Denis MacShane and the LSE reading list: a statement from the Association of Political Thought

Is it correct to describe MacShane as a Labour MP? I thought he had had the whip withdrawn, while he was under criminal investigation over his expenses.

Apologies for the superficiality of my research, but these folks have a track record:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Mactaggart

“In November 2008, MacTaggart attracted criticism on the Today programme for using statistics that were not fully supported by evidence when discussing the issue of prostitution. She stated that “something like 80% of women in prostitution are controlled by their drug dealer, their pimp, or their trafficker.” When questioned on her claim she stated that it “came from an official Government publication into prostitution and the sex trade”.[3] However, a BBC magazine article states that “it is impossible to find that number in any research done on this subject.” The Home Office have also stated that they “do not endorse or use the figure that 80 per cent of prostitutes are controlled by others”.[4]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_MacShane

“MacShane has been accused of repeatedly using false statistics in order to inflate the number of female victims of sex trafficking. In January 2007, he stated, “According to Home Office estimates, 25,000 sex slaves currently work in the massage parlours and brothels of Britain.” He repeated the figure in a 2008 debate, attributing it to the Daily Mirror newspaper. It was later claimed that no such figure exists as an estimate, but due to MacShane’s speeches the figure has regularly been used in media coverage of the issue.[31]”

What’s particularly bizarre about this whole affair is that both MacShane and McTaggart seem to be attacking Phillips on the grounds that she is (allegedly, though clearly not in reality) acting as an apologist for/enabler of prostitution – with both these Labour MPs opposed to that on some (presumably rather ill-thought-out) grounds.

The bizarre bit – or maybe it’s not bizarre, but just a sign of gross stupidity – is that both these MPs do not stop to think whether a *feminist* philosopher can really be doing what they accuse her of doing. Which is a long-winded way of saying: MacShane and McTaggart appear to be even stupider than people have already been pointing out.

This statement is well-put and to the point. I imagine that quite a large number of others would be keen to add their names (as would I) and wonder whether, at this stage, the Association of Political Thought would consider posting this online to give non-members a chance to show their support.

I too am glad to learn of this statement. I found the words from MacShane to be infuriating. The link in #6 states that he holds a PhD. He cannot then be, as he might otherwise appear to be, simply a complete idiot. One can only conclude that he is perfectly capable of understanding what the essay questions quoted were asking of students, and yet chose to attempt to deliberately misrepresent the situation in order to try to score a cheap political point. That point seems to be that we should disregard a piece of research on human traffiking carried out at the LSE because, somewhere else in the LSE, they teach students to be prostitutes, or something. This in itself would be a pathetic piece of reasoning in any case, if it were indeed his genuine belief.

The link in #6 states that he holds a PhD. He cannot then be, as he might otherwise appear to be, simply a complete idiot.

The UK appears to be even more different from the USA than I realized.

(@12) Oh, I forgot to add, as an alum of the LSE I can assure you that if anyone at the university actually takes notice of either of these two, it’s purely for the derisive entertainment value.

In a US context this would simply be the opening for a pundit dogpile followed by a persecution campaign involving innumerable document requests by the state attorney general.

I would very much like to add my name to this list. And my support to the cause.

I would like to express my support for the statement from the Association of Political Thought. However, I am not a member of that organisation. Nor am I a resident of the UK, so this expression of support may be moot.
Nevertheless, the inane stupidity of the kind displayed by MPs Dennis MacShane and Fiona McTaggart is dangerous and harmful in these times when entire departments are threatened with closure, and policies are adopted on populist grounds.

Many thanks for the messages in support of this statement.

To add to Chris’s comment at 20: the person to contact if you want to add your name to the list of signatories is my colleague, Elizabeth Frazer: elizabeth.frazer@new.ox.ac.uk

(Thanks, Liz!)

imajoebob: “So, to actually be an educational experience, the discussion would have to include multiple points of view, not just, “Human Trafficking Bad,” as these two obviously believe.”

No, actually. Some things simply are beyond the pale. The comparison with Mein Kampf in your post is apt. If that book is assigned in a course it will not be taught as an alternative to “Nazism Bad.” It will still be “Nazism Bad.” Because decent human being do not tolerate Nazism, human trafficking, or prostitution.

@24: Yeah he’s loathsome. His wikipedia page is pretty good at summarising his many “achievements”. For the full picture ask yer man DSquared. He did something similar, incidentally, with his parliamentary report on anti-semitism.

“Colleagues in the United States are used to the phenomenon where academic lectures and reading lists get pored over by Republican politicians and “operatives” keen to undermine academic freedom and redbait intellectuals. But it is sad and shocking that in the UK, Denis MacShane MP… has recently indulged in the same kind of thing.”

