‘Trumpsexual’ paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos stands on a radiator as Simon & Schuster reject his £7.6 million lawsuit
On Saturday, Milo Yiannopoulos shared a picture of himself standing on top of a radiator on Facebook. Whether he simply wanted to warm his shoes or actually believed such a move would create awareness about his recently released rant, a book named Dangerous, he again made himself appear as nothing but an idiot.
Yiannopoulos – a self-confessed “coalburner” due to his liking for “black guys for my love life, straight white males as employees, and girls as drinking buddies” – had received news Friday that his former publisher, Simon & Schuster, were “firing back at his £7.6 million ($10 million, €8.5 million or درهم36.7 million) lawsuit” for dropping publication of his work and urging a court to “throw out his meritless publicity stunt.”
In documents submitted to a court in New York, Simon & Schuster argued: “A publisher shall not be obligated to accept or publish the Work if it is in sole good faith judgment the Work is not acceptable to it.” They added:
“Yiannopoulos accepted [an advance] payment without protest, thereby sealing the accord and satisfaction and barring this lawsuit as a matter of centuries-old law… That should have been the end of this contractual matter. Instead, Yiannopoulos waited approximately five months to file this lawsuit, in a naked attempt to drum up publicity for the publication of his book, released days earlier, amidst baseless public statements that Defendant attempted to censor and silence him.”
In response, Yiannopoulos – whose suggestion that abuse of 13 year olds is not paedophilia caused outrage earlier this year – told The Hollywood Reporter:
“[Here in Simon & Schuster is] a client doomed to failure… I’ve hired Jeffrey Weingart and Stephen Meister. Stephen has represented Daddy himself – that’s my pet name for the president, in case you didn’t know – and we all know daddy picks winners.”
As with Trump and his ever-revolving set of staff, we’ll see about that but separately Saturday, this self-obsessed bore shared news by email of a “quick meet and great” in Florida. Yiannopoulos announced: “I will be in a makeshift swimming pool in the back of a pick up truck on a beach chair with my squad.” Charming.
The law needs to be updated with regard to what is acceptable on social media; businesses such as Facebook and Twitter need to equally be held to account
Social media, as we’ve already reported, was proven to be anything but sociable in a London courtroom this week. With the jailing of the tweed gilet clad racist Viscount St Davids for 12 weeks for malicious communications came acceptance from the country’s most important magistrate, Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot, that “Facebook is not private” and that it is no longer a place where anything can be posted without repercussions applying.
Elsewhere, on Friday, outside of the realms of the law but again very much illustrative of the perils of posting without consideration of impact, the Mirror reported that Stella McCartney is said to be furious with David Beckham – a man known to use European privacy laws to have his own home obscured on Google – after he posted an un-pixelated image of a group of children at his daughter’s birthday party that included amongst others her six year old daughter on Instagram. Ms McCartney, a woman reportedly very protective of her child’s safety, is said to be “spitting feathers,” yet, as the paper concluded: “David Beckham has not taken the [liked by 900,000 individuals to date] post down.”
A most telling factor to consider is that the Communications Act came to statute in 2003 and as such really does not have any specific provision for activities conducted on mediums like Facebook – a for-profit company with revenues of £20.6 billion in 2016 and 2 billion active monthly users as of June 2017 – and Twitter – a for-profit company with revenues of £1.9 billion in 2016 and 328 million active users as of July 2017. Facebook was founded in February 2004 and Twitter in March 2006 and thus, though it is accepted that the Communications Act (2003) was appropriate back in the early noughties, it is now out of date and no longer fit for purpose.
An attempt to update the law with the Malicious Communications (Social Media) Bill in 2016 was likely going to be a step forward, but because of Theresa May’s decision to call a pointless General Election in May 2017, that failed due to it having not even yet reached the House of Lords prior to the 3rd May. Now, with the ‘Wheat Field Wanderer’ in a position of being nothing but “weak and wobbly” in terms of her political influence, such laws will likely be forgotten. That is entirely wrong and we now call upon politicians of all parties to campaign to right the wrong that allows bullies and trolls to continue to prosper.
A pixelated version of the image David Beckham posted to Instagram of his daughter, Harper, and other children; the Mirror opted (rightly) to obscure the faces of the other children and we do the same here; shown: Princess Eugenie and Harper Beckham
After a Chelsea chef who came out of nowhere named Michael Riemenschneider is revealed to be a “conman” in the ‘Mail on Sunday’, readers tell of his past form
As can only be expected of a paper that loves a bit of sensationalism this week’s Mail on Sunday’s ‘YOU’ got rather carried away in an interview with a “wealthy widow” named Flora Mascolo – a woman who claims to be a victim of, mind the magazine’s gushingly cringeworthy description, a “delicious romance soon turned sour” with a Michelin starred chef named Michael Riemenschneider.
