enough, it was badly made. No surprise there. Extremist material of any kind always looks gaudy and cheap, like a bad pizza menu. Not because they can’t afford decent computers – these days you can knock up a professional CD cover on a pay-as-you-go mobile – but because anyone who’s good at graphic design is likely to be a thoughtful, inquisitive sort by nature. And thoughtful, inquisitive sorts tend to think fascism is a bit shit, to be honest. If the BNP really were the greatest British party, they’d have the greatest British designer working for them – Jonathan Ive, perhaps, the man who designed the iPod. But they don’t. They’ve got someone who tries to stab your eyes out with primary colours.
But there’s more to the advert’s failure than its hideous use of colour schemes. Every aspect of it is bad. The framing is bad. The sound is bad. The script is bad. For all their talk about representing the Great British Worker, when it comes to promotional material, the BNP can’t even represent the most basic British craftsmanship.
Well, Maggie can have a nice dignified funeral, just not one paid for by me.
Teh disgusting face of the left? How about milk, Pinochet, neo-liberalism, selling national assets, poll tax, Mark Thatcher, Carol Thatcher and numerus other fucking shit?
Never mind the latest wheeze from those Caring Conservatives, the minimum wage opt-out.
A question for Nadine Dorries on her post The Daily Telegraph (I’m telling you the title of the post and not just linking to it because her main-website-intergrated-blog doesn’t have post pages)…
Charlie*, the difference is, Newspapers do not spend public money on expenses. I do not care if a journo claims £48 on a bottle of wine, takes it home and then claims it on his expenses because I wasn’t forced to contribute to it.
Now Nadine, about this second home, do you or do you not have a second home?
Is this ‘somewhere else’ yours or someone elses? If it is yours, then no problem. If it isn’t then I think you may be in a sticky position.
It’s logged here because Nadines got comment moderation enabled.
*Charlie says…
I would be very interested to read about journalists’ expenses because if politicians are lying scum – journalists are twenty times worse.