This is ridiculous. I agree there’s a serious problem in the US with Republicans trying to shape course content and undermine academic freedom by outing obscure English profs because of their leftist reading lists. That’s not what’s happening here.

MacShane’s worked very hard on New Labour’s policy on trafficking, which was both supported and opposed by various groups of feminists. Anne Phillips has been involved in that debate and has has written and spoken criticising New Labour on numerous occasions. If you get FBA LSE Profs taking a political standpoint and making political interventions, it’s perfectly appropriate for politicians to throw stuff back. This isn’t an attack on academic freedom, it’s simply a fair right to respond to academics who choose to get involved in policy.

I think the statement can largely be interpreted as a bunch of academics being incredibly precious, and trying to get with the in-crowd and improve their career prospects by sucking up to an FBA.

@29
That helps.

I’m curious whether “leederick” realizes that his defense of the MP is wholly nonresponsive to what the MP actually did and the objection being lodged to that conduct.

leederick, I interpret this as more an attempt to intimidate someone who doesn’t support the anti-prostitution lobby’s point of view. Being smeared in parliament isn’t pretty, and I rather doubt that Professor Phillips condones prostitution in the way that MacShane suggests, even if she doesn’t support his view.

But these are the tactics of this movement: shaming, intellectual dishonesty, accusations of complicity, and dismissing or attacking anyone who disagrees with you. Is this how we should make policy in a sensitive public health and law enforcement topic?

The whole point of essay titles is to get students to think, not for academics to push their own views on them.

Yeah, but if we look at how the essay question was actually constructed, it’s quite obvious that Phillips is pushing her own views here.

novakant (at 39) opens up a tempting line of argument in which we try to discern whether or not Anne Phillips thinks prostitution is exactly as exploitative as domestic work. That is to be resisted in as far as the issue is not the content of her views but an attack on a reading list and the way she chose to write it.

That said, a few comments are in order. There are better ways to decide on what ‘her own views’ might be than checking a reading list. Phillips’ views on the body and commodification are actually , so relying on a discussion question isn’t necessary. Moreover, the question precedes a range of readings. The issue is whether students were having their minds “filled with poisonous drivel”. Deciding that would require: a) an understanding of the views offered by the readings suggested; and b) an analysis of the teaching context in which the matter was discussed. No one, to my knowledge, has offered such an account of the texts and comments from students suggest that the teaching context was about as far from indoctrination as possible. Indeed, on this particular week the lecture (in which Phillips could supposedly have better shaped what the students thought) was abandoned in favour of a two hour class discussion in which the students themselves carried out the debate. If anything, there seems to have been more care taken to not push a particular line on this week than on others.

Note again that the information I have just provided is all on the reading list and all on the same two page week description that MacShane took the quote from. In other words, he has no excuse for not knowing this and it seems reasonable to assume that he simply ignored this in favour of a directed attack.

I had the impression, unsupported by any evidence in this thread, or in the Wikipedia entry that MacShane had some redeeming qualities. Am I mistaking him for someone else

If you are thinking “but he was absolutely terrific in Deadwood” then the answer is yes, you may be…

I’m not sure how strongly McTaggart can be condemned for her part in the exchange. Was MacShane lobbing a prearranged softball to her? If so then she should be condemned really quite a lot.

OTOH if she was giving an extempore response to a leading question, then she might better be pitied for allowing herself to fall into a trap rather than prudently witholding judgement.

I thought MacShane’s fallacy could be put even more simply, so I posted the following reply to his comment at the opendemocracy site….

Dr. MacShane, you write: “I have spent years fighting against the view that being obliged by debt, drugs, poverty, patriarchy, or brute force into being a prostituted woman is on a par with just another job.”

Well and good. However, Professor Phillips was neither advocating said view, nor expressing her own confusion on the matter; she was assigning her students an essay question to make them think about the differences (and similarities).

A teacher asks her students questions — “What is 2 + 2 ?”, on up — but not because she herself needs to be informed of the answers.

There is the basic fallacy into which you and Fiona McTaggart plummeted when you asserted that Professor Phillips asking her class that question meant that she herself was unable to tell the difference between waged work and prostitution.

hellblazer, that question may even be taken as especially topical in the wake of the arrests of not one but *two* wealthy men in NYC for charges of sexual assault on hotel cleaning women.

Apparently “low-paid and often badly treated cleaners” are sometimes seized upon as substitutes for prostitutes, whether or not they willingly hired themselves out as such.

If high-ranking bankers and economists might possibly be a little confused on the distinction, surely it is a good thing to ask students at an economics school to clarify their own thinking on the matter, yes? For reference later in their careers?