……They were probably sneering at you because you work for the dishonest and widely discredited Tell Mama organisation.
I’ve heard some seriously baseless whines coming out of the mouths and keyboards of those who work for or work with the Tell Mama organisation, but this one had me almost rolling on the floor laughing with disbelief.
According to a Tweet that I’ve been passed that has come from Luke Holland, the young, gay West Midlands co-ordinator for the troubled and increasingly discredited Tell Mama organisation, has alleged that he was insulted and sneered at whilst he was visiting the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.
He said that he was subjected to ‘vile sneering comments’ from security staff at the conference which came after Mr Holland complained to guards that he was being ‘picked upon’ by staff and asked them whether it was because he was ‘young and gay’.
Here’s the Tweet concerned.
Vile sneering comments from @G4S staff tonight towards me after I asked if they were picking on me because I was gay + young https://t.co/67xZth0VIg
— Luke Holland (@LukeeHolland1) October 4, 2016
My personal opinion is that Mr Holland may not have been ‘picked upon’, if indeed that is the case, because of homophobia or reasons of age and here’s why: For a long time now the Tories have, despite a few loud social conservatives in the party have had more old queens among them than you would find in a gathering of wartime MI5 and MI6 operatives. Also groups like Torche (Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality) were going strong since before Mr Holland was born. As for age, well bearing in mind that this is the party where a 16 year old William Hague was allowed to speak to conference in 1977. Because of these things both the ‘homophobia’ accusation, and the ‘ageism’ one falls by the wayside.
It’s likely that what Mr Holland was experiencing was a bit of over zealous security staff activity, something that we’ve all experienced at some time or another whether we are gay, straight, bi, black, white or whatever. The job of security staff is to monitor potential threats to the organisation or event they are tasked with defending and sometimes whilst doing this job they can be brusque, inflexible, officious or even downright rude. There is often nothing malevolent behind these manners or lack of them, merely a desire to do the job they are paid for to the best of their ability.
It’s highly unlikely from what I can perceive reading between the lines on this one that Mr Holland was really allegedly targeted because of his age or sexuality. If Mr Holland was sneered at then maybe I can suggest some other reason and that reason was the fact that he is employed by the discredited organisation Tell Mama. Tell Mama, for those who don’t know are an organisation that claims to monitor ‘anti Muslim attacks’ and ‘Islamophobia’. Following the Islamic murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich South East London in 2013, Fiyaz Mughal the founder of Tell Mama, claimed that there was a ‘sustained wave if attacks and intimidation’ against Muslims. Investigations by journalists, most notably Andrew Gilligan of the Daily Telegraph uncovered some troubling information about Tell Mama. It appeared that they were blatantly lying about the number and type of ‘attacks’ and were even claiming that people saying unkind but provably truth things about Islam online were ‘attackers’. This gave the impression that someone saying that ‘Islam is a death cult’ was the same as someone getting beaten up in the street for being Muslim. Since then Tell Mama have lost government funding, have lost cases in the civil courts, the criminal courts and the old Press Complaints Commission and have resorted to tactics that even to those of us that are quite ‘hard boiled’, look abusive. Their low point, at least for me, was abusing a mentally ill transsexual person by parading her in front of the Crown Prosecution Service panel and using her as an example of a victim of ‘Islamophobia’. It later transpired that this person was not only suffering from some severe delusions but had made racist statements and had been subject to sectioning under the Mental Health Act. Any reputable organisation would have not used this particular person in the way that Tell Mama did, but then the word ‘reputable’ should not be used to describe Tell Mama unless it is prefixed with the letters ‘D’, ‘I’ and ‘S’.
If Mr Holland did get any funny looks or comments or ‘sneering’ then it probably wasn’t because of what he is, but who is working for. Let’s face it, working for Tell Mama is going to get you some eye rolling or even negative comment just as would be the case if someone said they worked for a firm called ‘Honest John’s Second Hand Car Sales’ or ‘Micks Bargain Basement Brain Surgery Emporium’. Mr Holland, you work for an organisation that has repeatedly been accused of being economical with the truth and maybe you should consider whether this is the reason why you perceive you were ‘sneered at’? It also must be said that the security staff at the conference didn’t appear to instigate any comments, that was done by Mr Holland himself when he asked the security staff if he was being targeted because of his age and sexuality.
A little bit of digging into Mr Holland’s background is very interesting. It seems he has a bit of a reputation for crying ‘homophobia’ when it may not be justified. According to the Birmingham political blog The Chamberlain Files, Mr Holland flounced out of a local Labour party organisation in Perry Barr citing homophobia from a minority of other members despite Mr Holland only being a member for less than one year. In a statement laden with hyperbole Mr Holland described the local Labour party as ‘like living in North Korea’. He was roundly spanked by the local councillor from the party who quite rightly said:
Without knowing the detail of what has happened, there will always be people who hold prejudiced views, everywhere – some people will move on those views as they experience the reality of something or someone they used to be ignorant of, some people never make peace with it but learn to be kind and tolerant regardless, and some people don’t.
That is human beings, including the ones that happen to be in the Labour Party.
Although I despise the Labour Party for what it has done to the United Kingdom, I find that I cannot disagree with what this councillor has said. We are not all politically correct robots, we are human, all different and with a variety of different experiences and that shows in our differing views. Some people have views on matters of sexuality that Mr Holland doesn’t like, but that doesn’t mean that there is a tide of homophobia in his local party.
Maybe it’s time for Mr Holland to pull on the big boy pants and realise that not only is politics a contact sport but also that we are not just judged by who we are and how we behave, but also by our choices of who we work for. Mr Holland chose to work for the mendacious grievance mongers of Tell Mama and that is going to affect how people see him. Working for groups like Tell Mama with their record for playing fast and loose with the actualite will get you sneered at and criticised and for good reasons.
Life is not a ‘safe space’ and that is a lesson that Mr Holland needs to learn as quickly as possible.
Links
Luke Holland Tell Mama’s West Midlands co-ordinator
http://tellmamauk.org/we-welcome-luke-holland-onto-the-tell-mama-team/
Tell Mama lose Government funding for being economical with the truth
Part Two of a piece describing the strange life of a mentally ill transsexual whom Tell Mama abused for political ends (Part One linked to in the first paragraph)
The Chamberlain Files article on Luke Holland resigning from his local Labour Party
You can find plenty more negative stories on the Tell Mama organisation on the Fahrenheit211 website by using the search terms ‘Tell Mama’, ‘Fiyaz Mughal’ or ‘mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artists’.
According to Tell Mama, they all received abuse from GS4. However, I wonder if this is a set-up as apparently, Tell Mama left it too late to order their security passes and another source says there was no abuse. Let’s face it, they are prone to a teensy bit of exaggeration. I have many favourite stories from their website but there is a real goody with dear old Fizzy thundering on about how a site chosen for a new mosque had “been vandalised”.
On closer reading, it turned out someone had merely pinned an A4 sheet of paper to the fence, stating that the intended mosque was not welcome. Hardly a case of vandalism!
I also agree with you about the Tory conference incident. I smell bullshit coming from Tell Mama on this. I also recall the ‘mosque vandalism’ story which did as you say turn out to be nothing more than a bit of A4 paper saying the mosque was not wanted.
Mr Holland is not a nice piece of work. Ideal person for Tell MAMA https://www.facebook.com/BrumFoodDrive/posts/1220996634588080
He also has a record for whining about ‘homophobia’ when there plainly isn’t any and where it has been categorically denied. Him and the charlatans of Tell Mama are made for each other.
Thanks for that info. I’ve saved it offline just in case it disappears down the memory hole