Nuanced and understated as ever, the front page of today’s The Sun celebrates the demise of a despised despot, class enemy and war criminal whose decades-long rule has created untold misery for millions, and whose stubborn refusal to step aside has led to civil war amid the ruins of his former empire and destruction on a mass scale. Or something.

(See: Wapping dispute; Hillsborough disaster)

One week on after the first night of rioting, and the reactionary backlash is in full-swing. The courts in some English cities are operating at full-pelt, churning out disproportionate sentence after disproportionate sentence. Cases have ceased to be dealt with on an individual basis, amid a flurry to imprison as many as people for as long as possible as quickly as possible, which has seen any concept of justice and a fair trial disregarded. Meanwhile, the ruling class are at loggerheads with one another over who exactly is to blame for allowing the riots to develop and spread across the country: the cops blame the politicians, the politicians blame the cops, the media blame both, and everyone blames a dehumanised criminal underclass of hoodrats, thugs and scum.

We’ve seen the emergence of an archetypal moral panic: young people, hoodies, anarchy, single parents, PC brigade, thieving, arson, gangs, MODERN COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY, Grand Theft Auto, water cannons, SEND IN THE TROOPS… the list goes on. Fortunately for us, in this time of grave national crisis, help is at hand. A grouping of selfless celebrities, led by Wayne and Coleen Rooney and backed up by a supporting cast including Max Clifford, Simon Cowell and Peter Andre, alongside Big Brother winners, some twat from Kasabian, David Cameron and ’stars’ of the The Only Way Is Essex, have come together in their noble fight to make Britain be back British, free of the rioting ’scum and thugs’ that have brought shame on our once great nation. The celeb crusade to ‘Reclaim Our Streets’ was hailed on the frontpage of two national “newspapers” on Saturday, the Daily Star and the Express.

Britain's moral compass: The Star & Express

Readers of both papers, and other participating media outlets including OK! Magazine and Channel Five, are invited to donate whatever they can towards this cause – via mysteriously monikered charity the ‘RD Crusaders Foundation’ – which has already seen contributions pouring in from the above celebrity figures.  It’s been orchestrated by none other than moral crusader, millionaire pornographer, mad fascist and media baron Richard Desmond, owner of the participating media outlets.

Taken in isolation, the campaign and fundraising drive – apparently for the benefit of families and businesses affected by the riots – seems fairly standard fare for a populist tabloid newspaper. But within the context of the Star and Express’s persistent and vociferous racist populism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria and open support for the English Defence League, it’s a worrying development. Indeed, it was the EDL who were out on the streets of north London last week, attempting to put the rhetoric of ‘reclaiming our streets’ into action (even if they did end up just bottling the police)

The language employed in the Star’s campaign is particularly telling. Much in the same way that the Express Group have sought to dehumanise and demonise Muslims and asylum seekers, the same tactics are now being used against a perceived criminal underclass who exist as non-citizens, apart from ‘the nation’. Hey kids, it’s fascism-lite, this time with some smily celebrity faces behind it! A similar discourse has been created with the social media led ‘riot clean up’, which this article analyses in depth.

Richard Desmond’s states that his fundraising drive is to help the “families burned out of their homes and shopkeepers left penniless”.  But the end result is a bizarre crossover of celeb culture, tabloid populism, patriotism and quasi-fascism that sets a scary precedent as we head into a period of serious struggle against austerity and spending cuts.

STOP PRESS: Finish writing this. Have a look at tomorrow’s front pages. The Sunday Express – banner headline: BRING BACK NATIONAL SERVICE: Riot yobs should be forced to join the army to combat thuggery. Too predictable.

Before commencing this article which comments on media coverage of recent events in Norway, SSY would like to express our solidarity with those in who have suffered due to these events, and our condolences to those who have lost loved ones.

In a conversation on Saturday night down my local, a Scandinavian friend of mine noted that as soon as the identity of the killer behind the bombing in Oslo and the attack on a youth camp in Utoeya had been revealed, words such as ‘terrorist’ – which had been bandied about by various people appearing in the media prior to the discovery of the killer’s identity – ceased to be used.  In light of this conversation, I was intrigued today by Charlie Brooker’s column, in which he notes that the initial Western response to both tragedies was keen to point the finger at Muslim extremists. When it transpired that the killer was in this case white, Christian and right-wing, the language of ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ paled into the background, and in some cases disappeared altogether. This is in spite of the fact that the killer is being charged by Norwegian courts under anti-terrorism laws, which makes sense, since by all definitions of the word ‘terrorist’ he most definitely is one.

