(not satire – it’s UK today)
I’m getting sick of this.
Yet another overpaid hack relentlessly moaning after getting strong reaction from a badly-researched, lazy and harmful article he’s written for a national newspaper.
This time I’m talking about that self-appointed oracle of wisdom – Philip Hensher – who has written a long whine in the Independent bleating on and on and bloody on about how horrid it is to be called names by readers who are directly suffering from the relentless spin and propaganda against them which so casually drips off the gold-plated pens of people like him.
You can read his whinge article here, if you can stay awake long enough to read it to the end:
Disagree with me, sure. But don’t wish me dead
Now remind me. What’s the definition of a coward and a bully?
Well, let’s see, how about this?
Someone who attacks others but then complains when they themselves are attacked back?
That’ll do very nicely.
Don’t cry after I said all that, Philip, because I can see after reading your article that you’re the sensitive type who doesn’t like people saying horrid things about you.
I feel for you, Philip. I really do. I can see you’re not cut out for this line of work.
So probably best if you give up being a journalist and go and get yourself a job stacking shelves in Tesco, along with all the other unemployed, disabled and sick people who are being forced to work there on slave wages.
Or are you afraid if you do that you’ll be made to look like a lazy scrounger by overpaid, out-of-touch newspaper hacks too?
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Related articles by Tom Pride:
Daily Mail ‘fixer’ David Rose defends paedophilia accused and attacks child abuse victims. Again.
I hope Lord McAlpine isn’t going to sue me for saying this?
The Death of Satire? The Mail’s David Rose complains about being smeared
The Day Satire Died. Daily Mail to sue blogger for defamation of character!
Daily Mail Apologises To Its Readers After Admitting Publishing Something True
Oops! The Daily Mail accidentally supports a fascist party. Again.
Diet High In Red Tops Increases Risk of Heart Attacks
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Pride's Purge 
Well said Tom As ever you have hit the nail on the head and put the wringer in his place. Doesn’t mind giving it out but can’t stand the reaction!
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Of course I meant whinger bloody predictive txt…!
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The Fourth Estate hate ordinary punters having an opinion. Mass literacy is a bit of a bind what?
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Heh,silly twat.When you are in a hole stop digging.Unless he’s getting off on the attention.Alot of journalism would be classified as trolling if they were’nt getting paid for it.Sheltered lives.Attention seeking at the expense of others.Don’t think Phil is cut out to be a writer.
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Tom, I consume all your posts voraciously, plus enjoy listening to you on Thursdays on ABC – Adelaide radio (there can’t be two Tom Prides, surely), but I feel you’ve massively overreacted on this one.
I think he has every right to be concerned/offended/upset at the tenor of some of the responses, and the initial article made it very clear that there are many people who need benefits, but that there are many others who ‘milk’ the system. Indeed, he offered several of the same arguments in his initial article, as you did in your article criticising the French firm’s questionnaire.
Surely, the fact that more people close to benefits claim than people living further away is telling, I’m physically disabled, but I’ll go wherever I need to, to get whatever I need. I live in Australia and we’re more prepared for travel than you lot, but come on, it’s not hard to travel 50 kms – at least you’ve got decent trains!
All in all, I guess this is the first time I’ve disagreed with you; at least it shows that i’m not blindly accepting whatever you offer.
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if hes never had comments like that before then he cant of been doing his job properly in the first place.
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He should read what he’s written before its printed. Damn bucket mouth to boot!
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Brilliant Tom, Wish I could have put it as well… Although he did have one of my blog posts removed (that’s why I migrated from Blogger to WordPress) http://diaryofamadman2012.wordpress.com/
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Madman – what blog post did he take down? Did he ask Blogger to remove it or threaten you with libel?
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He says; “I have a belief that nobody should be forced to endure being called a “cunt”
Interesting take on reality. Most have a belief that nobody should be forced to endure someone who is acting like one. He’s clearly a man that loves to throw stones but is uncomfortable with broken windows. Not only a cunt then, but a sad one at that.
