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(not satire – it’s the UK today!)
UPDATE – Good news. Perhaps as a result of all the negative publicity, Twitter has decided to reinstate the @UKJCP account. A failure for the DWP and a triumph for satire and freedom of speech.
After a FOI request, a DWP official has released a copy of the official complaint it made to Twitter which resulted in closing down a parody account on Twitter of the Department for Work and Pensions.
In the remarkable document, an official at the Department (Jon Woodcock, Brand Manager at Department for Work and Pensions) openly gives the reason for wanting to close down the account as “deliberate and malicious intent to devalue and criticise the work of Jobcentre Plus ….. UK government, elected politicians and the heads of large private sector organisations”.
Here’s the relevant section of the document, in which Mr Woodcock explains why the government wanted the Twitter account closed down:
The document can be seen in full here (pdf).
Apart from the obvious concern that UK government officials are openly trying to close down criticism of government, politicians and business leaders – I’m also pretty shocked that Twitter agreed to the request.
So much for freedom of speech.
PS – anyone else surprised the DWP has a ‘brand manager’?
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More info about the whole @UKJCP affair from the Daily Dot:
U.K. government Twitter accuses a parody of itself of being ‘confusing’
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Please feel free to comment.
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Pride's Purge 
What I found particularly chilling is that they include ‘the heads of large private sector organisations’ in those who are no longer to be criticised or satirised.
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Brand manager is he the bloke that has the hot iron to mark you as a scrounger and fraud when you attend the joke center-
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they cant be allowed to get away with this.
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were are index on censorship and spiked and all the so called free speech activists when you need them.
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DWP’s doing very well all by itself to devalue its work. Nothing anyone else does could possibly make matters worse.
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Reblogged this on Vox Political and commented:
This is more of the narrative that would have us believe that any attempt to criticise the Coalition government and its policies is malicious and/or libellous, rather than our right as free thinking, free speaking members of British society. Serious questions should be asked about Twitter, for acting on such a transparent attempt at censorship.
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One presumes that Jon (sic) Woodcock, the Brand Manager, is trying to protect ATOS – the DWP’s partner in crime.
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Reblogged this on Political Pip Spit or Swallow its up to You.
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One excuse given by Mr Wouldcock is that Job Centre Plus would like to use @UKJCP themselves.
So set up another that they’d not wish to use, such as @FUJCP.
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Fucking brand manager! Like good old Bill Hicks would have said of marketing people;
“kill yourselves, there is no purpose or moral justification for what you do, you’re a parasite who turns good into shit, go and kill yourselves”
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Reblogged this on Ned Hamson Second Line View of the News and commented:
1984 – a little later than predicted but today’s Tories are definitely better than everyone else and want to keep it that way.
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More proof that evil will have its way, and this godforsaken country is drifting towards fascist totalitarianism. If you don’t work to make a profit for the rich, they slap the bedroom tax on you and leave you to die, shivering to death with no heating after the indignity of visiting the food bank. And now even criticizing them is banned. Dissent may not yet be a crime (it will be) but they sure as hell mean to stamp it out.
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Just remember to go out and vote, at every type of election. This lot got in by default. Behind the scenes, this Governemnt are rapidly robbing eveyone of basic human rights.
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Wonder how much a ‘Brand Manager’ gets paid these days…disgraceful misuse of stature & they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it!
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Brand DWP are launching their new fragrance for 2014 . MISERY by Ian Duncan Smith
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Reblogged this on The Greater Fool.
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Why do they need a Brand Manager in the first place?
As for adding private sector organisations, that is frightening.
I hope that the twitter accounts will continue, if under a different name. I’m actually not on twitter but rely on the blogs to give me the news.
Don’t let them win, just keep on fighting!
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We are turning into a dictatorship. News is edited to suit this governments requirements too, It is shocking to see it unfolding!
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Reblogged this on Jay's Journal.
