Josie Pagani responds...

Josie Pagani has been taking a bit of a kicking over at The Standard of late. And dare we say it; there are a few parts of what she says with which we agree wholeheartedly. She has posted the following on Facebook:

There’s been a bit of comment about me on the Standard blog. I’m not going to reply there because the people who make the most defamatory comments do it anonymously, like the KKK putting on their white hoods. At least on Facebook, they have to identify themselves.
And I don’t like the way the Standard deals out lifetime bans to anyone who disagrees with them.
I’m also astonished at the sexism. Commenters repeatedly conflate my views with my husband’s, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has ever met us. One sexist thug reads chicken entrails from my husband’s tweets to get an insight into my views, another calls me a silly bitch, and despite calling themselves a progressive blog, no one objects. I’m not complaining about it - merely pointing out the hypocrisy and compromised morality of my critics.

This is the part with which we agree. Fellow blogger Pete George was handed a lifetime ban by The Standard this week for daring to suggest that The Standard engaged in negative attack politics. For that he copped this serve from lprent:

[lprent: Re-read what you quoted. Even after all of this time and for that matter bans for it, you appear to be trying to spin what this site is about.
We're not trying to talk to "potential Labour or Green voters". We are trying to spread the perspective of "labour movement activists". You appear to be such a political newbie that you have realized that these are two radically different things.
We simply don't care except in general terms about getting the voters voting because we're not a political party and that isn't our task. Sure some of us do that in other roles. But this site is here to allow people on the left to play with ideas and argue. We make it public so that people can see what we're interested in and are arguing about. We rather enjoy having people of other political bents coming in and arguing provided that they can argue and follow our site rules.
What you seem to fail to understand is that as well as putting up ideas for criticism, there are objectives of the site includes pointing out the flaws of political policies, flawed economics, political idiots, brown-nosing journos, and outright thickheads like yourself. This is because those are also part of the political process, which is something that you seem to prefer that others do not do. Most people around here have long since concluded that is because you hate mirrors....
I'd ask if you get the point, but it is quite apparent that you never do think on what others say. For some reason you appear to think that examining and expressing your own unthinking and often bigoted ideas about the left is a preferable technique to listening to others or actually thinking.
Permanent ban for yet again trying to tell us what we should be doing with the site. I'm tired of it and I really don't think you're capable of either learning or holding your end up in any kind of discussion. ]

 That's a standard Standard response. We've twice been banned there, for pretty innocuous stuff. But on the other hand, comments such as those described by Josie Pagani go without censure or moderation. When pressed, the moderators will either say that they are too busy, or because the commenter is usually more temperate, they are excused.

Josie Pagani continues at length on the welfare issue, but that's another story for another day. She does however seem to have been singled out by the keyboard warriors at The Standard, and the personal venom that has been directed at her is inexcusable.

That's part of the reason why we introduced rules for commenting a few weeks back, and in the main, they have worked well. We thanks those who have taken heed of them.

So we commend Josie Pagani for telling it like it is with regard to The Standard. We don't agree with her politics, but she doesn't deserve the treatment she has been on the receiving end of. And one day, lprent and his mates at The Standard will realise the harm that they are doing to the cause of the Left, and to that of the Labour Party in particular; preferably not before the 2017 election though!