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John – I don’t want to get into the arguments for and against benefits claimants and whether people are abusing the system or not. That’s not the real point I’m making here.
The point I’m making is the sheer arrogance of people like Hensher who seem to think they can write upsetting articles about other people without having to deal with the reaction.
it’s a bit like pop stars complaining about all the attention they get from fans.
It goes with the job FFS.
Before social media – people like hacks (and politicians, Lords of the realm, TV presenters etc) could do or say what they wanted without having to hear what people thought of them.
Now they’re confronted by the plebs’ opinions on Twitter, blogs etc. It’s only what plebs have always said it’s just that before the great and the good didn’t hear it because it was said in plebby pubs or on plebby street corners they never frequented.
Like I said in the article – if Hensher doesn’t like it – he should stop writing opinion articles in national newspapers and stick to writing novels.
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When faced with such an atrocious “article” complete with repeated lies,misinformation and well worn deliberate inflammatory tropes designed specifically to create a reaction,to which you refer;I sincerely think it was to get such a reaction.It is difficult to think that was not the actual intention.That being the case,how is one to react if you are of reasonable intelligence of a decent persuasion?Do you ignore it as a piece of tosh deliberately written to create such a reaction,risking it standing without at least reacting to point out it was pure misanthropic nonsense?Or bring further attention (for this I believe was the purpose of the piece)to something that is really not worth considering beyond misanthropic nonsense?I decided to not answer,given my view,it was best not give any reaction because it was not worth any reaction and that I believe was the purpose.The “get out of jail” card of a pretence of supporting the “genuine” or variation thereof is just disingenuous nonsense.For,if you do you make sure you have the basics at least correct;needless to say this was not done.Having reacted to something that I did not even think was worth considering I will leave it there.
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the mans a cunt
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Has hensher become flavour of the month as johnny void and after atos had blogs on him. can’t you just ignore this attention seeking brat and let him rot in his own vomit.?
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@john Thompson are you an idiot ? The bike rider hensher referenced in his article commited suicide !! Hensher deliberatley left out the relevant facts of this case. That makes him a scumbag in my book.
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I love it when these scumbags get called out on their blatant lies and right wing propaganda. Unfortunately for him a huge rump of very dissatisfied Guardian readers and chatterazzi (ooo.. do you like my new word?) migrated to the Indi last week after the Burchil hatespeech debacle so he ended up not getting anything like the “damn scroungers.. starve them to death” replies he was so obviously expecting. It’s become clear to pretty much everybody who isn’t a complete moron that the ACTUAL fraud in ESA and other DLA benefits is vanishingly small.. My maths works it out to around £500 million a year, which is about the same as Atos are being paid.. the largest part of the 2.5% they love to quote is actually DWP ERROR.. a whopping 2% of the total, or around £2 billion. So he got (rightly) torn to pieces by the people he was trying to vilify and harm. When a bully goes crying about being “picked on” after writing such a hateful, inaccurate and downright lie of an article it’s a bit rich to cry “foul” about a few online threats from people who are under a very real and present danger of being left destitute and homeless to starve on the streets, something his “class” will never understand until we the people deal with them once and for all. Unfortunately most poor people are rather socialist and social justice types (except the stupid semi literate neo-facists who read the sun and mail and torygraph) so it’s doubtful middle class rich liars like this will ever be stripped of everything and thrown starving on the streets.. we are just too damn fair minded, but for how long?
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As for “cunt”.. call me one and I will praise you for your very astute observation of my learned skills.. It takes years of practice to be a “right proper cunt”.. and I’m proud of my achievements in that field 🙂
Obviously what we have here is somebody who needs to learn that to be “offended” by being called the “ultimate” rude word is actually an achievement, and as they say “if the cap fits”
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It was my post entitled “Dear Philip Hensher” and yes, Blogger said they had removed the post as it contained libelous comments about a third party who had contacted blogger and complained. Although I never actually got to converse with him it’s pretty obvious who asked for it to be taken down…
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