Where does David Coburn live?

Scotland’s UKIP hopeful defends “chummy” deal with Breivik fans; Farage cash-grab “not illegal”

UKIP’s Scottish MEP candidate David Coburn (left) seen with party leader Nigel Farage. Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

[Note: this was due for publication in today's Morning Star, 22/05/14. But writing for tabloid newspapers is always an exhausting battle to cram vast amounts of information into a word count shorter than your average takeaway menu, and inevitably stuff gets cut for space. Here's what we wanted to print but couldn't.]

by Rory MacKinnon in Glasgow

UKIP’s bid to bolster its presence in Brussels with a Scottish seat hit the buffers again yesterday after protesters scuppered candidate David Coburn’s hopes for a folksy media event in a Glasgow supermarket.

The Morning Star was there as Shettleston Tesco Extra’s management led Mr Coburn away, heckled by the protesters.

Call centre worker Sam Baxter, who joined the protest, said it was important to confront UKIP wherever it appeared: “They spread racist lies, sit in alliance with fascist parties in Europe, and put forward ideas that harm working class people.”

The party’s allies in Brussels proved a thorny issue for Mr Coburn, whose leader Nigel Farage sought last week to dismiss comments by the alliance’s co-president Francesco Speroni praising Norway’s white supremacist mass murderer Anders Breivik for acting on “ideas [that] are in defence of western civilization”.

Mr Farage, who shares the presidency with Mr Speroni, had insisted his party tried to “draw a line”.

“We will not sit with people who we believe to be on the extremes: we will sit with people who we believe to have a reasonable, balanced point of view,” he said.

When quizzed yesterday, Mr Coburn told the Morning Star that UKIP had “to chummy up with all sorts of strange, weird and wonderful people”.

“In the European parliament in order to get speaking rights, every party whatever they are – the Labour party, the Liberal party, the Conservatives – all have to be in groups with people you wouldn’t want to take home to meet your mother”.

But Mr Coburn appeared unable to explain why UKIP, unlike Britain’s other MEPs, had allied with organisations like Speroni’s Lega Nord.

“There are no other parties,” he said.

Europe of Freedom and Democracy is one of seven active political groupings in the European parliament, with more than 200 parties between them.

Mr Coburn also appeared to falter when asked whether he approved of leader Nigel Farage’s decision to keep wife Kirsten Mehr on his payroll courtesy of parliamentary allowances worth up to £20,000 a year: an activity that the pro-austerity politician infamously listed among “games you could play” to acquire up to £250,000 a year in taxpayer funds.

Yet the European parliament’s officials had ordered MEPs as far back as 2009 to cease the practice in light of a rule change, with all close relatives and partners phased out by the 2014 election.

Mr Coburn initially denied any knowledge of the rules, saying he had “no idea what they are”, before insisting that Mr Farage had acted “according to the rules”.

“The rule is in the next parliamentary term that you’re no longer allowed to. But at this time you are.

“They were allowed to do it and will cease to be allowed to do it as of this year. But they are allowed to do it. Are you suggesting he’s done something illegal?”

“I’m just saying it’s not illegal,” he said.

“Resolutions”: Penny Arcade rewrites history in its latest “Dickwolves” apologia

Penny Arcade co-creator Mike “Gabe” Krahulik has said some pretty terrible things over the past year and is vaguely alluding to them in a post called “Resolutions”. They don’t need the extra webtraffic, so here’s the gist:

As a young person I imagined myself a sort of vengeful spirit. A schoolyard Robin Hood who attacked the strong and popular on behalf of the social outcasts. I’m 36 years old now though and I realize what I am is a bully. I may have been the one who got beat up but I sent plenty of kids home in tears. I also realize that I carried those ridiculous insecurities into adulthood. I still see people who attack me as the enemy and I strike back with the same ferocity as that seventh grader I used to be. I’m ashamed of that and embarrassed. The crazy thing is I don’t even necessarily believe the stuff I say a lot of times. It would probably be more noble if I did. The truth is I just say them to be mean. I say them because I know they will hurt. It’s pretty fucked up.

I’ve done a lot of soul searching this year. I’ve tried to figure out what sort of person I am and what sort of person I want to be going forward. I know I don’t want to be this angry kid anymore. I take medicine to control my anxiety and depression but there is no pill I can take to stop being a jerk. That’s a deeper problem and it’s something I’m working on.

This kneejerk anger is something he’s written about before and as a victim and perpetrator of childhood bullying myself it’s something I can relate to. But there is a very specific reason why I think that, in this particular instance, it’s self-serving horseshit.

Penny Arcade’s biggest hornet nest in 2013 was indisputably the resurgence of the Dickwolves affair, relating to a 2011 strip which angered many rape survivors who felt it trivialised rape as a punchline and perpetuated rape culture (a play-by-play of the whole sorry saga and Penny Arcade’s escalation can be found here. TW: rape, naturally). Presumably Krahulik is at least partly alluding to this.

But his latest mea culpa draws attention exclusively to his anger management problems without ever once acknowledging that Krahulik singlehandedly re-ignited the Dickwolves controversy as an act of wilful cruelty, without provocation or prompting in the cosiest setting imaginable. Read the rest of this entry »

From the BBC: how not to eat healthily for £1 a day