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Reblogged this on The Projects of Michael Pugh and commented:
While it would be easy to flap and get ‘excited’ about this sort of Government censorship, (although they keep making it harder to protest anything and keep quietly turning us into a Franco/Ceausescu-ian state and the mainstream media says very little, so getting ‘excited’ about it will become increasingly difficult) I am minded to ask perhaps who then does have licence to parody the Government? Punch Magazine had been doing it for centuries, before it closed due to lack of readership. Are we to have no means of publically parodying the powers that be now? If they could just tell the TV stations to let us know I’m sure there would be one or two letters of protest and the authors of those could be rounded up quietly enough, but not much else. Then we could move back into the era of having no say and being governed by the people that own everything, which is, it seems, where we are inexorably heading, despite all the wishes anybody may have to the contrary.
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I think the reason they succeeded is not directly because of the use @UKJCP was being put to but because they argued they had prior claim to it and wished to use it themselves. In other words they used a Trademark ruling, not a censorship ruling. It would be a bit like if someone had set themselves up with M&S@ and the company decided that they wanted to use that twitter account themselves.
Of course, it is fairly obvious this is a misuse of Twitter’s Trademark regulations and the real reasons behind this action is censorship.
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Brand Manager? I was unaware that if you are unemployed and need to claim benefits that you had any other choice than to endure JCP,who are they trying to impress? unless they know that service(sic) that they perform is way below hat the claim. I had my JSA suspended recently,no explanation,after 29 days I was called in to the JCP,the problem was my living arrangements as I have NFA(sofa surfing) the address that I use was some how watched and I was not observed coming and going on a daily basis,but they noted that I visited a nearby house daily and a doubt was raised,I was asked to explain myself and warned that fraud would not be tolerated!
I first explained that the only benefit I claim is JSA,I also pulled out my claimant commitment and showed that I must access UJM daily and spend 35 hrs a week looking for employment “what does this have to do with your activities?” I use the neighbours internet/computer as the Library is 5.8 miles away and JCP refuses to provide a Bus ticket,where I stay I am only a guest and leave the house at 0600 when the couple I am staying with leave for work,I do not return until 2 hours after they have finished work,they are still not happy about this but have removed the suspension pending further investigation,what a waste of money!
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Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog.
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Reblogged this on Ron's Rants… and commented:
Government censorship? Hands up whoever didn’t see this coming. The only mystery is who’s next? But Twitter, WTF? You are not subject to UK law. Not that this is law – not a sniff of a court order – it’s just bullying and your response is unacceptable.
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Address your tweet to an official government website, and retweet it to ensure a wider audience
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Good point. But very many Twitter avis are in breach of trademark or copyright laws – are they going to shut them all down? I sincerely doubt it, but they could, on this basis, if the owners of the images complain.
Perhaps, folks, if you value your Twitter account, use your own photo or other image – don’t use Google Images as a pick and mix – everything on there belongs to somebody unless otherwise stated.
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If voters still haven’t ‘twigged’, this is a shade of what will probably come should we be sucked further into the maw of the E.U. You are warned – Oh, sorry, is that a threatening statement? You BET YOUR BOOTS (and your British nationality! Ah YES, that’s already gone….)
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Twitter is a for-profit company based in the US and controlled by a board of shareholder Wall Street types. This is the inevitable consequence of everyone flocking to an exciting new communication medium without actually considering who controls it and whether they have any interest in transparency or social conscience.
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Tom, you seem to be devoid of censorship for your parodying of government, or is it just a matter of time for you too?
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Is anyone living in the UK actually surprised?
I mean at all?
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I have it on sound authority that the DWP Brand Manager will be opening the new DWP Shop soon – an online service were ‘users’ can order their new T-Shirts – white in colour with blue & red sleeves and the logo ‘Cunts R Us’ on the front!
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Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating and commented:
Big Brother is indeed watching us. Still, come 2015 we will hopefully see a change in government censorship of media and social outlets
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evil will never get its way if we fight it! never lose hope and they will never banned as from criticizing them never! and Dissent will never be a crime!
