As the SKWAWKBOX published earlier, Labour MP John Mann launched an extraordinary attack on Labour member Phil Speakman, who had challenged his political record, by claiming that Speakman had claimed the illness of Mann’s grandson was ‘karma’:
Tory Mail finger-painter Dan Hodges joined in, maintaining his astonishing streak of being wrong about everything:
Speakman denied this and the evidence of the tweets themselves appears to support his denial. Nonetheless, Mann not only complained to the party – and sent the SKWAWKBOX a threatening email for sending a press enquiry about it – but was also quoted in Murdoch rag the S*n.
Now Phil Speakman has spoken exclusively to the SKWAWKBOX about his experience of the row in a searing set of comments and allegations against the MP who publicly vilified him.
On Mann and his accusations
Misrepresenting me in this way by claiming that I wished sickness on his grandson is frankly sick. I was referring to his responsibility for helping to re-elect a Tory government that underfunded the ambulance service so badly.
I wish I had taken a screenshot of the second tweet. I know he has it – and saying he doesn’t while deliberately releasing my identity may have put my family in danger from many of the extremist right wing neo-fascists who inhabit Mann’s timeline.
He regularly tweets provocative dog-whistle messages in order for his pet menagerie of fascists to be goaded into attacking Corbyn.
I think deliberately twisting someone’s words in order to exploit them to damage Corbyn, smearing me in the process is pretty sick. I wished his Grandson well and I still do. But I have no respect for John Mann.
On attempted intimidation
After two and a half years working in Afghanistan, I’m not going to run from a cowardly opportunist who will spin & lie in order to smear & gain political gain. won’t run from a coward like Mann. He’s in no position to scare me.
On deleting his tweets
The only reason I deleted the tweets was because he had deliberately twisted the meaning of the first one and I was already getting hate messages from his fascist followers. I now wish I hadn’t as I’d have more proof that he’s misleading. But we live & learn.
To those who’ve defended Speakman on Twitter
I would like to thank so many hundreds of Twitter activists who have seen through his smear and have been so generous in their support for me & their condemnation for Mann’s sewer level politics. All so he could try & smear Corbyn. Mann is a disgrace to the party.
Speakman was not the only one to make similar allegations. As the details of his actual comments spread, even those who had attacked him previously apologised and turned their fire on his accuser:
The SKWAWKBOX contacted John Mann for comment:
Mr Mann,Mr Speakman has just sent extensive comment for publication, in which he accuses you of lying about his second tweet. He also describes you as a coward and a ‘disgrace to the party’ who is indulging in ‘sewer politics’ and has endangered him and his family by publishing his details to your ‘extremist right-wing neo-fascist’ followers.I’ll be publishing his comments in full and of course your own response if you wish to put one on the record.If you do, please let me have details by return.
Mann responded, essentially doubling down on his earlier comments and still insisting, in spite of everything, that the ‘karma’ comment was aimed at a sick toddler:
I have seen no second tweet, though he is prolific, but I have seen his two tweets saying his use of karma was not appropriate. He seems to have changed his story significantly after being prompted by others.
Speakman chose to comment on my NHS campaign message in a brutal and nasty personalised way. His use of karma to describe a medical emergency for a toddler is the nastiest communication possible.
He now tries to deflect into making himself the victim.
Such people will be called out and deserve to be.
Where relevant criminal justice or civil legal action will be pursued and is being in other cases.
Speakman is not an extremist neo-fascist as far as I am aware and he should not describe himself or others in this way. He is of course a twitter follower, hence his crude and nasty response.
Any decent person would have deleted the tweet and apologised.
It sums up the state of the Labour Party currently that a former councillor feels his response is in any way appropriate to a message about the ambulance service and the NHS and its treatment of a small child.
Your activity over this demonstrates that you are part of the problem.
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What a nasty piece of work John Mann is. Why the hell is he a member of the Labour Party.
F**k off mann.
Not a murmur of concern for your constituents who have the same problem and might not have their own transport if an ambulance doesn’t show.
Self-centred, self-pitying pr*ck.
John Mann has a long history of calling ‘Wolf’. Outrage is his habitual mode. However, one of these days, it might be true and then no-one will believe him. Personally, I already think that it would be wise to look out of the window to see for yourself if he tells you that it is raining.
Mann has a few books to sell. His calling card?
@Phil Speakman.
Don’t hold back, lad. Mann’s a sh*thouse of the lowest order. Smeeth & berger are women so you’d expect them to make and hype-up accusations of ‘abuse’…But at least neither have sunk so low as to involve family members – TWICE – to try to score points and denigrate the ethos of the left, as well as Corbyn himself.
mann – in my opinion lower than whaleshit; and that sinks to the bottom of the ocean where you can’t get any lower.
You say “Smeeth & berger are women so you’d expect them to make and hype-up accusations of ‘abuse’…” Have you really, really thought about what you said there, and your generalisations about women ? If that is, in fact, your world view, then God help you.
Yes I have thought about what I said. That’s why I said it.
Are women (And especially bliarite careerist women) suddenly lacking the capacity to be hysterical AND vindictive altogther?
God help you if you’re so ‘right-on’ that you think that’s the case; or that it’s verboten to even hold such an opinion.
Many of us ‘think’ it.
Every thing I am dislikes generalizations but facts are that some women, some Jews, some gays have weaponized their suffering for political ends. The rest of us shake our heads and say, what about Jackie Walker? Smeeth and Berger are liars who take their orders from the Israeli embassy. And WikiLeaks embassy cables shows Smeeth as a protected asset who was in talks with the US embassy.
