On this the 2nd anniversary of Pride’s Purge – a really big and sincere thank you to all the readers and supporters of this blog.
.
Since I started this blog, I get insulted and trolled on social media on a daily basis. I’ve been threatened with libel so many times I’ve lost count. And I’ve even received threats of violence and death.
Don’t get me wrong though – I’m not complaining. If truth be known, my ego loves the attention. In fact I’m quite fond of the trolls. They might be trolls but they’re my trolls.
Joking aside, I have to admit, when I started this blog just 2 years ago I had no idea how hard it would be to speak freely and to tell the truth.
Believe me, there are a lot of powerful people who really really really don’t like the idea of plebs being able to talk and communicate freely outside the control of the establishment.
And these powerful people are not just the usual suspects – top ranking establishment figures paying lawyers huge amounts of money to scare off anyone thinking of mentioning anything about them they don’t like the sound of.
It also includes people you may think are ‘anti-establishment’ – both on the Left and on the Right.
The recent controversy about journalist Mehdi Hasan – a real darling of the left-wing anti-establishment until it was revealed he was willing to sell himself out for a few dirty coins from the Daily Mail’s Lord Rothermere – is a good illustration of this.
Because most worryingly of all, this desire by the establishment to shut up anyone trying to speak uncomfortable truths, very often includes journalists themselves.
I’ve mentioned before that of all the people I’ve written critically about on this blog, journalists are the most likely to jump up and down threatening libel at the drop of a hat – probably because they have the most to lose from the spread of social media.
So much for journalists supporting freedom of speech. It seems a lot of journalists are only interested in free speech just so long as it’s them and not the plebs doing the speaking.
In fact, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last two years – it’s that free speech is much too valuable to be left in the hands of professional journalists.
But it’s also much too important to leave it to a few self-selected spokesmen and women – a handful of bloggers, activists, journalists who pop up on our TV screens and in our newspapers regularly claiming to speak on behalf of the rest of us.
The biggest shock for me when I started writing this blog was how aggressively hostile the giants of the so-called ‘left-wing’ blogosphere would be to the truth being spoken too.
As a left-wing blogger I expected hostility from the Right – but not from the Left.
I obviously didn’t realise that left-wing bloggers were not supposed to mention unions who bully individuals who they see as troublesome.
Or question so-called left-wing journalists in the pay of right-wing rags like the Mail and the Express who misuse their power and influence to trace personal phone numbers of private social media users in order to bully them into silence.
And I didn’t realise I was also supposed to keep quiet about MPs who claimed massive amounts in expenses from the taxpayer for items like biscuits, soap and coasters if the MP in question was involved in cosy little secret meetings with leading activists.
Because I refused to shut up about these things – and believe me I was ‘asked’ directly several times to do just that – there has been a concerted attempt to freeze me out and discredit this blog.
They’ve tried closing it down with threats of libel and violence – they’ve tried having the blog labelled as spam and even porn and I’m regularly accused of lying and ‘making things up’.
Which is, I suppose, one way of looking at satire.
Exploring the increasingly blurred lines between establishment lies and spin and the truth is exactly what this blog is all about.
And unlike many of my critics on both the Left and the Right, I don’t presume readers of this blog are so stupid they can’t distinguish between truth and lies – which is the real purpose of satire.
However, the fact that this is now one of the top ten most-read blogs in the UK and regularly gets thousands of views a day – sometimes tens of thousands – shows the attempts at discrediting it have clearly failed.
Miserably.
Thanks to you.
And it is precisely because of you – the people who are reading this blog right now – that the concerted attempts to shut it up have failed. The truth is that the more popular it is – the less likely it is that it can be closed down. The very act of reading this blog protects it and makes it more likely the truth can be told.
So thank you.
And a very happy birthday to Pride’s Purge.
.
Please share. Thanks.
kiwiatheist said:
Does your read count include those of us, like me, who rarely visit the blog, but who read every email you send?
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alanbstardmp said:
you were living in dreamland if you though lefties are more tolerant than right. The left are the worse by far, in fact the extreme right, and I’m not one, allows almost anything
Lefties and Jews are the worst re free speech and accepting evidence
A
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jaynel62 said:
And heres to another year of Truth & Ego-boosting 🙂 x
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Andy Birss (@1957AJB) said:
I don’t understand how grown-up people can’t simply disagree sometimes without resorting to insult or crude characterisations of ‘Lefties and Jews’ (see comment above).
I sometimes don’t agree with what Tom writes but that’s good in my opinion. I would be far more worried if I found I did agree with every word!
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Editor said:
Reblogged this on kickingthecat.