Nonetheless, what the sudden drop in frequency of words related to ‘terror’ in regard to the shooting/bombing suggests is that this sort of rhetoric is reserved for particular types of extremism – largely that conducted by extremist Muslim groups such as al-Quaeda. For the western media, the word ‘terrorist’ does not sit well when used to describe a white Christian (with the possible exception of the IRA, but the discourse surrounding them has its own, seperate factors). It is so difficult for the Western media to conceive of a white non-Muslim terrorist that invocations of al-Quaeda and 911 are required in several western tabloids in order to establish some sort of conceivable context: see here for the Guardian’s selected excerpts from the world’s press. In these extracts, taken from a variety of sources in a variety of cultures, there is a clear trend. Western print media constantly feels the need to evoke al-Quaeda and 9/11 when writing about acts of terror.

To continually refer to extremist Muslim terrorism in the same vein as anti-Muslim terrorism has a rhetorical effect which centres the discourse of terrorism around Islam. When Le Figaro prints: ‘it is worrying to see the legacy of Bin Laden taken up by fundamentalism from the opposite end of the spectrum’, it associates terrorism with a ’spectrum’ which ranges from anti-Muslim extremism to Muslim extremism. The killer’s other motivations, such as his desire to purge Europe of what he calls ‘cultural Marxism’ his hatred of the Norwegian government’s current immigration policy, and his hatred of immigration in general, are downplayed in comparision to his views on Islam (an example of this is today’s Telegraph, with its leading headline ‘Norway Killer: massacre was to save Europe from Islam’, where the only mention of the killer’s anti-Marxist motivations are included as a direct transcription of the judge’s ruling). The language of terror and terrorism has become the language of oppression, used to perpetuate a growing and misfounded association of Islam with extremism. The proof that this misfounded conflation between Islam and fundamentalism exists is manifest in the difficulty found by the Western media in conceiving of a terrrorist attack that is not linked to Muslim extremism.

It is therefore left to eastern news sources to point out the obvious: that extremists and fundamentalists are found in every religion and in none.

What is truly sad is that the constant invocation of 911 and Muslim extremism is now the focus of all self-conscious print-journalism – this article included – which thus continues to focus attention on the killer and his fascist motivations, a focus which is of no help or comfort (and most likely no interest) to those who have been affected by the deaths.

The big day is closing up on us, with all the inevitability of a death sentence/England World Cup attempt and all the dread and misery that surrounds the two. David Cameron’s already been using the Royal Wedding as a stick to beat “politically correct” health and safety mad councils, declaring that people should be free to have street parties to celebrate the special day.

Needless to say the same principle does not apply to those want to demonstrate in the City Centre of Glasgow (unless you’re the orange order) or defend much more basic rights to protest at all – as we saw with the wave of political policing a few weeks ago, and now the shocking decision to prosecute Alfie Meadows for “violent disorder”.

Cameron’s argument is also pretty spurious given the total lack of enthusiasm for the Royal Wedding, particularly in Scotland where the only street parties in Glasgow were cancelled due to “lack of interest”. Pro-royalists will point towards a Guardian poll saying that the majority of the UK still thinks the monarchy are “relevant”. Unfortunately there is no regional breakdown of this poll – as it’s almost certain the support for the Royal Family in Scotland will be much lower than in England.

Despite this poll, even the most ardent Royalists must accept there’s a distinct lack of interest around this Royal Wedding compared to previous equivalents – Prince Charles and Lady Diana being the most obvious example. More and more people have had the scales removed from their eyes in how they examine society across the UK – millions of people no longer believe in the political or economic system, and are fundamentally pissed off with Britain full stop. This means there’s a constituency of people – even if it is a minority – who are able to see how unfair and bonkers it is to spend millions on the monarchy whilst politicians demand massive cuts to public services.

But the facts are the monarchy plays a useful role to the class of politicians, bankers, millionaires, media tycoons, industrials and spivs who run the UK. The monarchy are useful in three ways – socially, diplomatically, and politically – to the wealthiest in British society.

