Angela Haggerty’s Sacking

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By Jason Michael

IT’S TIME TO GET SEXIST AGAIN, and by “sexist” I mean having the bare-faced cheek to criticise a noisome pestilence of a personality in the public eye who just so happens to be a woman. This is, after all, the new definition of sexism in the age of the internet. I should begin by making it clear that I do not dislike Angela Haggerty. So far, I have had the remarkably good fortune of never having met her in person, and, if the accounts of her former colleagues are anything to go by, this makes me fortunate indeed. When it comes to Angela, I really dislike what she says and how she operates online – and we will return to these points shortly. Her antics are all too frequently childish and disruptive, making her, if she is, as she claims, an independentista – given the platforms she has been given, toxic to the whole independence movement.

Last night Haggerty broke the news to her followers on Twitter that her columns in The Herald and Sunday Herald had been axed, ostensibly as a result of the coming changes at the papers. These papers are very much part of the anti-independence media establishment, and so it is no skin off our noses who they choose to employ. Thus, I can say quite sincerely that it is regrettable she has once again found herself unemployed. No one wants to see another “working class woman” out of work. But, them being private enterprises, they are entitled to hire and fire who they want – and Haggerty has never come across as an easy character to work with.

Papers have standards. Yes, we can all see the humour in this statement when we are talking about The Herald. It employs David – you’re all “bots” – Leask! But even in comparison to this low-level “journalism,” Angela Haggerty has always somehow managed to lower those already bargain-basement standards. No one seriously rates Ms Haggarty as a writer. As has been discussed before on this site, her analysis and style are wanting, and I would not be the first to suggest she was taken on by The Herald as an easily controlled pro-independence voice. It was, surely, only a matter of time before they figured out she had as much appeal to the independence movement as a butcher’s apron.

Twenty minutes after her big announcement she began documenting, as a thread to her original tweet, the abuse she was receiving from “Rangers fans” – code, one assumes, for unionist trolls. Personally, my heart goes out to her. Not only do I not want to see her on the dole queue, I don’t want to see her or anyone else subjected to abuse. It’s not on, and those responsible should to be reported to Twitter and/or the police depending on the nature of the abuse.

But “abuse,” notwithstanding the truly abusive nature of much of what she has highlighted on this thread, is a funny thing when it comes to Angela Haggerty. It was only a week ago she was describing me as a “nasty piece of work” to Tanja Bueltmann after the latter had unscrupulously interpreted my insistence that women are not exempt from criticism merely because they are women as sexism. According to Haggerty any man who dares to challenge a woman – no matter how valid the challenge – is an abusive misogynist and a sexist. I’m certainly not the only member of my sex who has been subjected to this pathetic weaponised gender politics.

This is something for which Haggerty has made a name for herself. Back in March this year when GA Ponsonby criticised CommonSpace for giving a pump to the newly launched unionist website The Red Robin, Haggerty responded with the breath-taking insinuation that Ponsonby was in some way sexually harassing her:

Do you think this crazily-obsessed-with-me middle aged guy realises that: A.) That’s just fucking weird dude B.) By his *own logic*, he’s spent the last couple of days doing nothing but “promoting” me by endlessly tweeting and writing articles?

It quickly becomes impossible to take her claims of online abuse seriously when she consistently behaves like this, and – more worryingly (seriously) – her constant faux and wildly exaggerated claims to being the perennial victim of sexist abuse does significant damage to genuine complaints of sexist abuse and sexual harassment. We are all aware of the struggle for women to be taken seriously and listened to when they are subjected to this disgusting treatment. By forever calling wolf, Haggerty only makes it easier for real victims to be ignored. This is what children do. It is below even the gender-obsessed idiocy of student journalism and politics.

We must also consider her bampot behaviour a form of violence. The accusations of sexist abuse and sexual harassment – like paedophilia, as Stuart Campbell pointed out recently in reference to the cynical use of accusations against Alex Salmond – have the ability, even when completely untrue, to damage people’s reputations. People lose their jobs over the head of unfounded accusations of sexism and harassment. Surely, given her present predicament, this is something Ms Haggerty would think more upon – but no. In her warped reality such horrible things are easy tools with which to silence criticism and turn her [dwindling] support base against those who stand up to her. When it comes down to it, I think it is fair to say that she is the bully.

While I don’t particularly want to see her suffer or fall on hard times, I can completely understand why a gown-up media outlet (I know, it’s The Herald) would give her her marching orders. In the real-world behaviour like this simply isn’t tolerated; not because it isn’t useful – we know from her that it can be, but because it is the sort of nonsense that can lead to law suits and damages. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence – in sort supply at The Herald, admittedly – will see how much of a liability Angela Haggerty is. Her eventual sacking was, as we all knew, an inevitability. Perhaps, and for her own good, it is time she reflected on her future. News media isn’t her thing. Maybe she would consider becoming a playwright. She loves drama.

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