Friday 9 May 2014

Owen Jones gave a party, and nobody came. Or reported it.

Professionally outraged journalist Owen Jones, 17, made a guest post on Nick Lowles blog yesterday
No, that is the crowd. Behind
the mascot.
praising the 'Colchester Comes Together' event at Wivenhoe Town FC.

Despite the event's name, this was not a shoot for the 'British Dogging' website, but Hope not Hate's latest feeble attempt to convince people that allowing 200,000 people a year into the country to work for minimum wage is somehow good for us all rather than just being good for the richest 1%.

Jones talks about the significance of their game as a 'local derby', neglecting to mention that as they play in the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League, almost every game is a 'local derby'. Stanway is so local that it is further away then the footballing might of other teams in the league, such as Clacton FC. Still, as Carl Morphett ably demonstrated by mistakenly thinking Albania was an EU member, geography is not a strong point at Hope not Hate.

Jones continues, using the name of murdered soldier Lee Rigby to push a rather tired political point just as cynically as Britain First would. He went on to say,

"Colchester has been benefited (sic) from various cultures choosing to come to the town and make it their home; embracing the local ways of life while living (sic) their own mark on the community. Children participating in fun village fate (sic) style games, where they won Chinese Spring Festival gifts, presented in the custom (sic) red envelope to bring good luck. Later in the evening while people tucked into some delicious Indian curry, made just around the corner from ingredients all scored from within the town" (We haven't inserted mistakes, it was published like that - Ed)

So how many people attended this first class event organised by 'Colchester Together', the local campaigning arm of the Labour Party?

According to the match report on Wivenhoe FC's website, attendance at the game was 173. To put that another way, 'Colchester Together' brought together less than 0.1% of the 176,008 residents of Colchester. That's under 0.003% of the population of the Eastern Region.

With a turnout like that, UKIP - who are polling over 50% regionally, and who the event was targeted at since Hope not Hate have given up on fighting racism - should be quaking in their boots.

Jones finishes his report by saying "Hopefully as HOPE not hate’s campaign heads into the final straight of the European Elections, ripples from this event will disperse within the town reminding people of that the subconscious tolerant and peaceful town must be defended".

We're not quite certain what the end of that sentence means, but his ripples appear to have dispersed already. The event was held not last weekend as might be thought from the tone of the article, but on the 21st April, some 3 weeks ago now. A quick scan of the local media reveals that this event was so important to Colchester that not a single local media outlet covered it, and it isn't mentioned anywhere on the Wivenhoe Town FC website.

Quite what Wivenhoe Town thought of being used as a propaganda tool by a load of middle class posh kids is not mentioned. Having an additional 50 people in the crowd who were united in their complete disinterest in such a working class game as football must have proved bemusing at best, but we wish them good luck in what has proved a difficult season, and hope that they benefitted from it.

As for Owen Jones, we feel obliged to include the YouTube video of his car crash interview on This Week. We can't stop laughing.

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