Bizarrely, that Riemenschneider – a man whose first London restaurant, we noted in February 2014, was literally covered with images of his face and captions referencing his name – is lauded as a “handsome celebrity chef” in the feature by Margarette Driscoll is somewhat ambitious given several locals we contacted remember him as “podgy” and a “little bit greasy.” A well-known Chelsea restaurateur – where the Swiss born chef opened a replacement restaurant that few ever even got to hear of just months after opening and nigh on immediately closing his original Marylebone premises in summer 2014 – recalls an individual whose “ability to talk about himself and his achievements made me immediately question the truth of his claims.”
That Driscoll lauds this individual as “talented and dynamic” is perhaps fair given his “experimental cuisine” most definitely had many merits, but that she describes a man Mascolo herself calls a “coward of a man” and “somebody who was a lie, from the beginning” as “destined for similar success” to Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay is nothing but far fetched. Here was someone who opened in bizarre off-piste locations, insisted diners fitted into limited time spots and ridiculously thought he could limit customers to a set menu priced at £275 per head or a ‘cheaper’ one at £95 per head.
Riemenschneider, a man whose exploits are reported to have cost the widow of the co-founder of the Toni & Guy hairdressing empire some £2.27 million, is now supposedly bankrupt and living in Austria. Cars bought by him including a Mercedes-Benz GTS have reportedly been seized and of him Mascolo comments: “If you wrong me, you will remember my name. He didn’t know who he was messing with.”
A wealthy female reader of The Steeple Times contacted us to share her thoughts on the interview. She did not wish to be named but stated: “This strange, anything but handsome individual, pestered me on social media. He messaged me one day out of the blue in 2013 and he told me that we had friends in common. I am glad I did not fall for his attempts to lure me. Plainly, Mrs Mascolo did and I am sorry for her.”
She continued:
“This man wasn’t a ‘celebrity chef’ but, in fact, a Facebook stalker of ladies he thought had a bit of cash. In his messages to me, I quickly realised he was an individual who’d come out of nowhere and brought with him an ego the size of Harrods.”
“The journalist [Margarette Driscoll] gets rather carried away about his restaurant. It was in a sub-basement off Sloane Square and it didn’t even have a website. Nobody went there because nobody even knew about it. Where there’s money, there’s muck.”
Michael Riemenschneider will no doubt reemerge someday. He was certainly a good cook, but sadly he turned out to be an even better conman.
Thrice bankrupt bigot Viscount St Davids banged to rights and set to be jailed Thursday; he blames Gina Miller as “untruthful” and Matthew Steeples as “an eavesdropper” and accepts utterly no blame for what he did
On Thursday, if he doesn’t turn up at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on time, justice will come knock, knock, knockin’ on Baron Strange of Knockin’s door.
Donald Trump supporter and serial bankrupt Rhodri Philipps (AKA 4th Viscount St Davids, Lord St Davids, Baron Hungerford, Baron de Moleyns, Baron Strange of Knockin and, to the public and no doubt his new jailbird chums, plain old Mr Philipps) – a bigot whose insistence on being called anything other than Mister sealed his fate as the real life representation of Paul Whitehouse’s Rowley Birkin QC – was found guilty Tuesday of two counts of sending menacing messages on a public electronic communications network. After convicting him, chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot warned the aristocrat: “The first port of call will obviously be a prison sentence.”
“I have no doubt the first post was menacing, you were offering money to have [Gina Miller] killed. A reasonable person reading the post would have felt a sense of apprehension at least, if not fear.”
“I don’t accept you didn’t understand the post could be shared. On Facebook users share and have shared any number of others’ posts – nothing is private about a Facebook post.”
“They were not funny, not a joke, they were sent when Lord St Davids was infuriated – they were not meant to be light-hearted comment, they were intended to cause apprehension among some of your Facebook acquaintances, not all as some clearly shared his views.”
“I find you knew when you posted these messages they might create apprehension in a reasonable person reading them in the multi-racial country we live in.”
Represented initially by a chubby dimwit American and Conservative councillor for Kensington (yes, one of them, a member of the worst council in Britain) named Andrew Rinker – a curious creature commonly known as ‘Rinker The Stinker’ in even the most polite circles – Philipps proved himself nothing but a nasty piece of work and a fool in the dock. He tried to blame me for “stalking” and “trolling” him and referenced me “a professional eavesdropper.” He claimed his trial was “political” and motivated because of his multiple titles and whilst his scumbag chum and cohort Tariq Siddiqitargeted me also via social media throughout the period, he was ultimately convicted simply because the Crown was able to prove he is nothing but an inept racist incapable of covering his own vile tracks.
