Bully for you

Flashman

Credit where credit is due: David Cameron is correct to advise parents to boycott vile organisations who refuse to step up to the plate and take responsibility for bullying. We can start by boycotting the Department for Education.

Cameron`s flawed logic and indignant “something must be done” outrage once again proves that either he and the people that advise him have no idea how the internet works or, more cynically, descend like vultures on yet another truly horrific tragedy to demand that social media must be “controlled”. Cameron said: “If you incite someone to do harm, if you incite violence; that is breaking the law, whether that is online or offline”. So, we can assume that Michael Gove`s Ofsted storm troopers will stop bullying Teachers and Governing Bodies and concentrate on arresting the kids in the playground that are hurting other children. If internet providers are responsible for online bullying, then Teachers and ultimately Michael Gove are responsible for offline bullying. Therefore, according to Cameron, all schools should be closed.

An ideology forged on the playing fields and in the shower blocks of Eton is, necessarily, based on bullying and the concept of extorting a weaker kid`s dinner money with the threat of a whack with a cricket bat is at the heart of an unelected Tory government who see power as a birth right. Consider the NHS; Lansley and Hunt don`t just want your dinner money, they want your blood and your vital organs as well. Doctors and nurses are not pulling the weight and so the House Master`s duty is to give them six of best before prep and withdraws the privilege of writing home to mummy once a term. So, according to Cameron, all hospitals must close. BBC News now has an entire department devoted to searching out people with dark skins and non English accents to appear before cameras and microphones on every news broadcast to say that the government is doing a wonderful job. Any dissent from the party line is either unreported or shouted at so, according to Cameron, the BBC should be silenced.

There are some prefects at the Home Office who think that a publicity stunt designed to woo bigoted and prejudiced voters away from the barking mad Kippers was not in away bullying or provocative. BBC News led with an obligatory Asian man saying the “go home” poster van was a wonderful idea and reported that the Advertising Standards Agency had been “flooded” with calls of support for the intimidation. Apart from being factually incorrect and astonishingly divisive, the stunt was hugely successful in reaching the target audience of white people who might vote Tory because they don`t like non-white people. Cameron will probably demand that the ASA should be closed down.

There is clearly something wrong with social media when a young person becomes distressed enough to take their own life. The last few weeks have been utterly poisonous with idiots making disgraceful threats and more rational souls bickering in futile, self-righteous one-upmanship. Social media is not much fun anymore. Let`s hope that Cameron will step up to the plate and pursue and prosecute those guilty of criminal offences online and not take the opportunist option of stifling free speech and honest opinion. With a bullying government, are we really surprised that other less privileged and angry people bully?

One suicide is a suicide too many especially as a result of bullying. If Cameron is serious, he should consider the increasing numbers and frequency of suicides brought about by his own policies. If he wants regulations to protect people from bullies, he should look first to the Department of Work and Pensions, Atos and the odious little piece of excrement that calls itself Iain Duncan Smith.

If Duncan Smith wants a lesson in bullying, I would be happy to meet with him. That is not a threatening criminal offence, that`s a promise.

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