Positions

Comments

7 responses to “Positions”

1. 

   Ian Hargreaves

   Sep 2, 2026 1:39 AM

   “A woman and a Jew”

   Be honest – do you think he’d have have pulled out of a show co-starring the far more outspoken Miriam Margolyes?

   You know the answer is no, because although she is a Jew, and a woman, she’s publicly AGAINST genocide. That’s the difference.
2. 

   Piglet

   Sep 2, 2026 1:41 AM

   Just looked him up on Wikipedia to see what else he’d been in and of course he’s a they/themmer.

   Oh he privately raised his concerns, did he. Meaning he tried to get her kicked out. How very plucky of him.

   I’m sure the conversation went something like “no, we’re not firing Maureen, we could get done for discrimination, also she’s the biggest name we have” “well, it’s her or me” “okay then, have a good one”
3. 

   Holms

   Sep 2, 2026 11:32 AM

   A happy day for his understudy!
4. 

   Lady Mondegreen

   Sep 2, 2026 7:09 PM

   Ian Hargeaves @#1

   although she is a Jew, and a woman, she’s publicly AGAINST genocide. That’s the difference.

   Really? Be honest, Ian. Is the difference that Margolyes is “against genocide” — WHICH WE ALL ARE — or that she agrees with McCarthy’s position, which presumably is that “Israel is committing genocide” — which is empirically indefensible?
5. 

   Ian Hargreaves

   Sep 5, 2026 4:34 PM

   Lady Mondegreen @4:

   First of all, you take as self evident that “we” are all against genocide. As the wiki likes to say, citation needed. I know I am.

   “empirically indefensible”? You seem to be in disagreement with:

   Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

   UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry

   Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention

   B’Tselem

   Physicians for Human Rights–Israel

   …among many others. I’m not sure what qualifications one needs to recognise genocide. I’d suggest if you’re splitting hairs on definitions with that list on the other side you’re on a sticky wicket to say the least.

   Anyhoo – McCarthy’s response, in his own words:

   I was slightly surprised to wake up on Wednesday morning and discover that Dame Maureen had written about me in The Telegraph.

   I was even more surprised to learn that I had apparently attempted to bully her.

   For the avoidance of doubt: I have never met Maureen Lipman. I have never spoken to her. I have never contacted her. I have never asked for her to be removed from a production, nor have I ever refused to work with her. We were never scheduled to perform together.

   So if I have managed to bully her, I have done so with remarkably little effort.

   What I actually did was make a decision about my own participation in one performance of Right Before / Go.

   There is quite a bit to unpack in Dame Maureen’s article, so bear with me…

   When I was told Maureen would be joining the company, privately told the producers that I did not feel comfortable personally promoting her involvement because of views she has publicly expressed about Israel and Gaza.

   I didn’t ask them to reconsider her casting. I didn’t ask anyone to agree with me. I certainly didn’t suggest that Maureen shouldn’t be allowed to work. I simply decided that I was not prepared to publicise her involvement.

   Until this happened, I had never publicly aired my opinions on Israel or Gaza. Not once. I hadn’t campaigned against Maureen or publicly criticised her. It was only after a subsequent conversation with Stan Zimmerman that I made the decision to withdraw from the production.

   Maureen asks why I didn’t simply invent a hernia rather than explain why I was stepping away.

   Because I didn’t have a hernia.

   My name and photograph were still being used to advertise a performance, and I thought anyone who might be thinking about buying a ticket was entitled to know that I wouldn’t be there, and why.

   That was the purpose of my statement. It wasn’t an attempt to silence Dame Maureen. Quite obviously, nobody has ever succeeded in doing that.

   She also describes my decision as “juvenile, immature posturing”, “cowardly, stupid and ignorant” and “lily livered”. She’s perfectly entitled to. That’s free speech.

   And I really won’t lose much sleep over her opinion of me.

   But free speech does rather have to work both ways.

   Maureen is perfectly entitled to say what she thinks.

   I’m perfectly entitled to decide I don’t want to participate in a production in which she is involved.

   Make of that what you will.

   Maureen Lipman is a proud outspoken supporter of one of the worst regimes in the world, the regime that started the war in Iran among much else. Attacking someone for merely choosing not to work with her is… strange, coming from someone otherwise so progressive.
6. 

   Ophelia Benson

   Sep 5, 2026 4:45 PM

   Ian – you cite “the Lemkin Institute” – I have by this time bored everyone senseless with repeatedly pointing out that “the Lemkin Institute” is not a name to conjure with. It’s one guy with a laptop. Naive people cite it triumphantly, which is pathetic, because it’s fake. It’s as much an Institute as this blog is an Institute.
7. 

   Ophelia Benson

   Sep 5, 2026 4:48 PM

   Also, that’s way too much of his statement to reproduce here. I’m going to trim it.