Keir Starmer: he’s not doing here what Sophie Duker suggested in the clip – but the look on his face may suggest he has been in the recent past.
This was too good to leave as a throwaway tweet so I’ve taken video and put it on TikTok to test the possibilities of that platform (and as practice for myself).
It’s from Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, in which comedian Sophie Duker (not Dukes, as the software insisted on renaming her) passes judgement on Keir Starmer’s tenure (so far) as leader of the Labour Party.
(To be honest, the clip isn’t that good either – sorry! But I’m sure it’ll get better once I’ve ironed out a few things.)
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This Writer is one of many who will be mourning the loss of a genuine asset to UK politics today.
Like many, I never met Maureen Fitzsimmons in real life; I only communicated with her on the social media, where her comments were a breath of fresh air amid the murk and miasma of Tory neoliberals and New New Labour backstabbers.
Her tweets enliven many Vox Political articles and much of my Twitter feed.
Tributes have been pouring into Twitter – and if you’re not following any of the accounts below, you should; they all support the kind of sensible politics that Maureen advocated.
Here’s a selection:
So sorry to hear about the passing of Maureen Fitzimmons. A true Socialist beacon ❤️❤️🕊
— Julie Harrington 💚💜💜💙Refugees Welcome ❤️ (@celtjules66) December 30, 2021
RIP Maureen Fitzsimmons. My condolences to her family.
#RIPMaureen Devastating news of the loss of our own Maureen Anne Fitzsimmons. I worked alongside her in Liverpool fighting cuts and offering help and support for the vulnerable in our communities. I was proud to stand with her and will always remember her as someone who cared
Woke up to the most terrible news. Maureen Fitzsimmons passed away 😢 I sadly was not aware that Maureen was unwell. Maureen was a true socialist and always on the right side of history. RIP Maureen Fitzsimmons I will miss you ❤️❤️❤️
Such a shock to hear that Maureen Fitzsimmons has passed away. A fellow Northerner, a committed socialist and a huge hearted human being. Rest in power Maureen, blessed be xxxx
RIP Maureen Fitzsimmons @mojos55. A vocal critic of the establishment, we all knew her if we didn't always agree, but never let it be said she didn't want a better country to live in.
Maureen Anne Fitzsimmons: A warrior for us all – https://t.co/4Vycurrtwd – Maureen Anne Fitzsimmons, who has tragically died, was a person who sought to make the world a better place for us all even those who didn't think they wanted it. A tireless campaigner for a more egali… pic.twitter.com/aM2N1otYr6
— Dorset Eye (Independent Citizen Community Media) (@dorset_eye) December 30, 2021
I’m all right, Jack: like Boris Johnson, This Writer has now had the Covid-19 vaccine booster injection. It won’t stop me catching the Omicron variant so I’m still wearing a mask out and conforming with all the safety procedures recommended here in Wales.
Official figures show a record 183,037 Covid-19 infections were recorded on December 29.
Just announced on the dashboard: 183,037 positive Covid cases across the UK in the last 24 hours 😬
Sadly, that number is likely to be a fraction of the total because the Conservative government that spaffed £37 billion of public money on a privately-run test and trace scheme (that didn’t work) is still utterly unable to provide enough tests – either lateral flow or PCR – for those of us who need them.
No lateral flow tests, no cpr tests available. Do they think if we can’t see the figures, then it’s just not happening?
Worth remembering that both cases and hosp are being underestimated currently – not only because PCR testing has been intermittently unavailable, often for long periods of time, but also because re-infections that made up 13% of cases a wk or so ago aren't being counted in either
Absolutely wild to think that even after throwing £38 billion at privately outsourced Test & Trace, there are currently no PCR tests available anywhere in the country for the public – either walk in or postal.
How many others, like my family member, cannot get tested right now?
Seems to be a media blackout on the fact 37 billion pounds was spent on a private Test & Trace scheme, & public are currently having problems getting hold of LFT, & PCR tests. Where’s the money gone?
This joke of a Government are failing to provide answers as to why no tests are available shortly after they’ve been mandated and just before New Years Eve when everyone will be out mixing together and celebrating. But in all honesty, is anyone surprised?