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Linda D. said:
Well done on your anniversary. Love your satire, often leaves me smiling as well as usually shaking my head in despair at your revelations. Keep up the good work.
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MsAmaranth (@MsAmaranth) said:
Love the blogs Tom, keep up the good wok
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Andy said:
We’ll done for the two years and let’s hope (and it is sadly a hope with no chance of fulfilment) that you will be able to put down your pen, in this cause, before another two years passes. Thanks
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Nina said:
Congratulations on the anniversary! Never be quiet, no matter what. I love your satire.
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Tony Zimnoch said:
Keep On Blogging!Regards ,Tony
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Phil Dore (@thus_spake_z) said:
I’d not only like to wish you a happy birthday, but also express my thanks for your support when I also wound up being faced with a libel threat due to stating demonstrably-true facts about someone who didn’t like being exposed.
For benefit of those reading who may not know what this was about, I screenshotted and tweeted a UKIP activist being insulting about the family of the murdered soldier Lee Rigby. He wanted to sue me because I said he’d “called his family idiots” when in fact he’d merely said that “like a lot of idiots they think the EDL are far-right fascists”. If that makes no sense to you, then you’ve understood his legal argument perfectly.
Tom’s response was here:
Tom’s response was here: http://tompride.co.uk/2013/06/05/ukip-activist-threatens-to-sue-anyone-who-points-out-he-called-lee-rigbys-family-idiots/
And this was my response:
Funnily enough he never did sue me or anyone else. I’m every bit as surprised by that as you’d imagine me to be.
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xraypat said:
Absolutely! Don’t stop your blog is important informative and fun too !
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xraypat said:
Happy Birthday Pride’s Purge! Don’t stop ….you manage to inform entertain and make very important waves….we love you!
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BevR (@britishroses1) said:
Happy B’day, keep up the good work!
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drew said:
Happy birthday Tom.
I’d have baked you a cake and sent flowers, but I’m rubbish at remembering birthdays.
My excuse, by way of an apology,
I went to a grammar school, like the kind Michael Gove keeps bumping his gums about. Where remembering historically significant dates was, the bedrock of the education system.
That was thirty five years ago now.
Since then, a visionary named Tim Berners Lee gave us the Internet, so now i don’t have to remember lots of useless facts which only ever gave me a sense of false pride in my superior education and the prejudices of knowledge.
So, now, I can exercise my brain opening up new thoughts and knowledge on an endless variety of subjects that interest me, at the click of a mouse.
Now, we can all look one another up and saturate our minds with knowledge and information from a vast array of sources.
Some reliable, many are not.
The internet has created a myriad of connections between individual consciousness, all over the world.
That said, not everyone has the wisdom and discretion to deal with this freely available knowledge,. Whilst many have no access to that knowledge at all.
Where knowledge can lead to profit. Such knowledge can never be entrusted to commercial journalists. ( I say commercial, as professional is stretching the definition beyond its meaning).
What is more worrying, the lengths some governments go to, to collect and restrict access to knowledge?
That old rhetoric, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about” in response to id cards and security measures, now seems seems more sinister than it did before.
Prides Purge is now widely read and shared because it joins the dots in our media consciousness.
It would seem, trust is the biggest loss in our society.
Where once i grew up thinking i was being taught to be a better person, to learn from the mistakes of myself and others, I found I have to analyze and question everything,
Trust in our politicians, bankers, Police and institutions is no longer a given.
The ideas of being a professional, have been eroded by the ideas of deceit and profit.
Business has become the art of blagging, journalism has become the engine of propaganda and the banking system has become the pay day loan shark to to the rotten religion of greed.
I wasn’t born a Marxist, indeed i am not a Marxist, but i have read Das Kapital. But anyone who has read it and not personally profited from the Capitalist system would certainly find Karl Marx appealing to their conscience.
Bonkers political ideology, Capitalist wealth, religious morality and feudal militarism have built the world order we know.
It’s important to read the emperors new clothes to our children, every time there is some scandal or shocking event.
Its vitally important we share the truth and access to it.
I was never happy at school being taught i was a mere slave of history.
I was much happier being taught we are each masters of our destiny and collectively we can achieve more together for our mutual freedom and benefit.
For these reasons,
I don’t watch the mainstream news anymore.
Who needs the hype and anxiety it brings?
Much better to talk to real people, than listening to salespeople on the TV, which is what the media is, a market shillybeer.
Of course when I need or want something. In which case i chose to speak to an independent supplier of the things i need, since i cannot trust big business like supermarkets to look after my interests.
Their business model is selling me what they tell me i really want and buying things i don’t need or can’t afford.
That’s why they all take CREDIT CARDS!
