Someone has called out Home Secretary Suella Braverman over her “inflammatory language” against British Pakistani men and people who cross the Channel in small boats to seek asylum here.
Professor Tim Wilson has details:
Braverman was scheduled to address the National Conservative conference on the need to cut migration.
It’s a match made in heaven: a xenophobe preaching race hate to the Nat-Cs.
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Marie Van Der Zyl: The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews may need to ask some serious questions of the other members of her organisation.
“I do not like the Board of Jewish Deputies,”
writes Martin Odoni in his excellent article about this incident.
“As a body, it falsely claims to ‘represent’ British Jews, but hardly ever consults any of us before arriving at its official position on any matter. They no more represent Jews than Mary I represented the people of England.”
This seems clear from its treatment of Rachel Shabi, who also happens to be Jewish, and who tweeted a response to Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust, who in turn had claimed that Gary Lineker had been wrong to make Holocaust comparisons to current events:
This is plainly wrong. A key tenet of Holocaust education is never again, for anyone. The Holocaust is unique, but "never again" is universal. Drawing out similarities and parallels is critical and part of the education https://t.co/d5fbRRQJ5E
I agree with Shabi, most particularly in light of the many, many examples, during eight years of anti-Semitism hysteria directed at the British Left, of wildly hyperbolic and irresponsible Holocaust comparisons being misused – think of Margaret Hodge – to which the HET ‘mysteriously’ never responded. (Once again, the outrage only follows when the comparisons are made with the modern British Right.)
But such comparisons can be accurate, and the horrid rhetoric the current Tory Party are using when discussing asylum seekers is indeed barely distinguishable, at least in tone, from the sort of anti-Semitic propaganda that was omni-present in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
However, the Board of Deputies of British Jews was apparently outraged. It published a (now-deleted) tweet, to which Ms Shabi responded… actually in thoroughly reasonable tones, considering the content. Look:
“Rachel Shabi telling the head of the Holocaust Education Trust that she’s “plainly wrong” about, er, the Holocaust, is the definition of chutzpah. The shamelessness of this asshole.”
Is that really appropriate language for the body claiming to represent all British Jews?
After the inevitable public backlash, even the BoD agreed that it isn’t, with an apparent claim – clarified by Ms Shabi – that the tweet was intended to go from a member’s personal account rather than the organisation’s official Twitter feed:
Hi @BoardofDeputies thanks for the apology, though the problem isn't just the language but the substance of the post.I'm concerned that the person intending to post this on their personal account is responsible for your twitter account.Can you take action? https://t.co/WzXWSBlYif
Mr Odoni has information about the person apparently responsible for the BoD’s Twitter account, but I’ll leave it to him to explain it to you, over in his article.
But I will pass an observation by an onlooker about what the apology says about the BoD:
Translation:
We meant to post that abusive tweet about Rachel Shabi on one of our numerous sock puppet accounts, but we accidentally posted it on our official account by mistake. We're not remotely sorry about the content of the tweet. We're just sorry we used the wrong account. https://t.co/tdqmb7zvGo
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) March 12, 2023
Whatever happened here, it is likely to tarnish the reputation of this organisation for some time to come.
BoD president Marie van der Zyl may need to explain what’s going on – because if Gary Lineker can be removed from his position at the BBC over a tweet he published on his personal Twitter feed, then surely a member of her organisation should be removed for publishing a tweet containing inappropriate language and inaccuracies, on its official Twitter feed rather than their own.
Or will we see some more double-standards in this increasingly twisted saga?
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Trash talker: if Liz Truss thinks people in the UK don’t work hard simply to make a living, she needs to get her head out of whatever dark cavity it has been inhabiting for the last 12 years.
This woman is a disgrace to the United Kingdom. She should not be in politics, let alone in the running to be prime minister.
I refer, of course, to Liz Truss, a co-author of the infamous Britannia Unchained, a book that claimed the British were “among the worst idlers in the world”.
She has disowned that passage, even though her status as co-author suggests endorsement of it, laying the blame for it on Dominic Raab, who at the time it was published was among the worst idlers in Parliament, with one of the lowest attendance records of any MP. He’s now Deputy Prime Minister, indicating that scum rises.
But she can’t disown the words she spoke in a leaked audio recording from a few years ago, when she was Chief Secretary to the Treasury:
In the clip, leaked to The Guardian, Ms Truss said those outside London were less likely to be hard workers.
She said British workers as a whole also lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, specifically those in China.
