My defence of Chris Mounsey

Andy Newman writing on Socialist Unity has questioned why I defended Devil's Kitchen blogger Chris Mounsey last week. As I blogged he had appeared on the Daily Politics and had not defended himself when Andrew Neil quoted some strong language he had used on his blog.

Andy says of Mounsey:

For example, this is what he says about trade unions:

“We should utterly destroy them, and do it soon.”

The language that Chris Mounsey uses to express that point of view is however extremely offensive, and you can read the original here:

The real speciality of Chris Mounsey, an old-Etonian graphic designer, is the use of sexualised and racialised abuse, involving violent imagery of the humiliation and death of left of centre politicians and trade union leaders.

The language that Chris used against NASUWT president Chris Keates is too extreme for me to publish on my blog, but you can read it here if you wish.

Chris Mounsey revels in the idea of a respected woman trade union leader being violently sexually humiliated, and left to bleed to death; and he argues that she deserves this because she opposes the private sector having a role in education.

Given that in many parts of the world, like Columbia, which has a government somewhat in accordance to Chris Mounsey’s political leanings, women really are raped and murdered for their trade union activity, then I think that Chris Mounsey comes close to glorifying terrorism, which is now a serious criminal offence. No one, least of all a woman trade unionist, should be harrangued by this bullying misogyny, with explicit threats of violent death.

He then says of me:

It is somewhat surprising then to find a leading Lib Dem coming out in Chris Mounsey’s support, arguing that Chris has a right to use this inflammatory and violent language. (The Mark Reckons website was voted best new Lib Dem blog of 2009, and is one of the highest ranked Lib Dem blogs by wikkio.)

Lib Dem Mark says:

“I think he has every right to blog in the way that he sees fit. Many of his supporters and party members will agree with what he is saying. Lots of libertarian bloggers have a strongly worded style and many of them also make very good points and are very funny too. Why should these people be barred from trying to seek political support for their views even if their styles are not to everyone’s tastes?”

Well Mark, this is quite simple they should not be allowed to seek political support for the violent degradation and abuse of women, and the violent death of prominent trade unionists. I don’t find the idea of a trade union leader bleeding to death after sexual violence very funny.

Mark further regrets that Chris Mounsey did not make a better defence of his right to bully and harass people on the Internet when he was interviewed on the Politics Show by Andrew Neil.

Lib Dem Mark says:

I had hoped for a spirited and libertarian defence of his right to have an on-line persona that is close to the knuckle and still be involved in active politics. However he just seemed to cave in to what Neil was saying. Neil suggested that an apology to the Trades Union leader in question might be appropriate and Mounsey obliged. Neil also suggested that if he were a candidate in any other party he would have had to stand down to which Mounsey also assented. Then the interview was over.

Ahh, yes the “on-line persona” defence. How does that work Mark? If I were a 57 year old man, should I be able to adopt an “on-line persona” of a 19 year old boy to talk to teenage girls on chat-room?

In real life, should someone be able to adopt a “persona that is close to the knuckle” by dressing in white robes and burning crosses outside black peoples’ homes?

I should start by repeating what I said on my blog in the original post. Chris Mounsey's style of blogging as Devil's Kitchen is very, very far from my own style (although he has now closed the old blog since the Neil encounter). There are all sorts of things that he wrote that I would never publish on my blog here. His style was very aggressive and confrontational and although I only dipped in and out and did not read all of his posts I did see some of the allusions that he would use.

Sometimes it is not easy defending free speech. Sometimes people say things which I think are awful and abhorrent but frankly it is not my place to stop them. Sometimes I do read things online that go too far for me and what I do is stop reading and make a mental note about where I read it to avoid it in future. There are of course times when people say or write things that incite violence or things like racial hatred and there are laws to deal with that sort of thing which is absolutely right. There does of course have to be some sort of limit. Andy suggests that Chris may have come close to "glorifying terrorism" with his comments about a Trades Union leader. Well I am no legal expert and hence cannot comment on that.

However within the bounds of what is legal, I think people should be free to say what they want. Chris was also doing this whilst trying to lead a political party. It seems that the fact he has now abandoned his old online persona suggests that he has decided that blogging in that style is incompatible with trying to garner mainstream political support. Fair enough, that's his decision. Maybe the two things are mutually incompatible.

I hope I have addressed Andy's attempts to associate me with the examples towards the end of his piece. I do not defend people's right to break the law in the ways that he suggests but within the bounds of the law they should be able to say what they like.

If the rest of us don't like it we don't have to read it.

Devil hangs up his horns

So Chris Mounsey AKA Devil's Kitchen has decided to delete his entire blog history and start again in a less vituperative style following yesterday's appearance on The Daily Politics where he was torn into by Andrew Neil for his blogging style. There is some further blog reaction here, here and here.