To take the first item, the monarchy are useful socially because they instill the idea amongst the population that not only is it ok to be filthy rich, but it’s ok to be filthy rich for no other reason than you were born into it. Given the massive amount of inherited wealth in the UK, that’s an idea a lot of powerful people in the UK would quite like to see made normal and not challenged. In fact, not only is it not challenged but the idea that folk can be millionaires out of our expense is put forward as something good and worth celebrating – somehow we “all benefit” from the monarchy, because of tourists, national unity etc. It’s at this point I would like to remind readers that Mickey Mouse is not made head of state in the USA because of folk going to Orlando, Florida for their holidays.

The monarchy are also useful as diplomats – they can engage in the grubbiest work with dodgy bastards and despots free from criticism. Take Prince Andrew – he’s been a close associate of Colonel Gaddafi, a corrupt Kazakh billionaire, a paedophile businessman and a Libyan arms dealer. Just being linked to one of those is generally enough to force a politician into an insincere, stage-managed, Thick of It damage-limitation style resignation. But not for the Royals – you can’t make them resign, nor can you attack them, lest you damage an “institution”. This makes them very handy for doing the dirty dealings of the British state all around the world. It’s also why the attendees at the Royal Wedding include the people who have been firing upon unarmed demonstrators for democracy all across the Arab world. If just one of these gange of murderers turned up at Labour or Tory party conference there would be an outcry – but because it’s the apolitical Royal Family, we can’t criticise that or be called “unpatriotic”.

The final reason the monarchy are important is the big one – politics. It may seem strange, given that we are repeatedly told that the Queen’s powers are only token – sure she has the ability to dissolve Parliament, but she’d never actually do it etc. The reality is the Crown Power’s of the Monarch have not only been used, they have been used multiple times within living memory.

Crown Powers have been used to prorogue (discontinue but not dissolve) the Canadian Parliament after the ruling Tories faced a vote of no confidence. It was used later on to suspend Parliament in Canada after the Government faced allegations of torture conducted by the Canadian military in Afghanistan.

The Crown Powers have also been used to deny justice for the people of the Chagos Islands – an Order in Council under Royal Prerogative was used to stop islanders who were evicted from their homes to make room for a US military base returning, despite Court rulings that would have allowed them to return.

The powers of the Monarch have gone even further, they have been used to dissolve a democratically elected Government against that Goverment’s will in Australia. Here the Labor Government had won a majority in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate, allowing their political opponents to block the passage of legislation. The Labor Prime Minister went to the Governor General to seek new elections for the Senate – but was instead dismissed by the Queen’s representative in Australia, an unelected Governor General. It’s use of these undemocratic powers which means that just under half of Australians backed Republicanism in 1999.

The campaign group Republic in the UK lists various other abuses of Crown Powers here – including but not limited to the banning of trade unions at GCHQ, the power to go to war and dissolution of Parliament for partisan reasons.

The bottom line is that while the Queen herself may not decide to go rogue and implement a dictatorship, her powers are used by supposedly democratic politicians throughout the rebranded British Empire to bypass parliament and civil rights. Crown Powers are a useful box of tools for these politicians, it’s for those reasons – and not tourism – that the powers of the monarchy still exist.

The Scottish Socialist Party is proud to be the only political party in the mainland UK to organise against the Royal Wedding and for Republicanism. We want an Independent Socialist Republic – different from the SNP’s view of Scotland, which would still have the Queen as head of state, and Crown Powers still able to be used on a supposedly independent Scotland just as they were used on Australia and Canada. We will be supporting two Republican events over the next couple of days,

The first is an SSP Republican Social at 7.30 in Maryhill Central Halls this Thursday. We will be having political speakers, music and song agitating and arguing for a Democratic, Socialist, and Republican Scotland that controls it’s own destiny and where the rights of all it’s citizens are determined by a Constitution – and not a feudal relic.

Secondly – on the big day itself – we are supporting a demonstration on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, to turn it into a Republican Mile. It’ll be on this Friday from 11.30 onwards and we hope it will provide a useful social for those of Her Majesty’s Subjects who were unfortunate enough not to receive an invitation.

VIVA LA REPUBLIC AND OFF WITH THEIR HEADS.

For years now, the observation that media representations of body sizes andshapes do not represent the range of bodies actually present in society, has been a regular part of everyday discourse. The media and the fashion industry’s culpability in building false body-norms no longer passes without comment, and the advent of Size Zero in particular afforded us an opportunity to question and criticise the standards set for us by glossy magazines and celebrity culture. Now when we read these glossies we know that many of the photos in them have been airbrushed to such an extent that the representation we’re looking at bears very little resemblance to the celebrity, and we also know that in any case the celebrity has probably been on some absurd diet, coupled with a rigorous training regime, most of their adult life. We are no longer automatically fooled into believing that these people set the standards for healthy lifestyles and ideal bodies.

