In the UK, thousands of girls were raped and tortured. A tiny fraction of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have been brought to any sort of justice.
But what you want us to be Very Concerned about is that one particular article in one particular publication might have assigned too much blame to one particular politician.
Do I have that right, Ben? Is that an accurate reflection of your moral calculus?
That's a straw man argument Mark. I'm not saying there wasn't a scandal. There was, and it was awful. I'm saying Starmer and Phillips weren't to blame, and that The Free Press piece is deliberately misleading.
Your use of the past tense is not correct. The scandal is ongoing. And you are clearly downplaying it. You seem far more upset about a politician getting too much blame than you are about children being raped and nothing being done about it. Julie Bindel tells the story you should be focusing on, from an entirely leftist POV: https://thecritic.co.uk/i-did-my-job-on-grooming-gangs-actually/
And do you honestly really not understand that THIS is why Trump won? Elites (and yes you are an elite, and so am I) protecting elites as the first and highest priority? Anyone reading your piece who is not already on your team will conclude that covering for your team is your highest goal (which, I'm sorry to say, really does appear to be the case).
I'm not sure what else to say. Prison is far too good for the revolting rapists who terrorized the north of England. I condemn it unequivocally. But the case is over a decade old and only relevant because Elon Musk decided to weigh in on it. He did so to smear Starmer and the British government, and Bari Weiss's publication regurgitated his talking points dressed up as journalism.
The case is NOT "over a decade old". From the Sky News timeline:
>2023: A Grooming Gangs Taskforce is set up by Rishi Sunak's government, with qualified officers from all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and data analysts. In May 2024, 550 suspects had been arrested and 4,000 victims identified.
Over five hundred NEW suspects arrested LESS THAN ONE YEAR AGO!
This is ongoing news. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that all cases have been uncovered. And certainly no reason to believe that all the coverups that happened have been fully documented.
But hey, keep using a bit of hyperbole to bash Bari Weiss! She's the real villain here!
What are you trying to prove? You know (or should now) that the only people who have addressed this meaningfully are people like Starmer, Jess Phillips, Nazir Afzal etc.The criminal justice system has been catastrophically underfunded since 2010, with profound cuts to staffing, court facilities, etc. The exhaustive national inquiry conducted by Alexis Jay reported in 2022 but the Conservatives did absolutely nothing. Now that Labour are trying to address things, people are blaming them for 14 years of Conservative inaction. People like Musk, Farage et all will use these issues to their benefit, but will not help anyone. As Julie Blindell states in the article you linked to, Musk and his acolytes are curiously silent on systematic abuse perpetrated by white people.
Your responses are pretty much making Ben's argument. The “case” is the one dropped by Keir Starmer decades ago, and reopened and prosecuted a year later by his successor, used in the Free Press article to insinuate that Keir Starmer is complicit in a coverup.
You’re basically word salading a response about ongoing cases and prosecutions to be contrarian.
Okay Ben. This is very good news. Islamic males have stopped raping women!! And you know this, how? Since it hasn’t stopped anywhere else in the world where third world Islamic men mix with non Islamic women most of us doubt you saying it isn’t going on anymore in the UK.
The “grooming gangs”, predominantly Muslim non-White men preyed on young, mostly White girls. I remember when this first came out. Legacy media in GB refused to cover it adequately. That is the tragedy here: Race, class and religious affiliation swayed both political attention and the application of the law. Were the races and religions reversed, you can be sure it’d have been much different. Islam has a problem. Ayaan Ali has been beating this drum for decades, and she’s correct. It’s time Islam dealt with their own skeletons, without the rest of us being deemed racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic.
You don’t think it’s telling that Musk is only interested in child abuse / SA by a particular ethnic group, not the church, not children’s homes, not the vast % generally who don’t see justice in either the US or the UK? Or that the timing exactly coincides with his coming into a position of particular influence with the US govt?
So IOW if Mush is truly appalled he must be speak and act against every time that appalling thing has happened in history. Your blind, irrational hate is showing Vicki.
I don’t think it’s regurgitating Elon when her sources are some of the original journalists of the story from decades ago I.e. Julie Bindel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Douglas Murray
It really appears that whenever says something you disagree with, you just say it’s a straw man argument or call it not serious.
Having “shitty” in the title of an article is just clickbait. You are using strong, emotional language which, in your words, is not a serious publication.
It’s not over. They all need to go to prison. And yes, the POS “elites” are fully responsible for the rapists getting away with it till today.
But it’s not too late to right this ship.
That’s what pisses me off the most. You and other incestuous elites want to keep it under wraps. Well, like JD said-there is a new sheriff in town and your ilk is going away.
These Muslim POS must pay for what they did along with those who covered it up.
I hope Elon, Bari and others keep bringing it up until it gets resolved.
Are you for real?! The case is over 10 years old, so it's done?! We bankrupted the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church for cases going back to the 50s! How many went to prison in the UK for this? A handful. Until there is a complete accounting we really wont know the extent of it, but 1,400 victims in ONE city is the tip of the iceberg. And yes, Starmer prosecuted a few for five years of jail time. A trifling of the perps to quiet the mob. Deport the criminals after they do their time for starters, and actually do a full, bloody investigation. England will be disgusted by the findings. How do i know this? Ask why Biden stopped having schools report the number of staff accused of sexually abusing minors; why the US DoE buried a report a teacher sex abuse; hint, 'cause your kid is 10 times more likely to be abused by teacher than Padre.
It’s actually very very relevant as the atrocities are still being committed and the politicians at every level, from local to national, are doubling down at avoiding addressing this scandal. Because the Labor Party is more concerned with appeasing their Muslim constituents instead of addressing the native English people. They are betraying their own people. Do you even understand what you’re talking about?
Nope, try again. Still ongoing. And still crickets from the left unless to run defense for their team, which I agree, is absolutely what you’re doing. Absolutely disgusting. I echo the call to go read and watch @Julie Bindel who’s been working on and calling it out for YEARS — to the deafening silence of all the so-called ‘progressives’ due to who the perps are. A horrendous toxic mix of left wing racism, misogyny, and classism allowed it to go on and it is still going on. For shame!
The Free Press had made two huge errors—they had an article claiming the female Olympic boxer was a male and they had an artificial with Speaker Johnson lying about Biden’s mental capacity. So the FP is part of the right wing echo chamber and can be dismissed.
Ben, nobody is going to be as woke as Mark except for others now popping up on this Twitter-like thread. We get it. Thanks for the post. The middle road is actually just a tightrope.
Also, while I couldn’t get past the paywall cutoff, it reads like an editorial more than a report. Is it an opinion piece? If so who cares (so long as the facts stated are true) if it is one-sided. That’s what passable (and sometimes great) opinion writing does.
It's an opinion piece disguised as corrective reporting. Liberal reporters cannot tell the difference between reporting and opinion because they think their opinions are the only thoughts that are valid. They are dangerous. See the 60 Minutes piece on German officials enforcing censorship.
That’s a straw man argument you’re making myself my dude. Labour Party leaders don’t hold any responsibility for one of the greatest UK government coverups in recent memory 🤪
Ben you suffer from “but what about THAT!” ism - where your (possibly) good points will never land because the crime in question is BEYOND egregious and it comes across that you’re argument has to include downplaying the crime.
Same thing happened during covid - millions of school kids here in CA /NY / MA were incorrectly held out of in person learning for 1-1.5 YEARS, and yet libs were upset bcs Fauci was receiving too many negative memes online.
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to accuse the Free Press of deliberate inaccuracy and hyperbole to then go on to say Musk has ‘toppled the American Government’ ? A little hyperbole of your own, no?
It is indeed hypocritical and your article was reasonable up until you couldn’t help but reveal what’s really eating you as you conclude ‘The lesson, it seems, is that pleasing Elon Musk is highly lucrative.’ A nice little ad hominem side swipe, no?
We did have some earlier clues as to what’s bugging you though, such as your mention of how much the Free Press earns, the reference to the twitter files story being a dud, etc….so all in all, this piece makes you sound petulant and jealous. You make a point about journalism— but (yawn) one we all understand already. Instead, what we see here is there’s as much hyperbole in your piece as what you’ve asserted about the Free Press. I suggest if you want to hold the Free Press to your standard of accuracy, you might want to first look in the mirror, dear.
Ben , terribly written article by you ! Starmer is a left wing fascist AND you seem to be going out of your way to defend him . The point is he’s an islamophile and he looks the other way for antisemitism and hates the Anglo Saxon British citizenry . He is a disgrace and so are you for your misguided arrow . Nice try gaslighter
No Ben, your headline and concluding paragraphs don’t say Starmer and Phillips were not to blame. Your point as evidenced by your headline and last paragraphs is to make a political attack on Weiss and Musk! … otherwise you’d have stuck to arguing Starmer and Phillips lack of culpability!
Agree with you totally. Bari Weiss does play fast and loose with her accusations. But one thing is for certain: British authorities covered up hundreds of child sex trafficking events and failed to bring charges to perpetrators and stop it. What astounds me is the continued coverup. Woke DEI is a malignant disease. Political corruption.
Starmer continues the coverup. They call it “ politics”.
Every week three woman are murdered in the UK. A British policeman last year, using his badge, kidnapped, raped and murdered a young woman he picked up in his squad car.
There is a scandalous level of abuse directed against women of all ages. Focussing only on cases that can be linked to a racial group while ignoring all the others is a disgraceful tactic of the far right. The consequences of doing this we have already seen last summer when thugs rioted, attacked the police and tried to burn down a hostel housing asylum seekers. This rioting and burning is what the far right want. They want to weaken the UK to make it vulnerable to attacks from Trump or Vladimir Putin. Claiming to support 'free speech' they applaud dictators who poison their opponents.
Islam is a religion not a racial group, Although it is true that the rape gangs consisted mostly of Pakistani Muslims . Focusing on cases linked to Pakistanis and ignoring others IS wrong. but so is backing off the Pakistani connection because of political correctness. Let the chips fall as they may: if you groom young girls and rape them, you should be prosecuted and punished, your race and religion aren’t relevant either way
Yeah they are relevant. White Christians in general will fight rape gangs and will not tolerate it. I wouldn’t tolerate it in my children. It is tolerated in certain ethnic groups and among many Muslims.
The idea that the crimes were 'covered up because of political correctness' is false. They were excused away by lazy and incompetent officials who chose 'polirical correctness' as a way of diverting blame away from themselves.
Absolutely false statement. Please reveal valid inception verified sources for your accusations. Remember you may be quoting sources in government who are corrupted. Figures can lie and liars can figure
The British grooming gang scandal provides a mythological backstory so the right can call the left “groomers“ while the left calls the right “fascists“.
