Nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. People are having themselves a high old time putting that mouthy Kate Smurthwaite in her place. Rupert Myers at the Telegraph is in there with a shiv – pretending her show was canceled because no one wanted to go, which is not the case.

When political activist Kate Smurthwaite had her comedy gig cancelled at Goldsmith’s College yesterday she was quick out of the blocks to tweet and blog about the removal of her show.

As an apparent martyr to free speech her plight quickly attracted reports by the BBC, the Huffington Post and others.

At least the New Statesman’s write-up asked the question “Is this newsworthy? On its own, no, not really”, before going on

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Yesterday evening London time (early afternoon my time) –

Goldsmiths Comedy Society Yesterday at 1:13pm ·

Good evening all!

The act booked to play tomorrow, Kate Smurthwaite, has been cancelled by the Comedy Society and will no longer be appearing at Goldsmiths.
Since announcing the line up a couple of weeks ago I have had many complaints about Kate’s past material, particularly in relation to her position on sex work, religion and Trans issues.

Without again going into the details or accuracy of these claims, there is a likeliness that the Safe Space policy we abide by could be breached, leading to more complaints. This is as well as rumours that there is a picket planned outside the venue.

All

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Guardian reports on the Goldsmiths-Smurthwaite collision.

One item strikes me as very odd…

The first she heard about the gig at Goldsmiths being pulled was an email exchange with the college on Sunday evening. She was told of “complaints” about a range of past subjects in her shows, including her views on prostitution and on Muslim women being forced to cover up, but was not given details or any right of response.

Smurthwaite favours decriminalising those selling sex, while criminalising those who purchase it. Goldsmiths students, she was told, support legalisation of the sex industry.

What? How can anyone even know that? What does it mean to say that? How can anyone possibly know that all Goldsmiths students support … Read the rest

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So now there’s a lot of bullshit and ass-covering about the cancellation of Kate Smurthwaite’s comedy show at Goldsmiths. So Kate has presented the documentation.

The media have written a lot about my show at Goldsmith College being cancelled tonight and of course social media is now abuzz with people calling me a liar and claiming I’ve made the whole thing up. So here’s my version. With screenshots to prove it. My apologies for releasing shots of what was obviously intended to be a private conversation, I wanted very much to avoid this but I’m not going to put up with being called a liar repeatedly. I have blurred out identifying details of the representative from Goldsmiths Comedy Society

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)