If it was up to the fashion industry, we'd think this was normal.

Over the last few decades models have been getting skinnier and skinnier, whilst the population of the UK has been getting fatter and fatter. The reasons for this are innumerable. The price of healthy food is consistently higher than the price of high-calorie and ‘convenience’ foods. More often than not, school meals consist of chips alongside something else that’s fried and high in fat. Despite the advise of experts, the government refuses to make it compulsory for the amount of ‘trans fat’ – the most dangerous type of fat – present in food to be declared on packaging (once again showing that the interests of business outweigh the interests of the consumer in the eyes of a capitalist government). Despite the fact that there is a burgeoning weight-loss industry incorporating various drugs, diet-plans, self-help programmes and exercise facilities, these things are most accessible to people with the money to buy them and the leisure-time in which to utilise them – i.e. not the working classes.

And the way this burgeoning group of fatties are treated in society is hardly motivational. Despite being one of the largest groups in our society, the overweight take their place amongst the marginalised. Firstly, it is assumed that they want to change their situation: when it comes to weight, there is only one ‘right’ answer, and that is not to be overweight. But although the established false norms of a healthy body are being continuously questioned, these norms have not changed in any real sense. Pop-culture still bombards us with unachievable, unrealistic ideas of body-norms. This is made worse by the rags that point with glee whenever celebs start developing love-handles and expanding their waistlines beyond 20 inches: although these celebs are far from obese and almost definitely fall within the ‘healthy weight’ category, they are victimised and bullied by the media. How much more so then, for normal people! Reading these glossies we know we are faced with an impending sense of hopelessness – if Kerry Katona can’t keep her figure, what hope do the rest of us have?

Kerry Katona: from size 8 to size 14! SHOCK! HORROR! How does she get out of bed in the morning?!?!!!

So rather than attempting to achieve these body-norms which we have identified as false and impossible, we think ‘fuck it’, and phone the takeaway. Whilst we are eating our takeaway, we will perhaps involve in some light prole entertainment such as watching the TV or reading a magazine or newspaper. These things will often show us images of people with bodies that look very different from our own. They will advertise products which will help us to achieve bodies more like the ones shown in these mediums. The fact that we want to have these bodies instead of our own is assumed. All this is carefully calculated to make us feel like we are doing something wrong. And with all this stuff available to ‘help’ – Weightwatchers meetings, Adios tablets, gyms, handy scales such as the BMI to help us calculate just how inadequate we are – we feel like we have no excuse for being overweight. It’s hardly surprising if we start to feel depressed and worthless. These feelings of depression and worthlessness are the last things that will motivate us to go for an after-dinner walk; in fact they’re far more likely to make us reach for some comfort-food or alcohol.

Of course, there is an extent to which we can resist the media, and the fact that we have identified the norms which the media peddles as false testifies to this. But when other discourses which we see as more authoritative are deeply complicit with media ideas, the overweight individual (and also the individual who views his/her body as less-than-perfect – i.e. most of us) might start to feel victimised. Government health adverts tell us that our waistlines should be under thirty four inches, andthat we must eat so many portions of fruit and veg, if we want to avoid dying an early death from one of the Big Three (Cancer, Heart Disease and Strokes). Debates about whether obese people are entitled to the same NHS treatment as others are rife in the serious press as well as the tabloids. Everywhere the idea of ‘punishment’ is implied: if you don’t eat the right things, if you don’t do something about your weight, you will contract a horrible illness, be denied medical treatment, and die horribly. And it will all be your own fault, because nobody made you fat except yourself. Your self-esteem drops still further. You start to feel like a terrible person. By not striving towards having a celebrity body you are letting yourself down and you are letting your family and friends down. You start to develop mental problems – especially depression – which effect your self-motivation. You start to believe that you are prioritising greed and gluttony above your health and the people who care about you. Rather than feeling victimised you actually feel guilty – you are taught that there is something wrong with you, and that it’s entirely your own fault.

This isn’t encouragement. This is bullying. And that’s precisely what these things are orchestrated to do – to play on your self-esteem in order to pressure you into getting off your arse and doing something about it.

Ironically, the end result of this bullying is that you feel less motivated and less able to do something about your weight than ever.

Maybe this twat has a point afterall.

