{"id":9199,"date":"2019-03-05T12:56:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T11:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=9199"},"modified":"2019-03-05T12:56:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T11:56:24","slug":"baby-doc-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/9199\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Doc Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blogger Rob Francis has <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@rob_francis\/on-political-violence-611e6409db1e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">written an article<\/a> on the slow escalation of political violence in the UK, and how it is a situation that urgently needs to be arrested before things get worse:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"8afe\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">At the weekend, whilst paying a visit to a mosque,\u00a0Jeremy Corbyn was hit on the head with an egg. A man has been arrested; there were suggestions online that the egg may have still been within the alleged attacker\u2019s fist at the point of impact.<\/p>\n<p id=\"8c88\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This is entirely wrong. All of our elected representatives should be free to go about their business without fear of assault.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b417\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">I did wonder whether that part of the left which has always shown a soft spot for a bit of political violence might find Sunday\u2019s events a cause for introspection, an assessment as to whether they may need to rethink their stance on this.<\/p>\n<p>Rachel Riley, amongst others, was quick to note that online Corbynite mouthpiece Owen Jones had previously supported the egging of Nazis. Would Owen reconsider his position? Of course not. The doubling down came through loud and clear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The problem is, the left are not risking escalation and widespread violence only through encouraging attacks on right wing political figures. They are also risking serious violence through actions such as this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I have written to Google CEO @SundarPinchai calling on him, as a matter of urgency, to remove the YouTube page of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3smqXuVr1u\">pic.twitter.com\/3smqXuVr1u<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tom Watson (@tom_watson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tom_watson\/status\/1101931566387941376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 2, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nDoes Watson have any idea how dangerous it is for an elected politician to write a letter to a social media company demanding a British citizen be permanently banned from using its services? This is a flagrant abuse of position, akin to a politician in a tinpot kleptocracy getting a landowner evicted because it&#8217;s a nice spot on which to build his new mansion. That this hasn&#8217;t drawn widespread criticism from Establishment figures or opposition MPs neatly demonstrates this is now considered acceptable behaviour for elected officials.<\/p>\n<p>Nations in which politicians brazenly engage in extralegal vendettas against private citizens tend not to enjoy long periods of peace and stability. Once officials taste such power, it starts being used more liberally; as I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/9162\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said the other day<\/a>, Lammy and Watson are just getting warmed up. If they continue like this, abusing their positions to deprive citizens of freedom and liberty without due process, they will lay the foundations for political violence. The system only works if peaceful avenues of dissent remain open. Watson is publicly bragging that he is working to close them off. This is far more serious than an inconsequential gimp like Owen Jones trying to get middle class wannabe revolutionaries to throw eggs at Tories. One is a matter for the police; the other is a matter for another sort of organisation entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blogger Rob Francis has written an article on the slow escalation of political violence in the UK, and how it is a situation that urgently needs to be arrested before things get worse: At the weekend, whilst paying a visit &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/9199\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[104,20,42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9202,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions\/9202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}