Bashing

There is a shrill little website out there called Harry's Place whose authors, K-Punk alleges are allied with New Labour. The site is busy and its targets seem to be people on the left who it sees as joining forces with Islamists, fundamentalists and such like and hence, 'giving succour to the terrorist enemy'. Thus one writer embarks on a (convoluted) criticism of David Edgar's recent piece in the Guardian. Edgar's lengthy article is a fairly tame lament about the lefties and 'radicals' in the past, though especially the 68'ers, who have shifted to the right and who have used Islamism as a shield for the process. Thus Cohen, Amis and Mel Phillips are invoked. HP's writer makes a confused point about what he sees as Edgars slurring the good name of Nick Cohen. His point makes no sense. Further down he takes on Edgar's suggestion that those ex-left traitors are abandoning those at the bottom of the social heap and that someone of Muslim parents can be expected to earn less than £300000 than expected. Edgar's relatively inoccous points get such a lambasting that it would be easy to think HP has been altogether taken in by the propaganda onslaught against Muslims over the past ten years.

Then, further down the page this , a dubious looking story in the Daily Mail. . . of all places. Its a 'story' about two white people being turned away from Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington, London on the grounds that there was a Muslim only swimming session going on.
The HP blogger purrs his/her satisfaction with the outrage 'generated' by the story despite "a few minor factual inaccuracies" in the piece and concludes the entry "So, all in all: well done the Daily Mail. I never thought I'd say that! " One 'minor factual inaccuracies' in the story turns out to be that there is no muslim only swimming session. The Mail's 'leaflets' could be anyone's - there is no mention of it on the Centre's website. Also, the story has a fakeness about it: "Mr Toube joked: "I asked him whether Clissold Leisure Centre would institute Whites Only swimming for racists. His answer was that they would if there was sufficient demand."
He added: "I spoke to a number of Muslim friends, and none of them had heard of a religious prohibition on swimming with non-Muslims" The paper is trying to tell us something with the 'joked' 'muslim friends' and 'none of them had heard' of course. The story is just baa baa black sheep black bin bag propaganda. But the comment box is long and the story gathers momentum.

This adulation of a fictional story casts the Edgar's article in a new sympathetic light.