This is a ridiculous argument. Ben's point was that The FP's article was misleading, which to be fair is typical for the FP. They live for snark, misleadingly presented.
The fact that there are other bad things in the world that are even worse than the typical FP sloppy snark-filled article doesn't exonerate Bari Weiss and company.
The FP article wasn’t misleading in the least. The one writer’s conclusions differ and how is that any different from the shit you see in the NYT about Israel for example…the most misleading journalism on earth. What’s far worse is that the NYT and their ilk have an agenda. The greater good being done by the FP as an important publication with voices from every side, far outweighs the issue of one writer’s conclusions. (And that one writer doesn’t necessarily represent the FP as a whole). It’s a platform in which everyone from any side gets a voice. And all the while mainstream media ownership takes a specific position, hides that fact and thus curates reality with deliberate lies, misinformation and attempts to influence their massive audience who have no clue they’re being manipulated.
It’s worse than that. Thousands of girls were raped and tortured for years. Starmer dropped a promising case in 2009, and failed to prosecute who knows how many others. But because he brought proceedings in one case in 1012, the year before he left, Starmer was evidently doing a great job??? This is absolute garbage journalism
Much more important that Ben’s friends know how much he hates Bari Weiss and Elon Musk than to draw attention to the fact that the British government and press ignored this story for nearly 2 decades because Islamophobia.
Agreed! Also they’ve had multiple articles on the subject, not all of which even mention or focus on Starmer.
Plus they do publish pieces on other topics that literally contradict each other. That’s kinda the point of letting you make up your own mind….this right here is a shitty article just because the author didn’t like a single article in the whole publication.
"The motte-and-bailey fallacy is a form of argument where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities: one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey")."
I have not conflated two positions, I have said that they are morally ordered.
You have pretty clearly conflated them. You accuse Ben of wanting to let child abuse slide in the UK because he criticises the reporting of the crisis in The Free Press (the bailey). You then claim that the highest priority should be to prevent the abuse of children in the UK (the motte).
No one will disagree with the second statement - it’s obvious and uncontroversial - but to try and first make the argument that Ben is attempting to cover for the scandal then when challenged retreat into the second argument is just disingenuous.
You are completely aware that there is nothing wrong with criticising poor reporting. You are also aware that no sane person would deny a scandal has (and continues) to take place. Don’t conflate the two positions, it’s lazy and leads to unproductive discussion.
Yeah this was a clickbait headline. Read it to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hard to believe but at some points had me believing the opposite of what he intended. Not journalism and will not last more than a few years here.
All I’m seeing from this article is some very motivated reasoning from the author.
I’m no expert on any of this but Starmer seems to have been in a position to do something about this horrific scandal for years and did not until much later. Given that there have been thousands of victims over many decades, the 5 prosecutions he pursued don’t really add up to justice, in my view.
The ‘evidence’ you cite to prove Phillips’ innocence is just her statement on why she made that decision. That’s awfully credulous as well and again, I don’t know why I’m supposed to believe that.
For both Starmer and Phillips you use conservative governments having either made the same choices or having commended Starmer for his work to prove your point - as if this vindicates them or proves a blind spot in The FP report. The FP piece condemned the conservative governments as having been complicit as well for the exact thing it condemns Starmer and Phillips for. How does this prove anything?
This along with your very obvious hatred for Bari Weiss, The FP, Musk, and anyone else you deem as associated with them makes it hard to take your criticisms on their own merits or very seriously at all.
I don't hate Bari Weiss. I just think she's an opportunist who is very successfully cashing in on contrarianism. The FP piece was dreadful and incredibly misleading. Starmer has been widely praised for his role in prosecuting sex abuse crimes, and he has publicly owned his mistakes on that particular scandal. The smears on Phillips are unfounded and inexcusable. The overall point of the piece, that fear of being labeled a racist prevented action, may or may not have some validity (I think it probably does), but you can't just make things up and hope people don't notice.
You’ve just doubled down on your claims in the article, which I’ve explained are unconvincing, with no additional information or reasoning.
You’re talking about The FP’s journalistic integrity while:
- using unspecified “widespread praise” of Starmers conduct as proof of his innocence despite the fact that thousands of children remain raped and untold numbers of rapists remain free, continuing to commit crimes today.
- accepting the defense provided by the accused (Phillips) as fact with no supporting evidence.
Also, Phillips was mentioned in 2 sentences and the author provided their opinion that the decision Phillips made was politically motivated - an obvious possibility that you are baselessly denying.
There's no grotesque culture conflict you moron, we are all British together, but dealing with a subset of male perverts who used their race to deflect blame, just as Catholic priests used their piety, and white upper-class men raping kids in children's homes in Northern Ireland used their connections. It all comes down to MEN, who treat girls as commodities. Do you think my Muslim neighbours and coworkers are pro-rape? Do piss off, we're not going to play your "war of civilisations" fantasy out here in my community.
Many areas of the UK are now what I'd characterize as 'low trust' societies. And it didn't used to be that way before BOTH Tory and Labour parties allowed mass illegal immigration, many from Sharia-law origins. The destabilizing wars in the Middle East over last two decades and USA Boomer elites pushing 'melting pot' ideology onto the Old World (who did not have the same elbow room as North America) are to blame. Nigel's Reform party many not yet be ready for prime time, we'll see if UK majority has had enough. Could be Reform is like the US Tea Party of 2007, and didn't go mainstream for 3 to 4 years thereafter.
You may not hate Bari Weiss, but it sure seems that you are jealous of her success with the FP.
You also come from a very left-leaning perspective and seem astounded the the FP doesn't tow the leftie line. I subscribe to FP but do I agree with everything they publish? Definitely not. But do I bad-mouth the entire publication? Also not. You are a Brit who didn't grow up in a nation that guarantees free speech.
In your country, people are being arrested and prosecuted for Facebook posts for fuck's sake.
Re the article, from what I've read and heard, Starmer bears at least some responsibility for the flimsy handling of these rape gangs. Starmer is also a shill for the radical Muslims in the UK and blathers constantly about "Islamophobia" with London's mayor.🙄
And as a Jew, Ben, you should be outraged at his acceptance of Jew-hatred in the UK. Do better.
Your statement “you should be outraged at his acceptance of Jew-hatred in the UK” shows you know nothing about the subject other than what you read in echo chambers. Read about Starmer’s history of addressing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Seriously??! Starmer is all about "Islamophobia" now and gave a bit of lip service to anti-Semitism and booted Corbyn BEFORE he was PM. Since taking office he and is feckless idiot foreign secretary have done nothing but disparage Israel and nothing to protect Jews.
And the BBC ⁉️ One would be hard pressed to find a more anti-Israel Jew-hating news service.
I'm thinking that you are not Jewish, so Jew-hatred and anti-Israel sentiment is not on your radar. You either don't notice or don't care about it.
From your statement, "what Starmer ought to be doing to protect the Jews" is telling. Since October 7th there have been huge and hateful riots in Britain supporting Hamas and declaring that Israel and the Jewish people should be eliminated. This is in a country with no free speech guarantees in which you can be jailed for a Facebook post. This makes Jews feel unsafe. Why is this tolerated? (to be fair, the previous government wasn't much better). Huge demonstrations against illegal immigrants and Islamists ARE NOT tolerated and are immediately shut down and arrests made. Do you see the difference? In addition, very recently, London's mayor had a televised conversation with Starmer and they both agreed that "islamophobia" was "a huge threat" something that should be criminalized. This is absurd and one of the reason that these Pakistani Muslim men were allowed to rape young white British girls for decades with impunity.
I don't know if you have ever listened to Douglas Murray, but you should. You Brits have allowed millions of people - mostly Muslims- into your country over the past decade or so. They do not share your values and they have no regard for your culture or customs. You should have already noticed that.
Regarding the BBC, again, you obviously are not at all sensitive to Jew-hatred. The BBC lies every single day about Israel. EVERY SINGLE DAY. This has been going on for decades but since October 7th they have published AS FACT everything Hamas says. There is no balance. One example would be the casualty figures in Gaza. They get their numbers from Hamas (the terror organization) and they do not make even an attempt to check them - i.e. do actual journalism. They just blithely go ahead and present one side of this conflict while basically ignoring the side of Israel.
If you are not interested or even a bit knowledgeable about these issues, you will likely believe the lies they tell.
90% of the articles are poorly researched and sourced and are just there to reinforce the prioris of their conservative base, who want to feel smarter than the Brietbart gang. The latest one denying climate change was a hoot.
I am so disappointed with Bari. I was thrilled when the FP set up, as I was one of many women who felt utterly shut out of public discourse by men. The particular men being those had demanded I agree they were women. But the recent fawning FP coverage of Musk's ignorant and racist rant (yes, it is, I have South African family and I know exactly what Musk was taught as a White South African) has made me sick. We Brits know what has happened with the British Pakistani groomers, and how to fix it. But we won't be screaming abuse at our neighbours or campaigning to deport them, thank you, even if every woke right bro on the Internet tells us to do it.
Now Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore, they are British feminists who were there from the start demanding that these girls be protected. Listen to them, not the creep Musk or his hangers-on. He can take a flying fuck.
Seriously⁉️ We Brits know what happened and how to fix it?? I beg to differ. These Pakistani rape gangs have been operating with impunity for over a decade and British authorities did EXACTLY what you are doing by crying "racism". Those young girls were victims of the political correctness of people like you and your politicians. You are just pissed at Musk because shamed you and your politicians and showed the world what pathetic hypocrites you are.
I posted the below earlier but need to add something here. You are one of many, many journalists who have accused Bari Weiss of opportunism. ‘Cashing in on contrarianism’.
This is a conclusion in which you have zero evidence. Did you ask her what her motives are? Do you not recall why she left the NYT? Do you not remember she took an enormous gamble to start the FP but she did it to preserve her integrity as a writer and had no idea if she’d make it out there with no salary or cushy benefits?
The jealousy over her success is simply massive and sorry to see you are one of the many who can’t bear it. “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be mowed down.” She stand tall, doesn’t she? And as a fellow writer, you could choose to celebrate her success, recognize she didn’t start the FP thinking g of future riches, but instead, as a true mission to create a home for all writers with contrarian views who no longer had a voice on a woke world. She needed a safe haven, created one and then invited everyone in to join her.... the FP has helped writers like you become successful, known and able to be independent. So instead of giving her any credit whatsoever, you utilize an article by a different writer and attempt to convey the writer emblematic of the FP and thus, Bari herself; so that all of the FP contributors are happily helping support her self-enrichment. That’s a pretty big accusation of many of your colleagues.
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to accuse the Free Press of deliberate inaccuracy and hyperbole to then go on to say Musk has ‘toppled the American Government’ ? A little hyperbole of your own, no?