Of the result, Kate Mulholland of the Crown Prosecution Service commented:
“This threat caused extreme concern to Gina Miller and although Lord St Davids claimed his Facebook friends would have been tolerant of his views, they were open to the public.”
“No-one should have these kind of menacing comments made to them or about them and where there is evidence of an offence the CPS and police will bring a prosecution.”
As I said previously, the law must now change: What goes on social media, doesn’t stay on social media. We must all be held accountable for whatever we post.
As Anne Marie Morris offends in describing a “no Brexit” would be “the real nigger in the woodpile”, we remind readers that her partner is a bigot also
A plainly bigoted yet thankfully otherwise little known Member of Parliament named Anne Marie Morris described “no Brexit” as “the real nigger in the woodpile” at a meeting of fellow Brexiteers at the East India Club in London on Monday.
Ms Morris – whose equally noxious partner and agent Roger Kendrick claimed “that the crisis in education was due entirely to non-British born immigrants and their high birth rates” prior to June’s General Election – was rightly suspended by Theresa May and now leaves the Conservatives with a pathetic majority of just 12 in the House of Commons.
Bizarrely described as a “marketing guru” by elements of the media in spite of this and other PR disasters, Morris plainly has a lack of understanding of what is offensive. She is not only our Wally of the Week but guilty of using racist language also; Anne Marie Morris must go.
Lady Meyer makes snobbish remarks on Twitter; in doing so she again proves she’s herself nothing but ghastly
The infamously “Chanel clad” wife of Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s former “red socked fop” ambassador to America, is known for her curt manner and finger pointing ways, but recently on Twitter, she opted to again illustrate her true persona.
In a tweet late last month, Lady Meyer CBE – a woman whose insistence to point out the letters after name on her account also shows her obsession with social status – remarked:
“Righ [sic] vs left; Labour vs Con. It’s insane. Sadiq Kahn [sic] at a Chanel party tonight – now that is insane!”
Aside from providing evidence of her inability to spell, Theresa May supporter Lady Meyer’s disrespectful remark about Mayor Sadiq Khan PC tells all anyone needs to know: It simply proves this ghastly woman to be nothing but a snob.
A 20-question interview with Sandra Howard – novelist, former model and wife of Conservative politician The Rt. Hon. Lord Howard of Lympne
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
Seeing the upside of life and what’s to laugh at.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
Perseverance pays.
Kerry Katona was considered unacceptable in 2007. Who or what is unacceptable in 2017?
Kim Kardashian’s bottom.
Tony Blair misses being Prime Minister. What do you miss most in your life?
Talking to my mother – She was a sage and a wonderful rock.
What might you swap all your wealth for?
A continuing, happy, healthy marriage.
Donald Trump was once a case of: “If you owe the bank a thousand, they close you down; but if you owe the bank a billion, you own the bank”. What’s your view on the state of the financial system?
That’s too taxing for my ‘small bear’ financial brain. Well above my pay grade.
What phrase or word do you most loathe?
“At the end of the day” and I’m not mad about: “You know what?” (Jeremy Corbyn’s favourite phrase).
In the UK, some people consider charity to “begin at home”. What’s your view and what causes do you personally support?
It should begin at home and continue overseas. I’d hate to see our foreign aid budget cut. I support Addaction (to help people off drugs), Youth Epilepsy and Hospice UK.
The judge in Law Abiding Citizen states: “I can pretty much do whatever I want” before being blown up whilst answering her mobile phone. What’s your view on the appropriate use of such devices?
They rule our lives, sometimes for better and frequently for worse.
If you could fill a carriage on The Orient Express, who would be your fellow passengers?
All my closest (bridge-playing and witty) friends.
If you were unfortunate enough to end up on death row, what would be your last meal and where would you eat it?
Fresh crab, Dover sole, some delicious smelly cheese and a ripe mango. I’d eat it on Grand Anse Beach in Grenada, slipping in a last swim in that glorious clear sea.
What time is it acceptable to consume the first drink of the day?
A Buck’s Fizz at breakfast isn’t a bad start to the day.
A Negroni, a martini or a cup of tea?
A cup of tea.
Whose parties do you enjoy the most and why?
Other peoples’ – I’m a mess of nerves when giving one of my own.
Who is the most positive person you know?
My husband – Most of the time.
What’s your most guilty pleasure?
A day (or more) entirely to myself to write in peace and privacy, not doing any of all the stuff, emails etc. that gets in the way.
