Talk:Peter Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith

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Unsourced claim of adverse effects on Goldsmith's position

The article said "This revelation, coming in the final days of the campaign up to the 2005 British general election, is expected to cause significant damage to the government, as well as endangering Lord Goldsmith's position afterwards.

The bits I have italicized just don't seem to follow, so I commented them out. Goldsmith was clearly doing his job and there is no suggestion of impropriety. If there are sourced claims that his job's in danger, on the other hand, let's put em in. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lord Goldsmith and List of Jewish jurists

Would anyone care to contribute to the discussion on the above page? Mr Lulu has repeatedly removed him from this list, despite the fact that he is liste din the Jewish Year Book. I also refer people to the link I have added to this page. - Poetlister 23:35, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Religious section

I've removed the section below because we don't use Stormfront or Islamist radio stations as sources on anything other than themselves, and Melanie Phillips is writing on her blog. It's also not clear where she's taken the information from, or whether anyone other than Bodi has attacked Goldsmith in this way. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:39, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Especially following his support of the Iraq invasion, many opponents, especially among the far right, accused Goldsmith of being motivated by Jewish identity. For example, in an editorial Melanie Phillips states that Faisal Bodi attacked Lord Goldsmith due to attributed anti-Semitic motives.

Similarly, Islamicists sometimes claim this motive for Goldsmith, e.g. Radio Islam: Blair's Jewish paymasters; British white supremacists sometimes also refer to him as the "Jew Goldsmith".

The problem is that some editors insist on listing Goldsmith under List of Jewish jurists, but refuse to provide any affirmative indication about it on this page. The very indirect Phillips blog thing was the closest thing anyone suggested as evidence Goldsmith is Jewish; plus the anti-semitic comments I managed to locate. So the closest I could find to supporting the claim was the fact that Goldsmith is sometimes "accused of being Jewish". Obviously, I don't think Stormfront is a reliable source, even remotely, but the fact that they make certain comments is possibly notable (not as an affirmation of what they claim, but just as an observation that they claim it). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:33, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Stormfront says the same thing about Rupert Murdoch, because he owns newspapers; ergo, he must be a Jew. I'll take a look at List of Jewish jurists. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah... but I'm sure the same WP editors would list Murdoch under "List of Jewish moguls" or something, on equally thin evidence. But I'm certain, SlimVirgin, that your influence would be salutary over at the problem list. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the See also containing the list of British Jews. It's a rule of thumb that we don't include reference in articles to someone's ethnicity or religion unless they self-identify or it has in some other way become an issue in reputable publications. But we can't use other Wikipedia pages as sources, and although listing them under See also isn't using them as sources in the body of the article, they're being used to point out that he's a Jew, and (a) we're not certain that's true, (b) we have no idea what definition is being used, (c) we don't know that he self-identifies, and (d) we don't know whether it's an issue among reputable sources. So I question the point of referring to it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The only point is that RachelBrown thinks she can create a new fact ex nihilo by the following procedure:

Put a link to "List of Jewish Foos" in the article on "Joe Foobar"
Add Joe Foobar to the List of Jewish Bazes

According to this style of thinking, the evidence that Joe Foobar is Jewish is that he is included in the List of Jewish Bazes, and the evidence for including him is that the Joe Foobar page now says that he's Jewish (via the reference to the list). This was the exact procedure followed to create a fact for Hazel Cosgrove (though subsequently someone else found a usable external reference, that is now in the List of Jewish jurists).

There's a joke that bears frequent repeating. A man reads a shocking fact in a newspaper headline. Unable to believe its veracity, he goes out to buy all the rest of the copies of the same newspaper from his newstand to make sure they confirm the headline. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:48, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, Mr Lulu reveals that he has not read anything. It was clearly stated that Lady Cosgrove is listed as Jewish in the Jewish Year Book. - Poetlister 13:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not clearly stated on WP article space. Readers should not be expected to read Poetlister's mind on this (nor even be required to dig through edit history comments. It's either in article space, or it is meaningless. This is so painfully obvious that I don't believe that even our ideological editors actually fail to understand it, they just dissimulate. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Even the administator that Mr Lulu brought in to bolster his position, SlimVirgin, says on Talk:List of Jewish jurists "David, that someone is Jewish doesn't have to go into their WP article. It should do so only if relevant and the rule of thumb a lot of editors use is only if they also self-identify, in addition to there being good third-party sources. That someone is Jewish might be relevant to this list (because Jewishness is only one of two relevant criteria: being a jurist and being a Jew) and yet it might not be relevant to their public lives and therefore not appropriate for the article about them." - RachelBrown 17:59, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One of Goldsmith's sons was my best friend at college; they certainly are Jewish. I seem to remember him going back to London to attend a bar/bat mitzvah for one of his younger siblings. Although this IS Wikipedia, and I don't expect you to take my word for it. Continue wrangling! 82.35.199.228 16:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Claim accuracy?

In the list of points made by the long version of paper, one is;

> Hans Blix's work at disarming Iraq was proceeding apace and, having not discovered weapons of mass > destruction, undermined authority for the war; and

I recall that at that time, Iraq had ejected arms inspectors and no investigation was occuring at all?

Toby Douglass 11:00, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Debevoise & Plimpton

Could we add something about Lord Goldsmith leaving the bar to become a litigation partner at Debevoise & Plimpton See http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/776bf58a-6c3e-11dc-a0cf-0000779fd2ac.html and http://www.debevoise.com/newseventspubs/news/detail.aspx?id=45de18df-39ca-4d42-95bc-38686baa78d4 81.153.85.59 18:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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