Friday 8 February 2013

Friday joke: Brian Coleman, witchfinder general, at it again

Since his downfall, poor old Brian Coleman has had to accustom himself to a great many disappointments. Difficult, very difficult, adjusting to life in retirement from the heady whirl of life at City Hall, and the Fire Authority, and the Cabinet, and the Conservative Party, and ... oh, all that. Sometimes it must seem that no one wants to give you the time of day.

Brian Coleman's  appearance in the dock at Uxbridge Magistrate's Court on two charges relating to the alleged assault of a local woman, which he denies, a trial due to take place this Wednesday, was postponed, at the last minute, apparently because the Judge was 'double-booked'. Those wishing to attend this hearing must wait until April 24th. *

*Updated: the latest news is that the hearing is delayed yet again, and  will be on 3rd May, and here is an amusing consequence of such a delay, according to Mrs Angry's sources, all Conservative council candidates will have been selected by then. If this is true, whatever the outcome of the trial ... oh dear. Hardly bears thinking about, does it, Brian?
 
Since the loss of his various posts, Brian has been consoling himself elsewhere in his initimitable way, having belatedly discovered the joys of blogging. And in his never ending quest for attention he has turned again to an old ploy: yes, the witchfinder general is at it again, pointing his finger and finding 'anti-semitism' in every corner of Broken Barnet.

Mud sticks, as Coleman knows, or imagines: already having been targeted, albeit obliquely, in this way, Mrs Angry has already dealt with this subject in an earlier post here  - and has no intention of giving any more publicity to his disgraceful slurs than is necessary.

That anti-semitism is a real evil still present in our society is undeniable, but Coleman has form for using false accusations of such behaviour, and clearly sees it as an acceptable method of smearing others. Forced last year to apologise to two victims of such vile abuse, he seems not to have learnt his lesson, and now writes a nasty piece with a clever combination of those who undoubtedly have made offensive remarks, and those who have not. 

Those who object to any planning application, for whatever reason, by a Jewish community group, will frequently run the risk of being labelled by Coleman as 'anti-semites': this is utterly despicable, and there is little you can do to deny such motivation when made - even, absurdly, when you are yourself Jewish. 

He refers now to the Eruv applications, which unfortunately cause endless arguments, (and frankly Mrs Angry fails to see why any Eruv represents a problem) including, signficantly, debate within the wider Jewish community. Coleman  claims to have seen 'sickening' objections to the latest one, with the implication that all objections are necessarily provoked by such repellant motivations.

That some objections are merely anti-semitic rants is undoubtedly true: it is a huge leap, and a very dangerous mistake, to move from that conclusion to an assertion that all who object to such applications are inherently anti-semitic. But the witchfinder general has tried all he wishes to charge with such motives, found them guilty, and sentenced them to the punishment of widespread and unanswerable infamy.

Why does Coleman resort to such behaviour? Attention seeking: and an attempt to portray himself as an indispensible patron of a community to which he does not belong, but which in some way he claims to represent. 

He seems not to understand that every time he makes a false accusation of anti-semitism he devalues the real impact of the truly horrific acts of racist abuse that many Jewish people endure every day in so many subtle, and not so subtle, ways and worse still, unforgiveably, denies the full horror of the Holocaust whose memory he claims to invoke in this perverse fashion.

Of course in real life, making false accusations of any form of racism is contemptible, but in Coleman's case, ultimately, what can you do but laugh? 

Having been smeared by him on more than one occasion, labelled in public by him as an old hag, shouted at in the corridors of the Town Hall, and been bizarrely accused in his blog of attacks on local Conservative party properties as well as, even more incredibly, his own elderly mother, and, perhaps worst of all, having a secret passion for David Beckham, and oh dear, Simon Cowell, Mrs Angry can only shake her head, and laugh - and feel sorry for the old fool. 

Having been advised on the finer legal points of such wild accusations, however, any repetition in the future may well mean that sympathy for the devil will be exchanged for a rather more proactive response.

Time for a real Friday joke, perhaps: 

I hear you're a racist, now, Mrs Angry?


 

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