Ms Truss said it was “partly a mindset or attitude thing” and there seemed little desire to change the working culture so the UK could become more prosperous.
At the time she spoke those words, the UK’s economy was the second most prosperous in Europe. The money just didn’t trickle down to the people who created it (the workers) due to Tory policies.
This Writer can’t speak for large masses of UK-based workers; I can only really discuss my own experience of working here.
So let’s see: before I set up Vox Political, I spent three and a half years working for a local daily newspaper while also acting as carer for Mrs Mike who (famously, to long-term readers of This Site) has long-term illnesses and disabilities.
I have continued to act as her carer throughout the nearly 11 years that VP has been running. At its height, the site had more than 178,000 hits in a single day and I would suggest achieving that required a certain application.
During the time I was caring for Mrs Mike and running Vox Political, I have also helped run two charities, being vice-chair of one for several years, and I am currently the chair of another, that runs a cultural festival here in Mid Wales.
I spent two years on a successful campaign to force the Tory government to publish figures showing that thousands of people who had claimed sickness benefits but were thrown off them had subsequently died, indicating that the decision to sanction them was wrong.
I also had to work hard to prevent the Department for Work and Pensions from cutting off Mrs Mike’s benefit. Its representatives eventually admitted that they had mis-categorised her.
Oh, and I’ve also been a member of several local bands. Well, everybody has to relax somehow – and local audiences seem to enjoy the music.
Does that little list suggest a “lack of application” to you?
If I was feeling as uncharitable as Truss, I would suggest the reason she has spent so long sh*t-talking working people is because she’s had her head stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.
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Rishi Sunak: he knows he’s doing wrong but he’s doing it anyway.
With Parliament about to reconvene with a new legislative programme, Chancellor Rishi Sunak is being urged to (at last) address the cost-of-living crisis.
The British Chambers of Commerce have called for a three-point plan that would slash VAT on energy bills from 20 per cent to five per cent, offer free Covid tests for companies and the reversing of a recent National Insurance hike.
Sunak is making vague noises about tax cuts – which would be just as well, considering his government has inflicted more tax hikes on the UK’s population than any other in decades.
But he hasn’t actually done anything yet.
Instead, it seems, he’s taking billions from pensioners by freezing something called the Lifetime Allowance for five years.
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Kwasi Kwarteng: he’s not interested in providing cheaper energy for you – he wants to make money for rich people at your expense.
Tory business twit Kwasi Kwarteng has commissioned the British Geological Survey to produce a new report on the impact of fracking – hoping evidence that it causes earthquakes will magically go away.
Kwarteng says he wants to find new ways of supplying the UK’s energy needs after prices skyrocketed due to a squeeze on the amount of gas available – worsened by the boycott on Russian gas triggered by that country’s invasion of Ukraine.
But rather than switch to wholly renewable and green domestic energy generation, he is turning to a calamitous strategy that will fill the country with nuclear waste and earthquakes that will cause massive property damage.
Potentially.
Fracking has been tried in the UK – near Blackpool – but was stopped because it triggered 17 earthquakes over a nine-day period, culminating in a “red event” that forced a halt in operations. The tremors were recorded by the British Geological Survey.
The Tories suspended fracking as an energy-generation policy in the run-up to the 2019 general election and in summer 2020 Kwarteng himself said the government had moved on: “We’ve always said we’d be evidence-backed so if there was a time when the science evidence changed our minds we would be open to that. But for now, fracking is over.”
Now the same goon wants to bring fracking back.
We’re all familiar with the process he’s using: pay an organisation to write a report that says what the commissioner wants it to say (in this case, that the earthquakes that closed the Lancashire fracking down didn’t happen).
It will be fascinating – not to say highly hypocritical – if the British Geological Survey’s report ends up saying this, as it was the same organisation that recorded the earthquakes and shut fracking down.
And let’s remember the real motivation for this new push towards fracking: MONEY.
The Tories know that fracking will make money for rich people like them.
They don’t care that it will cause earthquakes that may cause millions of pounds worth of harm to property belonging to poorer people because it means those people will have to pay other rich people to have it corrected – if possible.
And if it can’t be corrected – who cares? The people affected don’t matter – right?
Kwarteng himself has said that “fracking in England would take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of gas could be produced for the market, and would certainly have no effect on prices in the near term”. So why bother with it, then?
Put the evidence together and it seems clear that this is an expensive waste of time. The effort should be put into efficient renewables that can be put into service quickly.
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Israeli apartheid: this barrier separates Israelis from Palestinians, who are treated as a lower class of human being by the government of Israel.
