Inigo Wilson: thick as pigshit
As most of you will know by now, the case of Inigo Wilson has become something of a cause célèbre within the British blogosphere. He published a spectacularly unfunny piece on a rightwingnut website which has led to him being “hounded out of his job” (to use the phrase that’s gaining most currency with respect to his sacking). His piece, entitled The Lefty Lexicon, contained a number of “definitions” which – it can be argued – display anti-Muslim bias if not downright racist overtones. This is no surprise… the Unbiased Lexicon after all defines the BNP as “honest Tories”.
Anyways, Inigo’s crime wasn’t that he published borderline racist crap. There’s plenty of that going unpunished all over the web. It was the fact that he did so under his own (rather recognisable) name while holding the position of “Community Affairs Manager” for a major corporation – Orange Telecom.
To me, this is the crux of the matter. Any person has the right to publish unfunny, badly-written toss on Tory websites. And I will stand next to Inigo Wilson (not literally next to him of course… the man smells of wee) and defend his right to be a smug, humourless little cockstain. Everyone has that right. And the fact that Inigo’s embarrassing attempts at wit are still available for all to mock at conservativehome.com demonstrates that this right is being upheld.
However, anyone who publishes such divisive toss and is unaware that it makes his position as Community Affairs Manager in a major corporation untenable is too fricking stupid to hold that position in the first place. Next time there’s a controversial mobile phone mast to be erected in a predominantly Muslim area of Bradford (for instance), could Orange Telecom possibly feel confident that Inigo Wilson would be an appropriate person to handle negotiations with the local community?
I’d argue that publishing this piece makes it impossible for him to perform his job properly in many circumstances. And that’s grounds for dismissal in the eyes of a corporate employer whether his supporters like it or not.
None of this means I support the letter-writing campaign organised on the MPAC UK website. Nor that I personally believe that Inigo should be punished in any way for what he wrote. But it is blatantly obvious that expressing such opinions publicly is guaranteed to get you dumped from a high-profile Community Relations job. To expect otherwise is unrealistic nonsense.
Next time there’s a controversial mobile phone mast to be erected in a predominantly Muslim area of Bradford (for instance), could Orange Telecom possibly feel confident that Inigo Wilson would be an appropriate person to handle negotiations with the local community?
Of course now that the episode has now been blown out of all proportion, his shot reputation in itself will be a problem, which is why I do have some sympathy with Orange. That aside, I’d say his ability to handle negotiations with the local community should be judged on its own terms, and his track-record. Perhaps his piece should encourage his employers to keep an eye on him, and watch for any irregularities.
My support for him is basically because his dismissal smacks of rewarding vigilanteism, and surrendering to mob-justice.
And I do see wedges, and thin ends. E.g suppose a Muslim or a left-winger had that job and wrote a blistering attack on government policy. Then next time there was a controversial mobile phone mast to be erected in a predominantly Conservative area of Gloucestershire (for instance), could Orange Telecom possibly feel confident that he would be an appropriate person to handle negotiations with the local community?
August 18th, 2006 | 6:39pm
by Larry Teabag
As I’ve said (and as you’re aware) I’m not suggesting that it was right for Inigo Wilson to be fired. I don’t support the actions of either MPAC or Orange.
However, I did spend almost a decade working for corporations with significantly higher profiles than Orange, and I know how they operate. A PR exec in Pepsi-Cola (for instance) would be expected to refrain from publicly espousing any political views while they hold that job.
To be unaware of this displays rank stupidity on the part of Wilson. Again, to repeat, I don’t agree with what’s happened to the guy, but I’m well aware of the realities of corporate culture.
August 18th, 2006 | 6:53pm
by Jim
All moral questions to one side… this does have a nice ‘poetic justice’ ring to it.
August 18th, 2006 | 8:18pm
by Pisces Iscariot
Jim. Yes fair enough – and I didn’t mean to suggest that you were in favour of “rewarding vigilanteism”, or taking the company’s side (as if that was likely).
I just feel strongly that MPAC’s brand of vengeance will lead to further mistrust and resentment on both sides, and therefore are deeply unhelpful, and I would wish Orange to resist them. I take your point that that’s cloud-cuckoo-land – but one can but hope, and take sides accordingly.
August 19th, 2006 | 12:11pm
by Larry Teabag
Er, Jim, he hasn’t been sacked (yet).
“Any person has the right to publish unfunny, badly-written toss on Tory websites. … And the fact that Inigo’s embarrassing attempts at wit are still available for all to mock at conservativehome.com demonstrates that this right is being upheld.” To take a not-too-random example from Wikipedia.