Is bullying really the best strategy we can use when it comes to solving one of the greatest problems facing our society? Surely there must be an alternative? A possible alternative might lie with the government, who could opt to provide healthy, free school meals for our children, to subsidise fruit and vegetables, and to publish more information on food-packaging so that people are better enabled to make healthy choices. Magazines could stop point and laughing at celebrities of average weight and build. Your average model size could be increased from a size 6 to a size14 – a size which is much more representative of your average woman in the UK but is still well within the parameters of healthy (despite what the Katona-haters would have us believe!).

But this doesn’t exactly solve the problem. The problem is that authoritarian discourses such as advertising, government advice, medical advice and the mainstream media are able to make us feel dreadful about ourselves when we digress from the false norms and the priorities they sets for us. The problem is that dominant discourses tell us what the ‘right’ choices are; they proscribe our priorities for us. Making changes to these discourses – although a good idea that would almost definitely have a positive effect – would be simply perpetuating the trend that empowers them to steer us towards making what they have decided is the ‘right’ choice for us.

Anyone who has read my previous article, ‘Muslim Women Must Write Themselves’, will have realised that I have some faith in a process of “self-determination”, whereby marginalised groups can escape from the mercy of dominant voices, discourses and representations. I was therefore intrigued by this blog entry. Despite having a naively utopian interpretation of Big Society, the author seems pretty clued up on the part that bullying and vilification plays in perpetuating the obesity problem, and creating further problems. Her suggestion is “What if we were to support obese people to take the lead in combating obesity? This means to respectfully include them in being a real part of the solution and not just the problem.” She’s noticed something important here – that currently society treats obese people as a mere “problem”, and not as people at all. She notes that we treat fat people differently, pointing to “prevailing attitudes: fat people deserve to be ‘told’ don’t they? Their weight is their own fault! School peers do not want to be friends with them. Companies do not want to employ them. The fashion industry does not know what to do with them. Airlines do not want to transport them and some health workers do not want to treat them.” This is all part of the process of marginalisation and authoritarian bullying. The message is clear: until you lose weight, we as a society have every right not to afford you the same treatment as we do everyone else.

The process by which marginalised groups stop allowing themselves to be dictated to and represented by voices more dominant than their own, and determine their own strategies for empowerment, autonomy and change, is slow and painstaking. It takes a lot of self-esteem to be able to say to the media and to popular beliefs regarding weight-issues: I know what’s best for me, and it is precisely this self-esteem which these discourses deny to overweight people.

At the moment, people who want to lose weight generally want to do it to avoid the social stigma and marginalisation that comes with being fat – stigma and marginalisation which is both created and perpetuated by the media. They want to lose weight so that they can get themselves out of a position where they are no longer a “victim” of these discourses. And who can blame them if this isn’t a good enough reason, especially when these very same discourses conspire to make them feel like they’ll never be “good enough”, that they’ll always deserve to be a victim because they can never achieve the impossible ideals that lurk behind the ‘celebrity body’ image. The overweight people in our society need a more attractive option, something more positive and tangible to strive towards. Rather than losing weight in order to avoid being the victims of bullying and stigma, they should be afforded opportunities by which they can determine their own reasons to lose weight. And if it turns out in some cases – as well it might – that they don’t want to lose weight at all, then why should they be punished for this?

Other groups in society make what are perceived to be the ‘wrong’ choices all the time – i.e. the choices that are not in their best interests. The student who goes out with mates instead of getting a headstart on that essay, the busy worker who skips breakfast in the morning despite it being ‘the most important meal of the day’, the woman who goes out and has four drinks on a Friday night instead of her recommended two – the possibilities are endless. We do things that aren’t in our best interests constantly, and we don’t expect to be punished and marginalised as a result. So why should fat people be punished and marginalised simply for not acting in their best interests when it comes to health?

Let me make it clear what I am not saying here. I am not saying that people shouldn’t be advised to prioritise their health, that they shouldn’t be made aware that obesity is related to health issues that can become very serious. Education and the availability of facts, statistics and likelihoods is of crucial importance when it comes to every choice: be this regarding alcohol, smoking, sex, drugs, eating habits, and in fact every lifestyle choice. But the crucial word here is ‘choice’ – when we indulge in media bullying, rather than advice, the spectrum of choice is narrowed and distorted. According to the media, ‘choosing’ to be fat is not a viable choice: it’s perverse and wrong.