There is no way that Amnesty International is an anti-Semitic organisation. It simply is not possible when one considers the composition and purpose of that organisation.
The world’s largest human rights organisation, it has just published a report labelling Israel as an apartheid nation and demanding change:
It’s official. Amnesty has concluded that Israeli occupation authorities are enforcing a system of apartheid against ALL Palestinians living under their effective control – whether they live in Israel, occupied Palestine, or in other countries as refugeespic.twitter.com/TspoveeqNt
You can read the full report by following the link at the bottom of this article. It is sensible and balanced.
But when UK-based organisations that claim to represent British Jews caught sight of it, they made fools of themselves by denouncing Amnesty:
We have seen a copy of a report due to be released by @AmnestyUK tomorrow. We are shocked but not surprised by the content given the history of AI UK’s one-sided positioning on Israel. @bodpres and @JLC_uk Chair Keith Black have issued the following statement: pic.twitter.com/0X7NHzBxNd
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) January 31, 2022
“The report is completely biased and applies standards to Israel that are not applied to any other country.”
A lie.
“The emotive term “apartheid” against Israel is a preposterous slur.”
Another lie. Israeli apartheid is well-documented – not least in the Amnesty video that appears above.
“Despite AI UK’s claim to recognise the Jewish claim to self-determination… it does not support that right.”
A lie. Amnesty does not suggest that Jews should not have that right.
“It chooses to focus on demonising the one Jewish state, holding it to clear double standards.”
A lie. Amnesty’s report attempts to hold Israel to the same standards as any other nation.
“The situation for the Palestinian people is indeed distressing; this will not be alleviated by destroying Israel.”
There is nothing in the Amnesty report that even remotely suggests dismantling Israel.
“This is a bad faith report hostile to the very concept of Israel.”
I think we can all see who is acting in bad faith!
Like all controversial acts, the Amnesty report has attracted detractors (who follow the BoD/JLC attack line) and supporters. Let’s focus on the supporters because they are right:
Today Amnesty International published a report detailing what they describe as 'Israel's apartheid.'
This must be a wake-up call for leaders across Britain, Europe, and the United States.
It’s time to face up to the reality of the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people.
Amnesty International says Israel's treatment of Palestinians is a crime against humanity and is illegal under international law — adding that Israel's "domination" of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.https://t.co/op6YYaUilZ
The response by the Bod and the JLC has also led to another conclusion:
If the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council are prepared to falsely and maliciously accuse Amnesty International of "antisemitism" in order to discredit their report, isn't it just possible their accusations against Jeremy Corbyn were equally false and malicious?
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸 (@WarmongerHodges) February 1, 2022
The response from the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council to Amnesty International's report declaring Israel an apartheid state is a million times worse than anything Jeremy Corbyn said in response to the EHRC report into Labour's "antisemitism crisis".
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush 🟨🟥🥀🇵🇸 (@WarmongerHodges) February 1, 2022
It’s a fair point, which leads to a further issue: Keir Starmer’s support for apartheid Israel.
So come on, @Keir_Starmer, famous lawyer, explain forensically why you disagree with Amnesty International's finding that Israel's treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid.
— Glenn Barnacle-Milieu #DaveNellist4Erdington (@leftnotlabour) February 1, 2022
We shouldn’t hold our collective breath waiting for a response. Starmer is a coward and will run away from a challenge like this.
While we do wait, we can all read the Amnesty report.
Scheduled blood tests are being cancelled across the UK and doctors are being forced to make hard decisions about what to do if they lose the ability to provide life-saving diagnostic testing due to a Brexit-prompted shortage of blood collection tubes.
BREAKING: The UK now cannot do most blood tests. No tubes. GPs are forced to ration. Read this BMA press release from last night. “At a very perilous point”… pic.twitter.com/rOAvmeHGrA
Becton Dickinson, the NHS’s main supplier of blood collection tubes, has been blamed for the shortage, with the manufacturer suggesting the post-Brexit HGV driver shortage could be to blame, according to iNews.
The Department of Health and Social Care is desperately trying to play down the crisis, saying everything is being done to eliminate the shortage.
But NHS England has released new guidance that aims to reduce the use of blood tubes to the bare minimum, suggesting that the issue is serious.
And bosses of the British Medical Association – the doctors’ trade union – are furious. Their press release on the situation makes this abundantly clear [boldings mine]:
“The BMA says the shortage of blood tubes across hospitals and GP surgeries is now severe and if the NHS does not reduce the amount being used in the coming days, even the most clinically important blood tests may be at risk.