It is indeed hypocritical and your article was reasonable up until you couldn’t help but reveal what’s really eating you as you conclude ‘The lesson, it seems, is that pleasing Elon Musk is highly lucrative.’ A nice little ad hominem side swipe, no?
We did have some earlier clues as to what’s bugging you though, such as your mention of how much the Free Press earns, the reference to the twitter files story being a dud, etc….so all in all, this piece makes you sound petulant and jealous. You make a point about journalism— but (yawn) one we all understand already. Instead, what we see here is there’s as much hyperbole in your piece as what you’ve asserted about the Free Press. I suggest if you want to hold the Free Press to your standard of accuracy, you might want to first look in the mirror, dear.
I read years ago at the time how many in law enforcement ADMITTED that they were afraid of being labeled ‘racist.’ What Weiss did with the free press was amazing. It quickly filled a niche. Everyone is now pretending that elites and the media didn’t utterly lose their minds in 2020. Completely untrustworthy. Now that they are course correcting, perhaps thefp will run its course. Or adapt.
You aren’t wrong. I’m a subscriber to TFP, and I’ve been really disappointed so far in their coverage of the Trump administration. They talked a big game about their ideals and being nonpartisan. The audience capture is hard to ignore nowadays. I’m hoping to see some change soon.
You are right that you are no expert on this. If you want to read from an actual expert who was on the ground about why Musk and this coverage is so totally disgusting then here's one:
Keir Starmer is Sir because he got a knighthood for changing how the CPS prosecuted CSE cases for the better. So yeah, widespread praise. Head of CPS is like head of the DOJ they run the service they don't prosecute individual cases. Under his leadership the CPS was the one government agency that admitted failures and made changes then reached record numbers of prosecutions. He has his faults but his CPS record isn't one of them.
Jess Phillips is one of the most vocal campaigners for women's safety in the UK. She has written books, done tons of casework helping individual victims and every year on international woman's day reads out the names of all the women murdered by men in the last year in Parliament. Read her twitter feed.
All a bit rich coming from the country that just elected a sex offender.
I read the article you linked and it has very interesting information detailing why Musk is disingenuous. I'm fully prepared to believe that he is disingenuous and none of my comments have claimed he is not. My comments relate to the claims made by the author about The FP piece.
A few things:
- Jimmy Savile was also knighted, as are many other bad people and undeserving clowns. Not sure why you think that the fact the ceremonial monarchy gave a guy in their government a meaningless title is such a slam dunk.
- If the CPS, under Starmer, failed to do its job, then pointing out that Starmer is not individually responsible for prosecuting criminals is meaningless. For example, Donald Trump, as president, personally perpetrated virtually none of the misdeeds of his administration. He did not personally separate a single migrant child from their family. If Starmer's CPS failed to adequately prosecute child rapists then the blame is on him. That's the nature of leadership.
- What I read was his CPS had 5 prosecutions and convicted 35 people. As I already said, if this is a "record" number of prosecutions then that's a pretty serious indictment of the UK justice system and Starmer himself, as well as many others, whether or not he was better than his predecessors.
- I will accept all of that about Jess Phillips. The FP piece suggested that Phillips made this particular decision (to keep the investigation local rather than national) for political reasons. Nothing you've said or the author has said has proven otherwise.
Lastly, on the part about us electing a sex offender...I do not understand this attitude. First, its not technically true but more importantly, The FP did not endorse Donald Trump and you have no idea who I voted for. Is this comment directed at Elon Musk maybe? Because he is probably not reading this conversation.
Do you think that Donald Trumps individual behavior and the electorates decision to elect him anyway is in some way equivalent to or worse than the fact that the UK has allowed mass rape of children to go on for decades and has downplayed or suppressed the extent of the problem for political and racial reasons?
Ok so to answer your points to help you see why the information in the FP was wrong:
- re knighthood, you were disputing that Starmer received widespread praise, so the knighthood is evidence that he did. Saville also received widespread praise when he was alive for his fundraising. You are right that it doesn't equal anything else about a person as many disgraced celebrities show. Re electing them afterwards or making them supreme court justices/ government officials is a US thing.
Interesting side note the Saville scandal occurred during Starmer's time at the CPS so he changed the rules so that if a celebrity was accused of abuse it had to be escalated nationally so unequipped local forces couldn't cover it up in future.
- Your info is wrong over 4500 CSE cases were prosecuted under Starmer in his last year alone, a record at the time and about 3 times more than previously I think. He also appointed a special prosecutor who went after grooming gangs and gave him all the resources he asked for. I'm not sure what more you think he should have done? A lot of agencies were failing in this. It wasn't illegal not to report child abuse at the time. The only way Starmer could change that was to become a politician. He's done that and a bill to make not reporting child abuse a criminal offence is currently in parliament. This is why the FP article is wrong.
- someone else posted a sky news link above with a full timeline. There has been massive media interest in this story over the last 10 years in the UK, multiple enquiries, a really good drama series called 3 Girls if you can find it anywhere. Also a lot has changed.
One of the most impactful enquiries was a local one in another area, which is why Phillips recommends it. There was a 5 year professional enquiry working with victims with recommendations the previous government didn’t implement (a public enquiry, which is the one suddenly called for, is judge led rather than expert led in the UK and involves a lot of lawyers).
It's still very far from perfect as the other article says but this idea that the story broke and nothing happened is categorically untrue as is the idea that Starmer didn't do anything.
I actually only asked one question and you did not answer it.
- I did not dispute his having received widespread praise. I disputed that it mattered and is something a journalist should cite to support their point.
- Your anti-US vitriol really damages the credibility of your statements. This discussion is about your governments handling of criminal behavior. I get that it makes you feel better to insult the US rather than think about how your country seems to be filled with rapists and rape apologists, but it really doesn't help your case.
- You seem to be referring to the total number of CSE cases, not those specifically related to grooming gangs. That's pretty misleading. I am referring to the cases related to grooming gangs and the estimate I am seeing is about 35 convictions. Here is where I'm getting that: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn2wvxx5qo
- That timeline shows that it took about 10 years for anything to happen after initial complaints in 2001 and pretty slow progress after that until today. I have read elsewhere that this has been going on since the 70's to one degree or another. The timeline also shows how your government tried to keep this scandal quiet for racial and political reasons.
- I read the justification for Phillips recommendation. I understand that you find that convincing. I don't see why I or any other readers should.
First of all apologies that British humour doesn't translate. It was a few tongue in cheek statements.
For future reference if a Brit starts a sentence 'Bit rich' it's likely sarcasm/humour (regional variations apply). I thought you were being rhetorical in your question.
You just shared as evidence a fact checking article that says "We have been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir personally in any of the reports on the scandal, nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any decisions not to prosecute". There were 10 inquiries. His response to cleaning it up was praised. Plenty of other stuff to criticise him on but he has a good record on this.
I shared an article that referenced all the massive systematic failings on this. No one is denying them. It's been widely reported for over a decade. The anger about this unites everyone across the political spectrum but as the article says gets exploited by the far right. The politics is the disagreement on how to make things better not whether it is bad or not. Portraying it in any other way is wrong. Saying you disagree with someone on how to improve things so therefore they are saying that rape is fine is clearly bad faith reporting.
I'm not sure what you're arguing anymore. I don't actually know anything about the FP other than this article. It's OK to say I like this publication and also this particular article was wrong or to argue that one article doesn't justify criticising the whole publication.
No, Starmer was the key person as DPP who got these men prosecuted from 2010 onwards and he appointed the British Muslim Nazir Afzal, who was the special prosecutor who reopened case after case to ensure these men were convicted. Are you confused? Or does this not fit your fantasy of evil Muslims and complicit liberals? Those of us who worked with kids in care know this current "outrage" is total hypocrisy.
I've been reading the FP for a while, off and on. I read this piece. Then I went to your publication and read some pieces. And you want to accuse the FP of bias? You might need a bit of self-awareness there.
As an occasionally left-leaning and occasionally right-leaning person, depending on the subject at hand (like most normal people, I suspect), and someone with a journalism background, I can admit there are times the FP gets it wrong in presenting unbiased news; but I have to say they are doing a better job at at least trying than The Banter.
Couldn’t agree with you more Ryan. I have been reading The Free Press since the very beginning after giving up my NYTimes digital subscription. I see myself the same way, center left on some things and center right on others and for the most part I find FP’s coverage on issues refreshing as well as informative. Particular after reading the mostly “in the bubble” coverage provided by the NYT for years. No one gets it right 100% but The Free Press covers issues more fully and with a clarity that the mainstream media refuses to do. Mr. Cohen’s critique of the FP rings hollow when you read about the scope and magnitude of what went on with this scandal and how little was done to protect all the victims at the local and ministerial level. It also sounds a bit like sour grapes because Ms. Weiss and company have created an extremely successive business model out of her journalistic endeavors.
The Musk fantasy that "little was done" may make everyone feel they are righteously angry, but it's complete bollocks. For years we have been investigating and prosecuting these gangs of men. Since at least 2010. The current Prime Minister was head of the prosecution service when the scale of the offending became clear, and he then went after these perverts with everything we had legally.
The abuse of these girls was a scandal and a disgrace, arising from complete disregard for certain kinds of girls in our society, and opportunist male abusers who couldn't believe their luck when we treated the girls as "choosing" their lifestyle. Then Musk woke up early Jan 25 and read a court report and decided to exploit the trauma of these victims for some right-wing, anti-immigration, "woke right bro" reason? He can go to hell. He's never helped a single victim of sex exploitation, and he never will.
I appreciate your perspective on the grooming scandal Billy, however my comments had nothing to do with Elon Musk nor do I take my cues to be righteously anything from him. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a Musk Fan and I do not follow him nor anyone else on X/Twitter. During the brief time I had an account, I found it to be mostly a time suck vehicle for despair and delusional thinking. The author of this piece felt the need to attack Bari Weiss and The Free Press and as I am a long time subscriber, I find Mr. Cohen’s snarky comments about her and TheFP to be-to use your great expression- complete bollocks.
Criticizing one FP article does not make the point that FP is biased. This particular story IS complicated because the problem had been pointed out by others before Musk. But the point is not who brought it up first but who led to action being taken. If this terrible thing no longer happens that would be great to hear.
I’ll read 1,000 Bari Weiss article before I ever read another one of your articles. She had the courage to start the FP while you were sitting on your DEI hands, trying to sit at the Cool Kids table.
100% she capitalized on a shift in momentum brought us the Witch Trials one of the first to take on the transActivist nightmare and is still willing to confront the lies while progressive dudes sit back and insist transactivism is a marginal issue with no real impact, a diversion from the important stuff. I'm a FP subscriber and while I don't agree with everything she writes, I appreciate the variety of viewpoints, the humor and wit, and her willingness to veer away from progressive dogma. Progressives these days are simply intolerable. I'm recovering from 30 years of progressive politics. She's helped tremendously.