Why are journos, who were so happy to doorstep Corbyn permanently, not doorstepping Javid to have answers on what's happening with PCR/Lateral Flow Test?
There IS no shortage of lateral flows. Just like there WAS no fuel crisis. Just like there WAS no PPE crisis. Just like there IS no problem with truth in contemporary Britain.
The government’s response has been to provide “out of office” messages.
UK Government has confirmed they will not recall Parliament for covid measures.
The current response to the pandemic is a metaphorical Out of Office email saying “I am currently on annual leave and will deal with your issue when I am back in the office.” pic.twitter.com/1Ztal39JxP
And Boris Johnson disappeared for more than a week. Asked where he had been, he said “Inside the country” – instantly indicating to all of us that he has been raving it up in some foreign holiday destination owned by one of his friends and gifted to him on the sly (again).
“I’ve been in this country, where do you think?” is the “I’m a legitimate businessman” of replies about your recent whereabouts pic.twitter.com/nkEVEoJoGB
Oh but hey! Johnson also offered reassurance by saying nine-tenths of people in intensive care have not had the booster jab:
COVID-19: Boris Johnson says 'up to 90%' in intensive care have not had a booster and urges people to get jabbed | UK News | Sky News https://t.co/yhgGzR0Hkm
Have asked No10 to clarify the 'up to 90pc of patients in ICU are not boosted' figure and spokesman for PM says this is anecdotal evidence from "some NHS Trusts" which Boris Johnson was reflecting.
It might be reasonable to say that, if the number of hospitalisations and deaths has significantly dropped.
Even with a 50% milder variant, population immunity, shorter hospital stays, boosters, HCW isolation exemptions & people with minor ailments staying away from A&E due to Omicron
But with even official infection rates rising exponentially, there will come a day on which hospitals will be overwhelmed again – especially because medical teams are being forced to stay away from work because they can’t get a test result.
My medical timeline is full with personal and colleague examples of healthcare staff unable to get back to work in the NHS
No PCRS No Lat flows
We need action QUICKLY otherwise patients will be the ones who suffer
Which day, do you reckon? New Year’sDay? New Year’s Eve?
Today?
All because a bunch of media hacks told us Jeremy Corbyn was a wrong ‘un after he told them how Boris Johnson was planning to kill the NHS.
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu: if he were still with us, he’d probably be covering his ears to block out the lies being said about him now that he’s gone.
This Writer was genuinely saddened to learn of the passing of the great Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
I remember when he was at the forefront of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa – a struggle that ended the stranglehold of the white supremacist National Party over the nation and ended the segregation that made people of colour into second-class citizens.
In later years he turned his attention to the Israel/Palestine question, nailing his flag firmly to the mast of Palestinian rights and attacking the apartheid he saw being operated by Israel.
Oh – if you think the Israeli government isn’t operating a system of apartheid, with Palestinians as the underclass, take a look at this:
So isn’t it strange that The Guardian should do this:
The Guardian published an obituary for Desmond Tutu which omitted his support for Palestinian rights , naming of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians as a form of apartheid and his support for BDS. It then deleted people's comments on its website highlighting this omission.
Meanwhile, apologists for the atrocities being perpetrated in Israel have merrily stepped into the gap and declared that Archbishop Tutu was an anti-Semite, based on hot air and fantasy:
But the mainstream media will never discuss mendacity like this. It would have ten years ago though.https://t.co/P77XieJEWL
Normally I might be urging you to write a complaint to The Guardian, but you don’t have to: that great campaigner against anti-Semitism lies, Tony Greenstein, has already written one:
Tony Greenstein's Blog: Open Letter to the Guardian's Editor Kath Viner & its Zionist Gatekeeper, Jonathan Freedland https://t.co/FrAQhJpaml
When people pay a tribute to someone and deliberately, for unspoken political reasons, excise a part of their life, they end up saying more about themselves than their subject.