“Doctors at the BMA have already made plain their concerns about the implications for patients and their anger that this shortage has been allowed to happen in the first place. However, in the absence of a plan to bring in alternative supplies before the middle of next month, the situation is now urgent. The BMA is urging all doctors to follow the NHS guidance and carry out only the most critical of tests for the time being.
“Dr David Wrigley, BMA council deputy chair, said: ‘This crisis has put doctors and their patients in a terrible, unenviable position. No doctor knowingly undertakes unnecessary blood tests and to now have to ration all those we are doing, as well as cancel hundreds more, goes against everything we stand for as clinicians.
“‘However, if we don’t try to follow the NHS guidance, it’s clear we will get to the point where even the most clinically urgent of blood tests may not be able to be done as we simply won’t have the tubes for the blood to go into.
“‘We are at a very perilous point and it’s surprising that NHS England hasn’t declared a critical incident given the very strong possibility that NHS organisations may temporarily lose the ability to provide lifesaving diagnostic testing. We also call on NHS England to commit to the changes that are needed for their guidance to be properly followed by doctors, and provide patients with detailed, easily accessible information about the situation.
“‘Many GP practices – like mine – will now have to spend hours assessing which already scheduled tests can or cannot be cancelled and this takes time away from frontline patient care when it is most needed. Cancelling tests makes patients anxious and can mean a missed diagnosis.’
“Dr Vishal Sharma, BMA consultants committee chair, said: ‘The very suggestion that an acute hospital trust needs to reduce testing by 25 per cent is highly alarming. However, to try and avoid a situation where there are simply no more blood tubes, we have no choice but to now make very careful decisions about which tests to carry out.
“‘It is shocking that this situation has been allowed to develop – in particular, the apparent over-reliance on one manufacturer and the woeful lack of any kind of reserve supply. The manufacturers should also have to explain how they allowed stocks to run so low that patients will now suffer as a result. If we don’t get on top of this shortage – and quickly – then we could very easily end up in a catastrophic position, particularly in hospitals where patients come to serious harm.’”
“Severe… anger… terrible, unenviable position… goes against everything we stand for as clinicians… Perilous… can mean a missed diagnosis… highly alarming… shocking that this situation has been allowed to develop… Woeful… catastrophic… patients come to serious harm.”
And it is – apparently – a result of Brexit. And the “politicians” responsible for it couldn’t care less.
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We know why he lies, too: his fake narrative makes it easier to gather support – especially from Blue Labour types like Keir Starmer who has backed him all the way, in every way that matters.
Deaths in the UK from Covid-19 were not 150,000 at the start of May, as reported by the government, but nearly 210,000.
That’s according to a new study by the University of Washington, reported by the British Medical Journal.
In the UK, the researchers estimated, the true covid death toll up to May 2021 was not 150 519 as officially reported, but 209 661.
Global deaths from covid-19 are not 3.27 million, as official figures suggest, but 6.93 million up to 3 May.
The virus is claiming about 33 000 lives a day around the world, more than twice reported figures.
Don’t try to tell me Boris Johnson doesn’t know.
What’s really shocking is that he and his despicable, corrupt Tory government that has used the Covid crisis as a chance to funnel billions of pounds to its party members and friends, are now riding high in the opinion polls.
… Because Labour members were fooled into electing a pale-blue cuckoo who backed his buddy Boris to the hilt.
The good news is that projected future deaths are very low – around 750 by September – due to high vaccine take-up.
It is the only good news to be had from this ever-expanding fiasco.
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We all know the Board of Deputies of British Jews is dominated by Conservatives, don’t we?
The use of anti-Semitism accusations may therefore be seen as a way for Tories to exert unwarranted influence over the Labour Party.
Now it seems they are extending that influence – by which I mean the following:
Labour leader Keir Starmer let a Tory-run organisation order him to reject an invitation to an interfaith event.
The Board of Deputies told Starmer to avoid the virtual Iftar event because one of its organisers is a member of Cage, an international advocacy organisation with a focus on Muslim detainees and communities impacted by the so-called War on Terror.
Apparently this person had shared a demand for a boycott of Israeli dates.
Is it true? Were there good reasons for it if it was? These questions are relevant but don’t really affect the core issue.
What matters is that Starmer let a Tory group order him around and that will never be acceptable in a Labour Party representative.
And at a time when he is trying to make mud stick on Boris Johnson and the Tories for letting former MPs and ministers, party donors and friends influence them, it is shocking that Starmer would show himself to be so easily-led by a Tory-led group.