One of the most famous examples of blacklisting in American history stemmed from the HUAC’s investigations into Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry, among whom were the “Hollywood Ten”, a group of Communist screenwriters. Among them was Dalton Trumbo, who was barred, or blacklisted, from working in Hollywood due to these associations. (He later worked under a pseudonym and wrote the script for Spartacus, among other films.)
The fact that his previous films weren’t destroyed, so you could see them if you had the money and a film projector, and the fact that he wrote the script for an Oscar-winning movie have no bearing on the fact that his free speech was suppressed. Hounding someone of their job is suppression of free speech.
August 19th, 2006 | 4:55pm
by Backword Dave
Dave,
technically, blacklisting was about the suppression of freedom of association – what did for the Hollywood Ten was that they had been members of the communist party, rather than things they’d said – so the analogy is a little over-wrought, since no-one is suggesting that Inigo Jones should be sacked simply because he’s a Tory. Further, blacklisting was carried out by using subpoenas to require people to testify under oath. As I far as I know, Inigo Jones wasn’t legally compelled to write on conservativehome, nor, if he failed to tell the truth, could he be jailed (which it sounds like was probably to his benefit, given how stupid the things he seems to have said were).
August 19th, 2006 | 5:12pm
by Rob
Rob, I take your point on my analogy being a little overwrought, and being members of the Communist Party did indeed do for the Hollywood 10; though being pretty much an out-out relativist, I see their problem as having an ideology which was out of fashion and not shared by the dominant political party at the time (where I see an exact parallel with Mr Wilson). Well, of course he wasn’t legally compelled to write on Conservative Home; the function of MPAC and other school sneak letter writers seems to be to compel people not to express views they don’t like — and the threat of losing one’s job is compulsion.
I actually don’t think the things he said were either a) stupid or b) untrue. He made many unoriginal points (most of which were funnier in a left-leaning book of political correctness around 12 years ago), but his central claim that the sort of people who work in “Community Relations” are inarticulate tossers who spout verbiage has the distinction of being the unadorned truth. His ‘Islamophobia’ comment meant — and I really don’t think I’m interpreting loosely here — that the word is a cant term used by people otherwise lacking proper arguments. He doesn’t encourage racism, merely note that there are people (such as those on the MPAC site) who claim that opposition to bombing is grounded in a lack of understanding and tolerance rather than an aversion to being killed. On that point I fully agree with him. Calling someone an ‘Islamophobe’ should be a subclause in Godwin’s law, and I do not believe it is racist to say this.
I’m an Islamophobe by most people’s definition, since I loathe all religion (all monotheistic religion; I’m fairly cool about Buddhists and pagans), though I like to think I’m closer to Dawkins than Hitchens here.
August 19th, 2006 | 7:59pm
by Backword Dave
Oh and Jedi Knights. I’m a Jedi Knight by the last census, and I don’t any ‘self-loathing Jedi’ remarks. Our light has not gone out of the universe, and cool we are.
August 19th, 2006 | 8:05pm
by Backword Dave
Just wondering, Jim.
If he’d posted on a left wing blog, suggesting that the telecoms industries should be nationalised, and got the sack for it, would you still feel that “A man in his position should expect no less”?
August 20th, 2006 | 1:53am
by PMM
Dave,
I haven’t actually read the piece, so I’m relying on what other people have reported him to have said, which I why I used seemed. Maybe some of it isn’t quite as stupid as the stuff I’ve seen: I don’t know. It was an aside, really. More substantively, though, I suppose the question is the one gestured at by PMM: is there anything that people can publicly state in a non-official capacity which might legitimately threaten their jobs? I think PMM’s example might be a bit flawed – Inigo Jones presumably has little responsibility for the potential nationalisation of telecoms, whereas he does have responsibility for conducting the kind of consultation exercises he apparently rubbished. A better example would be a senior civil servant working in Ofcom or DTI suggesting that telecommunications should obviously be in public hands in a way which made it clear they thought that anyone who believed otherwise was an idiot. I think I’d find it hard to defend such a person if they were then disciplined. But maybe you wouldn’t.
On the being out of touch with the dominant ideology thing, all kinds of people are out of touch with the dominant ideology. I’m out of touch with various parts of the dominant ideology, but no-one’s threatening my job. The specifcs of the case matter. Losing your job because of your membership of a particular political organisation threatens the right to participate in political decision-making at all, whereas losing your job – if Inigo Jones does – because you propagandised for a particular political organisation in a particular way does not. To put it another way, your right to join political parties is more fundamental than your right to publicly ridicule particular things in service of a particular political organisation. One threatens the existence of democratic politics, and the other that of bad political jokes.
