Response to Alan Partridge's email round-robin attacking Hacked Off.
Please note this is Hacked Off's old website, and it will soon be archived.
The disturbing email set out below has been sent to a number of our supporters by a Mr Alan Partridge from Norwich.
Now, everyone is entitled to their views and to express them – but we believe that the email propagates some injurious myths about our organisation and the case for press reform – which is perhaps not surprising given that it comes from one of the Daily Mail’s most ardent advocates, as those who know of Mr Partridge’s radio output will attest.
Rather than dignifying it with a point by point rebuttal, we will leave our supporters and those who wish to see the Leveson Report implemented, to make up their own minds.
If you agree with us please go to our supporter’s page here where the “celebrity” that Mr Partridge feels able to belittle has offered his help.
We politely suggest that Mr Partridge turns his attention back to opposing the pedestrianisation of Norwich City Centre
Thank you
Hacked Off
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7 Comments
Join the discussion and tell us your opinion.
I have already signed the petition
I agree with Alan – the Murdochs always appear to be as trustworthy as Paul Dacre is charming and I just don’t understand why Hacked Off persists in this infantile vendetta against them…
Unlike other time wasters here, I’d like to get straight to the point, without meandering around like some ill informed loon on a forum. Is there anywhere in the west Norfolk area where you would recommend I could get a good half pint (or 2-phew!!) of Butcombes?
When I saw the email, I really thought that it was intended ironically. Re-read, for example, the sentence: ‘Since when did the views of the unelected judging benches and of elected “officialdom” count for more than the views of those who bravely own or edit our great British institutions like the News of the World and the Mail on line?’
Unfortunately, however, irony does not seem to work with most people, e.g. the overwhelming (and surprising to Harry Enfield) public response to the “Loads-a-Money” character, even though in practice it does indeed seem that the Murdoch newspapers count for much more than Parliament and the judiciary (and the entire British public!)
“Alan Partridge” is a comedic unthinking buffoon created and played by Steve Coogan, who describes the character thus: ‘On one level we can think he’s a fool … but we also think “There but for the grace of God go I” – “I might say that if I didn’t edit myself” regarding the intuitive responses one has, but which normally get suppressed or edited when exposed to one’s rational side. Alan doesn’t edit these things, generally.’
[source – my transcript of the video at http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2013/aug/07/steve-coogan-alan-partridge-video-interview%5D
However, it now seems that I might be wrong about the intention, as I see that reports last year in the Guardian (20-Nov-2012) and Radio Times (21-Nov-2012) drew attention to an attack by “Alan Partridge” on Brian Cathcart’s book “Everybody’s Hacked Off”, calling it “hilarious” and “gobbledegook” — which descriptions, by the way, appear very fitting for the output of “Mr Partridge” himself!
HRon, you’re right – lots of people miss irony. For example, I left a response in this thread saying that I agreed with Alan Partridge and suggesting that, since the Murdochs had always struck me as being as reliable as Paul Dacre is charming, Hacked Off should call off its infantile vendetta against them. But the moderator didn’t allow it…
Additional note – as I mentioned, Alan Partridge is played by Steve Coogan, and I’ve just spotted that this person must be the one insulted by his own character in the email, as ‘a so-called celebrity – but a man with very little of the celebrity “coalface” experience one can only gain in local radio’.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Partridge and also the link you give in the paragraph “If you agree with us …”
Dear Hacked Off,
Thank you for advising of poor Mr Partridge’s misconception, not only on the purposes of Hacked Off but as to the identity of your ‘celebrity’ donor.
While applauding your enterprise, and much though I support still the designs we share on total media control, I must say I am inclined to draw the line at your implied hoaxing of more than a humble actor, a man of real public spirit.
Apart from the moral issue, should it happen that – with Alan so distracted – the centre of Norwich City is indeed lost to motorised democracy, then blame will be heaped not on the shadowy wicked, those behind the car park, but rather on the defenders of pedestrian hegemony, to whit ourselves.
‘Heaping’ will be assured, by the press, not least from Alan’s illustrious drinking companion. And for once, I fear, he may have right on his side.
That total media control is effected simply by the rule of fear and greed, in sublime ignorance of its source in our inherited inequality, once again will be pushed right off the front page. For there to be any hope against the power of the City Council, it will be all-hands to the pump, before the Great Silencing from May 2014.
Your concerned supporter hopes for Mr Partridge to be restored to his normal calm as soon as possible, and that should – from what is left of his account – any further subsidy find its way to Hacked Off, you will in the interests of all ensure there is no journalistic attention.
It is I know unfair that we cannot feel free to relieve the unfathomably rewarded few, while our opponents unhesitatingly prosper from the meagre earnings of millions, but there it is. Lord Justice Leveson must not be let down.
Relying on your discretion,
(Will there be Cash Back?)
As ever.
(NOT to be admitted in evidence)