IF I CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY CASH NOW, I PROBABLY CAN’T AFFORD IT NEXT MONTH EITHER!
I want to live in a society based upon trust and accountability.
Thanks in part to you Tom Pride, we can all now satirise those people we simply have no faith or trust in.
Not because we seek to dismantle the fabric of society, but because we don’t trust others who profit from manipulating and deceiving us, the masses who seek to live their lives in peace and security for our collective benefit, not simply for the benefit of those who deploy clever technology and intellect to part us from what we have worked for and give nothing in return.
I have grown beyond party politics and branding, i have released my consciousness into a freer, more open place due to the hard work and dedication of bloggers.
Don’t take ego as your motivation Tom, take Pride in being the thorn in the side of all those who pi55 on us and tell us it’s raining.
Many happy returns Tom Pride.
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drew said:
Alanbstardmp, Are you trying and failing miserably at a spot of satirical Irony?
Ed Milliband is both a lefty and a Jew apparently…
are you Mr Dymo Troll? Labelling everything and everyone in sight?
Do you still put name tags in your socks and pants?…
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Chris Tandy said:
Another candle on the Pride’s Purge cake.
At the age of two, ‘PP’ demonstrates more wisdom than wrinkled old rags such as the Daily Mail.
Happy birthday!
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chibipaul said:
A toast to your elbow Tom! Ever more power to it!
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chess said:
Happy birthday, Tom Pride and many congratulations for the brilliant job you do, if they don’t like what you’re writing you’re obviously doing somethjing right! Keep it up, here’s to another successful year and more….and thank you from a pleb.
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chibipaul said:
*Facepalm*
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chess said:
Hear, hear.
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misty53 said:
Happy birthday Tom, keep up the excellent work, you are doing.
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kelpiemare said:
Two years??!!!! Here’s to the next one of exposing our shameless MPs….irrespective of tie/scarf colours….a’ the best, Tam!
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guy fawkes said:
very well said Drew and happy Birthday Tom Pride, may you have many more.
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Rebecca Devitt (@CarbonisedPleb) said:
Happy Birthday and many thanks from me and my son. We love your blog and look forward to many more years of it. Along with thousands of others, we are two of the most precarious survivors in UK at the moment with disabilities, serious illness, dependent on benefits and social housing. Love your honesty and humour, thank you for bringing light to the murkiest of corners of modern life and managing to raise a smile despite everything.
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nuggy said:
happy birthday ive burnt i a liberal democrat in your honer.
i went to a lot of effort to do that there ard to find thse days.
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overburdenddonkey said:
yes well z..and many happy returns, tom, careful of the terrible 2’s..
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First Night Design • Rogues & Vagabonds said:
Happy Birthday and long may you reign! Apart from making me laugh (and cry), you make me think and that can only be a good thing.
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Nick said:
As i and my family have worked the past 80 years within the establishment i would say tom your comment above is spot on
the tragedy is that the mp’s today along with the newspapers are out to destroy the fabric of Briton and all of it’s main structures to save money
the bottom line is that in 10 years or so’s time everything will be privatised and if you work you’ll be OK and if you don’t you’ll starve and that’s what I’m seeing from my old friends from within the establishment
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corneliustownedge said:
Please support this effort to end Junk Mail(now traced) exploitation.
Be heard, not herded… http://t.co/Ww3rRKuQVM
Thx
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Michael Igoe said:
Sorry to say, this is nothing new. Satire has attracted criticism and threats from its earliest days, even around 420 BCE. The concept of free, critical comment (then called parrhesia) has been attacked by the self-righteous and the self-important, whichever political colour. There was TW3 and its criticism of the Whitehouse outfit, Spitting Image (much missed these days) and much else. Stay in business, please. I’m doing what I can to spread your messages. To criticise isn’t to libel, as the stuffed shirts imagine. There are books called dictionaries.
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Jeremy said:
Typically British, bit of bad weather and there’s no inte
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Mike Sivier said:
Reblogged this on Vox Political and commented:
Congratulations to Pride’s Purge on reaching the venerable age of two! I had no idea, when I started VP, that this great blog was only two months older, which is a clear sign that Tom Pride hit the ground running.
Regarding the comments about the various factions trying to shut the site down – I’m a professional news reporter and this happens whenever anyone feels threatened; they threaten back. As long as you’ve got the evidence to support your assertions, it just means you’re doing a good job. I have never had to sharpen my axes about a PP post, but then I don’t have a strongly ideological agenda. I want facts to come out, in order to make it easier for people to do what works, rather than what makes a certain segment of society a little richer, or gives them more power over the rest of us.