To do all these things and distort someone’s life, because it’s politically inconvenient to tell the truth, and is at variance with the Guardian’s editorial line, is not merely dishonest but politically odious. It suggests that the tribute you paid to Archbishop Tutu’s struggle against Apartheid is just hot air. Pious and empty words aimed at convincing your readers that you retain some integrity.
We all know the reasons for the Guardian’s dilemmas. You spent five years demonising Jeremy Corbyn and the Left as ‘anti-Semites’. You lost no opportunity to portray people who were opposed to apartheid as racists. Even worse you did it in the company of genuine racists and anti-Semites.
The omission of any mention of Desmond Tutu’s longstanding support for the Palestinians was not accidental, an unfortunate oversight but a deliberate editorial decision. We know this because a critical comment from Professor David Mond, who pointed this out, was deleted by the Guardian. It did not accord with your ‘community standards.’ Likewise two comments from Mark Seddon, the former Editor of Tribune, were also deleted.
Of course you did not want to mention Tutu’s position on Palestine. Tutu’s opposition to Israeli apartheid routinely attracted cries of ‘anti-Semitism’ from those who refuse to understand that opposing the Israeli state for what it does is not the same as hostility to Jew.
I fully understand your dilemma. The Guardian has spent so much of its time making false accusations of anti-Semitism that you don’t know how to handle the legacy of someone who, according to your definition, was anti-Semitic. Desmond Tutu was an opponent of apartheid in all its forms.
That seems an excellent summary of the situation.
And by creating it, The Guardian has created an opportunity to smear the name of a great man.
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Janus Lammy: January is named after the famous two-faced god, but now it’s been suggested that the month should be renamed Lammy, after the Labour MP.
This Site has praised David Lammy in the past – particularly over his defence of the Windrush generation of UK citizens the Tories tried to deny and deport.
But his latest outburst deserves no support at all. It shows that he is a two-faced fairweather friend who says only what he thinks will help him. We already have a Boris Johnson for that kind of behaviour – and it belongs in the Tory Party, not Labour.
'I so wish Bernie (Grant, former Labour MP) had been alive to see his great friend Jeremy Corbyn become leader of the Labour party'
Now David Lammy apologises for nominating Corbyn. There’s a reason the public don’t trust politicians. pic.twitter.com/SCDdtW2YQr
Lammy sucked up to Corbyn when he was leader, just as much as he sucks up to Starmer now. The kind of fair weather friend you want nowhere near you in a foxhole.
And commenters have been quick to point out the flaws in Lammy’s behaviour:
January is named after Janus, the two faced Greek and Roman god. I think to better reflect modern Britain, that month should be renamed Lammy. Happy to support a petition to do that! pic.twitter.com/xgDDOTQtZB
Every time I have a half-thought about voting Labour to stick it to Johnson et al, someone like Lammy comes along to remind me they're all the same bunch of slimy opportunists
I’ve mentioned the possibility that the voters of Tottenham will turn their collective back on Lammy, now he has revealed himself to be untrustworthy. It doesn’t stop there:
Time for all #TradeUnions to turn their back on Labour. With the latest spite spewed out by Jewish News and David Lammy, nobody can say that they aren't enabling hate or trying to divide us. Please stop funding the hate.
Black British media need to be asking Lammy what he is doing to get the Forde inquiry on anti-black racism in Labour published instead of distancing himself from JC a politician that was widely popular in the Black community!
I hope he gets exactly what he deserves from the public, which is nothing – ever again.
I certainly hope his decision to betray Jeremy Corbyn in such an underhand way harms Labour’s electoral chances with Starmer as party leader.
And I absolutely hope that it helps prod the wider party membership to wake up and demand representatives who stand for genuine Labour Party values as laid out by the party’s founders, rather than for their own selfishness.
What can I say? I’m an optimist.
I know there are figures in the mass media that will continue to provide Lammy with a platform, while – I believe the word is “cancelling” – his critics. Consider The Guardian and the way it has refused to allow any mention of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s opposition of Israeli apartheid in order to present him as a wholly praiseworthy figure.
(Strange that opposition to apartheid is now frowned upon by the UK media that tries so hard to present itself as reasonable.)
The responsibility, as it has always been, is personal.