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It’s an insignificant little bureaucrat trying to appear important.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jon-woodcock/48/9a6/316
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Well, here we go again. ‘Deliberate and malicious’ criticism, it seems, is now a crime. But then, this is no different to the EU’s new legislation making – for example – deliberate and malicious criticism of Spanish government actions, Golden Dawn, Evangelos Venizelos, French banks, Islamists and ‘social groups’ a crime. Thus, if I were to tweet ‘paedophiles are a plague on our society and merely give the Met Police an excuse to fit up BBC DJs’, I would be guilty on any number of counts.
Meanwhile on Twitter, “Thou shalt not deliberately malign thy betters’:
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/media-working-for-the-establishment-episode-6008-twitter-the-politicians/
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Well it sort of depends what they’ve said, doesn’t it? One man’s attempt at parody is another’s career-ruining slur, and if it’s false it might be defamatory. Another opportunity for Mike Sivier and chums to foam unnecessarily at the mouth. The real story here would be if the account turns out not to have broken any rules (for example I don’t see how you can defame a government department) and remains taken down.
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Jon Woodcock…..Brand Manager for DWP? He may wish he had not taken that job as, since Iain Duncan Smith, lordy freudy et al took control (….trying t be serious) of DWP, it has surely become the most toxic brand ever. Apart from National Socialism in 1930-1945 Germany.
May be there is a few similarities to be found therein….
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It looks like Jon Woodcock is a bit of a ****head and gave some spurious and disturbing reasons for wanting the account closed down. If these reasons had come from government instructions then this would be a serious democratic problem. If this guy was acting on his own responsibility then he should be sacked.
However, the actual basis for closing the account seems to be trademark law. It was news to me that things like JobCentre Plus are trademarked, but if so Twitter probably had no option.
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Tom – There is a difference between government and civil service. I readily admit that this line is sometimes blurred (and maybe deliberately), which is one of the problems with our ‘democracy’. Also, this document does not PROVE government censorship, and I think there are far bigger fish to fry in that area anyway.
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Reblogged this on reunitedkingdomparty.
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I still can’t understand why any government department needs a “brand manager”. They have a job to do, what sodding difference does a brand make? Does the DWP have a competitor? It’s all total bollocks.
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and here is the said tool of the states facebook page, send this agent of the state a friendly message to explain the error of his ways!!.
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“Libelous”??? With one “L” as in “North American spelling”? I smell a huge rat. That, plus the dodgy-sounding name and non-London address makes me suspect this complaint is even more fake than it originally seems.
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If they can’t take sh*t..they shouldn’t dish it..at least our words about them, don’t cost lives like there’s do!!
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FF
There doesn’t appear to be any government censorship on the immoral or illicit activities you are promoting for your own gratification, so what have you got to complain about?
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Spoonydoc and Ron – The crucial point is whether this civil servant was acting on his own responsibility, or under instructions from his superiors, and thence possibly from a minister. I don’t know, but I suspect the former. The reason is that it really wasn’t necessary to criticise the content of the Twitter account at all, as the complaint was solely about trademark infringement. This leads me to guess that Woodcock didn’t discuss this with his management before proceeding.
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I was commenting on the You Gov site, and they censored the word socialist! I had to type it with ***’s like it was a swear word! They censored other words also.
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Tom silly me I thought criticism of govt and its ministers was something that was paramount ..what’s next shutting down private eye or newspapers that criticise govt
DDepartment and MPs
what’s next http: // http://www.private_eye.gov.UK
Maybe they will run all PR before long
Ok question : why is gov.UK promoting YouTube and google ?
Gov.UK site stating that these companies are recruiting ..surely these companies can post these job apps on their own
Why does gov.UK decide its their job to advertise ?
You don’t think number ten and its relationship with tax avoiding companies has anything to do with it do you ?
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@Em thats bloody madness ..
