Category Archives: UK

Tory MPs promote halal hysteria – Labour MP joins them

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UKIP for Davies posterShipley MP Philip Davies has blamed “the politically correct brigade” for halal meat being sold to unwitting customers across the country.

Two years ago the Conservative MP called for all halal and kosher meat to be labelled, but his motion in Parliament was defeated by three votes, “voted down largely by the politically correct brigade”.

Now it has been revealed that many supermarkets, restaurants and fast food chains were not labelling meat to signify it had been ritually slaughtered.

Mr Davies has now tabled an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill to ensure the compulsory labelling of kosher and halal meat.

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Six men in court over EDL violence outside Nuneaton pub

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six men have appeared in court following an incident in which English Defence League supporters were involved in violence outside a Nuneaton town centre pub. The men were arrested after police turned up to deal with fights which broke out in Bridge Street, Nuneaton, and in the doorway of the George Eliot pub.

Noting at the crown court in Leamington that the incident had taken place as long ago as February 2011, Judge Sylvia de Bertodano asked why it had taken so long to get to court. Prosecutor Aliya Rashid explained that the police had been searching for witnesses and trying to track down other people who had been involved.

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EDL member described as future killer by own mother

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael Piggin graffiti and gun

A teenager accused of plotting a “new Columbine” massacre was called a future mass killer by his mother, a court heard.

Michael Piggin allegedly had a hit list of pupils and teachers he wanted to kill. He also plotted to attack a mosque, threatened to murder TV’s David Dickinson and said he wanted to blow up Poundland because “it’s too expensive”.

Piggin’s mother compared him to Adam Lanza who killed 20 US schoolchildren and six staff in Connecticut in 2012, the Old Bailey heard.

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Channel 4’s Muslim call to prayer is top in viewer complaints tally

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sun Ramadan a Ding-DongChannel’s 4 broadcast of a Muslim call to prayer during the holy month of Ramadan was the programme that brought the broadcaster the most complaints last year.

The broadcast received 2,011 complaints about its 4Ramadan season, with 1,658 specifically about the broadcast of the daily call to prayer.

Writing in the broadcaster’s annual report, the head of factual programmes for Channel 4, Ralph Lee, said: “The level of Islamophobia we encountered with the 4Ramadan season was unexpected, though much of it came from communities that were either very polarised or very undiverse.”

Lee said he had personally received hundreds of emails complaining about the broadcast after he defended it in an article for the Radio Times, in which he said it would “act as a nationwide Tannoy system” and a provocation to viewers “in the very real sense of the word”.

Channel 4 received a total of 16,835 complaints in 2013. The second most complained about show was Crazy About One Direction, a documentary about the boyband’s most devoted fans, which attracted 1,056 complaints.

Press Association, 8 May 2014

Posted in UK

The hateful views of UKIP candidate Magnus Nielsen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Magnus Nielsen with anti-sharia placard (2)I sent a letter to the Camden New Journal this week exposing the bigoted views of local UK Independence Party council candidate Magnus Nielsen. They didn’t see fit to publish it.

Evidently the CNJ doesn’t think it newsworthy that a rabid Islamophobe like Nielsen is standing for local government in a borough with a large Muslim population. At any rate, whereas the Hampstead & Highgate Express ran an article on it, and Nielsen’s obnoxious views even made the national media, the CNJ hasn’t bothered to report the story.

The CNJ did, however, think it appropriate to publish a letter from Nielsen last year claiming that “the logic of ‘affirmative action’ on behalf of the self-styled ‘under­privileged’ is seriously flawed and can only have disastrous consequences for society as a whole”, and that a House of Commons which reflected the diversity of the British electorate would necessarily discriminate against “able-bodied, happily-married, heterosexual, men of Anglo Saxon heritage”.

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Daily Mail follows Sun in stoking halal hysteria

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daily Mail Millions Are Eating Halal Food front pageYesterday we had the Sun running an anti-halal story on its front page under the screaming headline “Halal secrets of Pizza Express”. Not to be outdone in the field of right-wing anti-Muslim scaremongering, the Daily Mail decided to run this story on its front page today.

Of course, this is not the first time the Mail has tried to work its readers up into an anti-Muslim frenzy over the issue of halal slaughter by appealing to their ignorance and bigotry.

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5 in court after EDL protest in Thatcham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After 20 people staged a protest in Thatcham, 5 people have appeared in court charged with a string of offences. They gathered in The Broadway on the 28th of February and indicated they were members of the EDL.

The 4 men and 1 woman are charged with a string of offences, including using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

All five have pleaded not guilty and were released on conditional bail. They are due at Reading Magistrates on the 15th May.

The Breeze, 7 May 2014

Nigel Farage: UKIP is not a racist party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-UKIP protestThe UK Independence Party “is not racist”, leader Nigel Farage has told activists in central London.

Mr Farage said a “handful” of its thousands of candidates had said “stupid or offensive” things, but “they never have, and they never will”, represent the views of the party.

He was speaking at an event designed to highlight UKIP’s female, black and ethnic-minority candidates. The rally was disrupted several times by protesters accusing UKIP of racism.

One UKIP candidate was suspended from the party on Saturday after describing Islam as “evil”, and another resigned last week after after tweeting that comedian Lenny Henry should emigrate to a “black country”.

But Mr Farage said the party had “professionalised” in recent years, and now had a membership form that urged people whose views were incompatible with UKIP’s not to join the party. Despite these measures, he continued: “There will always be in any system a few people that creep over the line and cause us embarrassment.”

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