The Twitterati have been having a field day:
This is no different from withdrawing from an event in the 1980s because one of the participants was urging a boycott of products coming from Apartheid South Africa.
This can only do further harm to Starmer’s chances in the local elections…
… but right-wing Labour is spinning like a top in its efforts to make him look supportable.
Labour is plummeting in the polls, with Starmer’s leadership the clearest reason, but that didn’t stop Peter – sorry, Lord – Mandelson taking a pop at former leader Jeremy Corbyn. He told Huffington Post‘s Paul Waugh:
“The memory of Jeremy Corbyn is still strong on the doorsteps amongst Labour voters here, it’s still coming up and I’m afraid we have still got some way to go before we rebuild the confidence and trust that we just threw away.”
No, Peter. It’s your boy Starmer who’s throwing away confidence and trust.
Meanwhile, the object of the Right’s continued enmity has managed to remain astonishingly equivocal about Starmer – but still couldn’t manage to say anything nice about him when questioned by LBC’s Iain Dale:
I love how he simply ignores the request to say something nice about Starmer and just keeps making his point about the importance of an opposition (clearly implying that Starmer is crap at it). Corbyn is really great here.
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Brian Cox: This Site doesn’t always agree with him but he’s right about people who use phrases like “the will of the people”. There’s no such thing, and people who speak in such absolute terms are fascists.
The Daily Express‘s attack on Professor Brian Cox isn’t part of Boris Johnson’s “war on ‘woke'” – it’s an endorsement of the Johnson government’s fascism.
Normally This Writer wouldn’t leap to defend Prof Cox; he knows the score on the social media and he’s big enough to stand up for himself – but this non-story by a right-wing rag demonstrates an important topical point.
It refers to the broadcaster’s response after Priti Patel said – way back in August last year – that denying refugees access to the UK was the will of the British people.
It isn’t – it isn’t even the will of the majority. And even the minority who support Johnsons fascists might be divided after learning how Patel treats people who manage to get here.
We’ve all heard the horror stories about the concentration camp that turned into a Covid-19 breeding ground, and last week we learned that she had tried to deport a witness to a death in another Home Office facility, in an attempt to undermine an investigation that would show that the government had contributed to the death.
But there it was in black and white. Patel stated: “We need the cooperation of the French to intercept boats and return migrants back to France. I know that when the British people say they want to take back control of our borders – this is exactly what they mean.”
Professor Cox responded: “I’m so sick of this ‘the British people’ nonsense.
“It’s inflammatory and divisive and also errant vacuous nonsense with no meaning in a multi-party democracy.
“The phrase should be banned from political discourse.”
There is a valid criticism to be made about these words – and it is that they do not address exactly why those words are problematic.
Fortunately, he followed up with a further comment, in order to remove any doubt:
“The point is that invoking ‘the will of the people’ or derivatives in promoting policy is a well-rehearsed propaganda technique and has no place in our democratic dialogue.”
(Here’s the proof of what he said)
#ImWithBrian Brian Cox is quite right. Evoking 'the British People' is shallow nationalism, along with 'the will of the people' meaning 'a sake dear majority of folk'. Not in my name, Home Secretary. https://t.co/DflafrvI7H
But because the Express dredged up this moment in a current news story, suddenly he has been on the receiving end of a huge gammon-flavoured dogpile by the kind of “British people” who think that their far-right views are shared by everybody.
Wetlipped permagrinner Brian Cox wants to erase the term "British people" from political discourse (although happily uses the term "European citizens"). British people – I see you. I hear you. You are valid. You are loved.
— Leo Kearse – political comedian/comedic politician (@LeoKearse) April 16, 2021
That’s not what “right-thinking” really means, folks.
Fortunately, plenty of genuinely right-thinking people have stood up to defend Professor Cox, and to point out that the Express article is built around a misinterpretation of his words that is no more or less than a lie.
The fash are out for Brian Cox today as he criticises Patel's illegal immigration and refugee strategy.
The people of Wales, Scotland and NI did not vote for the Tories, so how can Patel claim 'what the British people want'?
Sorry to the those that disagree with the *take* Brian Cox has on the term British People, because he's correct in this context. As a British person I'm sure I've got far more in common with the poor buggers trying to cross the channel that with Priti Patel!
— Politically Homeless #ShockDoctrine #NHSPay15 (@respeak_uk) April 16, 2021
I want to know why the article’s writers and editors of the Express were trying to distract us with this dead cat. What have the Tories done that needs this to take our minds off it?
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