Politicsweb has come under withering criticism from a number of prominent journalists, and others, for running a facetious opinion piece by regular contributor, Jeremy Gordin. In his article, which appeared on the website on Friday, Gordin ridiculed the claim, made at least twice last year by journalist Michelle Solomon, that columnist David Bullard had propositioned her for a threesome in September 2011.
It is this allegation, which Bullard has said is "fantasy", that led him to first start publicly questioning the credibility of Solomon's December 2010 claim to have been raped by her best-friend's ex-boyfriend in East London - after inviting him home to her house after a drunken night out some months earlier. Solomon did not lay a charge with the police at the time, and has refrained from disclosing the name of her assailant for fear, she says, of opening herself up to litigation.
Bullard's Twitter comment to Solomon, on Monday last week, that "Face facts Mish. You got horribly drunk, had a bonk, regretted it in the morning and called it rape to protect your reputation" triggered a firestorm of outrage across social media and news and opinion websites this week.
Bullard was described on Twitter as a "rape-apologist", "racist", "sexist", promoter of "rape culture", "fuckwit" and "misogynist", and calls were made for him to be banned from writing for Politicsweb. (Bullard wrote a weekly column for the site before taking a protracted sabbatical for health reasons late last year.)
In his article on Friday, Gordin - who said he took Solomon's word that she was raped - extensively mocked the notion that Bullard would have propositioned her, and in this way. He defended Bullard's character in this regard, writing:
"I know the Bullfinch [Bullard] reasonably well, and I have known people with whom he mixes and mixed (some alas are dead) for decades - and the one thing the Bullfinch does NOT do is hit on women (or men). He just doesn't. It's not his thing. Some of us do; some of us don't. He doesn't - unless of course Ms Brainbox Solomon mis-read a silly or mis-directed quip (which the Bullfinch does sometimes make ... well, nobody's perfect.) So I think, Ms Solomon, you need to re-think your fantasy ... in short, you need a more adept accusation."