Why are you still making excuses for how progressives, fearing the taint of “Islamophobia” continue to allow Islamists to abuse their host countries. What kind of urge do you have to cover up for the progressive left? These people are useful idiots of the most radical forms of Islam, both racist and antisemitic. Grow up.
Progressives are the useful idiots of Islamists. I don’t get it at all. Makes zero sense considering the two are mutually exclusive, and progressives would be the first to go in a Muslim majority society. Fucking clown world we live in.
“Reactionary” is such a lazy term used by people with little of substance to say. Why don’t you say what you really mean?
You support status-quo big government authoritarianism, and you don’t like the reasoned & logical reactions to them lying to us… which by the way, is open information
At “toppled the government,” the author lost any and all credibility. It shows an imbecilic misunderstanding of America and its politics. This was the first Banter article I read. It will also be the last.
I love that all the top comments in this thread are calling out the author for his idiocracy. As soon as I’m done liking all the comments I can mute this guy and he can go back to raging against Bari Weiss and Musk, raw dogging the air in some forgotten corner of Substack.
"any and all" might be a bit strong, because I think there's a valid discussion about culpability of Starmer & Phillips. Musk is missing local nuance, but so is Cohen. But it was a pretty wild thing to blurt out.
You’ve obviously done serious work here, and my lazy anecdotal take carries less weight, but I’ll put it here anyway.
When I first heard about Bari Weiss, I was a liberal but frustrated with the culture at the Times and elsewhere that seemed inclined to pander to progressives. Ex. The editor who got pushed out for running the tom Cotton piece. I didn’t agree with cotton’s piece but I also didn’t agree with the objection to running it. I usually disagree with right wingers but I don’t really want a New York Times that can’t say no to progressives; I don’t think that’s healthy.
So, when I first became aware of Bari Weiss, she was calling herself a liberal who felt that progressives were silencing dissent. Okay, so that resonated with me. I followed her “free press” for a little while, but after a while it started looking like she was pandering to anti-woke people, playing the same kind of game the Times was. At this point my disgust with the NYT has been upgraded to mixed feelings. As far as I can tell, they are pissing off people across the spectrum.
I wanted to believe in Bari but I became skeptical and it seems even worse now. My guess is that the money was just too hard for her to turn down. Maybe she had good intentions at the beginning— I’m not qualified to guess about that. But as you observe, she’s less than rigorous about doing serious journalism.
That could be my story, word for word. When I was “gang-banged” by her noxious followers in the Comments section, I left. Bari Weiss has been nothing but a disappointment.
Honestly I never expected otherwise. Her whole career has been complaining about freedom of speech unless it’s about Palestine/Israel. This essentially means she wants free speech for her causes, silence from her perceived enemies. This is not the stuff of classical liberalism.
If you have a problem with what people are saying about the UK grooming gangs, that’s cool. Could even be taken as evidence that you have a brain, and you’re using it to think critically. Then you decide to bash Bari, and the entirety of the Free Press? For a byline that wasn’t hers? To that I say…
I had great hopes for the Free Press when it first started and agreed with the frustration over alleged "progressives" inability to entertain dissenting views and opinions. But at some point the anti-woke drumbeat became monotonous and seemed to be giving a pass to right-wing threats. There wasn't a balance there. I read it regularly when it first started but now seldom look at it. Terribly disappointed at an opportunity lost.
Thank you so much for this. You have really validated my decision to subscribe to the Banter. I was an early supporter of Weiss' "Common Sense" and eventually left in disgust after it was clear they were curating a decidedly Trump-supporting, or at least anti-anti-Trump audience. The Free Press has become a joke, fixated on anti-wokism and all but ignoring thd extreme threats from the right, so much so that they have now become one of its many enablers.
For a long time they have taken potshots at the mainstream media for every potential shortcoming. Things like the lab-leak theory and the Hunter Biden laptop story, despite the lack of certainty involved with both, the ample reckoning with the controversies by the MSM, and their responsibly following the stories as they evolved, have been held up by hacks like Weiss and Matt Taibbi as proof that they MSM can't be trusted, and why you should abandon them in favor of subscribing to their on-demand bias-validation style of "reporting".
Don't expect a similar reckoning from them. That's the difference. That's why they will never be anything more than rock-throwers, occasionally helping to keep the MSM honest but more often slandering legitimate sources of information and enabling the enemies of democracy and a well-informed public.
Thanks for the kind words Eric! You summed the FP's reporting up perfectly. Any publication that doesn't acknowledge the danger of Trump and the far right isn't serious.
How is Trump returning the government "to the people"? He has done nothing but sell accommodations to billionaire oligarchs, nominate wholly unqualified and in some cases downright dangerous people to crucial cabinet positions as rewards for political support, and brazenly help sustain the main problem he pledged to fix so that he could have an issue to run on.
Trump is a corrupt man, who ran for President in order to stay out of jail. He wants to undo Civil Service protections, which have existed since the late 19th century precisely to curtail the spoils system, so that government would be staffed by qualified career individuals instead of political cronies. Remember the Hurricane Katrina debacle? That's what cronyism buys you.
What you are witnessing now is the beginning of what promises to be a historic level of crony government which will make his first term, with its unprecedented level of cabinet turnover, look quaint by comparison. He is nominating for head of the FBI a man who has openly promised to go after an "enemies list" of individuals. He has promised more corrupt pardons for people willing to commit crimes in his name, to add to the ones he issued to political supporters and people who agreed not to squeal on him during the Mueller investigation.
He has openly acknowledged the blatantly unconstitutional immunity ruling that he wrangled out of our corrupt Sypreme Court, and made clear he intends to use it—the first President ever to go into office with a "get out of jail free" card. And he knows that most of his supporters will let him get away with it, because they are convinced by his lying rhetoric that he is a "man of the people", and who ignore all of the massive evidence to the contrary by believing that the MSM is lying to them, and that blatant Trump propaganda outlets are telling them the truth.
This is not "giving the government back to the people". This is taking the government away from the people and handing it to the wealthy and those unaccountable to any authority other than a corrupt man who sees himself as above the law.
I'm sorry to tell you that you are a victim of the long con of the Republican Party, a decades long effort to demonize the one political party which actually did, and does, act in the interests of most Americans, so that their wholly unappealing economic agenda to benefit the wealthy and powerful could be stealth-implemented under a fusillade of demagoguery and cultural geievance mongering. The one thing they didn't plan on was having someone come in and successfully sell you a load of phony populist lies to mask that agenda, but boy has it worked out for them. All those years of cultivating their own alternate reality paid off in a way they never expected.
Eric - what would it take in your brain for the Lab Leak theory to be “true”? Would you require the Chinese Communist Party to admit that they leaked the virus?
What about the Hunter Biden shenanigans? You demand an admittance of guilt (other than Joe Biden pardoning his whole family)?
It seems you’re not a fan of investigative journalism or inquisitive op-Ed’s… you expect truthful state media or something else similarly bizarre.
Leslie, I don't know where you're getting your information, but you're extremely misinformed. The RNA vaccines are not gene therapy; your genome is not encoded in your RNA. These have literally been taken by hundreds of millions of people, and while individual side effects are possible with any vaccine, there have been no mass ill effects.
There is a reason why The Free Press has over one million subscribers and this Banter thing only 11K. Which is way too many for the ooze of jealousy and biased Banter journalisming. I will stick with The Free Press!
I hope Jess Philips sues The Free Press, its editor and Green for libel. They deserve to be hammered into the ground for deliberately spreading disinformation. Starmer could too, but as PM, he won’t (and that’s probably wise).
This is propaganda war by a far right populist and his client publications. We’ve been here before. Giving into such bullying is not an option.
It's a tough one. If X is banned in the UK, I fear the backlash will be worse. People really need to stop using the platform, so the more alternatives there are the better.
So, Ben, let me see if I've got this right.
In the UK, thousands of girls were raped and tortured. A tiny fraction of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes have been brought to any sort of justice.
But what you want us to be Very Concerned about is that one particular article in one particular publication might have assigned too much blame to one particular politician.
Do I have that right, Ben? Is that an accurate reflection of your moral calculus?
As a paying subscriber I'd really like to know.
That's a straw man argument Mark. I'm not saying there wasn't a scandal. There was, and it was awful. I'm saying Starmer and Phillips weren't to blame, and that The Free Press piece is deliberately misleading.
Your use of the past tense is not correct. The scandal is ongoing. And you are clearly downplaying it. You seem far more upset about a politician getting too much blame than you are about children being raped and nothing being done about it. Julie Bindel tells the story you should be focusing on, from an entirely leftist POV: https://thecritic.co.uk/i-did-my-job-on-grooming-gangs-actually/
And do you honestly really not understand that THIS is why Trump won? Elites (and yes you are an elite, and so am I) protecting elites as the first and highest priority? Anyone reading your piece who is not already on your team will conclude that covering for your team is your highest goal (which, I'm sorry to say, really does appear to be the case).
I'm not sure what else to say. Prison is far too good for the revolting rapists who terrorized the north of England. I condemn it unequivocally. But the case is over a decade old and only relevant because Elon Musk decided to weigh in on it. He did so to smear Starmer and the British government, and Bari Weiss's publication regurgitated his talking points dressed up as journalism.
The case is NOT "over a decade old". From the Sky News timeline:
>2023: A Grooming Gangs Taskforce is set up by Rishi Sunak's government, with qualified officers from all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and data analysts. In May 2024, 550 suspects had been arrested and 4,000 victims identified.
Over five hundred NEW suspects arrested LESS THAN ONE YEAR AGO!
This is ongoing news. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that all cases have been uncovered. And certainly no reason to believe that all the coverups that happened have been fully documented.
But hey, keep using a bit of hyperbole to bash Bari Weiss! She's the real villain here!
What are you trying to prove? You know (or should now) that the only people who have addressed this meaningfully are people like Starmer, Jess Phillips, Nazir Afzal etc.The criminal justice system has been catastrophically underfunded since 2010, with profound cuts to staffing, court facilities, etc. The exhaustive national inquiry conducted by Alexis Jay reported in 2022 but the Conservatives did absolutely nothing. Now that Labour are trying to address things, people are blaming them for 14 years of Conservative inaction. People like Musk, Farage et all will use these issues to their benefit, but will not help anyone. As Julie Blindell states in the article you linked to, Musk and his acolytes are curiously silent on systematic abuse perpetrated by white people.
He’s a MAGA troll. Must’ve got bored on X when everyone left.
...and you're proving his point. Sheesh!
BTW, most of those suspects are white
So? What difference does that make?
They are most decidedly not.