I can understand his decision. He mentions that his boss appeared to be none too pleased about the exposure he was getting following his appearance and of course he won't want to do anything to jeapordise his career.

At the same time I can't help feeling a little sad. Chris' blogging style was not to everyone's tastes but I used to enjoy reading his rants. He has described them as "cathartic" and I can understand why. I know that plenty of other people found them to be that too. I think we will all lose something as a result of his toning down.

Jennie Rigg is horrified by the whole episode (and other recent ones too, and the reaction of even some within the Lib Dems to similar episodes from our opponents) and what it says about who is and is not deemed acceptable for public life. In an excellent post today she points out what I have also said on occasion which is that we seem to be trying to get to a position where anyone with an even vaguely colourful personality is shunned. She then goes on to list various things that she has done in her past which the media and her opponents (she is standing in a council election at the moment) could use against her from her past. Well worth reading.

Coming back to Chris, I am sure the quality of his argument will remain and perhaps eventually this change will be seen as for the best. He points out that this was always going to happen eventually. I guess his point is that being an angry young man can only get you so far. I'm sad to concede that ultimately he is probably right, at least with the way our political life is structured at the moment.

Devil's Kitchen gets Brilloed but should carry on regardless

Chris Mounsey, leader of the fledgling Libertarian Party UK who also blogs at the vituperative (and often very amusing) Devil's Kitchen blog was interviewed on The Daily Politics today by old Brillo himself, Andrew Neil and was given a rough time. I have embedded a copy of the clip below which you can watch for yourself but I just wanted to give my views on what happened and its consequences first.

Neil seemed pretty uninterested in the policies of LPUK and instead initially focused on how small the party is (c450 members) and how small they were last year. He seemed to be trying to dismiss them as an irrelevance. Mounsey put up a reasonable defence at this point and explained how well the party is doing in building up support and members on-line.

However then Neil (inevitably) started making reference to some of the things that Mounsey has blogged about under his "Devil" persona. Neil said that he could not read out much of what was written on a particular blogpost about a trades-union leader as it was unbroadcastable but he did mention that at one point he had written that he hoped she would "bleed to death".

Anyone familiar with his blogging will know that he has strong libertarian views and he expresses them with equally strong language. However I have also seen him speak publicly and indeed we had him as a guest on the House of Comments podcast at the start of January and he does not come across like his web persona at all. It is obvious that it is the style of his blogging identity to be confrontational and controversial. It doesn't mean that Chris Mounsey, leader of the Libertarian Party is like that.

Of course as we all know and have seen many times, the real world does not work like that. We have seen council and parliamentary candidates for the other parties stand down for far, far less than the sort of thing that Mounsey regularly writes.

I had hoped for a spirited and libertarian defence of his right to have an on-line persona that is close to the knuckle and still be involved in active politics. However he just seemed to cave in to what Neil was saying. Neil suggested that an apology to the Trades Union leader in question might be appropriate and Mounsey obliged. Neil also suggested that if he were a candidate in any other party he would have had to stand down to which Mounsey also assented. Then the interview was over.

Now my blogging style is nothing like that of Mounsey's. However I think he has every right to blog in the way that he sees fit. Many of his supporters and party members will agree with what he is saying. Lots of libertarian bloggers have a strongly worded style and many of them also make very good points and are very funny too. Why should these people be barred from trying to seek political support for their views even if their styles are not to everyone's tastes?

I am disappointed to see that Mounsey offered his resignation to his party's national committee straight after the interview. I am also however pleased to see that they refused to accept it. I think he has every right to carry on both blogging in his chosen style and to seek support for the policies he wants to see. Why should he be forced to give up one or the other?

I would however say that the next time he is cornered like that, he needs to make a better job of defending his position and the way he approaches politics. He can actually use it as a way of making the point about his party's ideological position that he should be free to blog in any way that he likes and not be censored or muted by anyone. Then if he is seeking votes from people they can decide if they wish to elect him on that basis as no doubt (in time honoured fashion) his opponents will draw their attention to his blog posts.

I for one am very pleased to see people like Chris Mounsey trying to make a difference and get their voices heard both in the blogosphere and in more mainstream politics.

God knows we need more people with a bit of spark and personality in our political life.

Interview embedded here:

Devil's Kitchen and Will Straw on House of Comments Podcast - Episode 9

The first "House of Comments" podcast of 2010 with myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog is now live. The website for the podcasts is here and the ninth episode which we recorded on Monday 4th Jan is available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.

The format is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere.

This week we were joined by Chris Mounsey from Devil’s Kitchen and Will Straw from Left Foot Forward and covered the #KerryOut campaign, climate change, full body scanners at airports and profiling of terror suspects.

If you are a political blogger and would like to participate in the future, please drop me an e-mail (address in the sidebar near the top of this blog).