The irony here surely that Mark Steel is slamming a group of people for making a public stand against terrorism in an article containing pictures in which the cartoons by Charlie Hebdo are carefully censored. Although he seems to have very good qualities, the inexperience of the Independent's editor, Amjol Rajan, is being shown up by recent events. Under his stewardship badly thought out polemics like this one from Mark Steel have become the staple of the newspaper. This sort of thing goes down well on Twitter but not with people who tend to read for more than 10 minutes a day hence the continued decline in the readership of their print edition. Although he has been widely criticised for it, I admire Amjol Rajan's honesty for admitting that the reason his newspaper won't publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons is concern for the safety of staff including Mark Steel. However, this position looks supine since the Guardian and BBC have now published the cartoons. The representatives of countries like Egypt, Russia,  Saudi Arabia and Israel on the other hand have been prepared to make a public stance. What they have in common is that they are all regular victims of terrorism. They were there to make a gesture against terrorism and in support of the people of France. There is no hypocrisy here as none of them would pretend that they endorse the content of Charlie Hebdo just the right of their staff not to be butchered. That all these countries have been guilty of serious wrong-doing does not disqualify them from making this gesture of support. Mark Steel's irony meter seems to be completely broken. His suggestion of a comedy about Jimmy Savile going to the Vatican and becoming Pope seems have overlooked a key point. Steel and Savile worked for the same organisation at the same time and it now emerges that there was widespread awareness of his activities within the BBC and I refuse to believe Steel himself would have not known about them. If such a satirical programme was ever made it perhaps should involve Jimmy Savile becoming director general. Mark Steel works for a newspaper that refuses to make a stand on Charlie Hebdo yet he criticises others that have made a stand. He works for a broadcaster that covered up child abuse for decade yet he attempts to shift the blame to another organisation for the crimes of his former colleague. Yet in his view it is other people who are the hypocrites.

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
That Paris march	16/01/15 18:10:00	Alastair Banton
Re:That Paris march	16/01/15 18:57:00	Michael Brown
Re:Re:That Paris march	16/01/15 19:14:00	Alastair Banton
Re:That Paris march	17/01/15 09:23:00	Francis Rowe

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