Yeah no
Your responses are pretty much making Ben's argument. The “case” is the one dropped by Keir Starmer decades ago, and reopened and prosecuted a year later by his successor, used in the Free Press article to insinuate that Keir Starmer is complicit in a coverup.
You’re basically word salading a response about ongoing cases and prosecutions to be contrarian.
Go away, Nellie. Nobody made you marry her.
There is a reason that Weiss has 100 times more subscribers than Ben does.
Okay Ben. This is very good news. Islamic males have stopped raping women!! And you know this, how? Since it hasn’t stopped anywhere else in the world where third world Islamic men mix with non Islamic women most of us doubt you saying it isn’t going on anymore in the UK.
The “grooming gangs”, predominantly Muslim non-White men preyed on young, mostly White girls. I remember when this first came out. Legacy media in GB refused to cover it adequately. That is the tragedy here: Race, class and religious affiliation swayed both political attention and the application of the law. Were the races and religions reversed, you can be sure it’d have been much different. Islam has a problem. Ayaan Ali has been beating this drum for decades, and she’s correct. It’s time Islam dealt with their own skeletons, without the rest of us being deemed racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic.
Sneaky, Ben. "Elon Musk decided to weigh in," "to smear," "Bari Weiss's publication regurgitated his talking points dressed up as journalism." Masterfully tinted wording.
You don’t think it’s telling that Musk is only interested in child abuse / SA by a particular ethnic group, not the church, not children’s homes, not the vast % generally who don’t see justice in either the US or the UK? Or that the timing exactly coincides with his coming into a position of particular influence with the US govt?
Yon are a sad person
So IOW if Mush is truly appalled he must be speak and act against every time that appalling thing has happened in history. Your blind, irrational hate is showing Vicki.
I don’t think it’s regurgitating Elon when her sources are some of the original journalists of the story from decades ago I.e. Julie Bindel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Douglas Murray
It really appears that whenever says something you disagree with, you just say it’s a straw man argument or call it not serious.
Having “shitty” in the title of an article is just clickbait. You are using strong, emotional language which, in your words, is not a serious publication.
It’s not over. They all need to go to prison. And yes, the POS “elites” are fully responsible for the rapists getting away with it till today.
But it’s not too late to right this ship.
That’s what pisses me off the most. You and other incestuous elites want to keep it under wraps. Well, like JD said-there is a new sheriff in town and your ilk is going away.
These Muslim POS must pay for what they did along with those who covered it up.
I hope Elon, Bari and others keep bringing it up until it gets resolved.
Are you for real?! The case is over 10 years old, so it's done?! We bankrupted the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church for cases going back to the 50s! How many went to prison in the UK for this? A handful. Until there is a complete accounting we really wont know the extent of it, but 1,400 victims in ONE city is the tip of the iceberg. And yes, Starmer prosecuted a few for five years of jail time. A trifling of the perps to quiet the mob. Deport the criminals after they do their time for starters, and actually do a full, bloody investigation. England will be disgusted by the findings. How do i know this? Ask why Biden stopped having schools report the number of staff accused of sexually abusing minors; why the US DoE buried a report a teacher sex abuse; hint, 'cause your kid is 10 times more likely to be abused by teacher than Padre.
How can you so confidently infer intent?
The case is far from "over." Why lie so openly?
Don’t let anyone tell you you are not a dithering douche bag, you are in spades
It’s actually very very relevant as the atrocities are still being committed and the politicians at every level, from local to national, are doubling down at avoiding addressing this scandal. Because the Labor Party is more concerned with appeasing their Muslim constituents instead of addressing the native English people. They are betraying their own people. Do you even understand what you’re talking about?
Nope, try again. Still ongoing. And still crickets from the left unless to run defense for their team, which I agree, is absolutely what you’re doing. Absolutely disgusting. I echo the call to go read and watch @Julie Bindel who’s been working on and calling it out for YEARS — to the deafening silence of all the so-called ‘progressives’ due to who the perps are. A horrendous toxic mix of left wing racism, misogyny, and classism allowed it to go on and it is still going on. For shame!
The Free Press had made two huge errors—they had an article claiming the female Olympic boxer was a male and they had an artificial with Speaker Johnson lying about Biden’s mental capacity. So the FP is part of the right wing echo chamber and can be dismissed.
Ben, nobody is going to be as woke as Mark except for others now popping up on this Twitter-like thread. We get it. Thanks for the post. The middle road is actually just a tightrope.
Ah, yes. The non elites trump and musk. Sure Jan, sure.
Ben Cohen doesn't know what to say so I'll say it for him- STFU you pathetic moron.
Wow, such a powerful and well-reasoned argument. Voters will be flocking to vote for Democrats in 2026 with genius arguments that one!
You’re a mindless boob tossing around strawman arguments. You’re not worth bothering with other than to say STFU and go crawl back under your rock.
ROFLMAO!
You don't even understand how you and your fellow travelers have brought Trump back to power. But you will have to live with it anyway.
Also, while I couldn’t get past the paywall cutoff, it reads like an editorial more than a report. Is it an opinion piece? If so who cares (so long as the facts stated are true) if it is one-sided. That’s what passable (and sometimes great) opinion writing does.
It's an opinion piece disguised as corrective reporting. Liberal reporters cannot tell the difference between reporting and opinion because they think their opinions are the only thoughts that are valid. They are dangerous. See the 60 Minutes piece on German officials enforcing censorship.
Ben, When you're in a hole, stop digging. From an American living in the real world.
You article implies that proper corrective action has been taken against perpetrators of violent roaming rape gangs.
That’s a straw man argument you’re making myself my dude. Labour Party leaders don’t hold any responsibility for one of the greatest UK government coverups in recent memory 🤪
Ben you suffer from “but what about THAT!” ism - where your (possibly) good points will never land because the crime in question is BEYOND egregious and it comes across that you’re argument has to include downplaying the crime.
Same thing happened during covid - millions of school kids here in CA /NY / MA were incorrectly held out of in person learning for 1-1.5 YEARS, and yet libs were upset bcs Fauci was receiving too many negative memes online.
Please gain some perspective.
Dear Ben,
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to accuse the Free Press of deliberate inaccuracy and hyperbole to then go on to say Musk has ‘toppled the American Government’ ? A little hyperbole of your own, no?
It is indeed hypocritical and your article was reasonable up until you couldn’t help but reveal what’s really eating you as you conclude ‘The lesson, it seems, is that pleasing Elon Musk is highly lucrative.’ A nice little ad hominem side swipe, no?
We did have some earlier clues as to what’s bugging you though, such as your mention of how much the Free Press earns, the reference to the twitter files story being a dud, etc….so all in all, this piece makes you sound petulant and jealous. You make a point about journalism— but (yawn) one we all understand already. Instead, what we see here is there’s as much hyperbole in your piece as what you’ve asserted about the Free Press. I suggest if you want to hold the Free Press to your standard of accuracy, you might want to first look in the mirror, dear.
Ben , terribly written article by you ! Starmer is a left wing fascist AND you seem to be going out of your way to defend him . The point is he’s an islamophile and he looks the other way for antisemitism and hates the Anglo Saxon British citizenry . He is a disgrace and so are you for your misguided arrow . Nice try gaslighter
No Ben, your headline and concluding paragraphs don’t say Starmer and Phillips were not to blame. Your point as evidenced by your headline and last paragraphs is to make a political attack on Weiss and Musk! … otherwise you’d have stuck to arguing Starmer and Phillips lack of culpability!
Agree with you totally. Bari Weiss does play fast and loose with her accusations. But one thing is for certain: British authorities covered up hundreds of child sex trafficking events and failed to bring charges to perpetrators and stop it. What astounds me is the continued coverup. Woke DEI is a malignant disease. Political corruption.
Starmer continues the coverup. They call it “ politics”.
So Mark... the criminals have been brought to justice and white perpetrators far outnumber the British born brown ones.. but you want to shit stir?
Many of the criminals have absolutely not been brought to justice, you can read some of the horrific detals here:
https://news.sky.com/story/grooming-gangs-scandal-timeline-what-happened-what-inquiries-there-were-and-how-starmer-was-involved-after-elon-musks-accusations-13285021
So yeah, when such a vast injustice has occurred, I absolutely fucking do want to "stir shit".
Whereas you (and Ben) just want to let it slide, apparently.
And why exactly is that?
Because brown people get a free pass?
Please do explain why justice should not be colorblind.
Every week three woman are murdered in the UK. A British policeman last year, using his badge, kidnapped, raped and murdered a young woman he picked up in his squad car.
There is a scandalous level of abuse directed against women of all ages. Focussing only on cases that can be linked to a racial group while ignoring all the others is a disgraceful tactic of the far right. The consequences of doing this we have already seen last summer when thugs rioted, attacked the police and tried to burn down a hostel housing asylum seekers. This rioting and burning is what the far right want. They want to weaken the UK to make it vulnerable to attacks from Trump or Vladimir Putin. Claiming to support 'free speech' they applaud dictators who poison their opponents.
Who says you have to pick one or the other? I think it’s fair to be outraged by all rapes and murders. It shouldn’t be a left or right thing.
Islam is a religion not a racial group, Although it is true that the rape gangs consisted mostly of Pakistani Muslims . Focusing on cases linked to Pakistanis and ignoring others IS wrong. but so is backing off the Pakistani connection because of political correctness. Let the chips fall as they may: if you groom young girls and rape them, you should be prosecuted and punished, your race and religion aren’t relevant either way
Yeah they are relevant. White Christians in general will fight rape gangs and will not tolerate it. I wouldn’t tolerate it in my children. It is tolerated in certain ethnic groups and among many Muslims.
The idea that the crimes were 'covered up because of political correctness' is false. They were excused away by lazy and incompetent officials who chose 'polirical correctness' as a way of diverting blame away from themselves.
The end of your argument makes you sound paranoid.
Wow. You are a retard. The only conclusion one can come to after reading your comment.
Absolutely false statement. Please reveal valid inception verified sources for your accusations. Remember you may be quoting sources in government who are corrupted. Figures can lie and liars can figure
Agreed.
The British grooming gang scandal provides a mythological backstory so the right can call the left “groomers“ while the left calls the right “fascists“.
What are proportions of rapists by white or brown category?
This is a ridiculous argument. Ben's point was that The FP's article was misleading, which to be fair is typical for the FP. They live for snark, misleadingly presented.
The fact that there are other bad things in the world that are even worse than the typical FP sloppy snark-filled article doesn't exonerate Bari Weiss and company.