I’m looking forward to the next two years of Pride’s Purge. They will be interesting times – there’s a general election coming up and the Tories have already fire a warning shot across the BBC’s bows (see mikesivier.wordpress.com for my opinion about that) and the social media are also high on their priorities, what with the so-called gagging law going through Parliament, and I’m sure we’ll see other attempts to end our free speech rights. But I have every intention of seeing these times through, and commenting on them as they happen – and I look forward to seeing how Pride’s Purge does so, as well.
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Pam Field @earwiggle said:
Happy birthday! Tom! 🙂
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therealthunderchild said:
Reblogged this on TheRealThunderChild.
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therealthunderchild said:
Alanbastardmp. I’m a navy veteran who’s a “lefty” , public enemy no1, apaz. Isn’t it tiring hating so many people?
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Neuron Therapy (@Neuron_Therapy) said:
Happy 2nd Birthday, Pride’s Purge! (and Happy 73rd Birthday to John and Happy 9th Birthday to Indy)
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jaypot2012 said:
Me too!
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jaypot2012 said:
Happy birthday – it’s nice to be two 🙂
You just tell it as it is and keep that satire in and your followers and fans will stand by you for many years to come!
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Samwise Gamgee said:
“Lefties and Jews…”
Oh dear…
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Stella Kordun said:
This is really interesting Tom. Looking at those on the Left with rose tinted spectacles is clearly misplaced affection!
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Stephen Bee said:
Happy Birthday to you…
Happy Birthday to you
Keep exposing the bastards 🙂
Happy Birthday to youoooooooo
Keep up the good work Tom…A little sanity in this insane world is always welcome..x
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treborc said:
Lefties and Jews phew he missed out the disabled so at least that something to be thankful for.
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Karen M said:
A great article about trolls etc attracts a troll or an ironist pretending to be a troll…
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Tom Pride said:
Nuggy – oh thanks. Going out of your way to find and burn a Liberal Democrat just for me. You know what I like so well.
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A Very Public Sociologist said:
Satire, unfortunately, is very difficult in an age where real politics has almost become a parody of itself, where the weather can be legitimately blamed for crap growth figures and ministers routinely ignore evidence because of their inconvenience. So that there is someone out there carrying the torch for satire is great. Here’s to another year!
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rainbowwarriorlizzie said:
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.
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rainbowwarriorlizzie said:
Reblogged this on HUMAN RIGHTS & THE SIEGE OF BRITAIN POLITICAL JOURNAL.
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truelabour said:
Reblogged this on truelabour.
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Wren said:
Ah-So, Keep up the great work Tom, We need people like you more than ever!
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Steve said:
Congratulations Tom on reaching such a momentous occasion…a second birthday! Your blog is such a shining light in the deluge of lies and misinformation of the establishment. It’s an enjoyable read. May your Karma be fruitful!
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Michael Igoe said:
So death threats to a humorous – and dangerously truthful – blogger. A short time ago, an Iranian comedian, now a refugee in the UK, said of her home country, ‘You can be a satirist in Iran – but not for very long.’ That sounds familiar to someone chased and abused by trolls, doesn’t it? Happy second birthday, Tom. Keep going.
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themaskedfrog said:
It’s a dangerous job writing satire. Only the other day I was threatened with a chinese burn.
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Sabine Kurjo McNeill said:
CONGRATULATIONS, Tom and Pride’s Purge!!!
“It goes with the territory”, I was told by a co-campaigner. And it seems to be a way of ‘measuring success’: the number of trolls / shills / haters one has to deal with. See http://victims-unite.net/haters-trolls/ Similar to ‘wearing gagging orders with pride’: http://victims-unite.net/2013/03/15/whistleblowers-unite-victims-turning-survivors-starfighters-and-human-rights-advocates/
I also was shocked to learn about it, especially from what one thinks to be one’s own ‘ranks’. But sex, money and power go beyond Right and Left. It’s in all of us. Hopefully the temptation to succumb NOT!
Happy Anniversary and Best Wishes for Many, Many Returns!!!
Thanks for your regular and consistently witty writings!!!
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griddoid said:
Happy Birthday, keep blogging and we’ll keep sharing. Sod the trolls and the threats, the truth and your satirical punch are more important.
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Andy Reporter said:
Re Unions having a go their critics, look up the following keywords in various combinations
Tim Field NUT Tom Long Oxbow
All still on the web, 10 years after the event, without legal challenge
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alanbstardmp said:
trolls are good fun. Trolls can, and often are nothing more than those who have a contrary opinion, which is not tolerated
It is always lefties that ban from sites.
[says the troll who has not been banned – or even moderated – from a site run by a leftie!] – Tom
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alanbstardmp said:
it’s correct though. Try arguing with the latter
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