I am also not saying that people who want to lose weight shouldn’t seek outside help. Self-determination doesn’t mean that you can’t look for help and advice. I am also not saying that people who want to lose weight should be denied help or encouragement on the grounds that being fat isn’t as bad as the media would have us believe.

The SSY and friends have a noble history of challenging corrupt media.

What I am saying, however, is that we have to stop treating fat people as sub-humans. We have to stop perpetuating the discourses which result in lack of motivation, low-self esteem and mental illness. We have to continue to challenge these dominant discourses that prescribe body-images to us, continuing the outrage and the sense of mistrust in the media that was started in the reaction to size zero and airbrushing. We must challenge these portrayals and continue to seek to remove them, because these things create the factors which prevent overweight people from motivating themselves, by constantly telling them how to feel about themselves and what to do about it.

Only once these things have been dethroned – and hopefully even removed – will a space be created in which the marginalised overweight can emerge and start determining their own goals and strategies for achieving a better life. If they decide that they want to lose weight, let us encourage them to do so rather than bullying them for their perceived failures. And if they decide that actually, being fat isn’t so terrible, then let us respect that decision. As a society, we have to stop treating fat people as if they are of a somehow inferior caste, and to challenge the discourses that perpetuate this treatment of them. Putting a stop to the bullying is the only way we can make positive steps towards a healthier, happier society.

One possible candidate for the new ACMD

As previously reported by SSY, the government isn’t generally too keen on scientific advice when it comes to formulating drug policy. When the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and independent body advising the government on drugs legislation, recommended against Cannabis being reclassified as a class B drug, the Labour government went ahead and done it anyway. When the same body said that Ecstasy, a class A drug, should be downgraded, they ignored that advice too. The former chair of the ACMD and SSY hero Professor David Nutt was even sacked after a pamphlet he produced said that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than cannabis, LSD and Ecstasy. Now we have a new government, and they’ve finally come up with a solution to the fact that none of their drug policies agree with the scientific evidence – get rid of the scientists all together!

That’s right – if a proposed amendment to the Misuse of Drugs law passes, it will remove the requirement for scientists to be included in the committee. After years of ignoring all the evidence when it comes to drugs anyway, this policy looks like it could be signed into law. It’s a well known fact that policy on drugs is driven by the tabloid newspapers more than what is useful – this year’s mephedrone ban was brought in after a series of deaths reported in the media attributed to the drug. The most famous of these cases, the deaths of Louis Wainwright and Nicholas Smith, put huge pressure on the government to ban the drug – it was later discovered that they had not been taking mephedrone at all. By removing the need for scientists on the ACMD, the government is making an admission that they don’t care about science when they make decisions that criminalise thousands of people – only about pandering to the media lies and propaganda about drugs.

As SSY has always argued, legalisation and regulation, based on scientific evidence of harms, is the only sensible drug policy. Drugs would be purer and safer, production would be taken out of the hands of criminal gangs, and people could be given information about each drug’s harm that isn’t based on scare stories. Removing scientists from the ACMD further reduces its importance and relevance, and means the government can carry on doing whatever it likes about drugs without scrutiny from people who actually know what they are talking about. Whilst not all the scientists on the ACMD support legalisation, they support an evidence-based drugs policy – something that it’s obvious the government couldn’t care less about.

This week The Office of National Statistics released the figures from a new survey, which claimed that only 1.5% or 1 in 100 British citizens identity as Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual.

After interviewing only a small percentage of the population the ONS have come to the ‘concrete’ conclusion that only “480,000 adults describe themselves as homosexuals — just one in every 100. Another 245,000 — or one in 200 — are bisexual.”

Their statistics also claim to prove that the majority of those who openly admitted to being gay were more likely to have jobs higher up the career ladder than their heterosexual colleagues. 49.1% of gay people are in managerial or professional positions compared to 30.6% of straight people. However, that 49.1% of the boss class have already built up enough cushioning to be able to give up their straight ‘privilege’ and don’t have the worry of losing their position within society because they have the power to control any homophobia they might face. Whereas less powerful working class people, lower down the career ladder, don’t have this protection and have a lot more to lose. The statistic that 38% of gay people are also apparently better educated compared to 21.9% of straight people also backs this up – the ONS just haven’t thought very deeply about why that might be.

Homosexuals, according to this data, are also much younger than the rest of society with “66 percent under the age of 44 and 17 percent aged 16-24″. Which is most probably due to the fact that it’s more ‘acceptable’ to be out in today’s youth cultures than it has been in previous generations.