[edited to add in missing "doesn't"; sigh]
The FP article wasn’t misleading in the least. The one writer’s conclusions differ and how is that any different from the shit you see in the NYT about Israel for example…the most misleading journalism on earth. What’s far worse is that the NYT and their ilk have an agenda. The greater good being done by the FP as an important publication with voices from every side, far outweighs the issue of one writer’s conclusions. (And that one writer doesn’t necessarily represent the FP as a whole). It’s a platform in which everyone from any side gets a voice. And all the while mainstream media ownership takes a specific position, hides that fact and thus curates reality with deliberate lies, misinformation and attempts to influence their massive audience who have no clue they’re being manipulated.
Agreed about the snark. I stopped my paid subscription. Everybody there is trying to sound like Nellie Bowles and it’s tiresome
Regardless of the editorial integrity Nellie is truly witty
It’s worse than that. Thousands of girls were raped and tortured for years. Starmer dropped a promising case in 2009, and failed to prosecute who knows how many others. But because he brought proceedings in one case in 1012, the year before he left, Starmer was evidently doing a great job??? This is absolute garbage journalism
That’s right, Mark.
Much more important that Ben’s friends know how much he hates Bari Weiss and Elon Musk than to draw attention to the fact that the British government and press ignored this story for nearly 2 decades because Islamophobia.
Agreed! Also they’ve had multiple articles on the subject, not all of which even mention or focus on Starmer.
Plus they do publish pieces on other topics that literally contradict each other. That’s kinda the point of letting you make up your own mind….this right here is a shitty article just because the author didn’t like a single article in the whole publication.
This is such a textbook example of a motte-and- bailey fallacy.
You are wrong.
"The motte-and-bailey fallacy is a form of argument where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities: one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey")."
I have not conflated two positions, I have said that they are morally ordered.
You have pretty clearly conflated them. You accuse Ben of wanting to let child abuse slide in the UK because he criticises the reporting of the crisis in The Free Press (the bailey). You then claim that the highest priority should be to prevent the abuse of children in the UK (the motte).
No one will disagree with the second statement - it’s obvious and uncontroversial - but to try and first make the argument that Ben is attempting to cover for the scandal then when challenged retreat into the second argument is just disingenuous.
You are completely aware that there is nothing wrong with criticising poor reporting. You are also aware that no sane person would deny a scandal has (and continues) to take place. Don’t conflate the two positions, it’s lazy and leads to unproductive discussion.
Stop paying. He is a Leftwing hack.
Beautiful comment.
Yeah this was a clickbait headline. Read it to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hard to believe but at some points had me believing the opposite of what he intended. Not journalism and will not last more than a few years here.
I have posted exactly zero pictures of anyone.
Nope, not a single one.
All I’m seeing from this article is some very motivated reasoning from the author.
I’m no expert on any of this but Starmer seems to have been in a position to do something about this horrific scandal for years and did not until much later. Given that there have been thousands of victims over many decades, the 5 prosecutions he pursued don’t really add up to justice, in my view.
The ‘evidence’ you cite to prove Phillips’ innocence is just her statement on why she made that decision. That’s awfully credulous as well and again, I don’t know why I’m supposed to believe that.
For both Starmer and Phillips you use conservative governments having either made the same choices or having commended Starmer for his work to prove your point - as if this vindicates them or proves a blind spot in The FP report. The FP piece condemned the conservative governments as having been complicit as well for the exact thing it condemns Starmer and Phillips for. How does this prove anything?
This along with your very obvious hatred for Bari Weiss, The FP, Musk, and anyone else you deem as associated with them makes it hard to take your criticisms on their own merits or very seriously at all.
I don't hate Bari Weiss. I just think she's an opportunist who is very successfully cashing in on contrarianism. The FP piece was dreadful and incredibly misleading. Starmer has been widely praised for his role in prosecuting sex abuse crimes, and he has publicly owned his mistakes on that particular scandal. The smears on Phillips are unfounded and inexcusable. The overall point of the piece, that fear of being labeled a racist prevented action, may or may not have some validity (I think it probably does), but you can't just make things up and hope people don't notice.
You’ve just doubled down on your claims in the article, which I’ve explained are unconvincing, with no additional information or reasoning.
You’re talking about The FP’s journalistic integrity while:
- using unspecified “widespread praise” of Starmers conduct as proof of his innocence despite the fact that thousands of children remain raped and untold numbers of rapists remain free, continuing to commit crimes today.
- accepting the defense provided by the accused (Phillips) as fact with no supporting evidence.
Also, Phillips was mentioned in 2 sentences and the author provided their opinion that the decision Phillips made was politically motivated - an obvious possibility that you are baselessly denying.
This is a nonsense critique.
Exactly. This is a pathetic apologist for rape culture, wrapped up in envy and hatred for Bari Weiss.
Absolutely. He’s just envious of Bari Weiss and attempting to say something, anything, about the scandal that will please his lineral PMC base.
So, Bari Weiss is the story? This smells like ad hominem diversions.
Perhaps we go back to the actual story: how many crimes and how many prosecuted?
It's not even about Starmer. It's about immigration, grotesque culture conflict, and the choices made by the UK electorate.
There's no grotesque culture conflict you moron, we are all British together, but dealing with a subset of male perverts who used their race to deflect blame, just as Catholic priests used their piety, and white upper-class men raping kids in children's homes in Northern Ireland used their connections. It all comes down to MEN, who treat girls as commodities. Do you think my Muslim neighbours and coworkers are pro-rape? Do piss off, we're not going to play your "war of civilisations" fantasy out here in my community.
So you're saying that there is no culture war going on in the UK? Is it all just a charade?
Many areas of the UK are now what I'd characterize as 'low trust' societies. And it didn't used to be that way before BOTH Tory and Labour parties allowed mass illegal immigration, many from Sharia-law origins. The destabilizing wars in the Middle East over last two decades and USA Boomer elites pushing 'melting pot' ideology onto the Old World (who did not have the same elbow room as North America) are to blame. Nigel's Reform party many not yet be ready for prime time, we'll see if UK majority has had enough. Could be Reform is like the US Tea Party of 2007, and didn't go mainstream for 3 to 4 years thereafter.
You may not hate Bari Weiss, but it sure seems that you are jealous of her success with the FP.
You also come from a very left-leaning perspective and seem astounded the the FP doesn't tow the leftie line. I subscribe to FP but do I agree with everything they publish? Definitely not. But do I bad-mouth the entire publication? Also not. You are a Brit who didn't grow up in a nation that guarantees free speech.
In your country, people are being arrested and prosecuted for Facebook posts for fuck's sake.
Re the article, from what I've read and heard, Starmer bears at least some responsibility for the flimsy handling of these rape gangs. Starmer is also a shill for the radical Muslims in the UK and blathers constantly about "Islamophobia" with London's mayor.🙄
And as a Jew, Ben, you should be outraged at his acceptance of Jew-hatred in the UK. Do better.
Your statement “you should be outraged at his acceptance of Jew-hatred in the UK” shows you know nothing about the subject other than what you read in echo chambers. Read about Starmer’s history of addressing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Seriously??! Starmer is all about "Islamophobia" now and gave a bit of lip service to anti-Semitism and booted Corbyn BEFORE he was PM. Since taking office he and is feckless idiot foreign secretary have done nothing but disparage Israel and nothing to protect Jews.
And the BBC ⁉️ One would be hard pressed to find a more anti-Israel Jew-hating news service.
You defend the indefensible.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so perhaps you could explain what you think Starmer ought to be doing to protect Jews?
And the BBC, what are they doing that displays hatred of Jews?
I'm thinking that you are not Jewish, so Jew-hatred and anti-Israel sentiment is not on your radar. You either don't notice or don't care about it.
From your statement, "what Starmer ought to be doing to protect the Jews" is telling. Since October 7th there have been huge and hateful riots in Britain supporting Hamas and declaring that Israel and the Jewish people should be eliminated. This is in a country with no free speech guarantees in which you can be jailed for a Facebook post. This makes Jews feel unsafe. Why is this tolerated? (to be fair, the previous government wasn't much better). Huge demonstrations against illegal immigrants and Islamists ARE NOT tolerated and are immediately shut down and arrests made. Do you see the difference? In addition, very recently, London's mayor had a televised conversation with Starmer and they both agreed that "islamophobia" was "a huge threat" something that should be criminalized. This is absurd and one of the reason that these Pakistani Muslim men were allowed to rape young white British girls for decades with impunity.
I don't know if you have ever listened to Douglas Murray, but you should. You Brits have allowed millions of people - mostly Muslims- into your country over the past decade or so. They do not share your values and they have no regard for your culture or customs. You should have already noticed that.
Regarding the BBC, again, you obviously are not at all sensitive to Jew-hatred. The BBC lies every single day about Israel. EVERY SINGLE DAY. This has been going on for decades but since October 7th they have published AS FACT everything Hamas says. There is no balance. One example would be the casualty figures in Gaza. They get their numbers from Hamas (the terror organization) and they do not make even an attempt to check them - i.e. do actual journalism. They just blithely go ahead and present one side of this conflict while basically ignoring the side of Israel.
If you are not interested or even a bit knowledgeable about these issues, you will likely believe the lies they tell.
90% of the articles are poorly researched and sourced and are just there to reinforce the prioris of their conservative base, who want to feel smarter than the Brietbart gang. The latest one denying climate change was a hoot.
I was actually a fan until her true color emerges. She, along with Niall Ferguson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are some of the biggest disappointments.
I am so disappointed with Bari. I was thrilled when the FP set up, as I was one of many women who felt utterly shut out of public discourse by men. The particular men being those had demanded I agree they were women. But the recent fawning FP coverage of Musk's ignorant and racist rant (yes, it is, I have South African family and I know exactly what Musk was taught as a White South African) has made me sick. We Brits know what has happened with the British Pakistani groomers, and how to fix it. But we won't be screaming abuse at our neighbours or campaigning to deport them, thank you, even if every woke right bro on the Internet tells us to do it.
Now Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore, they are British feminists who were there from the start demanding that these girls be protected. Listen to them, not the creep Musk or his hangers-on. He can take a flying fuck.
Seriously⁉️ We Brits know what happened and how to fix it?? I beg to differ. These Pakistani rape gangs have been operating with impunity for over a decade and British authorities did EXACTLY what you are doing by crying "racism". Those young girls were victims of the political correctness of people like you and your politicians. You are just pissed at Musk because shamed you and your politicians and showed the world what pathetic hypocrites you are.
Dear Ben,
I posted the below earlier but need to add something here. You are one of many, many journalists who have accused Bari Weiss of opportunism. ‘Cashing in on contrarianism’.
This is a conclusion in which you have zero evidence. Did you ask her what her motives are? Do you not recall why she left the NYT? Do you not remember she took an enormous gamble to start the FP but she did it to preserve her integrity as a writer and had no idea if she’d make it out there with no salary or cushy benefits?