If a tattoo were to sum you up, what would it be of?
A black cat – I think I’ve had lots of luck in my life.
If you were a car, what marque would you be?
A Mini Cooper is about my marque – fast, but I hope not flashy.
Cilla Black presented Surprise, Surprise. Tell us the most surprising thing about you.
I’m a passionate supporter of Liverpool Football Club.
What’s currently sitting on your mantelpiece?
Family photos, a pair of china cockerels and a vase of lovely lavender freesias.
Sandra Howard has quickly established herself as a successful author and journalist. She has written six novels; her latest, ‘The Consequence of Love’, is published on 13th July. She was, in the 1960s, a leading photographic fashion model and lives in London and Kent.
Theresa May’s deal with DUP is dangerous, irresponsible and about nothing other than her personal quest for power
Our Lady Macbeth-like Prime Minister has once again proven her personal desire for high office is all that matters to her. In handing over £1 billion and then posing with the DUP’s Arlene Foster looking like someone who secretly knows the cream she’s served is actually sour yesterday, Theresa May saved her skin but sold Britain into a further period of stress.
Referenced as “shabby and reckless” by Labour’s Lady Nugee (AKA Emily Thornberry MP) and “a pathetic little deal” by the SNP’s Peter Wishart MP, the Conservative-Democratic Unionist Party pact potentially puts the Good Friday Agreement at risk and signals that the Tories are happy to do business with a bunch of bigots whose policies on abortion and gay rights, for example, are stuck in the Stone Age. It is anything but “strong and stable”, could fall apart at any moment and has already left Scots and Welsh politicians again questioning the state of the Union.
Theresa May may have clung to power for now, but with a DUP dependent voting majority that could turn on a whim, she’s still in a very perilous position. How long she’ll actually last still remains very much in the balance.
A statement from the owners of Trapeze Bar regarding the conduct of their now former general manager Jordan Wells
Yesterday, we reported on a story regarding a bar in the East End coming under fire from the organisers of an event to raise funds for survivors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
This afternoon, the owners of Trapeze Bar in Great Eastern Street, EC2A issued a statement to The Steeple Times via Twitter regarding the now much publicised correspondence between its now former general manager, Jordan Wells, and Haqiqi Events on Twitter. It read:
The owners of Trapeze can confirm that following a full investigation, the employee involved has had his contract terminated with immediate effect.
The conduct of the employee does not represent our company’s values and beliefs.
As a gesture of goodwill, Trapeze Bar has donated £2,000 to the British Red Cross London Fire Relief Fund which has been co-ordinating efforts to support the residents and neighbours impacted by the Grenfell Tower fire, effectively doubling the target amount set by the event.
New Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad fails to join Labour heavyweights showing support for the single market
Prior to her victory, the now newly elected Member of Parliament for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, clearly and repeatedly said she’d “fight to retain access to the single market”. Yesterday, however, she failed to join a whole array of fellow Labour politicians demanding exactly such and in doing so has left constituents questioning her true commitment to fighting ‘Hard Brexit’.
Aside from the fact that some of the party’s busiest and best known figures – including David Lammy MP, Stella Creasy MP and Chuka Umunna MP – bothered, unlike her, to sign a letter to The Guardian “supporting British membership of the single market after Brexit”, Dent Coad’s previous statement of: “Three in four people in Kensington voted to remain, and I will ensure their voices are heard” is beginning to appear rather hollow.
The electorate of Kensington are primarily ‘Remainers’ and given she also had the backing of Gina Miller’s Best for Britain on her path to power, Dent Coad must now speak up. We understand her priorities at this time must be with supporting the victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, but this believer that ‘Hard Brexit’ will lead to “the economy falling off a cliff” could have easily spared a moment to sign a letter that seeks to guide her party’s position on something that will ultimately affect all of her constituents. We join those expressing disappointment in Emma Dent Coad.
Emma Dent Coad’s supposed position on Brexit as set out during the 2017 General Election campaign
The letter sent by Labour heavyweights to The Guardian in full follows:
Jeremy Corbyn has rightly said that Labour’s position on Brexit is to focus on a deal that prioritises jobs first. We are all united behind that goal. For us that means membership of the single market. A country can be a member of the single market without being a member of the EU and we must be clear – “access” to the European single market is both different and inferior to “membership” of the single market. Why? Because if we leave the single market, whatever the level of access is negotiated, working people across Britain will be worse off and revenue to the exchequer will plummet – revenue the next Labour government will need to bring an end to years of damaging Tory austerity.
