It easy it is for people to write things without at least a comment on the side of the person being commented on.

Excuse me? Has anyone stopped Fareena Alam or anyone else from making a comment? Are you seriously suggesting that we should not comment upon anything without first contacting the people with whom we may have issues?

The holier-and-thou act may work to close down discussion elsewhere, sunbeam; but (to mix metaphors) it butters no parsnips hereabouts.

Aren’t we rude! Tsk tsk.

So you have no intention of answering any of the direct and very clear questions you were repeatedly asked?

You are not concerned with the contents of blogs, just their form. A sort of meta-critique, then? How very sophisticated and convenient for you.

Her indoors is in fits at NTN’s live match build-up commentary from the stadium in Omdurman, where the Algerian fans have already begun stoning Sudanese riot police… meanwhile the Egyptians are getting quietly stoned in a different way.

I am hoping this could be the final nail in the coffin of Shari’a compliance in Sudan.

Meanwhile, back on Spittoon…

However it is unusual for someone to come on, write several hundred words of fairly passable English and still fail to make even one single, incoherent and intelligible point.

Do you intend to actually answer any of the very clear and direct questions you have been asked?

Yes or no?

At least none that have any bearing on this discussion.

The question is whether a ’someone who works for the propaganda arm of totalitarian, anti-democratic Islamist theocracy be involved in running the UK’s taxpayer-funded counter-extremism initiatives?’

The pertinent facts are that:

- Fareena works for Press TV
- Press TV is a propaganda arm of the Iranian government
- The Iranian government is a totalitarian, anti-democratic dictatorship
- Fareena is also heavily involved in the Radical Middle Way
- The Radical Middle Way is one of the UK government’s flag-ship counter-extremism programmes

I do not see how any of these facts need to be ‘verified’ or how they could in any way be altered by speaking to Fareena Alam or anyone-else!

Are you actually disputing any of these facts (and if so which ones) or do you have other objections which you are, for some reason, unable to articulate?

I am not really interested in the principle of whether ‘…someone who works for the propaganda arm of totalitarian, anti-democratic Islamist theocracy be involved in running the UK’s taxpayer-funded counter-extremism initiatives?’ as the world is full of similar conflicts and contradictions relative to the context of particular countries. That is not what concerns me – it is the accusations made without first verifying the information, as far as I can see the person in question hasn’t been spoken to personally and the responses to the article do become personal because the original article was written is such a way as to create that response.

I would have found more merit in the position of the original article if it had supported what it was saying with a response from the organisations and individuals in question.

What exactly is “unfounded slander” in the article?

That Ms Alam is a reporter for PressTV, the propaganda outlet of the authoritarian Iranian theocratic regime?

Or that Ms Alam is one of the founding members of the Radical Middle Way, which has received hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax-payers money?

Or is it the conjoining of these two pieces of information that has upset you?

‘Should someone who works for the propaganda arm of totalitarian, anti-democratic Islamist theocracy be involved in running the UK’s taxpayer-funded counter-extremism initiatives?’

This – as I stated before – is the issue that is at the core of my article.

What do you think? Do you fancy having another crack at answering it?