August 20th, 2006 | 10:53am
by Rob
Rob, I know Inigo Jones “responsibility for conducting the kind of consultation exercises he apparently rubbished” — I call that healthy scepticism, and I applaud it. Anyone lacking this, I usually refer to as ‘as greasy little cocksucker’ or similar. There was a good Craig Brown column last week on the ‘Wipers Times’ a satirical paper published on a salvaged press in the trenches. They were sceptical about their bosses and what they doing too. Anyone who thinks that if they pay you to do X, you should love X with all your heart, needs a good whack round the head.
“A better example would be a senior civil servant working in Ofcom or DTI suggesting that telecommunications should obviously be in public hands in a way which made it clear they thought that anyone who believed otherwise was an idiot.”
I was going to counter this by saying that I used to be a civil servant, back when Mrs Fatcher was still PM, and I had colleagues who were Labour Party activists (I was a Labour Party inactivist). Their views on the policies of Her Majesty’s government were not secret; thing is civil servants are supposed to act objectively *at work* and they all did.
Should you doubt me, here is the product of a lazy google search: Civil Service Union Leader Issues Warning to Government.
To be a union leader, you have to be a member of the union; to be a member of the union, you have to work for the company. And lots of civil servants are union members, they voted and they attended conferences. So it’s not that hard to find civil servants rubbishing government policy. And no, they don’t get sacked for those opinions. Of course, they try to keep the lid on when it comes close to where they work — but according to Tony Benn all civil servants were secret Tories, and Alan Clark never met one who wasn’t a Bolshevik to his toenails.
But that’s not the issue: the issue is whether these letter-writing sneaks (who are on a par with divers Bush supporters crowing about stem cells, Stephen Green and the anti-Jerry Springer crew, and all the other loopy cliques whose primary pleasure is stopping someone else’s fun) should determine a company’s policy. It’s up to Orange of course, but these scabrous little nutjobs should take their mean minded drivel elsewhere.
August 20th, 2006 | 7:26pm
by Backword Dave
Inigo Jones presumably has little responsibility…
Heh. I wondered how long it would be before some hasty poster conflated Wilson with the Other Inigo.
August 20th, 2006 | 9:18pm
by Philip Challinor
Gah. Note to self: just because they have the same slightly ridiculous name, it doesn’t mean they’re the same person – and it’d be quite disturbing if they were. Tories are frightening enough without having lived for hundreds of years.
Dave,
members of that civil service union definitionally – senior civil servants have their own union, whose name I now forget – aren’t really in charge of policy, and so their criticism of policy doesn’t seem to me to cast doubt on their ability to do their job in the same way as that of, say, a permanent secretary, which I’d guess was roughly equivalent to Wilson’s position. Also, lack of love is not the same thing as publicly expressed utter contempt. I wonder though, whether there’s any form of boycott which you’d support: if the problem is that people shouldn’t threaten other people’s livelihood for doing things they have a right – legally or morally, it’s not necessarily important, as long as they both include the right to do things they shouldn’t – to do, then what about Norwegian fisherman, arms companies, whoever?
August 20th, 2006 | 10:36pm
by Rob
Actually, to avoid confusion, that caveat about rights in the previous comment should probably read “include the right to do things other people might reasonably think they shouldn’t”.
August 20th, 2006 | 10:41pm
by Rob
FDA First Division Association, IIRC. Bloody snobs.
I think you’ve placed Wilson much too highly. Hell, I boycott just about everything. I can’t go past an old fashioned butcher’s shop that looks like it’s doing badly, and think “That’s me that is” and feel rather bad.
I’ve been thinking about this, and my position is something of a blog cliche so tired, it’s almost falled out of use. My problem with both the treatment of John Band, and of Inigo … Wilson (I’m *so* glad you typed Jones first) is it’s a reaction ad hominem, where it should be ad argumentum. It’s going for the person, not what he says. He writes a blog post; you write a comment. End of.
I’ve been considering David T’s defence of the Harry’s Place/LGF/Scott Thingy reaction to that guy from Hizb on the Grauniad. I understand his position, but some of his arguments are a little pompous: he seems to think he has a right to say whom the Guardian should and should not be expected to hire. I think he’s wrong. I think the paper was wrong to ask him to write about things he had a bias about without editing him. But whether or not a liberal paper can or cannot hire reactionaries is another matter. If you don’t like the paper, don’t buy it; I don’t, though that’s not really a boycott.