Anyone starting to think this ” govt ” is becoming dictatorship like ?
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@finky…ah still supporting your chums I see
Knowing Drunken Splif who has imposed his whole being on DWP it seems to me this came from above.
If you look at DWP stuff it looks like its become the dept for IDS ego
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@True and well said..I see they are still reluctant to produce the exact figures of deaths as result of Benefit changes ..their excuse is that it will exceed £600 so they can’t be arsed to go and get them using FOI
requests .
Odd considering that under their consultation execise they were warned about deaths and suicides and even jcp seniors warned there would be suicides
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@stephen. Sorry .
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@finky. If thats the case I am sure the matter could be sorted out with the ” real ” DWP and an official statement made ..
Denial about the denial
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@clapham then it would be a legal matter
And shutting down newspapers
As a contrast how about newspapers collusion with DWP and ministers attempt at demonising claimants with the resultant death toll and tweets about claimants should be killed
Which is odd since a lot have taken their own lives anyway .
And yet parody of govt department and slurs against them might ruin a career ?
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Btw …re Snowden NSA guardian…
It was said that in govt circles that govt people wanted the guardian shut down…
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@john ward hello john how are you ?
Not been on hat4you for a while now..
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@Jray they watch you ?
Like they have photos of you and where you go and who you meet with ?
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They claimed to own UKJCP after it was used
And when did @……..
Become trademark anyway
Using that “logic ” all @…..become a trademark ..
Bollocks utter..
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bobchewie – I was referring to government censorship of things like the actions of our Prime Minister in run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This is substantially more important than one minor Twitter account with only a few hundred followers.
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@UKJCP has 12.1 thousand followers.
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bobchewie – You seem to think I’m a government supporter. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just being realistic.
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Yes Tom, you choose your words carefully…. it does NOW!
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It had over 10,000 before too.
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Before the publicity about the first critical tweet from the DWP (22 Jan) it was substantially lower, only in the hundreds I read elsewhere. You only reported it on 29 Jan, by which time it had already been massively boosted.
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…anyway, 100, 1K or 10K, it doesn’t change to point. Censorship of government actions in starting a war in which 100,000+ people died is FAR more important. Don’t you agree?
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I was saying that Twitter would apply its rules and decide whether or not the account should come down. It did and guess what? The account is back up. Because the censorship you and others fear is nicely counterbalanced by law and common sense. By the way, this is equally true of the Guardian’s decision to publish Glenn Greenwald’s stories about the Snowden leaks of NSA data. No censorship, despite the troubling arrest of David Miranda, and threats that bad stuff would happen if the stories were published.
Just because I point out your misplaced fear of censorship in this particular instance doesn’t mean I approve of the attempts of civil servants to curb debate, nor of any particular government policy. It also doesn’t mean I am against people publishing legitimate and well-founded criticism of individuals. But if you’re going to engage in mud-slinging, it ought at least to be fair comment, and not a foaming rant because you have a keyboard, some time on your hands and a generic hatred of the government. (And by the way I don’t need to know now why that hatred might be.)
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You’re the one who goes on about getting facts right.
Lack of freedom of speech, official censorship is precisely why so many people die unnecessarily in wars sometimes.
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To the best of my knowledge I did, but I can’t prove it now. I agree with you about freedom of speech and official censorship. I have said so to you before and complimented you on your work. However, I think you’re aiming a little low, and sometime not focussing on the “official” part.
… and by all means come back with your usual answer about starting my own blog.
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By all means start your own blogg where you can then pontificate instead of debate, because you only believe in freedom of speech when those that comment are in agreement with you, or you will badger them to death until you attain this, certainly not by reasoned argument.
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That’s rank hypocrisy. Where are your reasoned arguments for saying bisexuality should be a criminal offence? I asked – you didn’t answer.
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Mr Omnibus – At last, a rational argument. Unfortunately you are not typical of the passengers on this particular bus!
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Em – That’s amazing. Can you give a link to where this happened?
