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After a 23 year career with the BBC, and 41 years in journalism, (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has (almost) become used to the abuse he suffers, although this has become worse recently with the rise of the internet, and it is now highlighted by a new book which has as its title the way HE describes himself!
Some people apparently do not like the style of journalism I pursue, in fact I am HATED!
For example, a Marc Winchester said on Twitter/X, in a tweet which has since been deleted: “I’ll whack him (me)“, and the definition of the verb ‘to whack’ in the Urban Dictionary is: “to murder someone”.
Attempts have been made (thankfully unsuccessful!) to close down my website, The Eye, because people didn’t like what was said there.
My Wikipedia entry has been vandalised several times, and in one instance the words ‘tool’ and ‘knob head’ were inserted.
I have also been compared on Twitter/X to the comedy broadcaster Alan Partridge.
Another remark which concerned a television ‘reporter’ who had posted pictures of herself on social media in skimpy clothes, is sadly typical of the insults I constantly receive: “Your article on Ellie Pitt was bordering on mysogynistic bullying, a really pathetic article written by a bitter individual who was a complete failiure as a BBC correspondent and also loved bashing the Catholic Church with your disgraceful Panorama programme”.
In the past I have also been accused online (incorrectly) of being a “bastard” (many times), an “anti-devolutionist wanker”, “pure scum”, a “liar” (also many times) a “little git”, and (correctly) a “nosey git”, “irritating”, or a “nuisance”.
But these remarks come amid many others. Too many, in fact, to mention.
To anybody who asks what I do, I therefore reply that I am a ‘Troublemaker’ or ‘Professional Troublemaker’.
So I was intrigued to see that a book has now been released that uses the same title!
‘The Troublemaker’ recounts the vertiginous rise and fall of Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong’s (HK’s) most famous tycoons-turned-political prisoner.
For decades Mr Lai symbolised the island’s promise, having arrived as a 12-year-old refugee from China.
As the city’s economy boomed, he worked his way up from the floor of a garment factory to establish a retail empire.
An outspoken critic of Communism, he wrote a column in 1994 calling Li Peng, then China’s prime minister, “a turtle egg” (which is far more insulting in Mandarin than it sounds in English!).
After people took to the streets during pro-democracy protests in 2003, 2014 and 2019, Mr Lai’s newspapers championed the demonstrators. One of them was Chloe Cheung who took part in a protest aged 14, and now has a bounty on her head.
But they’re not the only people of note.
On December 19 relatives of Xing Yanjun gathered in Beijing to mourn another top businessman who had died eight months earlier, allegedly by hanging himself while in police custody.
At the event a document was read out. It was a statement by the police that Mr Xing’s case had been closed “in the absence of criminal facts”, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) has noted the use of torture in detention.
Like them, Mr Lai also protested about conditions in China, but always peacefully, and he held meetings with foreign officials to enlist their support, including Mike Pence, America’s vice-president under Donald Trump from 2017-21.
Once the government in Beijing imposed a draconian national-security law on HK in June 2020, Mr Lai knew he would be one of its first targets.
The following month 250 police raided and frogmarched him through his paper Apple Daily’s offices in handcuffs.
It responded by splashing a photograph of Mr Lai across its front pages with the headline “Apple will definitely keep fighting”.
He was released on bail but soon detained again, and Apple Daily was closed the next year.
The most moving passages of the book reflect on Mr Lai’s decision to stay.
As a billionaire with British citizenship, he had every opportunity to flee but didn’t, declaring from jail: “I must face the consequences of my actions, just or unjust.
“It is also a way to uphold the dignity of Hong Kong people, as one of the leaders for the fight of freedom.”
Mr Lai has more of a claim to being a ‘troublemaker’ than I do – as a book about him with that title makes clear!
The memories of Phil’s, astonishing award-winning career in journalism (when he was lucky enough to operate in a free media environment) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in ANOTHER book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
The Troublemaker by Mark Clifford is published by Free Press.
Tomorrow – why fears are growing about increasing online scams with experts calling for new rules to control them, and The Eye as well as Phil have become targets.
Soon on The Eye – how people are going to extraordinary lengths to get round the rules in China.