August 20th, 2006 | 10:53pm
by Backword Dave
I know of one person who contacted Orange for reassurance about another remark Inigo Wilson made (apparently a while back) but which has only in the last few days come to his attention, because of the Leftie Lexicon issue,
‘Orange spokesman Inigo Wilson said: “There is no evidence of the adverse health effects of mobile phone masts. “If anything the most dangerous health effects come from using handsets rather than from living near masts.’
August 20th, 2006 | 11:17pm
by Samuel Hutton
Jeez, I turn my back on this place for a weekend and the best discussion it’s had in weeks kicks off. If there’s a lesson in that, I probably don’t want to learn it.
I do want to clarify my position however, as I’m a little worried that I may be coming across as supporting Inigo’s dismissal. Which isn’t the case. All I’m saying is that I understand, though do not condone, Orange for sacking the man (assuming he gets sacked).
A bit like my attitude towards both Hezbollah and the Israeli govt to use a topical analogy.
I do, however, believe that some of the people defending Inigo Wilson are a little misguided when they use the “freedom of expression” defence. Individuals should (and by and large, do) have a right to free speech. However, that right is automatically restricted by certain jobs.
It may on the surface sound like it, but this isn’t a controversial point.
Joanna Public is given a job in the PR department for Orange Telecom. On her blog, under her own name, she publishes a rant expressing the view that Orange phones are a rip off and that Vodaphone are waaay better. Jo could not expect to hold onto her job in such a situation, even if she was simply expressing her honest opinion.
I’m not claiming this is directly comparable to Inigo Wilson (Jones? Montoya?). I’m simply demonstrating the general principle that one must accept a certain, limited, restriction of one’s right to freedom of expression when working in certain positions.
The question then becomes, whether or not this is one of those situations. And my point, having worked in a corporate environment for quite a while, is that there’s a better than average chance that the company will see it that way. Simply because there’s a danger of it resulting in negative publicity for them given the current (over?)-sensitivities surrounding this issue. And Inigo Wilson is an idiot if he was unaware of that fact.
One other thing… do bear in mind that I believe corporations should be dismantled on principle. I’m certainly not taking Orange’s side on this.
August 21st, 2006 | 4:33pm
by Jim
Dave,
I think the ad hominem/ad argumentum thing is actually quite interesting. Part of my unwillingness to support Wilson – I’m just going to avoid using his first name, I think – probably comes from the sense I have that what he wrote wasn’t really a contribution to reasoned and reasonable debate in the first place, notwithstanding all the other stuff, clearly. Part of the reason we protect political speech is, I think, that it is a contribution to a reasoned and reasonable debate, the outcomes of which will hopefully lead to better political outcomes. Wilson started throwing the ad hominems first, so his grounds for complaint about other people doing the same – even if on a much greater scale, at least so far as the harms to any one individual are concerned – seem reduced because he’s left that rationale for protection behind. The obvious comparison is with trolls: he’s not really contributing anything anyway, so in some sense you’re entitled to tell him where to stick it. But that’s kind of off-topic. And you have to join the FDA if you join a union at all above a certain level in the civil service, because of complications relating to the union’s role in complaints procedures I think. And that’s even more off-topic.
August 21st, 2006 | 8:45pm
by Rob
Dave,
His ‘Islamophobia’ comment meant — and I really don’t think I’m interpreting loosely here — that the word is a cant term used by people otherwise lacking proper arguments… Calling someone an ‘Islamophobe’ should be a subclause in Godwin’s law, and I do not believe it is racist to say this.
I can’t agree with this. There’s a lot of very strong anti-Muslim feeling about these days. Like you, I’ve got no time for organised religion generally, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people whose attitude to Muslims is such that they wouldn’t want to live next door to one. We need a word for this bigotry, and “Islamophobia” seems to be a perfectly good one.
I accept that various people (MPAC, maybe Islamophobia Watch) have rather debased this term by applying it to anyone who makes any criticism of Islam, and using it to shut down debate. But I still the term’s needed, and I don’t agree with your reading of Wilson. Does Wilson realise that real anti-Muslim-prejudice exists and is a nasty problem? I get the impression that he thinks that “Islamophobia” is nothing more than a cant term used for shutting down debate. As such he’s ignoring or denying a very serious problem – I’d say that puts him on the wrong side.
I’d further suggest that most of those he wishes to tar as being people who claim that opposition to bombing is grounded in a lack of understanding and tolerance rather than an aversion to being killed, are nothing of the kind. They just don’t like a legitimate hatred of terrorists turning into a general hatred of Muslims. As such, they’re using the word “Islamophobia” correctly, and it’s Wilson doing the misrepresentation.
August 22nd, 2006 | 11:01am
by Larry Teabag