Owen Jones

[Nefertiti2]

Spectator sympathy out in force

liddle naturally.

Much as the appalling Shami Chakrabarti has insisted, I stand ‘in solidarity’ with Owen Jones and hope he makes a swift recovery. The question, though, is whether Owen Jones stands in solidarity with Owen Jones. By which I mean, does he agree that assaulting people because they have different political opinions to you is always odious and always wrong? He was full of glee when Nigel Farage was pelted with a milkshake, tweeting: ‘spare me the tears over a banana milkshake’ and praising the burger chain who were selling the milkshakes for having ‘joined the anti-fascist resistance’. But that’s not all. Jones also tweeted in support of Aamer Rahman who advised that it was morally correct to ‘punch’ Nazis. Nazis being, in Owen’s lexicon, most people who disagree with Owen Jones. Not nice, is it?

[Jah Womble]

Any punching of a Nazi can be interpreted as self-defence.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Punching nazis is the very least that should be done.

[wingco]

Here's what I wrote on Facebook, with the Centrist Mates in mind.

Good to see people who don’t normally see eye to eye with Owen Jones nonetheless expressing horror at the attack he suffered on Friday. I don’t always agree with him either but I’ve never understood the gleeful, heated scorn some on here feel towards him, as if it were practically axiomatic that he is a font of political awfulness. Even after the news broke of his attack the other day, there were people on here calling him a “prick”. Really, I don’t get it, especially from people who you would assume share his core values; the hatred that led some to openly scoff when he found himself intimidated and barracked by a far right group outside parliament, as if it were all the prat deserved.

Quick example of something shared the other day as if it were self-evidently nonsensical. He wrote that Corbyn’s foes had underestimated him in the past and maybe they would do so again. Well, maybe they will and maybe they won’t but that doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable, if possibly wishful statement. The first part of it is definitely true. The second part is qualified by a “perhaps”. And yet it’s greeted by some if it were George Galloway saluting Saddam Hussein’s indefatigableness.

Owen Jones may not be the writer, the political analyst that Gary Younge is but two things about him; one, his undoubted courage, physical courage, a courage I, for one, lack. The attack he suffered on Saturday night would have been no surprise to him, or his friends, given the number of threats he has received. The second is, while his position might have changed on certain subjects, he is very candid about where he stands and what he believes; something that cannot always be said for his lefty-bashing detractors, some of whom I have no idea what they believe, because they never say.

I just hope that one outcome of the assault he suffered is a sobering realisation that far-right violence is on the rise in this country, and that people like Jones, who put themselves front and centre are particularly vulnerable to attack. The implicit idea of some of his critics that he is some sort of virtue-signalling, egotistical attention seeker says more about his detractors than it does him.

By all means disagree with him, take issue with his ideas, pull him up. But maybe, from now on, treat the guy with more respect.

[Nefertiti2]

Excellent piece and thanks for sharing

[Toby Gymshorts]

Well said, wingco. I'm not entirely sure about Jones but I'll definitely stand alongside him against cowardly right-wing arseholes.

EDIT: By which I mean I don't always agree with what he has to say.That's all.

[Flynnie]

Just to add to the personal testimonies here, I met Jones in 2017 canvassing in Croydon Central and he was a super nice chap. Although it was really hard to carry on a conversation with him since he was obviously the political sleb in the canvassing group, so everybody wanted to talk to him. I also see him quite regularly as he clearly lives somewhere by my office.

I don't really know why he gets the abuse he does. Obviously being young-looking (I think he's on the wrong side of 30) and gay, but right-wingers and centrists seem to get personally triggered by Jones in a way they don't by other commentators who are also young and gay.

[Snake Plissken]

I think, as wingco says, Jones is clearly what his detractors pretend to be.

[Snake Plissken]

Reminds me of someone else in the Labour Party who gets a lot of abuse from the same people.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I thought I'd seen him at Clapham Junction once but he denied it.

[E10 Rifle]

I've known him for more than a decade, back when he was part of a small coterie of the young Labour left trying to get things moving again (a coterie that also included Andrew Fisher, a couple of other close mates and Ms Rifle herself). A good bloke - full of himself at times, and has more self-confidence and courage than most. Solidarity to him against all fascist attacks. And the likes of Quantick, and that whole echo chamber of tedious white middle-aged male hacks jealous of youth and scornful of idealism, can fuck themselves frankly.

Just on DG's divergence:

On a tangent...over in Belfast my cousin Tina Calder (a local journalist and publisher) has issued 'Angels with Blue Faces' by her friend and colleague, the recently murdered Lyra McKee

.

I met Tina Calder at an NUJ conference, maybe 15-16 years ago, and remember earnest drunken discussions about the ole Irish Situation. Well, I don't remember much about them tbh

[Bored Of Education]

Just seen a post on FB that the attack on Jones is ‘karma’ for him agreeing with a statement that it is ok to punch a Nazi, condoning milkshaking and calling people ‘Gammon’. One of the reasons I don’t unfriend people like this is because, while most of my acquaintance decry what has happened, it is useful to see the narrative outside of this (and challenge it). While it is useful not to have a echo chamber of one’s own, it is also useful to be able to infiltrate others’ echo chambers (it is notable that he never comments on mine though). In saying this, this dopey berk is just an insignificant reactionary whereas Quantick and Linehan have more influence and a ever-thinning veneer of respectability. Liddle, obviously, is the same sort of bigot as the guy I am taking about but with, unfortunately, a higher profile. No veneer of respectability though

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hah, I was playing with miss and go seek's toddler nieces and eating messy chocolate cake at the weekend. Her sister thinks it's hilarious that she's a pillar of irish twitter. I keep pointing out that her eyes seem to have acquired a green tinge. I have almost jedi like reflexes when it comes to objects thrown at me from out of my line of sight.

This is sad. This isn't going to end well. (I mean Linehan, not gentle teasing)