The jealousy over her success is simply massive and sorry to see you are one of the many who can’t bear it. “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be mowed down.” She stand tall, doesn’t she? And as a fellow writer, you could choose to celebrate her success, recognize she didn’t start the FP thinking g of future riches, but instead, as a true mission to create a home for all writers with contrarian views who no longer had a voice on a woke world. She needed a safe haven, created one and then invited everyone in to join her.... the FP has helped writers like you become successful, known and able to be independent. So instead of giving her any credit whatsoever, you utilize an article by a different writer and attempt to convey the writer emblematic of the FP and thus, Bari herself; so that all of the FP contributors are happily helping support her self-enrichment. That’s a pretty big accusation of many of your colleagues.
Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to accuse the Free Press of deliberate inaccuracy and hyperbole to then go on to say Musk has ‘toppled the American Government’ ? A little hyperbole of your own, no?
It is indeed hypocritical and your article was reasonable up until you couldn’t help but reveal what’s really eating you as you conclude ‘The lesson, it seems, is that pleasing Elon Musk is highly lucrative.’ A nice little ad hominem side swipe, no?
We did have some earlier clues as to what’s bugging you though, such as your mention of how much the Free Press earns, the reference to the twitter files story being a dud, etc….so all in all, this piece makes you sound petulant and jealous. You make a point about journalism— but (yawn) one we all understand already. Instead, what we see here is there’s as much hyperbole in your piece as what you’ve asserted about the Free Press. I suggest if you want to hold the Free Press to your standard of accuracy, you might want to first look in the mirror, dear.
I read years ago at the time how many in law enforcement ADMITTED that they were afraid of being labeled ‘racist.’ What Weiss did with the free press was amazing. It quickly filled a niche. Everyone is now pretending that elites and the media didn’t utterly lose their minds in 2020. Completely untrustworthy. Now that they are course correcting, perhaps thefp will run its course. Or adapt.
Widely praised where???
Envy is a terrible thing..
Widely praised is a thin complement at best. 5 prosecutions among thousands of cases...also thin.
You aren’t wrong. I’m a subscriber to TFP, and I’ve been really disappointed so far in their coverage of the Trump administration. They talked a big game about their ideals and being nonpartisan. The audience capture is hard to ignore nowadays. I’m hoping to see some change soon.
You are right that you are no expert on this. If you want to read from an actual expert who was on the ground about why Musk and this coverage is so totally disgusting then here's one:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whatwouldjesssay/p/does-elon-musk-care-about-rotherham?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=humuz
Keir Starmer is Sir because he got a knighthood for changing how the CPS prosecuted CSE cases for the better. So yeah, widespread praise. Head of CPS is like head of the DOJ they run the service they don't prosecute individual cases. Under his leadership the CPS was the one government agency that admitted failures and made changes then reached record numbers of prosecutions. He has his faults but his CPS record isn't one of them.
Jess Phillips is one of the most vocal campaigners for women's safety in the UK. She has written books, done tons of casework helping individual victims and every year on international woman's day reads out the names of all the women murdered by men in the last year in Parliament. Read her twitter feed.
All a bit rich coming from the country that just elected a sex offender.
I read the article you linked and it has very interesting information detailing why Musk is disingenuous. I'm fully prepared to believe that he is disingenuous and none of my comments have claimed he is not. My comments relate to the claims made by the author about The FP piece.
A few things:
- Jimmy Savile was also knighted, as are many other bad people and undeserving clowns. Not sure why you think that the fact the ceremonial monarchy gave a guy in their government a meaningless title is such a slam dunk.
- If the CPS, under Starmer, failed to do its job, then pointing out that Starmer is not individually responsible for prosecuting criminals is meaningless. For example, Donald Trump, as president, personally perpetrated virtually none of the misdeeds of his administration. He did not personally separate a single migrant child from their family. If Starmer's CPS failed to adequately prosecute child rapists then the blame is on him. That's the nature of leadership.
- What I read was his CPS had 5 prosecutions and convicted 35 people. As I already said, if this is a "record" number of prosecutions then that's a pretty serious indictment of the UK justice system and Starmer himself, as well as many others, whether or not he was better than his predecessors.
- I will accept all of that about Jess Phillips. The FP piece suggested that Phillips made this particular decision (to keep the investigation local rather than national) for political reasons. Nothing you've said or the author has said has proven otherwise.
Lastly, on the part about us electing a sex offender...I do not understand this attitude. First, its not technically true but more importantly, The FP did not endorse Donald Trump and you have no idea who I voted for. Is this comment directed at Elon Musk maybe? Because he is probably not reading this conversation.
Do you think that Donald Trumps individual behavior and the electorates decision to elect him anyway is in some way equivalent to or worse than the fact that the UK has allowed mass rape of children to go on for decades and has downplayed or suppressed the extent of the problem for political and racial reasons?
Ok so to answer your points to help you see why the information in the FP was wrong:
- re knighthood, you were disputing that Starmer received widespread praise, so the knighthood is evidence that he did. Saville also received widespread praise when he was alive for his fundraising. You are right that it doesn't equal anything else about a person as many disgraced celebrities show. Re electing them afterwards or making them supreme court justices/ government officials is a US thing.
Interesting side note the Saville scandal occurred during Starmer's time at the CPS so he changed the rules so that if a celebrity was accused of abuse it had to be escalated nationally so unequipped local forces couldn't cover it up in future.
- Your info is wrong over 4500 CSE cases were prosecuted under Starmer in his last year alone, a record at the time and about 3 times more than previously I think. He also appointed a special prosecutor who went after grooming gangs and gave him all the resources he asked for. I'm not sure what more you think he should have done? A lot of agencies were failing in this. It wasn't illegal not to report child abuse at the time. The only way Starmer could change that was to become a politician. He's done that and a bill to make not reporting child abuse a criminal offence is currently in parliament. This is why the FP article is wrong.
- someone else posted a sky news link above with a full timeline. There has been massive media interest in this story over the last 10 years in the UK, multiple enquiries, a really good drama series called 3 Girls if you can find it anywhere. Also a lot has changed.
One of the most impactful enquiries was a local one in another area, which is why Phillips recommends it. There was a 5 year professional enquiry working with victims with recommendations the previous government didn’t implement (a public enquiry, which is the one suddenly called for, is judge led rather than expert led in the UK and involves a lot of lawyers).
It's still very far from perfect as the other article says but this idea that the story broke and nothing happened is categorically untrue as is the idea that Starmer didn't do anything.
Hope this answers your questions
I actually only asked one question and you did not answer it.
- I did not dispute his having received widespread praise. I disputed that it mattered and is something a journalist should cite to support their point.
- Your anti-US vitriol really damages the credibility of your statements. This discussion is about your governments handling of criminal behavior. I get that it makes you feel better to insult the US rather than think about how your country seems to be filled with rapists and rape apologists, but it really doesn't help your case.
- You seem to be referring to the total number of CSE cases, not those specifically related to grooming gangs. That's pretty misleading. I am referring to the cases related to grooming gangs and the estimate I am seeing is about 35 convictions. Here is where I'm getting that: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgn2wvxx5qo
- That timeline shows that it took about 10 years for anything to happen after initial complaints in 2001 and pretty slow progress after that until today. I have read elsewhere that this has been going on since the 70's to one degree or another. The timeline also shows how your government tried to keep this scandal quiet for racial and political reasons.
- I read the justification for Phillips recommendation. I understand that you find that convincing. I don't see why I or any other readers should.
First of all apologies that British humour doesn't translate. It was a few tongue in cheek statements.
For future reference if a Brit starts a sentence 'Bit rich' it's likely sarcasm/humour (regional variations apply). I thought you were being rhetorical in your question.
You just shared as evidence a fact checking article that says "We have been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir personally in any of the reports on the scandal, nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any decisions not to prosecute". There were 10 inquiries. His response to cleaning it up was praised. Plenty of other stuff to criticise him on but he has a good record on this.
I shared an article that referenced all the massive systematic failings on this. No one is denying them. It's been widely reported for over a decade. The anger about this unites everyone across the political spectrum but as the article says gets exploited by the far right. The politics is the disagreement on how to make things better not whether it is bad or not. Portraying it in any other way is wrong. Saying you disagree with someone on how to improve things so therefore they are saying that rape is fine is clearly bad faith reporting.
I'm not sure what you're arguing anymore. I don't actually know anything about the FP other than this article. It's OK to say I like this publication and also this particular article was wrong or to argue that one article doesn't justify criticising the whole publication.
No, Starmer was the key person as DPP who got these men prosecuted from 2010 onwards and he appointed the British Muslim Nazir Afzal, who was the special prosecutor who reopened case after case to ensure these men were convicted. Are you confused? Or does this not fit your fantasy of evil Muslims and complicit liberals? Those of us who worked with kids in care know this current "outrage" is total hypocrisy.
Uh
I've been reading the FP for a while, off and on. I read this piece. Then I went to your publication and read some pieces. And you want to accuse the FP of bias? You might need a bit of self-awareness there.
As an occasionally left-leaning and occasionally right-leaning person, depending on the subject at hand (like most normal people, I suspect), and someone with a journalism background, I can admit there are times the FP gets it wrong in presenting unbiased news; but I have to say they are doing a better job at at least trying than The Banter.
Couldn’t agree with you more Ryan. I have been reading The Free Press since the very beginning after giving up my NYTimes digital subscription. I see myself the same way, center left on some things and center right on others and for the most part I find FP’s coverage on issues refreshing as well as informative. Particular after reading the mostly “in the bubble” coverage provided by the NYT for years. No one gets it right 100% but The Free Press covers issues more fully and with a clarity that the mainstream media refuses to do. Mr. Cohen’s critique of the FP rings hollow when you read about the scope and magnitude of what went on with this scandal and how little was done to protect all the victims at the local and ministerial level. It also sounds a bit like sour grapes because Ms. Weiss and company have created an extremely successive business model out of her journalistic endeavors.
The Musk fantasy that "little was done" may make everyone feel they are righteously angry, but it's complete bollocks. For years we have been investigating and prosecuting these gangs of men. Since at least 2010. The current Prime Minister was head of the prosecution service when the scale of the offending became clear, and he then went after these perverts with everything we had legally.
The abuse of these girls was a scandal and a disgrace, arising from complete disregard for certain kinds of girls in our society, and opportunist male abusers who couldn't believe their luck when we treated the girls as "choosing" their lifestyle. Then Musk woke up early Jan 25 and read a court report and decided to exploit the trauma of these victims for some right-wing, anti-immigration, "woke right bro" reason? He can go to hell. He's never helped a single victim of sex exploitation, and he never will.
