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:
You know when we told y’all the rich declared class warfare and you told us to stop being loony lefties. Well now your kids are collateral damage. Wake up, and fight.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) August 14, 2020
Let’s not delude ourselves. @BorisJohnson does not care for equality & fairness.
Liberals are mistakenly framing #ToryChaos as “callous indifference” or “incompetence”.
It’s class war.
Analysis that fails to explain dynamics of class power & the systematised destruction of the working class is not just bad but dangerous.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) August 14, 2020
Quite. This is not incompetence. There is no lack of competence In giving contracts to their rich mates or giving them honours or artificially helping the children of the affluent to boost their exam results. This is nor a problem algorithm. This is class warfare.
— Nick Matthews #keepcooperating (@NickCooperative) August 14, 2020
I’m not claiming credit for calling a thing by its name – this is “multiple discovery”, “simultaneous invention”, “synchronicity” or, if you like, an expression of the “zeitgeist”. More and more people are simply coming to realise, understand and accept that it is the policy of the UK’s Conservative government to push them down unfairly.
That is what the decision – and it was a decision, deliberately made – to punish ‘A’ level pupils who weren’t from private schools was all about. Yes, Gavin Williamson and the other Tories are saying it was down to a mechanical system, an algorithm – but that algorithm was written by a human being who intended it to give an advantage to the children of very rich people.
In this way, the Tory class war has stolen your children’s futures and given them to the undeserving rich.
It’s what the decision – and it was a decision, deliberately made – not to fight Covid-19 in any meaningful way was all about. Tens of thousands of people in care homes have died – your relatives, maybe – because Matt Hancock and the other Tories said people with Covid-19 who lived in those homes should be sent back to them – never mind the fact that they did not have isolation facilities and the virus would run through those places like wildfire and be transferred to others by part-time staff who worked in different homes run by the same – private – firm.
The Tories – and their private business collaborators – failed to source personal protective equipment, ventilators, tests and the facilities to carry out tests. The lockdown they imposed was half-hearted and failed to stop the progress of the disease. Now that they have lifted it, albeit with a few measures still in place, more people are contracting the virus again. So they have stopped reporting the daily number of infections.
And the Tories have rewarded their private business collaborators for their failures with hugely expensive contracts to continue failing us – all at the public expense. Serco’s test and trace contract has been renewed, even though we know it won’t stop any second wave (really just a resurgence of the first wave that was suppressed but never went away).
You won’t get justice against the Tories by the normal means available to civil society because the Tories have either corrupted them already or are in the process of doing so. Boris Johnson illegally terminated Parliament’s last session in the autumn of 2019 and what was the result? He called a general election, lied to us until he was purple in the face and was rewarded with an 80-seat Parliamentary majority.
Now he is using that power to ensure that the courts will not be able to stop any more of his corruption by planning a curb on judicial review of government activity. He is imposing a dictatorship – just as he told you he would, if you could have been bothered to read page 48 of his election manifesto.
The police won’t help. Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson and the others are all above the law – no matter what they do. Try reporting a cabinet minister for a crime and see how far you get. They’ll tell you they’re treating it seriously, bounce the accusation around a few different departments and then say there’s no evidence. I’ve been there.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died already because it is Tory policy to kill claimants of sickness or disability claimants, who they consider to be “useless eaters”. That’s why the newspapers have been full of reports showing people with long-term illnesses and disabilities starving to death.
They wanted your homes so they imposed the Bedroom Tax and took them away from you.
The list goes on and on.
And still, too many people think they are the best choice to run the UK – even though the economy is in its deepest recession ever, and Brexit means it may never recover. You will suffer – they won’t. They have been stockpiling your cash and will simply use it to sit out any unpleasantness in the future.
But I feel sure a tipping-point will come – a flashpoint. I wonder how much we will all have to lose before that happens. I’m guessing it’ll be pretty much everything.
By then, many people may think there is nothing they can do. I am reminded yet again of Martin Niemoller’s poem about how the Nazis came for different groups who received no help from anybody else until, by the time they come for the author, there was nobody even left for him to ask.
But I am reminded of another group who were put in a similar position. When I visited Bosnia in the 1990s, I was told how – when the tanks from other countries moved in – the people, who were weaponless, left their homes and went up into the hills. They came back at night, when they took weapons – and lives – from the soldiers who had taken everything from them. And slowly, they took back their land from their oppressors.
I can see that happening here in the future.
I would rather it didn’t.
But it will, if people of good conscience don’t wake up, get up and put up a fight.
Keir Starmer won’t do it. He agrees with the Tories. That’s why he’s busy turning the Labour Party into Tory Lite Mk II (New Labour was Mk I) and accusing anybody who disagrees with him of anti-Semitism.
If you don’t want this to fall into violence, then you need to think what else you can do.
The ‘A’ level fiasco creates opportunities. Already some further education institutions have said they will take students who were downgraded, on the basis of their predicted results. Some haven’t. Clearly we should take note of the side that each University, each college, takes. Those who do the right thing should be rewarded in whatever ways we can. Those who do not should be shunned – meaning not only that we should not even try to send our children there, but that we should reject their graduates when they seek employment with our businesses. We know they won’t be any damn good anyway.
And employers who turn down applicants on the basis of the Tory algorithm’s discredited results should also be named, so we can stop buying their products.
That’s the best – non-violent – response I can conceive on the spur of the moment, and these things need to start happening now.
We’d better get to it, if we don’t want to roll over and die. And yes, that means you.
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Promoted beyond his abilities: Gavin Williamson was fired as Defence Secretary last year after… someone… leaked information about Chinese firm Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s 5G system (and look how that story has developed). Now he has messed up the hopes of thousands of ‘A’ level students.
