The Case of Mr 'MikeBarnes'

Yesterday the contributor who likes to be known as 'Mikebarnes' (though he objects when people call him 'Mike Barnes') posted a response to my brief item about the Australian politician,  who included in a recent speech a large unattributed quotation from my Sunday column, slightly amended but substantially identical to what I had written.

 

The politician concerned has now owned up to this, and even offered to pay me a fee (I declined this, and asked him instead to ensure that the words were attributed to me in the Hansard for the New South Wales Legislative Council, where they were spoken).

 

Mr 'Mikebarnes' chose to make this the occasion for a remarkable comment.  Newer readers will not know that Mr Barnes claimed many years ago that I had in some way taken some of my ideas and beliefs from the 'policy documents' (if they can be so grandly described) of the 'British National Party (BNP)' a deservedly defunct political grouplet, founded by admirers of Hitler and supported (in some cases) by people who struggle to accept that Hitler engaged in the deliberate mass murder of Europe's Jews. Until quite recently, the 'constitution' of this 'party' was specifically racialist. I put this politely. I have no idea what connections, if any, Mr 'Mikebarnes' has with this body. He appears, from his writings, not to be wholly opposed to it. He is welcome to correct me on this if my impression is mistaken. 

 

I would rather gather my food from the gutter than take ideas from such a source, always assuming there were any ideas to be found there, which I rather doubt. It is not an intellectual powerhouse.

 

I told Mr Barnes either to show that his claim was true or to withdraw it and apologise. If he did neither, I warned him, he would be refused permission to post here in future. He did neither and was duly prevented from posting here. After a period of some months, he begged to be allowed back and offered the necessary withdrawal and apology. I agreed to his return purely because of a sense of justice. I had enjoyed being spared his incessant, rambling, atrociously written contributions, which managed to be simultaneously repellent and dull. His presence here is an illustration of my belief in the rule of law. 

 

Mr 'Mikebarnes', I suspect, chafes under this indulgence. Anyway, on Wednesday he chose to make the Australian MP's borrowing of my words the occasion for the following comment:

'Well it seems he doesn't consider your Sunday column as a 'news paper article ' else he would have acknowledged it . Strange and confusing is that ! But as I once accused you of plagiarising the BNP output ,which you demanded an unreserved apology.  perhaps being consistent is not your forte. Still never mind eh'

 

It is never easy to penetrate the 'logic' of a 'Mikebarnes' post. But it was the accusation of inconsistency *'perhaps being consistent is not your forte. Still never mind eh'* which seemed  to me to be the operative part of this mini-epistle.

Where is the inconsistency? Who is being inconsistent about what? Be precise. In one case, the Australian MP used my words without attribution, was found out, and admitted what he had done. In the other Mr 'MikeBarnes' made and withdrew a false allegation that I had taken my ideas from an organisation I despise. 

I can only see one circumstance in which there *could* be an inconsistency, and that would be if the accusation against me made by Mr 'MikeBarnes' was true. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything to be inconsistent about, would there?  As it was entirely false, on what precisely does the snide, sarcastic suggestion that 'being consistent is not your forte' (which in general I reject) rest? 

Mr 'Mikebarnes', alas, still has a few hours in which to apologise and withdraw the imputation, so saving himself from the Long Goodbye I wish to bestow on him.  I note that he has (as before) gathered a small tail of anguished supporters who perhaps do not know precisely what company they are keeping. They should not imagine that, because Mr 'MikeBarnes' cannot write good English for toffee and gives banality a bad name, he lacks either cunning or subtlety. 

***

Addendum. I feel I ought to respond to the plea from 'Vikki Boynton', who wrote:

 

'I think he ['Mikebarnes']is saying that since you demanded an apology from him when he once accused you of plagiarism, it is not consistent of you, to not do the same with the Australian who has plagiarised your article now.  I don't think he is making the same accusation at all.'

I am afraid this is nonsense. 1. I had no time to demand an apology from the MP, because I only learned of his action after he had been found out, and admitted the act. He was left looking so silly that I was quite satisfied.  Had I discovered it myself, and had he denied it, then I might have taken a more aggressive view. But it wasn't so, and I decided that the grown-up response was to regard the matter as funny rather than serious. Soon afterwards he even offered me a fee (see above). 2. In this case a proven instance of plagiarism has taken place, in that exact words of mine were used by the MP in his speech, without attribution, and plainly after I had written them, so there was not even the remote possibility of coincidence. 3. Mr Barnes's accusation was baseless, and he was unable even to offer evidence of it, let alone proof. 

4. I am flattered if politicians think my words are worth plagiarising, and not especially outraged; it is almost the opposite circumstance to be accused of having secretly stolen *my* words and ideas from a verbal sewer. As I say above, there is no lack of consistency in my actions or attitudes. To suggest that there is, is to suggest something much larger.