Friday 4 September 2015

Petition to the Guardian

I hadn't heard of Richard Seymour until his spiteful little comment recently about Simon Weston. Weston was injured during the 1982 Falklands war when an Argentine bomb hit the ship Sir Galahad on which Weston was serving. When Weston recently expressed his antipathy to Jeremy Corbyn apparently saying he would seek a deal with the Argentine government over the disputed islands, Seymour decided to step in with: "Seriously, who gives a shit what Simon Weston thinks? If he knew anything at all he would still have a face." 

I'm all for free speech and the right to express an opinion, but Seymour wasn't expressing an opinion. He could have said that Weston was just an old squaddie and his opinions on diplomatic matters didn't count for anything. He could have even said Weston was a publicity seeking right wing stooge if he really thinks that, though I would like to see any attempt at a reasoned argument for saying so.

He was making a crass and extremely nasty remark, which can only really be read as jeering at the life-altering injuries Weston sustained in the defence of British sovereign territory against annexation by a military dictatorship.

I don't think he should be prosecuted for it or exiled to Siberia or anything. He has the right to say it. I do think however, that it is a prime example of the sort of vitriolic hatred that many on the left have for everything good and decent which this country ever stood for, and underlines the fact that, at heart, they favour the grubbiest and most despotic regimes of the world when they're plainly in the wrong over a democratically elected British government whose colours they don't like.
So I have posted up a petition on change.org to ask Katherine Viner, editor of The Guardian, to stop publishing Seymour's work and giving a platform to this nasty and spiteful little cretin who has put himself far outside the boundaries of civilised discourse. Please sign it here.

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