One line jarred in the Shadow International Development Secretaryâs speech yesterday. Kate Osamor told the conference hall: âTwo thirds of the worldâs women cannot read or writeâ. Guido checked and it was in the pre-briefed text too. Quite a statistic, but is it true?
The UN estimates there are 2.7 billion women over the age of 15. Two thirds would make 1.8 billion innumerate women, an astonishing figure that doesnât appear anywhere on the internet. One figure that does appear is this from Unesco: âTwo thirds of adults who are illiterate are femaleâ. Unesco reports that of the 758 million illiterate adults in the world, two thirds of them â 505 million â are women. Osamorâs speechwriter couldnât read the illiteracy stats
Read the study. There is no substantiation on the statement on other leaders.
As regards the researcher making a comment piece, of course you can. But your research has a huge big caveat on it when you write this kind of stuff and then do âresearchâ.
Who gives a fuck about John Drennan? I donât read that rag.
37% approval rating - I didnât realise 37% was âmostâ people. I didnât realise one distinct part of Ireland on the border with Northern Ireland was a good overall perspective on British/Irish opinion of the man. Most people arenât big fans of a guy who orders the murder of a widow you see.
How has Jeremy Corbyn been proved correct on Northern Ireland btw? He has called for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland for decades so there could be peace. He opposed the Anglo Irish Agreemenr. Northern Ireland is still very much in the UK I believe. Let us not distract from the horrible support the Corbyn/McDonnell team have given the RA in the past.
This is the kind of âunfairâ coverage the Corbyn/McDonnell administration has had to endure.
Again, you fail to point out anything wrong with the methodology of the study, merely trying cast to doubt on the study via ad hominem attacks on its authors because you donât like what the study says.
You âdonât read itâ, but yet your views could be taken straight out of it, so I donât know why you get all uncomfortable by me mentioning it.
Corbyn was years ahead of his time in terms of engaging with the reasons for the Troubles and in terms of using dialogue to try to find a solution to bring about peace.
It took a while, but pretty much every politician of note in both Ireland and Britain eventually came around to his way of thinking, including the Tories and the DUP.
Similarly, at the same time, Thatcher and the Tories were calling the ANC and Mandela terrorists while Corbyn was an outspoken supporter of them.
Thatcher, ironically, was right in her equivocation of the ANC with the IRA, but for reasons completely the opposite to what she thought.
Corbyn of course was the one who was proven completely right over his stance on South Africa.
Donât forget Thatcherâs role in supporting Pol Pot in Cambodia during the 1980s as well as her consistent support for the murderous Chilean dictator Pinochet.
Now call me crazy, but Iâd be of the opinion that most âdecent peopleâ wouldnât be big fans of giving unconditional support to a regime that illegally colonises the land of others and bombs innocent people to bits in Gaza.
They also wouldnât be big fans of arming Islamists.
Yet this is what the Tories (and New Labour) do and have done, and given youâre such a cheerleader of their policies, one can only presume youâre of the same view.
Do you know what an ad hominem attack actually is Sid?
The study is criticised as it provides no back up on its claim that he has been disproportionally critiqued by the press in comparison to other opposition leaders. Further, the researchers prior opinion pieces and thoughts are very relevant to critiquing the research. That is very important when there is a lack of actual research done into a claim and it is merely an opinion proferred.
You are free to point out the actual comparisons and research done on other opposition leaders if you wish.
As a matter of fact within the piece it states;
âAs the quote of Miliband Sr. at the outset of this report already pointed out, this is not an entirely new phenomenon in the UK and has happened before in relation to other leftwing leaders from Neil Kinnock to Ed Miliband (see Curran, et al., 2005; Gabor, 2014), but in the case of Corbyn the degree of antagonism and hatred from part of the media has arguably reached new heights.â
This admits there is no back up for them saying it is worse. I always said that Labour leaders get a hard time from the press, but you will need to get some actual research with clear methodology to back up your opinion to state it is worse than others.
I recommend though that you spend your time considering the actual reason why Corbyn canât touch Red Edâs numbers.
Yes Corbyn was ahead of his time going to IRA tributes and rejecting the Anglo Irish Agreement. John McDonnell was years ahead of everybody is rejecting the Good Friday Agreement. Ahead of the Real IRA maybe.
Wrong, and perfectly legitimate to criticise her over in terms of legacy. If she was still running for office then it would be legitimate to critique her over now.
Re that picture. Not a big fan of Bidi but he is still a head of state of one the USâs most important allies.
Selling the Saudis weapons. Not a fan. I believe the Tories have been criticised over this repeatedly as well in the Press.
Can you please point out how Corbyn rejecting the Anglo Irish Agreement, going to tributes for dead terrorists and McDonnell rejecting the Good Friday Agreement was âahead of its timeâ?
There is no character attack on the researcher. His background, including opinions over Corbyn, and the content of his piece was questioned. You clearly donât know what an ad hominem attack is, or are bringing it up to deflect.
Please show within that piece the work performed on other previous opposition leaders.
I didnât say the research was invalid. I said a âfindingâ that Corbyn was disproportionally targeted over other previous opposition leaders was invalid because;
there is no actual work performed within the piece to substantiate that. The research itself says at the end this is âarguableâ.
That âargumentâ is from a researcher who had very pronounced previous views published on Corbyn and the âleft movementâ.
That isnât ad hominem Sid, that is a basic argument.
As a standalone piece, great, they researched the treatment of Corbyn in the media and that stands up. Thatâs fine and dandy, but you have to substantiate the statement that it is worse than others, as it is key to your argument.
Cool. So weâve established that the Tories support and have supported some very nasty people indeed, and that you admiringly posted up a picture of one of those people just the other day and said âGreat to see Donald meeting one of the great alliesâ.
And yet you bizarrely claim to hold some sort of high moral ground on this issue.
Rejecting the Anglo-Irish Agreement was a perfectly legitimate position to take.
Corbyn and McDonnell publicly advocating engagement with the IRA was certainly years ahead of its time, and privately the Tories agreed with them - they were engaged in back channel talks with the IRA.
Voting a certain way on a particular agreement is the democratic right of anybody and a perfectly legitimate position to take.
I asked you how rejecting the Anglo Irish Agreement (Corbyn) and the Peace Process (McDonnell) was way ahead of its time? They called for an end to Britain in the North, the Brits are still there, how is that been proven right?