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As far as I can find out the words “JobCentre Plus” are not trademarked, only the logo. Therefore because the logo used by @UKJCP is not the same and is not being used for a similar purpose, there is no trademark infringement. Twitter was probably right to take it down whilst consulting an IP lawyer about the complaint, then right to restore it once advice had been received. As The Man on the Clapham Omnibus said, the law and common sense prevailed.
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… especially in the Scottish referendum!
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Work it out for yourself, I don’t have to answer every inane question you throw at me, infact I don’t have to answer any, the problem lies in the fact that you think I do.
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It only highlights that UKGov/jobcentre plus have no common sense to make such a fuss in the first place. Who was giving them their legal advice?
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Errrr… the point was that Mr Woodcock almost certainly didn’t take any advice, legal or otherwise.
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At least you didn’t deny that you think bisexuality should be made a criminal offence! You’re right… your ‘reasons’ are pretty obvious.
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I thought all government agencies had access to legal advisers.
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That’s the problem with stupid people who think they’re smart – they don’t ask questions.
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Wrong, the smartest people ask the most knowledgeable person the questions.
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How does that make what I said wrong?
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Sorry Tom… I was sidetracked again by responding to Ms Fawkes. It’s an exercise in futility! Were you intending to reply to my points?
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Well it would be stupid to ask just anybody questions, they would have to have some knowledge, so maybe Mr Woodcock had been asking the wrong people the wrong questions before he came up with the wrong answers.
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I disagree. I think we should ask EVERYBODY questions, including people like you who are apparently homophobic idiots. Until you ask questions, you don’t know who is knowledgeable… do you?
I’ve asked you quite a few and you seem incapable of answering them. I can repeat them if you like. Do you want to ask me any (non-rhetorical) questions?
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It is purely by intention that I do not ask questions of a Mr know it all, who obviously knows everything (except sexuality, it’s origins, whether it is moral or not and the academic sciences that study the subject.)
I am not incapable of answering, but just like your answer to me on another site, try reading and thinking before talking crap, or in your case asking crap questions.
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I know that it’s purely by intention that you don’t ask questions, that was my point. …and of course I know you’re not incapable of answering (or asking) questions, you obviously just choose not to show your brilliance, or your curiosity!
I’ll ask again – Do you want to ask me any (non-rhetorical) questions?
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I asked you one on another post,” why you belong to a political party when you are so much against the seniors in party politics, knowing that they have to or choose to follow the party whip”.
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PS you said you were a member of the SNP party.
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No I did not. ALL my words are in the archive, as are yours…
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Exactly when did you say that? I bet you can’t answer…
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P.S. …and it isn’t a question. Try asking one…
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today, before I replied to you here and no I will not go to the archives to look it up,
I repeated the question here because your reply to me was as much a lie then as it is now.
You appear to be in denial of lots of things you say.
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I was right, you can’t answer. Pathetic!
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Very strange… you put something you supposedly said in quotes, so you must have either copied the ‘quote’ from somewhere else, or simply made it up. Are you lying???
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No, I don’t lie unless necessity dictates and this is not necessity, although I put it in quotation marks, it is a mixture of quotes you made regarding political parties, unless of course you were lying when you said it?
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So you say it’s a “mixture of quotes” I supposedly said? I call that a lie.
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stop nit picking about exact quotation, verbatim is largely for trials not when repeating quotes made by the ‘trying’.
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twitter,shut my account down one week ago,no reason given,when i asked for a reason i was ignored,i wrote to messers,williams,dorsey,stone,joint owners of twitter,again i was ignored,my political comments are honest,fact based,,but they do not like obama,or camerons right wing extremist governments critised, i am seeker 21,when i was on twitter, but they are deliberately trying to stifle free speech,and any critical,political comments,,–TWITTER-STINKS–ITS–A -VERY–RIGHT-WING–EXTREMIST-SHITE-SITE.
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FinkFurst = Shill
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