This survey also explains that: “A third of bisexual households include at least one child but only 8.6 per cent of gay or lesbian respondents live with a child.” Did it even cross these closed minded peoples’ heads that the one third of bisexual families mentioned were quite possibly living in a happy straight household and that the low rate of gay families with children might possibly have something to do with the way society has scapegoated gay parents and how much mad controversy there was about letting gay people adopt.

Naturally surveys like this must be taken seriously due to their obvious ‘accuracy’ and ‘impartiality’. If these articles tell us that only 480,000 adults describe themselves as gay or lesbian then of course we should ignore the fact that 2.2 million or 6.7% of British citizens use Gaydar or Gaydar Girls, just one of the many internet dating websites for LGBT members of society. Never mind the fact that most gay people, just like most straight people, aren’t even on sex hook up or dating websites.

Now that those champions of equality such as The Sun and The Daily Mail have given us this information, which shows us the ‘correct’ percentage of gay people in the British population, The Sun suggests that:

“Now we have a clearer view of the real figures, we need to start asking some serious questions about the vast sums of taxpayers’ money being spent on such a small minority and the disproportionate amount of attention they receive both in Whitehall and in the media.”

You know what would be easier? Turning around

And The Daily Mail proudly states that this survey has exploded “the assumption – long promoted by social experts and lobbyists – that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten.”

Obviously The Sun aren’t completely hostile towards lesbians, as long as it blurs the line between news and porn. The image they used to illustrate the story is obviously a correct representation of lesbians in today’s society and NOT two women both contorting themselves to face the camera for the pleasure of shit head male Sun readers.

Although this ridiculous survey was probably just the result of stupidity at the ONS, the reaction of the right wing press shows that they clearly have an agenda to use homophobia as a way of cutting vital services that the LGBT community depends on, as seen in Glasgow. Here it is pretty much impossible to meet other gay or lesbian people unless you’re one of these well educated, confident, managerial types, who can afford to go to an expensive bar or club. Obviously unsure young people trying to figure out who they are DO NOT EXIST so they don’t need any money spent on supporting their needs.

As one of the SSY’s many resident “manginas” I often feel too ashamed of my gender to discuss such weighty topics as feminism (beside which someone below did it better…and it’s basically women’s work).  However, early this morning while eating a burger and flicking through a weighty broadsheet I came across an editorial which got me thinking.

This editorial was directing its condemnation towards the X-Factor producers for allowing Chloe Mafia, who works as a prostitute to appear on their show.  The paper was so worried that they agreed with Choose Life, a group who works with those escaping prostitution, that this would “glamorise the sex industry.”  A perfectly valid point surely?  Unless it was made in the Daily Star.

To get to this editorial the reader had to get past a whole lotta titties!  Since Chloe was axed, they dropped the editorial so sadly it’s not on their website….you could try in the “Celeb Babes” or “Video Vixens” section perhaps in case I missed it?

As I searched away I was invited to what the banner said was the most popular section of their Babes section titled, “Glamour Models Live On Your PC.”  It would be fair to assume (although not verified) that this would not direct the user to a weighty discussion between woman concerned about glamorising or normalising the idea of selling your bodies for money conducted in real time on your PC.

RECLAIM THE GAME: Striking A Blow for Women in Sport

But who cares since today was the launch of the Star’s “Fantasy Football” tournament? Unlike the real evil macho world where football is an overwhelmingly male dominated affair, in the feminist paradise of the Daily Star there were no men to be seen. Only an invitation to “ CLICK HERE TO PLAY WITH THESEÂ (sic) GIRLS RIGHT NOW!!!”

Dirty Des: Porn Baron

The Daily Express also joined in decrying her “sordid” activities.  This wont surprise many of us given that the Express and the Star have something in common.  Both are owned by the saintly Richard Desmond. His print empire also includes radical publications which help smash the idea that selling yourself is glamorous like Asian Babes and Big Ones.  Not content with peddling smut on his Television X TV channel Mr. Desmond now owns a chunk of Channel 5.  This has already provided him with countless opportunities to use his illustrious rags to promote his shit TV Channel and erm…slag off shows with higher ratings that any on his channels…which is pretty much everything.  His main  editorial input At Channel 5 has been to remove desks from the TV studio which miraculously allows viewers to suddenly see the presenters legs and up the skirts.  I’m glad one paper stuck to its real principles, “What a load of bollocks” cried the Daily Sport, “it’s refreshing to see a young person not afraid to work for a living.”