Mann should be dealt with by the party and I have no idea why they have not!!
And mann’s got the ‘erudite’ dan hodges weighing in on his behalf, I see.
I just can’t see this ending well for either of them. 😀
Speakman is wrong! Live with it skwawk
He’s ‘wrong’ because you say so? Speakman’s choice of words was misconstrued by the usual suspects who ended up on the wrong side of public opinion. And Corbyn seems to be doing quite well. Wish he’d speak up more instead of kowtowing to The Lobby.
Characterising JC’s silence on aspects of some issues as ‘kowtowing’ is unfair.
It’s the right of the party that kowtow – to neoliberal dogma and the Tories.
Jeremy and a few other honourable exceptions kept the last ember of socialism alive while almost everyone here and in the US swallowed neoliberalism hook, line and sinker.
New Labour knowingly rode in on the Porsche-driving, shoulder-padded Britpop vacuity of Thatch/Reagan’s bonus-obsessed deregulation bubble.
Neither Blair nor Brown heeded warnings of the lax regulation that led to the inevitable and predicted ’08 crash – but worse than that they’d filled the party with parasitic Tory fellow-travellers.
Even worse still they crumbled and meekly accepted blame for the crash Thatcher’s big bang set in motion.
We now have a chance to unseat the right despite their still-influential backers – thanks to Jeremy.
I’m ready to give him the benefit and back his judgement – aren’t you?
Having a Dylan day. Enjoy.
I agree with Corbyn (also Bernie Sanders) in the main but not every thing. Specifically his statement in Parliament on March 26 (after he had come under fire from his own MP’s on the Skripals ‘Novichok incident) https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-03-26/debates/B5EF4CEE-D0E9-4613-81C4-DDD9F03015EE/NationalSecurityAndRussia (scroll down to 6:06 PM)
“Indeed, the only solid assertion that it has offered so far in its defence was that all stocks of nerve agents were destroyed many years ago—an assertion that has been contradicted by intelligence reports. That suggests that just over a decade ago Russia invested in the use of nerve agents and developed new stockpiles of Novichok to that end. There is clear evidence that the Russian state has a case to answer, and it has failed to do so. We can therefore draw no other conclusion than that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this.”
Sorry about the blocked video. It was ‘Love minus zero’
I’m still at a loss to understand how Mann thinks Corbyn is in anyway to blame. I understand the nasty shit wants to cause as much trouble as he can, go bitching and tell tales to the Sun to satisfy his agenda but these circumstances are for the really dumb. Just to reinforce that, the dumbest of dumb Hodge pops out the woodwork to help out.
During Corbyn’s first Labour leadership campaign, Mann tried to smear him with vague, indirect, inaccurate accusations concerning paedophilia. The man’s a bloody disgrace and shouldn’t be representing anyone!
He directed the complaint against Corbyn, never against Margaret Hodge (nee Oppenheimer) who did cover up the Islington care homes pedophile scandal.
Mann is a meaningless small little man, he isn’t worth wasting your energy on. Much better to make sure we campaign for greater democracy in the Labour party, rid ourselves of a dreadful tory government and building a better society. Every tweet he makes just demonstrates he is a man of very limited ability. We all know we need better representatives in the HOC, mandatory reselection will be the opportunity to we need to rid ourselves for poor MPs. You will only get that if the left continue to gain control of the NEC so vote for the Corbyn 9.
I’ve always thought that John Mann’s behaviour towards JC (not to mention Mr. Speakman) has been despicable and sometimes quite deranged, but I’m not sure that we should be giving Mann airtime. Why do we need to roll around with him in his gutter? I certainly don’t relish the thought of poor JC getting dragged in FFS. Happy to stand corrected if I’m wrong.
Deranged? Check out his Wikipedia photo 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mann_(British_politician)
The eyes, the rictus grin… 99.9% pure laboratory grade evil.
The ambulance service also contacted Mann to let him know that due to cuts in their funding they had to prioritise service calls to immediate emergencies. He doubled down, the liar.
I believe (and I haven’t looked into this for a while) you can request a data dump of all information Twitter holds on you. Photos, video and tweets *including* deleted ones. Comes as a massive CSV file. I had to do this once for evidential basis after I deleted a video. Critically only the account holder can request this. Maybe Mr Speakerman should look into this ASAP just in case party do decide to investigate
Yes I was thinking much the same tbh. M
Speakman said he and his wife don’t have the resources to take action but will pass on to him.
Thanks for the link David – not for the faint hearted – I stand corrected!
xxx
And let us not forget this:
April 2018:
“I didn’t expect when I took on this voluntary cross-party role for my wife to be sent by a Labour Marxist anti-Semite a dead bird through the post.”
May 2012:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-18124124
The dead bird was sent by someone angry at being passed over for a seat by his wife. Is Mann implying it was because his wife’s Jewish? Hmm.
No, I do not think that is the case.
But the key point here is that the actual incident occurred in 2012 and so could not have been sent by a member of an organisation that did not exist until several years later.
It goes to show that we need to treat Mann’s statements with great care. It is also very disturbing that the media has made no effort to challenge him on this.
In the absence of David’s ‘Love minus Zero’ and with reference to every man or woman’s occasional “silence”:
My love s/he speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
S/he doesn’t have to say
s/he’s faithful
Yet s/he’s true like ice like fire…
… The wind howls like a hammer
The night blows cold and rainy
My love s/he’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
Indeed, and I hope he is your next PM. Would like him to support a final vote on the Brexit terms though that seems to be the province of the FBPE folk?