Nazis... complaints, crackheads, alkies

NAZI?

Read Election Selection on uncarved.org to find out which Hackney North candidate this might be wearing a swastika. There's some other interesting background here: "master of the black arts to speak at the springbok club" and here.

COMPLAINT/APOLOGY
Otherwise, I've had a complaint about the presentation of the last Blood and Property story about Suzanne Moore (corrected version). It was pointed out that people like me make it difficult for people to be honest - and it could be the reason why politics is full of people who are as boring and faceless as me. Any way, it was not my intention to discourage honesty, so I apologise.

CRACKHEADS:
A little nervously, here's another interesting Suzanne Moore story - written by herself - in which she says that while canvassing in Hackney she has met "a series of crackheads, alkies and people who said they won’t vote" although she said a few other things too.

NOT VOTING:
Leaving aside the crackheads and alkies, the issue of not voting now seems to be approaching the top of the political agenda in Hackney. In a video discussion (Question Dine) the biggest bust-up was when Hackney politicians - Diane Abbott and Andrew Boff - clashed with Worldwrite volunteers over the issue of not voting. The discussion led the makers to investigate the issue on the streets of Dalston.

Then back to uncarved.org where John Eden's story Election Selection (the same as above) where he wrote: "So it’s easy to say “don’t vote – it only encourages them” and in fact I probably won’t. I am certainly not going to “vote x to keep y out” because that just perpetuates the whole charade."

I've never voted either.

Suzanne Moore: 'help' from friends and family

Were friends and family of Suzanne Moore, prospective MP for Hackney North, testing out bold new PR techniques yesterday?

In the Jerusalem Post her friend Julie Burchill, godmother to her three daughters, wrote that she: "gave her (Moore) the green light to take up with my second (Jewish) husband shortly before I dumped him. “Why don’t you ‘comfort’ poor Cosmo?” was the way I phrased it, to her slightly repelled fascination. Didn’t stop her, though!"

In the Guardian her daughter chips in: "Her middle daughter, Bliss, 19, has just wandered in and out in search of toast, and on hearing that this is an interview, has said that all she really knows about her mother's life is she was "a junkie for about 10 years."

The Guardian writer points out this was a joke and, later in the interview, Moore says: "I'm not a junkie, like Bliss said, but I can say that I've taken drugs and liked it. I can't pretend otherwise. The fact is that, now, if you're of a certain generation and you haven't slept around, taken drugs, you're just not normal, so what are we going to do? . . . Do you want the people who represent you to be flawed, or to embody this perfect ideal? Because we've had the perfect ideal, and that's given us the bloody expenses scandal and two wars."

Black commentator mobilises against Suzanne Moore

Darcus Howe, writing in the Voice, didn't sound too concerned about the traditional Lib Dem, Green and Conservative challengers to Diane Abbott, just the independent Suzanne Moore.

"And lo and behold a journalist from the Daily Mail, Suzanne Moore, pops her head above the parapet to challenge Diane Abbott in the coming election in a seat she has held for 23 years...

"I phoned Diane immediately after I read Moore’s rant offering her my services. I have friends and acquaintances in that constituency. I will ring around inviting them to participate in my one in ten mobilisation. Each one will be invited to mobilise ten friends and associates and each of the ten will mobilise another ten and so on.

"Suzanne Moor has little interest in the issues at large, those that affect black and Asian people, particularly in these sad and racist times."

Suzanne Moore: Unlike Abbott, my kids have gone to school here

I'm not sure how widely read the Mail on Sunday will be in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Here's Suzanne Moore's piece about why she's standing against Diane Abbott: Something's got to change... that's why I'm standing for Parliament.

The story gets more interesting toward the end.

Suzanne says she could have gone for an easier target than Diane Abbott but: "In the past, vague overtures have been made to me for a safe Labour seat. For me this is another indictment of the current system. Why on earth should someone like me be super-imposed on some Northern town I have never been to? I am sure people have enough problems without some pretend local claiming to represent them. Is it naive to think you should know the place where you stand for election?"

She said: "I know my patch and I love where I live. I also know how unglamorous the problems are: poverty, unemployment, crime, a general feeling of lives closed down before they have properly started. Unlike Abbott, my kids have gone to school here. She has been an MP for 23 years and is now part of the Establishment. Change is needed."

But there wasn't much detail about what she wanted to happen in Hackney.

She said that there is "huge anger among voters, which is wrongly mistaken for apathy". In Hackney North and Stoke Newington, less than half of voters voted in 2005 and 2001 and just over half (52%) voted in 1997 and 63% in 1992. So Hackney North has been getting pretty apathetic/angry.

She said: "This is fundamentally DIY politics and I am learning every day. For as jaded as I may be, I am seeing that the process of democracy is alive if not well. In finding out how to stand I realise that we are made to think that becoming a candidate is incredibly difficult. It is not."

Bravery award for Mail columnist standing in Hackney

Bravery award of the day (The Independent)

"Best of luck to Suzanne Moore, who has announced her candidature for Hackney North and Stoke Newington via Twitter. Moore, a columnist for the paragon of ethnic tolerance that is The Mail on Sunday is running in a constituency in which only 44 per cent are "White British"."

Or is she at the nicer end of the Mail? Suzanne Moore disappears from Mail on Sunday

"Fuck me shoes" columnist to take on Diane Abbott

Suzanne Moore, Mail on Sunday columnist and (I think) Hackney North and Stoke Newington resident, tweeted yesterday that she will be standing as an independent candidate - I saw the story on this Guardian blog: A tale of two Stokes

If she's serious, whose votes will she be after? I had a quick look to see how often she mentions Hackney in her stories.

Using Google news search - it's not that much. She describes getting burgled, criticises Diane Abbott and praises Brian Paddick in this Jan 2008 piece: If only burglars lived on Planet Statistics.

Comments on Hackney Council banning Iain Sinclair's book launch at the end of this story.

Otherwise I couldn't see much. Here's a list of her latest columns

Surprisingly I couldn't find much about her anywhere - her Wikipedia entry is bare - entering "fuck me shoes" and Suzanne Moore provided more interesting but old info:

From the Independent: "Suzanne Moore, whom Prof Greer attacked in 1995 for her "hair bird's- nested all over the place, fuck-me shoes and three fat inches of cleavage", admitted: "If Germaine attacked me for my writing, it would be far more worthy than to attack me for my shoes". The attack was in response to Ms Moore's comments on an inaccurate report that Prof Greer had a hysterectomy at 25."

2. Apparently, in common with Diane Abbott, she shares a dislike of Rod Liddle (details of PCC finding against the Spectator over piece which started ongoing spat with Diane).

Times and Daily Mail fuel Hackney class war