Red Rag

Yeesh. I first read about Miranda Airey-Branson when her lacklustre stint as editor of Farrago came up at Make Believe.

Then she and her tory mates showed up at Alex White’s blog and, when they couldn’t hack losing the Melbourne Uni elections, started spamming his boss.

Yesterday The Age mentioned Miranda — and her bizarre online rantings — in an article about the Liberals’ dodgy tactics in the seat of Melbourne Ports:

Young Liberals posed as “bogus Green campaign workers” on election day to trick Green supporters into voting Liberal, federal Labor MP Michael Danby has claimed.

In a formal complaint to the Australian Electoral Commission, Mr Danby said the Green how-to-vote cards for his seat of Melbourne Ports – handed out by young women in green T-shirts and caps — misled voters.

[...]

One of the young women named in the complaint was Miranda Airey-Branson, 20, a Liberal editor of Melbourne University student newspaper Farrago.

She is also known for her webdiary, which promotes her fake tanning regimen, gives the size of her breasts, advertises her dislike of “prudes” who attack Paris Hilton’s sex video, and tells of her love for horses.

“Society is all talk and no erection,” she recently wrote online, followed by the observation: “I have morals, you know — I keep them in a shoe box under my bed.”

That’s when the fun started.

The inimitable Ms Fits pounced on her “slutty sweary ladybird” nemesis, and declared:

I love Miranda Airey-Branson and I am going to make the lesbian finger-bang fuck with her. Then I am going to piss on her.

Miranda, who is scared of lesbians, didn’t like this and first deleted comments left by critics, then deleted her whole blog. (Here’s a cache.)

Then everyone joined the festivities.

The Liberals’ response has been piss-weak and hypocritical. Alexander Lew complains that “the first thing they [the Left] target in an opponent is her [Miranda's] sexuality.” Frankly, it’s a bit hard to avoid. Let’s have a look at the posts on Miranda’s now-deleted blog:

1. An introductory post.

2. A post entitled, “Could it be possible lesbians just haven’t found the right man yet?”

3. A post about her favourite Sex and the City character. Sexuality is a big factor:

   I love the way Samantha just does what she wants (although I would never wear fake nipples), how she has sex with who she wants…

   And of course, we’re reminded of Miranda’s homophobia:

   I like Miranda, because she has the same name as me, she has the same coloured hair as me, and she is a lawyer, like I want to be. However I hear in real life Cynthia Nixon is a lesbian, or at the very least bisexual, so, that’s…. weird.

4. A post in response to Alex White, in which Miranda discusses the time she was sexually assaulted by another Young Liberal, and tells us that she “receive[s] offers (yes, of that kind) in my inbox”.

5. A post in which she discusses showering with her boyfriend and waxing her bikini line once a month.

6. A post about (ahem) feminine hygiene products.

7. A post about what she is going to wear. She wants to “show off my legs”, though she is worried that they might be “too muscly”.

8. A post about horses.

9. A photo of herself with a horse.

10. A post about “lovely” Andrew Bolt, and his “excellent advice on how to be taken seriously in politics”. No, really.

11. A post about choosing a swimsuit for her boyfriend, who ends up getting an erection “as a troupe of children went by”.

So, she managed four posts that weren’t related to her sexuality. They’re the four least substantial posts, and three of them were devoid of any political content. Meanwhile, she craps on at length about evil, lazy, man-hating lesbians. How on earth does Alex Lew propose that her critics should avoid discussing her sexuality?

(Lew is the man who can’t control his penis in the pool, by the way.)

The other prong (excuse the pun) in his defence of his girlfriend is to threaten legal action:

Ms Elgar/Hardy should expect a call from her ‘friends’ at Channel Nine soon to discuss her highly unprofessional behaviour. She might also consider seeking legal advice.

This is a bit rich, given that the Liberals aren’t exactly squeaky-clean themselves. In fact, they’re busy spreading vicious and defamatory rumours about Labor MPs.

According to the Liberals, when Michael Danby confronted her about her dodgy Green how-to-votes, Miranda said:

“Mr Danby, if this is how angry you become, I can understand why the newspaper man says you hit your ex-wife.”

The end of that post includes the following:

Disclaimer: Contrary to public opinion, Two Cents does not believe Michael Danby to be corrupt, utterly incompetent, a Labor Party hack or a beater of women.

Spreading a rumour in the form of a fake disclaimer does not mean it is not defamatory. And there is no question that the Liberals aren’t aware of the defamatory nature of the comment, because they know it has already been to court. The author of the post, Rohan D’Souza (an ex-boyfriend of Miranda’s), subsequently admitted:

Clearly, as Danby won a defamation suit against Glen Milne there is evidence to suggest that they are not true.

Still, he was unwilling to back away from them, and in the same comment wrote:

I would like to clarify the allegations that Michael Danby is a beater of women. They were alleged originally by respected journalist Glen Milne on Channel 7 and Sky News. Further comment was made by Crikey.com.au (June 4 2004 sealed section edition) commenting on the allegations.

Rumours continually surface and are continually emailed through to us about Danby’s treatment of women — in particular the alleged domestic violence.

Relying on “respected journalist” Milne is a bit much when we know that Milne was successfully sued for defamation for spreading the rumours. But what of Crikey’s comments on 4 June 2004? Here it is, with the important sentence highlighted:

8. Southwick stands by his rival Danby

In an unusual turn of events, David Southwick, the Liberal candidate for Melbourne Ports, has stuck up for his Labor rival Michael Danby in a letter in the Australian Jewish News today.

Southwick commends Danby for exposing Alan Ramsey, “a notable left-wing journalist with a long history of anti-Israel and anti-Howard Government bias”, over his “sloppy journalistic ethics”, claiming community representatives should always play a bipartisan role in fighting anti-Israel bias.

However, he went a step further condemning Crikey for repeating “untrue allegations of a personal nature about Danby”.

We can only assume he is talking about our reference to Danby successfully suing Channel 7, Sky News and Glenn Milne in 1998 for alleging he engaged in domestic violence, which we mentioned to illustrate Danby’s hypocrisy. In saying that he successfully sued, we made it clear that the allegations were groundless.

In other words, in spreading a vicious rumour about Danby, the Liberals are relying on proven defamatory statements by Milne, and a Crikey report that “made it clear that the allegations are groundless.”

Meanwhile, Alex Lew knows that what’s published on his blog could be defamatory, and that a court can hold him responsible for it:

The editors of this site are not responsible for hurtful or defamatory comments made in response to our posts. We will attempt to remove comments that we believe to be of this nature as soon as practicable.

Yet he refuses to remove the outrageous allegations about Michael Danby — and threatens to sue Ms Fits for calling Miranda names!

Alexander Lew, Rohan D’Souza and Miranda Airey-Branson are a bunch of pathetic hypocrites.