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Life’s a riot: welcome to the Laurie Penny show
New Statesman blogger comes under fire for her reporting of the weekend’s events in London
In the aftermath of Saturday's disturbances in London, the left has embarked on a predictable bout of internecine warfare after the 250,000-strong march against cuts was overshadowed by violence on the streets of the capital.
Mainstream figures of the left bemoan the piggy-backing of the TUC's peaceful protests by UK Uncut and the Black Block anarchists. More radical voices have praised actions such as the occupation of Fortnum & Mason and pointed their finger at what they claim to be police violence against their number. And no voice has been raised as high as that of Laurie Penny.
Half Hanoi Jane, half Hunter S Thompson, Penny is an acquired taste.
The 24-year-old activist-journalist recorded her feelings during Saturday's protests through her Twitter feed, @PennyRed, providing her 16,000-plus followers with a breathless, quite-literally running commentary of sit-ins, scrapes with the police and stream-of-consciousness rambles.
There is no doubt her radical pose and willingness to patrol the frontline have endeared her to thousands of genuinely disaffected youth whose future educations have been mortgaged by the coalition. But to the mass of journalists from both sides of the political spectrum, she's an adventurist who doesn't put enough distance between herself and the stories she covers.
She followed up her Saturday tweets with a piece for the New Statesman, where she is a regular blogger, provocatively titled 'What really happened in Trafalgar Square'. It has elicited more than 300 comments, many of them accusing Penny of fabrication.
Penny's version of the events in the square is, in a nutshell, that the police over-reacted and turned what was a peaceful protest into a night of baton charges and metal fencing thrown. While her account has been hotly contested, it was her scornful dismissal of the peaceful protesters on the TUC march "munching humous in Hyde Park and listening to some speeches" that really put some backs up.
That and her blatant misuse, out of context, of the Martin Luther King quote, "A riot is the language of the unheard".
Anthony Painter, author and political commentator, took Penny to task on the LabourList website, revealing the selective quoting of MLK's words and observing that "it's a serious misjudgment of the New Statesman to allow copy that not only insults the intelligence of its readers but also insults their actions and conviction".
Times columnist David Aaronovitch tweeted that Penny was "utterly contemptuous, without even noticing it" towards the TUC marchers, while former Labour MP Tony McNulty accused her "and your silly little friends" of spoiling "an important day for the 500,000 in Hyde Park. Are you Tories in disguise?"
Even Penny's colleague on the New Statesman Mehdi Hasan got in on the act, noting that "Laurie Penny is allowed to be silly if she wants to. If she wants to hang from a set of traffic lights in Oxford Circus, then that's her prerogative. She's entitled to her views and her 'riot boots'" - a pointed reference to what Penny had said she'd be wearing to the demonstration in an earlier column.
Yesterday, Laurie Penny was defiant. "Im trying to report fairly and counter right-wing distortions," she said. "Civil disobedience is not morally wrong." ·
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Comments
Well I'm probably old enough (just about) to be her great-grandfather, though l like to think I lack the peculiar attitude to sexuality of Innocent Abroad (what was he doing that made her think he was harrassing her? Patronising her perhaps?) But she's dead right about Trafalgar Square, because I was there. Not demonstrating but trying to get home from the theatre through a West End paralysed by screeching police cars and vans and macho cops tooled up in riot gear strutting about in battle formation to deal with - it wasnt clear what: there were a few straggling protesters wandering about but no violence, no rioting. It did look like an exercise for the cameras, because when earlier in the day I had been in Oxford Street and some kids were chucking paint around and starting little bonfires there were no coppers to be seen. Oh and I'd been on the march and in Hyde Park listening to the speeches, and she's right about them as well.
Deloki - "It is only if schoolchildren are encouraged at every opportunity to participate in marches and politics and alerted to the abuses ..." that they grow up to have biased and bigoted views as a result of listening to the bigot that got them involved in the first place!
They have been denied the opportunity to listen to arguments from both sides of the picture and are therefore incapable of making a balanced judgement!
THAT is an abuse of children - filling their minds with the biased rantings of a one-sided political bigot!
