Separated at High School – the curious case of Tommy Jones and Owen Robinson

Poor Tommy and Owen are from not too dissimilar backgrounds – at least that’s what Owen says. Tommy’s mother worked in a bakery, and apparently left Tommy with no particular political education or affiliation. Owen’s parents were a shop steward and a lecturer, so basically aspiring middle class with plenty of political awareness. Dead similar.

Tommy went to a local school in Luton, while Owen attended a sixth form college, equal opportunities being what they are. So, let’s hear no more about Owen’s privileged background.

But their paths changed after leaving high school.

Owen received a top education in one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Tommy left school and had various jobs.

Nevertheless, they retain an uncannily similar campaigning style. [Credit to someone else for spotting the similarity – but I’m blocked by Owen and can’t find them now]

The following is from Owen, here

Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up racism and bigotry against Muslims, against migrants, against refugees, and against other minorities, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace. It fuels overtly racist attacks. It drives violence, and it drives the rise of the far right. After Christchurch, the massacre of dozens of Muslims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, effectively acting like hate preachers, with megaphones that reach tens of millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the racism and the bigotry which has consequences for people. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds who do not suffer the consequences of the bigotry and racism that the media fans. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against racism and bigotry by the most powerful institutions, or some of them, in the country, is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling racism and bigotry. Call it out.

And the following wouldn’t be out of place in a video from Tommy …

Every single day, the British media, and the media elsewhere, whips up hatred and bigotry against those that criticise Islam, those people being a particular favourite target right now. Now there are some consequences. It fuels, it drives, it legitimises street level abuse, harassment, bullying, in the playground, the workplace, of Islamic supremacism. It fuels overtly Islamic attacks. It excuses Islamic violence, and it drives the rise of the far right Islam. After Manchester, the massacre of dozens of victims, or Rotherham and the 1400+ child victims, there can be no more tolerance, and no more silence within the media industry, about the role of the media, acting like cowards, more afraid of being called racist hate preachers themselves, with megaphones that could expose the Islamism to millions of people, every single day. Now there are some that get very angry in the media when it’s called out, how dare you call out the media, as though they’re being victimised and attacked and insulted, rather than using their platform to speak out and challenge the grooming gangs and the consequences for children. Now the media is an industry which is overwhelmingly dominated by those from those from those privileged backgrounds, like Owen Jones, who do not suffer the consequences of the Islamic terrorism and grooming gangs, that the media fans, by screaming ‘Islamophobia’. But it has to now be called out. And, to fail to use one’s platform, if you have a platform, to speak out against grooming gangs, which Andrew Norfolk eventually did. The most powerful institutions, or some of them, like the police, politicians, and media, that say “Nothing to do with Islam” is to be complicit. So, enough of people responding in this defensive way, or being silent, or themselves peddling excuses for Islamic homophobic bigotry. Call it out.

The thing is, there WAS silence in the media, on Muslim grooming gangs, from Owen, and especially from Corbyn, who sacked (sorry, managed to ‘persuade’) Sarah Champion from the opposition front bench for daring to talk about Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gangs. There has been collusion in the silence from press, police and politicians, specifically many Labour councils. 

For over a decade any attempt to raise the issue found the media hunting down those that complained and labelling them as racists – teachers that saw the grooming happening outside the school gates were demonised and hounded out of office if they expressed any concern in too explicit terms.

Maggie Oliver, of the eventually infamous case of Three Girls in Rochdale, which came only after she had been thwarted in her attempts to investigate the problem in Manchester, has been campaigning for more awareness, and for investigations into the neglectful and complicit senior police and social services that shut down anyone trying to expose the problem.

Even Times writer, Andrew Norfolk, admitted he sat on a story of grooming gangs for a couple of years, for fear of being called racist. A self-censoring press! You’d actually think Norfolk would have been sacked for NOT getting the story out sooner. Instead he was honoured as the brave soul that eventually did publish. Let that sink in. The problem is so bad, you’re more of a hero for publishing what should be a straight forward crime story, than a demon for covering it up for a couple of years while who knows how many girls continued to be abused by those eventually prosecuted.

And don’t get me started on the mind boggling utter nonsense of Islamic terrorism being “Nothing to do with Islam”, which we have heard countless times from politicians, when Islamic terrorists tell you explicitly they are doing it FOR Islam, and cite Quran and Hadith in detail as justification.

Hot head Tommy has his issues. He says things that are too close to the edge of anti-Muslim bigotry, but if confronted he’ll generally walk it back. On many occasions he’s been very explicit about how he has no problem with most Muslims – he even talks of a local Muslim who he finds to a better example of a decent person than anyone else he knows. His issue is always with Islamism, Islamic extremism, Muslim grooming gangs, and the attacks on free speech that are targeted at speech against Islam specifically. You may not like the way he goes about things – fine. You may reject him for his criminal record – fine – except let’s not see double standards where other ex-cons are deemed to have been redeemed. But if you dismiss what he has to say in totality for who he is, rather than listening to what he has to say first, then, guess what, you’re a bigot.

Owen has no excuses, other than he’s been indoctrinated into a political class that searches for  victims that they can make their next project … until the victims no longer want to be saved. You won’t see much concern for the working class if they happen not to like one particular religion.

Why has there been a Labour failure to make any criticism of Islam in practice? Where have Corbyn and Owen been on LBGT issues while the Parkfield Islamic homophobia has been going on?

If you want to see the utter hypocrisy of Owen, look no further than this race baiting tweet of his (don’t forget, Islamophobia=racism). [H/T Damo – @Concretemilk for these images]

There is absolutely no chance a newspaper would splash a childhood photo of an Islamic terrorist who murdered 49 Christians in a church as an “angelic boy”. Displacing focus from the victims to oh how could a sweet WHITE boy become a terrorist.

Funnily enough, the Mail and the Sun, had already displayed such a sentiment, using the term “angelic schoolboy”. This is what you get when you’re so biased in your political ideology you refuse to read anything that opposes your views. This is how dogmatic bigoted ideologues like Owen survive. 

Let’s go back a bit further to look at what Owen had to tweet about Jihadi John:

Now there’s a surprise. The guy who complained about someone using Jihadi John as “a pop at Corbyn”, then four years later he’s using a newspaper front page to have a pop at what he perceives ‘Islamophobia’ in the press.

When he’s not throwing a tantrum and stomping off interviews that aren’t going his way, despite his persistent rude and entitled interruptions when it’s time for another guest to speak, and when he’s not spending his day blocking people on Twitter, he’s writing bigoted two faced pieces in The Guardian (“my newspaper”) that exhibit his own bigotry towards the ‘working class’ – no wonder Labour struggles for their support when they have mouth pieces like Owen.

This is where you get to with Grievance Politics that has infested Labour. Not that grievances shouldn’t be exposed, but that bigot Owen will be very selective about which he exposes, erring on the side of not exposing grievances by Islam, and conjuring up grievances even when there are none to be found.

For all Robinson’s antics, his ‘reporting’ actually has more credibility that Owen’s. That is deeply worrying, that an activist like Robinson that shouts about genuine grievances is an outcast that’s driven out of social media, while Owen Jones is, to a vocal yet gullible number on the left, is a heroic voice for the underdog. You won’t find much from Owen Jones on FGM (though he endorses “my newspaper’s campaign” – hardly a campaign, but rather too few articles); and when he writes about homophobia he won’t comment how much more of it there is in Muslim communities – because, of course, that would make him a racist … against a political religious far right homophobic ideology.