I appreciate your perspective on the grooming scandal Billy, however my comments had nothing to do with Elon Musk nor do I take my cues to be righteously anything from him. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a Musk Fan and I do not follow him nor anyone else on X/Twitter. During the brief time I had an account, I found it to be mostly a time suck vehicle for despair and delusional thinking. The author of this piece felt the need to attack Bari Weiss and The Free Press and as I am a long time subscriber, I find Mr. Cohen’s snarky comments about her and TheFP to be-to use your great expression- complete bollocks.
Criticizing one FP article does not make the point that FP is biased. This particular story IS complicated because the problem had been pointed out by others before Musk. But the point is not who brought it up first but who led to action being taken. If this terrible thing no longer happens that would be great to hear.
I’ll read 1,000 Bari Weiss article before I ever read another one of your articles. She had the courage to start the FP while you were sitting on your DEI hands, trying to sit at the Cool Kids table.
100% she capitalized on a shift in momentum brought us the Witch Trials one of the first to take on the transActivist nightmare and is still willing to confront the lies while progressive dudes sit back and insist transactivism is a marginal issue with no real impact, a diversion from the important stuff. I'm a FP subscriber and while I don't agree with everything she writes, I appreciate the variety of viewpoints, the humor and wit, and her willingness to veer away from progressive dogma. Progressives these days are simply intolerable. I'm recovering from 30 years of progressive politics. She's helped tremendously.
well said, Kim.
💯
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
Why are you still making excuses for how progressives, fearing the taint of “Islamophobia” continue to allow Islamists to abuse their host countries. What kind of urge do you have to cover up for the progressive left? These people are useful idiots of the most radical forms of Islam, both racist and antisemitic. Grow up.
Progressives are the useful idiots of Islamists. I don’t get it at all. Makes zero sense considering the two are mutually exclusive, and progressives would be the first to go in a Muslim majority society. Fucking clown world we live in.
Ben, nice one. But you get something very wrong up top. Bari is not independent media. She is backed in all her endeavors by reactionary billionaires who give her all the money she needs to get projects off the ground. You and I would be household names if we had her level of support: https://open.substack.com/pub/publicenlightenment/p/bari-weiss-brought-to-you-by-billionaires?r=2xd80&utm_medium=ios
Good point!
Lol this comment and your reaction give everything away. Motivated reasoning at its finest
“Reactionary” is such a lazy term used by people with little of substance to say. Why don’t you say what you really mean?
You support status-quo big government authoritarianism, and you don’t like the reasoned & logical reactions to them lying to us… which by the way, is open information
"Musk has already toppled the US government by inciting racial tensions and spreading conspiracy theories."
Toppled the US government. By himself.
Really?
At “toppled the government,” the author lost any and all credibility. It shows an imbecilic misunderstanding of America and its politics. This was the first Banter article I read. It will also be the last.
Ditto, same for me!
I love that all the top comments in this thread are calling out the author for his idiocracy. As soon as I’m done liking all the comments I can mute this guy and he can go back to raging against Bari Weiss and Musk, raw dogging the air in some forgotten corner of Substack.
"any and all" might be a bit strong, because I think there's a valid discussion about culpability of Starmer & Phillips. Musk is missing local nuance, but so is Cohen. But it was a pretty wild thing to blurt out.
“Toppled the government”
Indeed an apt description of an incontrovertible win across the board in free elections.
Lol
KH 'only' outspent Trump 4:1, but let's blame the outcome on Elon Musk
KH 'only' outspent Trump 4:1, but let's blame the outcome on Elon Musk
You’ve obviously done serious work here, and my lazy anecdotal take carries less weight, but I’ll put it here anyway.
When I first heard about Bari Weiss, I was a liberal but frustrated with the culture at the Times and elsewhere that seemed inclined to pander to progressives. Ex. The editor who got pushed out for running the tom Cotton piece. I didn’t agree with cotton’s piece but I also didn’t agree with the objection to running it. I usually disagree with right wingers but I don’t really want a New York Times that can’t say no to progressives; I don’t think that’s healthy.
So, when I first became aware of Bari Weiss, she was calling herself a liberal who felt that progressives were silencing dissent. Okay, so that resonated with me. I followed her “free press” for a little while, but after a while it started looking like she was pandering to anti-woke people, playing the same kind of game the Times was. At this point my disgust with the NYT has been upgraded to mixed feelings. As far as I can tell, they are pissing off people across the spectrum.
I wanted to believe in Bari but I became skeptical and it seems even worse now. My guess is that the money was just too hard for her to turn down. Maybe she had good intentions at the beginning— I’m not qualified to guess about that. But as you observe, she’s less than rigorous about doing serious journalism.
That could be my story, word for word. When I was “gang-banged” by her noxious followers in the Comments section, I left. Bari Weiss has been nothing but a disappointment.
No small number of her fans are really rude, awful people, and that says something.
Ditto !!
Honestly I never expected otherwise. Her whole career has been complaining about freedom of speech unless it’s about Palestine/Israel. This essentially means she wants free speech for her causes, silence from her perceived enemies. This is not the stuff of classical liberalism.
If you have a problem with what people are saying about the UK grooming gangs, that’s cool. Could even be taken as evidence that you have a brain, and you’re using it to think critically. Then you decide to bash Bari, and the entirety of the Free Press? For a byline that wasn’t hers? To that I say…
Fuck right off, sir.
I had great hopes for the Free Press when it first started and agreed with the frustration over alleged "progressives" inability to entertain dissenting views and opinions. But at some point the anti-woke drumbeat became monotonous and seemed to be giving a pass to right-wing threats. There wasn't a balance there. I read it regularly when it first started but now seldom look at it. Terribly disappointed at an opportunity lost.
💯 Plus they got so snarky. It now reads to me like pure opinion rather than news.
Thank you so much for this. You have really validated my decision to subscribe to the Banter. I was an early supporter of Weiss' "Common Sense" and eventually left in disgust after it was clear they were curating a decidedly Trump-supporting, or at least anti-anti-Trump audience. The Free Press has become a joke, fixated on anti-wokism and all but ignoring thd extreme threats from the right, so much so that they have now become one of its many enablers.
For a long time they have taken potshots at the mainstream media for every potential shortcoming. Things like the lab-leak theory and the Hunter Biden laptop story, despite the lack of certainty involved with both, the ample reckoning with the controversies by the MSM, and their responsibly following the stories as they evolved, have been held up by hacks like Weiss and Matt Taibbi as proof that they MSM can't be trusted, and why you should abandon them in favor of subscribing to their on-demand bias-validation style of "reporting".
Don't expect a similar reckoning from them. That's the difference. That's why they will never be anything more than rock-throwers, occasionally helping to keep the MSM honest but more often slandering legitimate sources of information and enabling the enemies of democracy and a well-informed public.
Thanks for the kind words Eric! You summed the FP's reporting up perfectly. Any publication that doesn't acknowledge the danger of Trump and the far right isn't serious.
When did Ben Cohen first recognize in print that Joe Biden wasn’t up to a second term.
KH 'only' outspent Trump 4:1, but let's blame the outcome on Elon Musk
Something like this?https://open.substack.com/pub/bariweiss/p/donald-trump-rod-blagojevich-eric-adams-lawfare-corruption-pardon?r=2eqxh0&utm_medium=ios
How is Trump returning the government "to the people"? He has done nothing but sell accommodations to billionaire oligarchs, nominate wholly unqualified and in some cases downright dangerous people to crucial cabinet positions as rewards for political support, and brazenly help sustain the main problem he pledged to fix so that he could have an issue to run on.
Trump is a corrupt man, who ran for President in order to stay out of jail. He wants to undo Civil Service protections, which have existed since the late 19th century precisely to curtail the spoils system, so that government would be staffed by qualified career individuals instead of political cronies. Remember the Hurricane Katrina debacle? That's what cronyism buys you.
What you are witnessing now is the beginning of what promises to be a historic level of crony government which will make his first term, with its unprecedented level of cabinet turnover, look quaint by comparison. He is nominating for head of the FBI a man who has openly promised to go after an "enemies list" of individuals. He has promised more corrupt pardons for people willing to commit crimes in his name, to add to the ones he issued to political supporters and people who agreed not to squeal on him during the Mueller investigation.
He has openly acknowledged the blatantly unconstitutional immunity ruling that he wrangled out of our corrupt Sypreme Court, and made clear he intends to use it—the first President ever to go into office with a "get out of jail free" card. And he knows that most of his supporters will let him get away with it, because they are convinced by his lying rhetoric that he is a "man of the people", and who ignore all of the massive evidence to the contrary by believing that the MSM is lying to them, and that blatant Trump propaganda outlets are telling them the truth.
This is not "giving the government back to the people". This is taking the government away from the people and handing it to the wealthy and those unaccountable to any authority other than a corrupt man who sees himself as above the law.
I'm sorry to tell you that you are a victim of the long con of the Republican Party, a decades long effort to demonize the one political party which actually did, and does, act in the interests of most Americans, so that their wholly unappealing economic agenda to benefit the wealthy and powerful could be stealth-implemented under a fusillade of demagoguery and cultural geievance mongering. The one thing they didn't plan on was having someone come in and successfully sell you a load of phony populist lies to mask that agenda, but boy has it worked out for them. All those years of cultivating their own alternate reality paid off in a way they never expected.
Eric - what would it take in your brain for the Lab Leak theory to be “true”? Would you require the Chinese Communist Party to admit that they leaked the virus?
What about the Hunter Biden shenanigans? You demand an admittance of guilt (other than Joe Biden pardoning his whole family)?
It seems you’re not a fan of investigative journalism or inquisitive op-Ed’s… you expect truthful state media or something else similarly bizarre.
Leslie, I don't know where you're getting your information, but you're extremely misinformed. The RNA vaccines are not gene therapy; your genome is not encoded in your RNA. These have literally been taken by hundreds of millions of people, and while individual side effects are possible with any vaccine, there have been no mass ill effects.
There is a reason why The Free Press has over one million subscribers and this Banter thing only 11K. Which is way too many for the ooze of jealousy and biased Banter journalisming. I will stick with The Free Press!
Twitter files turned out to be a dud? Wtf are you talking about
I hope Jess Philips sues The Free Press, its editor and Green for libel. They deserve to be hammered into the ground for deliberately spreading disinformation. Starmer could too, but as PM, he won’t (and that’s probably wise).
This is propaganda war by a far right populist and his client publications. We’ve been here before. Giving into such bullying is not an option.
Ben how do we get Elon Musk to go away? He’s such a bellend.
It's a tough one. If X is banned in the UK, I fear the backlash will be worse. People really need to stop using the platform, so the more alternatives there are the better.
Are you not going to answer my question, Ben? I'm sure you saw it.
You made a big deal about changing The Banter to have some real dialogue. Was that all just a big pose? Sure seems like it.
If Michelle Goldberg says something, the opposite is true.