What a fiasco – and all to create an artificial impression that privately-educated school pupils are better than those in the state system.
We all knew that school pupils taken their GCSE and ‘A’ level exams have been seriously disrupted this year, with schools being closed from late March.
This meant it was impossible for their exams to go ahead in the normal way, with knock-on effects for the future of candidates as they apply to move into a career or further education.
There are ways to make fairly accurate predictions of each pupils’ likely achievements, based on their mock examination results and their term work.
But Education Secretary Gavin Williamson couldn’t be bothered with all of that, so this year’s results are estimates – figures plucked from some apparatchik’s rear end.
The results he has produced show a clear bias in favour of privately-educated pupils that is unlikely to stand up to scrutiny; it seems Williamson has simply promoted the children of rich Tory voters above everybody else.
Picture the scene if you can: Williamson in his office, looking at students’ details.
WILLIAMSON: “Julian Huntley Farquar – studying at Harrowton*. Predicted grades are C, C and… C. We’ll give you an A, A* and, oh, I think another A. Well done, Julian for going to the right school!
“Now, who’s this? Billy Tozer. Factorytown Comprehensive. Predicted A, A and A*! That’ll never do. You can have a D, U and D, Billy – and that’ll teach you not to be born to poor, working-class parents next time!”
(Who’s the real DUD in this vignette, by the way?)
Result: Bedlam.
People are right to be outraged. These seems to be another clear example of the Tories using the Covid-19 crisis to hammer anybody who doesn’t have a million quid in the bank.
I think I speak for the entire United Kingdom when I say that this fiasco has certainly shown how one person has been promoted beyond his abilities – that person being Gavin Williamson.
Gavin Williamson is the personification of the Peter Principle. But, worse, he was sacked last year for a serious security breach. Yet there he is, in the band of charlatans we call "government", in a position where he can inflict untold damage on a generation.#ResignWilliamson
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) August 13, 2020
Williamson should resign – or be sacked again. By downgrading pupils who didn’t go to posh, expensive schools he is harming the future of the whole of the United Kingdom.
Given the right opportunities, those students could go on to become captains of business, industry, science and the arts, leading the nation forward into a brighter future.
But now those opportunities will go to dim Julian who hasn’t got a clue – just because he went to the right school.
It is a crime against the nation.
Oh… the official leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, has said something about this, but it isn’t even worth repeating.
I will repeat some of the responses to him, though:
From Rachael Swindon: “Why aren’t you calling for Gavin Williamson to go immediately? STOP HELPING THE TORIES FFS.”
And from Raphael Dogg: “Criticise. The. Fucking. Government.”
If either of those tweeters is a Labour Party member, I have no doubt that Mr Starmer will be having them expelled as soon as possible.
*Feeble attempt to concoct a fictional public school name.
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Hypocrisy: Vince Cable, who was a minister in the Coalition government and oversaw the disastrous privatisation of the Royal Mail as well as voting for the increase in tuition fees, is set to announce the new policy at the Liberal Democrat conference.
The Liberal Democrats are saying they want to give people £9,000 to fund learning, nine years after they reneged on their promise to end university tuition fees and increased them to £9,000 instead.
Does Jo Swinson think we have forgotten?
It was the fundamental betrayal that set the tone of the so-called ConDem coalition for the next five years.
Here’s the Mirror to explain the idea:
A motion at this weekend’s party conference will see Vince Cable push a £1.5 billion plan for a universal Education and Skills Account which would see the Government hand every person £3,000 when they turn 25, 40 and 55.
The amounts would be designed to “encourage workers to retrain into shortage occupations”.
It is hugely hypocritical of Swinson’s party.
This is the party that took away people’s ability to get the qualifications they needed for the career they wanted.
Now it says it would use the money from that policy to shoe-horn the same people into jobs a Liberal Democrat government would say are needed.
This is a policy to deny people the ability to choose their own careers; their own paths in life.
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More than 200,000 people have applied to be registered as UK voters within 72 hours – as a national newspaper claimed Boris Johnson’s government had set the date of its planned election in the hope that students would not be able to vote.
The BBC is reporting that nearly 200,000 people have registered to vote in 72 hours, and more than half are aged under 35.
That’s twice as many as registered within 48 hours when this story was reported earlier this week.
— JonWorcesterMan 3.5% #IAmAEuropean 🔶️ (@JonWorcesterMan) September 5, 2019
The story states: “According to official government figures… more than 199,000 people have registered to vote in the last three days, with 118,000 of them between 18 and 35.”
The boost to the electoral roll came as Tory aides made this shock admission:
“Boris Johnson’s campaign team have privately admitted that one of the advantages of an October 15 election was that it could limit the number of students registering to vote.
“No 10 is said to have factored in term times in deciding to push for an early election as it would mean campaigns had less time to ensure that students registered to vote. Those on the electoral roll at their home address would be less likely to travel to vote.
“A large turnout of younger voters in the June 2017 election is thought to have contributed to the Conservatives losing their majority. Labour has also promised to scrap tuition fees.”
Here’s a link to the Times story if you want to see it for yourself – but be warned: it’s behind a paywall.
Tories planned an election date which would reduce no of students voting. It shows that they have given up on young people. @libdems haven’t. Poll date aimed to restrict student vote, aides admit https://t.co/cxdLNewUlo
Clearly, if Boris Johnson wants to deny you your vote, it’s important that you do – and it is terrific, therefore, that so many have already signed up for it.
But the BBC report says despite the surge, there are still worries that if an election is called at short notice, people will miss out – as it is estimated that a third of 18-24 year-olds are not correctly registered, or missing entirely from the register.
If you’re still not convinced it’s important, here’s Ash:
It’s go hard or go home time. Register to vote ya bums!!!
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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