It is up to all of us to remember that Lammy is not worth our time, and to switch him off or block him out. He has nothing to say that anyone could possibly want to hear.
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Endangered: I don’t think school pupils are allowed to sit this close to each other any more (are they?) but if they were, air filters in their classrooms would help attack the spread of Covid-19. Too bad Boris Johnson would rather spend twice as much money on a so-called Royal Yacht, to tickle his vanity, isn’t it?
I’m writing this on the day the UK recorded a new daily record of Covid-19 infections – 129,471 cases, and the Tory government announced that the current evidence does not support more measures to combat the spread of the disease.
In fact, the Tories may well be right. At 9,546, the number of hospitalisations is much lower than the peak of 34,336 on January 18 this year, when fewer infections had been recorded.
But there’s an enormous cohort of the population that has not been fully vaccinated, and today – it seems – we have evidence that the government would rather build a new “Royal Yacht” in which privileged people would gad about the world trying to do trade deals than protect them.
I refer, of course, to school-age children.
When you read that England could fit COVID air filters to all classrooms for half cost of Royal Yacht.
Are we really being led to believe that wanting schools to be safe isn’t worthy of investment, important, patriotic or our civic duty to campaign for, yet a Royal Yacht is?
That’s certainly what the above tweet leads This Writer to believe (that we are being led to believe what Shuaib is saying).
It’s based on this Guardian article, which says scientists and campaigners have claimed fitting air filters would “significantly” reduce the transmission of Covid-19 in schools.
Without such a measure, the statistical likelihood is still that huge numbers of school pupils and their teachers will catch the disease and that an appreciable number of them will be hospitalised; a lower proportion of the total, perhaps, but when the total is so much higher, the actual number may also be large.
The statistical likelihood is also that some of these children and adults will die – or will suffer Long Covid for an unspecified time afterwards.
But Boris Johnson doesn’t care about your kids or their teachers! He wants his yacht, because a hugely-expensive status symbol is far more important than some poor person’s brat!
Right?
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Daft: Liz Truss is trying to woo the public with empty promises.
You may have been wondering where Vox Political has been for the past few days, Christmas notwithstanding.
Well, I want you all to know that I was not partying it up like a crazed Bacchanalian baboon. No!
I was at a business meeting.
For this reason, I was unable to report on the latest Brexit-related development, that turned into the Tory government’s message of great joy for Christmas – until it backfired:
We might get ‘pints of champagne’ back because of Brexit but nobody cares https://t.co/BBCCZuxJFt
The fact that it’s a brainchild of possible Boris Johnson backstabber may be a source of some consolation for the prime minister, who would be having a rotten Christmas if he was capable of understanding the world of torment into which he is slowly falling.
Haha. Liz Truss has "announced" that the UK will bring back 'pint-sized' champagne bottles!
Someone should tell her that champagne is from France and is designated as a protected brand in the Brexit Agreement and can't be made in Brexit Britain 🙄
I certainly can’t understand why anybody would care.
Most of us in the UK don’t remember pint-sized champagne bottles and wouldn’t see the point of them anyway. We would be paying more money for less product, yet again.
And why would any French wine producer (champagne can only come from that region of France) bother changing their production process to provide smaller bottles to the UK market? It would be costly and, with no guarantee of a market, risky.
So it was a meaningless statement: the government is making it possible for manufacturers to sell UK customers pint glasses of champagne – but nobody is likely to do it.
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A question that needs to be asked is: How does #Eton convince its pupils, no matter how incompetent and useless, that they are up to holding the highest offices in the land and, worse still, that holding those offices is their birthright? pic.twitter.com/jSJHHrBMF8
• about fires than fireman • law than 11 Supreme Court judges • about trading across the EU frontier than people who do it • about viral control than epidemiologists.