The single market is not a simple free trade zone. It is, uniquely, a framework of rules that protects people from the worst excesses of globalisation and unfettered capitalism, in addition to easing trade across the continent. If we have mere access to the single market, we are talking about leaving this framework of rules and achieving mere reductions in tariffs for trade with the European Union.
If Britain stays in the single market, we will continue to benefit from EU laws and court judgments that outlaw discrimination in the workplace; deliver vital rights to workers on holiday pay, maternity and paternity leave, the right to join a union, and much more; protect our natural environment from pollution; and keep workers safe through stringent health and safety requirements. Large multinational companies work across borders to maximise their profits to often reduce these protections; the next Labour government, as a member of the single market, can work with other European countries to resist this and advance social justice. If we leave the single market, and ask for mere “access”, we will be compromised in achieving these goals.
This is why so many people in the Labour movement are supporting British membership of the single market after Brexit. Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has said that “if we leave the single market, working people will end up paying the price. It’d be bad for jobs, for work rights and for our living standards.” The USDAW trade union has warned that leaving the single market “will put at risk hundreds of thousands of jobs”.
And who is leading the charge to junk our membership of the single market? A motley crew of hard-right, pro-Brexit Tories. Michael Gove. Boris Johnson. John Redwood. Iain Duncan Smith. Priti Patel. Theresa May wants us out because her government is totally dominated by its obsession with leaving the single market. They want us to leave precisely because they want to roll back the social protections delivered by single market membership. Redwood authored a plan to cut regulation in Britain by 25%. Patel went one further, calling on the “burden” of EU regulations – those rules that protect working people – to be “halved”. We should not be providing political cover to hard-right Tories who stand diametrically opposed to Labour values.
The argument for leaving the single market is often focused around the need to end the free movement of people. However, we argue, and many experts agree, that changes to our immigration system can be made while keeping us inside it. Within the European treaties, free movement is not unconditional – at the moment we can require EU citizens to leave if they have no job or a prospect of a job three months after their arrival. Restrictions on free movement are explicitly allowed for reasons of “public policy, public security or public health”. Liechtenstein, which is outside the EU but in the single market, perfectly legally imposes quotas on EU migrants. French president Emmanuel Macron’s chief adviser has floated the idea of a “continental partnership” between Britain and the EU that would allow us to restrict free movement.
Another reason often cited for not remaining a member of the single market is that the state aid rules that apply in it stop governments from pursuing active industrial strategies to support their industries. But these have not stopped the likes of Germany having a national investment bank or France and the Netherlands supporting their industries through government procurement spend.
Ultimately, leaving the single market will make it much harder for a Labour government to end these years of Tory austerity. The economic damage it would cause would reduce the tax take, meaning less money could be spent on public services. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has forecast that leaving the single market for a free trade agreement could cause a £31bn hit to the public finances, extending austerity even further.
To win next time, Labour must provide a strong opposition to the Tories, stand up for the values of our voters, and continue to fight for the interests of all – not least young people who have the most to lose from an extreme Tory Brexit and who voted for the first time in 2017 for Labour, thinking we would stop the Tories in their tracks. This has to mean fighting unambiguously for membership of the single market. At the very least we should strongly oppose May’s decision to take membership off the table in these negotiations. An ambitious and confident alternative government – with Corbyn at the helm – should not throw in the towel as May has done, but could seek membership with reforms on immigration and the other matters we seek.
Chuka Umunna MP, Phil Wilson MP, Madeleine Moon MP, Maria Eagle MP, Liz Kendall MP, Stella Creasy MP, Wes Streeting MP, Mike Gapes MP, Kate Green MP, Lord Michael Cashman, Anne Coffey MP, Ian Murray MP, Rushanara Ali MP, Karen Buck MP, Stephen Doughty MP, Stephen Timms MP, Lord Spencer Livermore, Catherine McKinnell MP, Lord Peter Hain, Tulip Siddiq MP, Peter Kyle MP, Ruth Cadbury MP, Bridget Phillipson MP, Pat McFadden MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Thangam Debbonaire MP, Chris Bryant MP, Andy Slaughter MP, Daniel Zeichner MP, Alison McGovern MP, Darren Jones MP, Kerry McCarthy MP, Ben Bradshaw MP, Clare Moody MEP, Seb Dance MEP, Luciana Berger MP, Lord George Foulkes, Catherine Stihler MEP, David Martin MEP, Jude Kirton-Darling MEP, Mary Honeyball MEP, Paul Brannen MEP, Richard Corbett MEP, Julie Ward MEP, Derek Vaughan MEP, Lucy Anderson MEP, David Lammy MP, Lord John Monks, Meg Hillier MP, Adrian Bailey MP and Lady Meta Ramsay