Some of us don’t believe anyone should have to “work” in the sexual free market which all these papers promote because some of us know the difference between a free market and sexual freedom.  I doubt the Daily Star or the Express will be vehicles of enlightenment anytime soon but if they want to proselytise and crusade against glamorising the sex industry they don’t have to look very far.

Rumours persist that protesters also had tent pegs, bicycles AND EVEN SILLY STRING

DOZENS of misinformed media outlets yesterday went on a hysterical rampage – going head-to-head with FACTS and SCIENCE – and causing chaos across the country as they poured an oily slick of lies across the nation’s front pages.

At the same time, hundreds of idiots wreaked havoc across the internet, using websites as diverse as Twitter and newspaper comments sections to vent their reactionary opinions and stupid world view.

The occasion was, of course, the weekend’s Climate Camp, and the hyped-up ‘day of action’ which took place on Monday. Inevitably, there wasn’t nearly enough ‘action’ to satisfy a media which had been building up this invasion of anarchists intent on violence and disruption for months, but hey, let’s not let the small matter of FACTS get in the way of some good RIOT coverage!!1!211

Faced with this lack of COP15 style scenes of thousands of riot cops and activists facing it down, they had to make do with total lies and some made-up nonsense about ‘weapons’ – all of which the police obligingly did their best to go along with.

Most of the press coverage of Monday has focused on a supposed ‘oil slick’ which was created by activists pouring ‘oil and vegetable oil’ onto two busy roads. This is a blatant lie which has been spread by Lothian and Borders Police in a bid to discredit the protests and any political points they were trying to make. Two roads were indeed shut by the police for several hours on Monday morning, but there’s no evidence to prove that protesters had poured oil anywhere, let alone over busy roads. In a couple of actions on the day, molasses was used, specifically because it has the appearance of oil, but is sticky and doesn’t present any present any great safety risk, as oil would. Somewhere, wires have obviously got crossed, and news about molasses being poured over the offices of Cairn Energy in the city centre has lead to the Climate Camp being blamed for presumably an accidental leak of oil on two Edinburgh roads – hardly a rare occurrence.

Lethal weapons recovered by the police

In another bout of sensationalism, police were able to provide the media with pictures of supposed ‘weapons’ that they’d retrieved from around the campsite. The key word here being campsite, particularly when it’s revealed that these dangerous weapons were in fact a chisel and a mallot. Leftfield can also exclusively reveal that the site had saws, spades and even pick axes. In fact, a whole marquee was dedicated to storing tools which we’d presumed were for site maintenance and construction – how terribly naive of us.

As well as the police, the media were able to rely on a bunch of populist politicians from the mainstream political parties to come out and call on the police to start beating up peaceful activists who were engaged in a “disturbing” protest according to Labour and an “absolutely unacceptable” one according to the Lib Dems, while the Tories added that “it is time that the police sort this out”. The chair of Lothian & Borders Police Board also came out yesterday and called for protesters to foot the bill for the policing of the entire camp, in a startling display of utter contempt for the democratic right to protest.

As it happens, Monday’s actions were highly successful, closing down the offices of two energy companies in the city centre, as well as various RBS buildings and branches. As we’ve already reported, the camp also managed to close down the entire RBS headquarters for the day, with staff being told to stay at home or work elsewhere. Most of the condemnation of the protests – from the media and equally misinformed idiots on the internet – is coming from people with little understanding of the camp, its aims, or what really went down on the day. From what I saw, the only lives that were endangered during the whole camp were those that risked travelling in a shaky siege tower as it took its lengthy journey down to the front lines…

Back in April the Daily Mail asked us: “Meow Meow: Is Carmen, 17, the latest victim?”

Shock answer: no.

Carmen Marie Moulton

Carmen Marie Moulton from Penrith died in April just after the government imposed a ban on mephedrone, due to media scare stories with no scientific basis. These stories, as we all now know, revolved around picking up on the death of virtually any young person around the country and pinning the blame on mephedrone. Many of these false stories have now been exposed as bollocks, but long after the fact.

Papers said police were probing whether Carmen had taken the “deadly party drug”, but yet again toxicology reports have pronounced her’s a non-mephedrone related death. While there’s little news as of yet as to what did cause her tragic death, expect to see more and more of these so-called M-Cat casualties turning out to actually have died of other drugs or natural causes.