International Conference on Men's Issues (2018)

Our thanks to Lucian Valsan and Jon Gunnarsson for this. They discuss Daniel Storey’s attack on J4MB between 1:44 – 18:40, after which they turn to Kathy Gyngell’s recent excellent article in the Mail.

In comments I’ve left on Daniel Storey’s Football365 hit piece on J4MB, I’ve pointed to inaccuracies and misleading statements in the piece. One I haven’t mentioned so far, but which is worthy of its own blog piece, is this claim made by Storey:

Amongst the points in Buchanan’s detailed manifesto is criticism for the public funding of women’s domestic abuse organisations such as Women’s Aid…

Our 2015 general election manifesto – the document to which Storey refers – is here. Domestic violence is explored over pp.26-30. We are critical of Women’s Aid and other such organizations – with justification – but there is no ‘criticism for the public funding of women’s domestic abuse organisations such as Women’s Aid’. Rather, there is a demand for public funding to support male victims of domestic violence. Proposal #2, on p.30:

Without reducing the support given to female victims of IPV, [JMB emphasis] Local Authorities should make funding available, and other support, to groups supporting male victims of IPV, whether through the provision of helplines, refuge places, or in other appropriate ways that take account of men’s needs in crises such as this. The amount of funding and support should reflect what is known about the proportion of victims of IPV who are men. Funding should include awareness raising initiatives to make men aware of the existence of support services.

Our thanks to Paul Elam of A Voice for Men for this (audio, 4:56). Only one thing for me to add, the images used were the ones relating to the former conference dates of 13-15 July, 2018. Some time ago the dates were changed to 6-8 July, I’ve sent Paul the new images.

Our thanks to Stu, a stalwart supporter, for alerting us to this. Daniel Storey’s Twitter stream is here. If you scroll down to 1 November, the day he posted his smear piece, you’ll see he’s written:

A piece on Birmingham City and their links to an unpleasant political organization.
Don’t read the comments. [J4MB emphasis]

Screensave here.

Storey clearly regards his 30,000+ Twitter followers as impressionable fools, willing to accept his crude attempt at censorship of opposing views to his. We invite you to read both his scurrilous article and the many supportive comments for J4MB and myself here. You can sort the comments in terms of either upvote numbers or newness. The former is the default setting, you’ll see that Paul Elam’s comments have already attracted 57 upvotes. I invite you to add your own comments. Thanks.

Our thanks to John for tracking down the apparent author of the Football365 piece, a trashy piece containing errors and misleading statements, which seemingly resulted in Birmingham City FC inadvisedly terminating the contract for ICMI18, despite having no legal grounds to do so. The article didn’t contain the author’s name – a sure sign of cowardice – but we believe it to be Daniel Storey. His Twitter account is @DanielStorey85, his tweets relating to ICMI18 are here. He writes:

Pleased that Birmingham City have now responded to this by banning the organisation from St Andrew’s. A good ending.

On a lighter note, you may recall that I made some remarks in the video about being pleased that Birmingham City FC are known as The Blues, because that was apt for a men’s rights conference, ‘blue for boys, pink for girls, as nature intended’. It was a throwaway remark which some humourless people have objected to. Daniel Storey is clearly among their number, and he tweets:

It’s a wonder blue tits haven’t died out, what with them all being male.

The man’s a blithering idiot. Blue tits are a species, and both males and females have some blue plumage. If they’re all male, how does he imagine they breed?

Two days ago the website Football365 published a scurrilous attack on J4MB, in an obvious bid to create controversy and pressurise Birmingham City FC into cancelling the contract to host the 2018 conference. The attack is here. The comments stream has been lively ever since. We’ve had plenty of supportive comments from luminaries including Paul Elam, Tom Golden, Robert Brockway, Guttorm Grundt, Nick Langford, Karen Straughan, Alison Tieman, Belinda Brown, Natty Kadifa, Elizabeth Hobson… you might like to check the comments stream and note the high number of upvotes for their comments, and the low number for the comments left by our critics.

Within hours of the publication of the piece, and without contacting us beforehand, a director of Birmingham City FC decided to terminate the contract, and emailed me to that effect. He appeared to be suffering from the delusion that the club could cancel the contract. I worked in the field of procurement – buying goods and services – for 25 years, and the contract for the hosting of ICMI18 couldn’t be clearer. There are no grounds on which the club can unilaterally terminate the contract. The club is undoubtedly in breach of contract. They are trying to get round this issue by claiming that I misrepresented J4MB to them, which is simply untrue. We shall be taking legal advice on the matter, but as things stand, we expect the club to honour its contractual commitments. I sent a polite but robust email to the club’s director, but have yet to receive a response.

Things moved on almost an hour ago, with the publication of a piece in the online edition of the Birmingham Mail, following my very brief conversation with the journalist behind the piece, Danny Hussain. You will note comments are disabled, clearly the paper doesn’t want the reactions of local people to be made public on their site. It contains a carefully edited video (1:06) with extracts from the video (18:13) in which I take viewers round the areas we’ve hired for the conference. It even contains an old blurred photograph of myself, while I could have sent them a hi-res new one in moments, if asked. It’s all to do with trying to create a jarring impression on people who read the piece, I suppose.

So, where does this leave us?

It’s time to draw a line in the sand.

It’s time to demonstrate that feminists are continuing to lose control of gender narratives.

95%+ of the supporters of Birmingham City FC are men and boys, and the conference is about issues affecting men and boys.

We shall be hosting ICMI18 in St Andrew’s Stadium.

 

Enjoy. I’ve just posted the following comments, and invite you to post your own comments after the Football365 article.

I’ve rarely read a more inaccurate piece on our political party, founded in 2013. The event is not our annual conference, but the fourth International Conference on Men’s Issues https://icmi18.wordpress.com. It will be held over July 6-8. Last year we hosted the second conference at Excel London http://icmi16.wordpress.com. People attended from 20 countries. Among the 15 speakers was Philip Davies MP, speaking on ‘The Justice Gender Gap’. A video of his talk is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoFdG4cSAM.

I am NOT a ‘known Birmingham City fan’, despite the excellent shirt, but I wish the club every success. We had a great deal of engagement with both Blues and Aston Villa fans before and after the game last Sunday, and plan to promote the conference at other Blues home fixtures in future.

Our party website is http://j4mb.org.uk. Our 2015 general election manifesto https://j4mb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2017/09/141228-V10-General-election-manifesto-RGB.pdf. Janet Bloomfield’s article, ’13 reasons women lie about being raped’ https://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/13-women-who-lied-about-being-raped-and-why-they-did-it/. Jonathan Taylor’s article, ’10 reasons false rape allegations are common’ https://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/ten-reasons-false-rape-accusations-are-common/.

One of the factors we considered when selecting a venue for the 2018 conference was proximity to the constituency of Birmingham Yardley, the home of the odious Jess Phillips MP, a woman selected from an all-women shortlist. She won our Toxic Feminist of the Month award in November 2015, after trying (but failing) to stop Philip Davies’s application to hold the first-ever debate on men’s issues in the House of Commons. Her award can be found here https://j4mb.org.uk/toxic-feminists-of-the-month/.

We look forward to welcoming many football fans – of both sexes – to our conference next July. The venue is perfect.

Mike Buchanan

Justice for Men & Boys
(and the women who love them)