The idiots who claim to be "Anarchists" not only AREN'T, but clearly have little or no idea what anarchism IS. Ms Lauries' behaviour is however possibly an exception; it displays a tendency towards "Ravacholism", named after the (French) Anarchist who threw bombs into working class cafes to "punish" workers for not responding to "the call" and supporting his cause. "If you're not with me, then you must be against me, and I shall punish you for being against my cause, since it is so self-evidently THE worthy cause".
Choosing to call themselves anarchists seems to be behaviour like swearing in front of one's parents; behaviour intended primarily to shock particular people and to scream "Look at ME!" It's not a political standpoint... just a rather pathetic adolescent attempt at attention seeking.
Deloki - visit http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/28/london_burning for an liberal view of what went on, by an Indian author, who writes for the Guardian & Slate. He nails it. And encouraging school children to participate in marches is not cultivating a vibrant interest in politics. It's creating a contempt for it. Democracy doesn't require this to survive. Debating societies? Visits to the House of Commons gallery? Mock School elections? All good. Trashing Fortnum & Masons? Lighting fires and having a rave in Trafalgar Sq? Absolute crock of crap. Seen it before during the early nineties, and 20 years later the same bunch of still radicalised numpties were digging up dead grannies, torching university labs and generally contributing bugger all to a meaningful discussion about animal rights or whatever boat they were intent on floating. Meanwhile the parliamentary democracy moves forward with legislation on gay rights, animal welfare, equal opportunities or whatever *substantive* changes you care to mention. Direct Action is not an introduction to democracy. It's an introduction to Anarchy, and pretty much inimical to democracy.
Anyone who is opposed by washed-up neocon warmongering loon Tony McNulty, and simultaneously by Blairite shill David Aaronovich, has already established some decent credentials.
It is because we have a population that is not encouraged to take a vibrant interest in politics that politicians like Cameron and Blair have been able to get away with their deplorable actions against the interests of the people. It is only if schoolchildren are encouraged at every opportunity to participate in marches and politics and alerted to the abuses that are are taking place in the political system that the fragile future of "demcracy" will have some hope of survival. With this type of exposure to the reality of British politics can the young begin to form their opinions. One only has to watch Prime Ministers question time to witness a "playground approach to politics".
That New Statesman comment list is somewhat instructive. You have some reasonable posts by people who have (albeit incorrect in my view) valid perspectives. And then you have a bunch of comments from ill informed, anarcho black blockers. When you have 250,000 turning up for essentially an anti government rant, it's unsurprising that some of your fellow travellers occupy positions bordering on idiocy. For gods sake, even Gadhaffi's media people jumped on the bandwagon claiming it was an Anti Libyan war thing. As has been noted on previous demos there are too many school children involved, with unformed views, and essentially a playground approach to politics. Penny is merely a big mouth riding a 'I speak for my generation' bandwagon. Every fresh generation assumes Direct Action as the way forward (Swampy anyone?). The reality is that Direct Action is not a long term approach as it is a single issue solution ('boo to cuts!'). Not really clocked Penny before but she isn't a journalist. Not by any objective criteria. More of a agent provocateur.
Civil disobedience may not be morally wrong - but a self-indulgent fool marquerading as the voice of the people is.
Having had the privilege - or misfortune - to meet Ms Penny, I am not in the least surprised by her attitude towards the Labour Party and TUC leadership. She sees all older men as authority figures and all authority as abusive.
At one point in our meet I accused her of considering my behaviour towards to her to amount to sexual harassment. Her squirming was wonderful to behold as it was clear both that she did and that she knew that no one else would agree with her. (I am, needless to say, old enough - just - to be her grandfather.)
I feel sorry for her. She needs professional help - she may be 24 on her birth certificiate, but she's more like 14 inside her head.
Whilst I do not agree with Laurie Penny's 'slagging off' of the majority of the marchers who ended up in Hyde Park, her take on the Trafalgar Square stand-off does raise the question of whether Saturday night's police 'containment' of protesters in Trafalgar Square was a RW publicity ploy for photo opportunities ?
According to the police, at 2am they had arrested 214 people, with a further 50+ surrounded in Trafalgar Square, who were described by the officer in charge of the operation, Commander Bob Broadhurst, as being "criminals bent on 'criminality' "
If that's the case, why is the total arrested still at 214?
Given yesterdays (Monday) headlines ( http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23936081-ring-of-steel-fo... ) regarding increased police powers, perhaps this question is answered ?