Mad Cow Disease

It's fair to say I am no stranger to controversy or personal attacks, but even I was quite surprised at the - shall we say - "strength of feeling" that erupted as a result of my last article, exploring the military-intelligence tactics that are used to manipulate us online, with particular reference to Lucy Connolly.

This article got quite a bit of attention on Twitter, where it attracted a lot of the predictable hissing and spitting attacks of the type I documented in my last article, but even I was taken aback to see one such attack come from none other than the establishment journalist, Allison Pearson.

A high-profile Telegraph columnist, with nearly quarter of a million followers on Twitter, Pearson (who has been highly instrumental in pushing the Connolly op), for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to launch an attack on me on her Twitter page.

I'm extremely surprised an establishment hack would be foolish enough to do this, but as I've said before, the problem with real people is that they slip up, which is why, increasingly, the establishment prefers fake ones for its psyops.

As such, all establishment journalists will soon be replaced by AI, but for the time being, they are real people, and real people sometimes do stupid things, including and especially on social media, an arena which is not subject to the same rigorous editorial control that newspapers are (that's why Jeremy Vine responded to my letter to him over Twitter, before thinking better of it and deleting his Tweet).

So, Pearson announced to her 220,000 Twitter followers that I am a "mad cow" who formulates "batshit conspiracy theories" and, apparently, that she plans to write about me in her upcoming book! Although this is a spurious empty threat, a threat it nevertheless is, designed to scare me into silence, which, as I said last time, is all they have: threats and insults to try and control us through fear.

Pearson writes for The Telegraph - she is one of their star columnists. The Telegraph is the same newspaper that, in 2021, fired cartoonist Bob Moran, a brilliant and principled pro-freedom activist, for remarks he made about another individual on Twitter.

So clearly, The Telegraph takes Twitter remarks very seriously.

As such, I have written them the below letter of complaint. Please note I have no current intentions of actually "suing Pearson for defamation", as I think defamation suits are largely ludicrous. I am simply pointing out to her employers that there's a very good possibility that I could: in other words, using the same weaponised tactics against them that are so often used against us - and that were used against Bob Moran - to shut us down.

(The appalling Rachel Clarke, not satisfied with having got him fired, tried to crowdfund her way into litigating against Bob for his comments.)

And if The Telegraph doesn't take my complaint seriously, I certainly will, as I have indicated to them, take it further.

Dear Anna Jones and Chris Evans,

I am writing to you regarding the recent smear and public attack launched at me by one of your journalists, Allison Pearson. In this public X (formerly Twitter) attack, which has currently been viewed more than 2,000 times, Ms. Pearson described me as a "mad cow", declared I produce "batshit conspiracy theories", and concluded with a threat to write in a defamatory way about me in her upcoming book.

This was a completely unprovoked assault, which Ms. Pearson launched in response to an article I had written on my Substack account, and which the journalist, James Delingpole, shared on his Twitter account. Ms. Pearson shared Mr. Delingpole's comments on my article, with her own derogatory comments, and then followed this up with her attack on me.

The article in question did not refer to Ms. Pearson in any way, nor was it specifically shared with her, but nevertheless, Ms. Pearson made the decision to publicly attack its author on a Twitter account where she has over 220,000 followers.

This is an enormous audience, certainly dwarfing by some scale of magnitude my own of 9,000.

I find Ms. Pearson's conduct to be deeply unacceptable, and a clear example of a "big fish" trying to bully, smear, and shut down a much smaller fish (who is more than twenty years her junior, Pearson being the same age as my mother), for the temerity of airing an opinion with which Ms. Pearson does not agree. I also note the misogynist tone of Pearson's remarks, in describing me as a "cow", a slur that would not be applied to a man.

As someone with a background in law, having been taken on as a consultant by the Jonathan Lea law firm at the early stages of "Covid", I also wonder if Pearson's remarks about me are defamatory. Given that Andrew Bridgen has been able to take to court Matt Hancock for a Tweet that did not even directly invoke Mr. Bridgen, I suspect they probably are, but will be getting further advice on this.

As a journalist representing The Telegraph newspaper, Ms. Pearson has an inalienable responsibility to conduct herself with the appropriate professional and personal decorum at all times that she appears in the public sphere. Her Twitter account is not her own personal brawling room, but an extension of her work and professional reputation. She certainly should not be so grossly misusing the audience and "clout" she has built up as a result of her work as an establishment journalist to bully and attack strangers online (and, by virtue, to encourage her many followers to do the same).

I note that, in 2021, The Telegraph newspaper terminated the employment of its in-house cartoonist, Bob Moran, for remarks he made about another individual on Twitter. While Mr. Moran's remarks may have been ill-advised, he was speaking out in his capacity as a protective father of a disabled daughter, who was being deeply disadvantaged by the Covid restrictions - restrictions that we know caused even non-disabled children enormous, and perhaps irreversible, harm. In other words, Mr. Moran was acting under enormous personal pressure and stress at the time he made the remarks, and such stress can affect one's judgement.

Ms. Pearson, however, was operating under no such stress. Her remarks were not elicited by deep love and concern for a vulnerable young family member, but simply by being personally slighted that a stranger shared an opinion on their own website that does not coincide with her own.

Hence, if The Telegraph is willing to take such draconian action as to terminate Mr. Moran's employment for his remarks, despite his highly mitigating personal circumstances, I certainly expect Ms. Pearson's remarks to be dealt with very seriously.

As such, I request clarification as a matter of urgency regarding what steps you will be taking to ensure Ms. Pearson's conduct is appropriately dealt with. In the absence of such clarification, I will be obliged to take the matter further.

Yours sincerely,

Miri Finch

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