Readers may or may not have seen today Merseyside Police's rather amusing walkback after a group of coppers were photographed in Wirral in front of a van-mounted sign claiming, rather ominously, that 'being offensive is an offense', forcing Liverpool's finest to release a statement clarifying this as, er, complete bollocks, and reassuring the public that taking the piss is not, in fact, a criminal offence.
I mention this because it pertains to some rather concerning comments made by the Steve Party recently, in response to some (admittedly pretty nasty) comments made towards Deputy Inna Gardiner, in which she was called a 'filthy NIMBY' and told the sender hoped she died of COVID-19. Grim stuff, obviously. Long-time readers will be well aware that I have no great love for Mrs Gardiner; I can fondly remember the time that Tony Bellows accused yours truly of such wild offences as 'anti-semitism', 'extreme language' and 'vitriolic... politics of the tribe' after I had a few, possibly poor-taste, choice words to say relating to Mrs Gardiner's time at the Israeli Ministry of Education (charmingly, these slanders were accompanied with a comparison of my blog to the painting of Nazi swastikas on the walls of the local synagogue, as well as, hilariously, accusing me of violating the Public Elections (Jersey) Law 2002). Nevertheless, telling someone to die of COVID is obviously out of order, and I hope the guy who sent Mrs Gardiner the message in particular keeps getting rinsed in public, as he was - majorly - on Facebook in the days following the incident.
Point is, is this criminal? Should it be? I don't think so - it's my position that people who reveal themselves with such public nastiness eventually get back what they've put in, and you shouldn't face the force of the law for this kind of thing unless you're directly threatening violence or another actual criminal offence. The court of public opinion is sufficient in this case - the police do not exist to coddle you, however vile the abuse you receive happens to be, and, thankfully, they often aren't interested in these people's complaining (one particular nonce springs to mind - regular towngoers or residents may have noticed the repeated antics of this individual, reporting the shouts of 'paedo' and 'nonce' he regularly receives while walking down the street, to the police, only to run into complete indifference from all but the most bored of officers). The Steve Party, however, have taken pains to express their disagreement with this kind of thinking - in a recent Facebook post which (rightfully) denounced 'trolling' and anti-social online behaviour, they struck the tone of an angry Year 5 teacher threatening to keep the kids in at playtime, urging islanders to "to take a moment to reflect and consider the impact of their comments before posting" and threatening to "develop or support legislation to bring this behaviour to an end".
Now, what, exactly, does that mean? Stricter laws governing what can and can't be said online? Fines for insufficiently deferential comments towards States members? A criminal offence for being mean? 'Hate crime' legislation being extended to cover members of the public being impolite online? God only knows. It's a very interesting window into the worldview of these people that they seem to think the response to people being rude about them online is to lock those people up, rather than - shocker coming up - improve their performance as members of the Assembly, and it's rather telling that the figures rallying around the call for an 'end to abuse' are such tribunes of the people as Jim 'slit your wrists' Perchard, former senator and current mugging victim Philip Ozouf (once described by an insightful VfC commenter as having done more damage to Jersey than the Luftwaffe) and Deputy Jeremy Maçon, the regular target of less-than-lovely comments about his hairdos, sartorial choices and employment history. Not particularly hard to clock that people like this are less interested in ensuring civil conduct in political debate and more in handing their perennial online trolls large fines and possible prison sentences for being rude about them on the internet. What you fundamentally have here is a massive cope on the part of this motley crew due to their own public image problems - the mindset of the classroom sadsack who won't stop harassing the teacher to send the kids who wind him up to the Headteacher's Office.
And, as we all know, there's only one response for that kind of person:
Gardiner is one of the most progressive independent politician in the states. Maybe your dislike for her mainly because she happens to be a Jewish Israeli, disregarding her actual politics, really says something about your character.
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