— Suffolk 🔶 🇪🇺 #FBPE #BrexitHasFailed (@TimInSuffolk) December 22, 2021
Educated at Eton! Now do you understand where his loyalties sit? This man is a Tory! An Eton education provides the key to every 'seat of power' even in the clergy! https://t.co/luGOf29MPc
In 2021, quite a few footballers and ex-footballers showed more moral courage and moral clarity than, say, most church leaders, politicians, cricketers, actors or journalists
In 2021, former pupils of Eton brought disaster and disgrace on this country
It would be fair to say that Eton produces high-flyers who are both arrogant and ignorant, and only ever gain positions of power because of the Old Boy Network.
Maybe once it educated genuinely great and good people. But even that is debatable. And those days – if they ever existed – are long gone.
As a private school, providing education to those who can pay its exorbitant fees, Eton does not take the most intelligent people; it takes those whose parents have the most money.
Teachers there may do their best to implant an education into this stony ground but the evidence suggests that the best way Eton equips its alumni for success is by allowing them to say they were “Eton-educated”, even though (in some cases), it would have been more rewarding to educate a brick. It would do less damage, even if it were used only to break windows.
Former Eton pupils help each other into the plum jobs and deny those jobs to more deserving people who went to other schools.
And that’s why the United Kingdom has flushed itself down the toilet.
The quality of the education provided may be excellent. I don’t think anybody is denying it.
But if Eton’s current owners and staff really want to maintain their school’s reputation, that is being trashed by former pupils including Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Jacob Rees-Mogg and, yes, Justin Welby, there’s something they need potential pupils to do before they take any money:
An intelligence test.
Of course, it’s possible that Eton does actually get potential pupils to take such a test.
Anti-Hotovely, not anti-Semitic: British-Jewish people protesting against a previous Hotovely event.
Students who were condemned by Home Secretary Priti Patel and Labour leader Keir Starmer for protesting against a speech by the violently racist Israeli ambassador have been cleared by their university.
In a letter to around 200 staff, bosses at the London School of Economics stated that they found “no evidence whatsoever of protestors having broken the law” when Tzipi Hotovely gave a speech there in November.
LSE staff members had petitioned for an announcement “immediately affirming our students’ right to protest on campus without fear of police investigation.”
The response was written last month but has only recently become public knowledge.
Isn’t this awkward for Priti Patel, who wrote the following:
Disgusted by the treatment of the Israeli Ambassador at LSE last night.
Antisemitism has no place in our universities or our country.
I will continue to do everything possible to keep the Jewish community safe from intimidation, harrassment & abuse.
There wasn’t any “intimidation, harrassment [sic – Patel can’t spell] & abuse” but Patel demanded a police investigation anyway.
The Metropolitan Police almost immediately responded by saying there would be “no investigation” – because no incident took place that required police involvement.
While we might object to some “no investigation” decisions by the Met (evening, prime minister!) I think most of us can agree that this was the right choice.
Starmer may not – he certainly didn’t at the time, when he tweeted the following:
Protest: the court’s announcement on whether to extradite Julian Assange faced huge public opposition.
Lawyers acting for Julian Assange have filed an application to appeal against a High Court decision to allow him to be extradited to the United States to be tried for espionage.
High Court judges must now decide whether one of the grounds of the appeal is a point of law of general public importance, before the application may be considered by the Supreme Court.
Birnberg Pierce Solicitors, acting for Assange, say they believe serious and important issues of law arise from the High Court’s reliance on US assurances regarding the prison regimes and treatment Assange is likely to face if extradited, and from its judgment.
Assange is wanted in the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
A decision on the application is unlikely to be announced before the third week in January.
This Writer is now agog to find out if the US will still surrender Anne Sacoolas, accused of killing Harry Dunn in a road collision but who then fled the UK under the protection of diplomatic immunity, to court proceedings beginning on January 18.
See. Assange’s extradition is in line with a one-sided UK-US deal whereby the UK has to surrender anybody wanted by the US, but the US doesn’t have to do likewise.
The fact that Sacoolas was suddenly offered to the UK after the High Court allowed Assange’s extradition seemed extremely suspicious to This Writer, for precisely that reason.
And now that the extradition is in doubt, I’m on tenterhooks to find out whether the Sacoolas trial will still go ahead.
(Not that I ever expected her to come to the UK to serve any sentence, if she’s found guilty. Do you?)
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