Friday 20 September 2019

When is it wrong to call an arsehole an arsehole?

Whilst  we should expect high standards from our elected officials it is absurd that   tweet by Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood has been criticised by the Assembly's Standards Commissioner for calling a blogger an "arsehole" on Twitter.
A complaint was made by an unnamed person alleging Ms Wood breached the Code of Conduct for Assembly Members by referring to an author of a tweet about a fellow AM as “an arsehole”.
Blogger Jac' o' the North tweeted a screenshot of the personal Twitter profile of Delyth Jewell - then newly-announced to be Plaid's successor to the late Steffan Lewis and wrote "women’s rights and international development’. God help @Plaid Cymru."


At the time I wrote that if they had done any real research  then they would find ironically that Delyth Jewell  won the Overall Researcher of the Year award at Westminster. in  2014 whilst working for the then Plaid MP on his stalking bill

The panel of judges, made up of MPs, peers and the National Chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses which sponsors the event, said that her work on the stalking bill “went far beyond what would be asked of a researcher”.



In fact she's holding two trophies, because she also won the award for Crossbench or Other Parties’ Researcher of the Year.
They might realise that such an award out of hundreds of researchers some of who may well be now MP's or future ones is a huge accomplishment.
Plaid are very lucky to see someone step in the shoes of a a AM who was renown in the Siambr for the quality of his research.
At 9.37pm that night, Ms Wood responded "Do you have to be an arsehole all the time? Have a day off".


In her defence of her tweet, Ms Wood said that the person who wrote the tweet was "a persistent, pernicious influence in Welsh politics for many years".
"His blogs often contain disparaging comments about women and minorities as well as Plaid Cymru; which are seemingly his pet hates. I defend freedom of speech but there are limits to this and Jones frequently crosses the line and regularly writes untruths.”
Even 


At the Time  the "Arsehole of the North responded 

"On reflection, the tweet I put out could have been worded better, and I shall clarify below why I have misgivings about Ms Jewell’s elevation. But no disrespect was meant to Ms Jewell, personally, for I don’t know her. (Though that never seems to deter my detractors.) She may turn out to be an excellent Assembly Member, but her background, and professed interests, do not fill me with confidence, as I shall explain.But then, some might think that Leanne Wood’s tweet was a little OTT as well, maybe abusing her position of influence. Perhaps it even qualifies as the kind of ‘bullying’ we hear so much about from Cardiff Bay (another source of endless entertainment".
It seems that he had realised he had made a error of judgement , indeed in making the complaint  he has probably led even more people  to realise  what a prejudiced  man he is.

His supporters of course will rally behind him, but it seems that people may well realise that hei is not the Champion of Welsh Idenity he professes to be , but  a bigotted arsehole.



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