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Not Dark Yet #269: Nick Cohen is a serious risk to my health

11/3/2018

9 Comments

 
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I'm very careful on Sunday mornings. At my age, I have to be.

At least half an hour before turning to the Comment section of The Observer, I take 10mg of diazepam, and whilst waiting for it to kick in, carry out a series of deep breathing exercises to bring down my heart rate.

Only then am I able to turn, tentatively, to Nick Cohen's column. Usually, whatever its apparent subject, I can read through to the end with its gratuitous and irrelevant slur against Corbyn without too much difficulty. After all, I’ve been doing it for years. With the appropriate preparation and medication, it is possible to complete the entire piece without serious risk to one’s long-term health.

Not this morning.

Even by Cohen’s standards, the attack on Jennie Formby is appalling. Take a deep breath, hold your nose, and read this:

“Unite is trying to force through the appointment of its official Jennie Formby as labour’s new general secretary on the grounds that she is the feminist candidate who will challenge the patriarchy. Its egalitarian argument would carry greater force were she not McCluskey’s former mistress. Was it for this Emily Davison died?”

Where to start? Unite is not trying to ‘force’ anything through; it is backing her in an appointment process. Yes, she is a feminist candidate and I hope she will challenge the patriarchy. But she has a great many other credentials for the role as well. Not least 30 years as a union official, working as a Regional Officer, National Officer, Political Director and Regional Secretary. None of which has any bearing as far as Cohen is concerned, because her entire career is reduced to one thing.

She is “McCluskey’s former mistress”.

For fuck’s sake. Of what conceivable relevance is this? And who uses the word ‘mistress’ these days? Emily Davison and Emily Dickinson would both be turning in their graves. If this is the kind of language used in 2018 by an Oxford-educated writer, then yes, they did die in vain.

So with stomach churning and heart racing, I ask what the hell The Observer is doing providing a platform for this offensive nonsense?

At a push, I can accept that Cohen has a right to think this kind of misogyny, and even express it. But I don’t want to see it in my Sunday newspaper.

Equally, if Mohammed bin Salman wants to spend a million or so on charm offensive advertisements, there is nothing to prevent him doing so. But I don’t want to see them in my copy of The Guardian. And while we’re on the subject, the editor of The Guardian may believe that Leveson 2 should not be progressed, but this is not a view I expect from my daily paper.

These examples are, I’m afraid, indicative of a conscious move by The Guardian and The Observer away from their once proud tradition and important role within a responsible and free press.

They have taken their new format too literally. They are, increasingly, tabloid tat. And although I have threatened it before, I really think that the subscription they took from my account on the 1st of March, will be the last.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter from the Boar’s Head Coffee House in 1961. Historically fascinating. Musically great.

9 Comments
Allan
11/3/2018 10:29:21

I saw it late last night in the on-line Guardian. What are the editors doing? Did they not see the casual misogyny? Can they not remove it, or better still, remove Cohen completely and give him a free transfer to the Mail or the Star? This sort of thing really has no place in any newspaper, never mind Guardian/Observer. Impressed that you were able to take a deep breath and respond sensibly and moderately by 9am. Hope your blood pressure is returned to normal.

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Harry
11/3/2018 13:06:16

Of course the editors and sub-editors can make changes or spike it. It's the sub-editors wot write the headlines. Thing is, they don't see anything wrong with it - even that casual misogynist language. They agree with it all.

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Richard
11/3/2018 10:54:44

Don't rise to it. It is disgraceful that he should be paid for this offensive nonsense but while it provokes response from the left, he and the newspapers will keep doing it and suddenly misogyny is mainstream. Ignore him and he'll be just a screaming brat.

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Sally
11/3/2018 11:03:10

I think it's important that even screaming brats are challenged and reasoned with. I appreciate that nothing is going to change the mind or mindset of this particular brat but it is when this stuff is ignored and goes unchallenged that it becomes mainstream.

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Ellie
11/3/2018 12:55:25

Disgraceful as the attack on Jennie is, we women can take it. Used to it. From the left also. (It's a measure of Jennie's ability that she has risen so far in the union.) but my point is that the article is so anti-union in general that it attacks, by implication, the entire labour movement from the 1870s to this day.

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Marcus
11/3/2018 16:32:54

He's a shit. You give him too much credit by reading and responding.

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CJ
13/3/2018 07:58:15

Early Jerry. Historically fascinating, sure. But musically great?

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Max
13/3/2018 08:01:27

Meant to type great fun!

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John
19/3/2018 13:24:23

Give up the Guardian and switch to the i

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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