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Jewish Labour chief called out over false claims about Keir Starmer and racism

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Mike Katz is a fine one to criticise others about the way they handle “cranks”, “racists” and “extremists”.

When he was vice-chair of the Jewish Labour Movement (a misnomer as you don’t have to be either Jewish or in the Labour Party to be a member), he ran a “training” session on anti-Semitism at a Labour conference that deliberately linked criticism of the policies of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism.

At that same session – billed as a “safe space” for attendees to discuss their understanding of anti-Semitism without fear of criticism – people speaking up were recorded. One of this recordings was then leaked to the press, to tar then-Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker as an anti-Semite.

She had criticised the definitiion of anti-Semitism that Katz had put forward.

After Katz became chair of the organisation, the Jewish Labour Movement has run at least one more training session on anti-Semitism (in 2021). Before it happened, Ms Walker commented: “Undertaking AS training led by the JLM? Ask for assurance you won’t be filmed, reported to the Party or the media.”

Katz was also among those who accused then-Labour MP Chris Williamson of anti-Semitism after he made a speech in which he said the party had been “too apologetic” over the mere accusation of anti-Semtism.

Mr Williamson’s point had been that the party should have collected evidence and made a decision on whether any anti-Semitism had taken place, rather than automatically apologising as if it had, without any evidence at all.

Katz suggested that a decision to reinstate Mr Williamson’s Labour membership after he had been suspended for making the statements was because he represented a marginal constituency and there might be a snap election (this was in 2019).

He was quoted as follows: “It’s good to know that a party of anti-racists, led by an avowed anti-racist decides it’s OK to ignore anti-Jewish racism if there’s a vote to be won.”

But of course there was no anti-Jewish racism in what Mr Williamson had said.

And when Ken Loach announced that he had been expelled from Labour in 2021, for refusing to disown people who had already been expelled under false pretences, Katz accused him of “Holocaust inversion; tropes about a lobby controlling media & politics; claims Jews exploit the Holocaust for political ends.” None of these were in Mr Loach’s statement as reported in The Guardian (Katz’s source).

Katz has also attacked Jeremy Corbyn after The Guardian ran an editorial in support of him. In a letter to that paper, he claimed: “Your assertion that he had “a formidable record fighting against racism” will elicit a hollow laugh from the many Jewish Labour Movement members who suffered racist bullying and harassment – let alone the Jewish MPs hounded out of the party – all under his watch.

“His reluctance to show any remorse and his continual denial and downplaying of the problem makes him the author of his own demise and negates any claim he can make to actually being anti-racist.”

Jeremy Corbyn has been, and remains, probably the most committed anti-racist in Parliament, with a formidable record of support for those suffering racism that spans more than 40 years:

How pleasant it is, then, to see Katz’s latest attempt to spread falsehoods about anti-Semitism and racism trashed by members of the public!

On Twitter yesterday (May 19), he published the tweet you see at the top of this article, in which he praises comments made at last week’s National Conservatives conference.

“Keir Starmer has stood up to the cranks and racists in Labour. Rishi Sunak is happy to indulge the extremists in his party,” he tweeted.

Referring to a link in the tweet, he added: “Me for @timesredbox today on the lessons Sunak should learn from this week’s National Conservatism conference.”

Perhaps it would be best to skirt around the issues raised by a man claiming to support Jewish people endorsing comments made by the organisation This Writer describes as the Nat-Cs (think about it).

But his comments about what Keir Starmer has done are certainly fair game – especially considering his own poor record as described above – and Twitter now provides what it describes as “context” added by readers, that absolutely shreds Katz’s credibility.

“Labour’s own Forde Report details how anti-black and anti-GRT racism, and Islamophobia have been allowed to flourish unchecked within the party,” states one such addition.

The other seals it by pointing out: “Labour have not engaged with Martin Forde KC about the report.”

So not only has Katz allied himself with people who might as well call themselves fascists, but he has done it for the sake of a very large falsehood. This Writer thinks he should apologise and resign his position at the JLM. Does anybody agree?

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The Scottish Tories have a new leader – but he seems to be both confused … and prejudiced

New Scottish Conservatives’ leader Douglas Ross – in what seems to be the role he prefers.

The Scottish Conservatives have a new leader – Douglas Ross, who was elected unopposed by party members.

This seems a very odd thing for them to do.

Consider the evidence in the video below – which I know was created by a supporter of the SNP. Try to ignore the party political message and concentrate on what this says about the person:

The ‘dark money’ claim seems accurate, as the Scottish Unionist Association Trust did support Ross, and did not declare donations and contributions to political campaigns properly to the Electoral Commission. As a result, SUAT was fined £1,300.

His voting record speaks for itself and seems extremely, traditionally, Tory – supporting central government, hammering the NHS and minorities.

But he seems confused: his discussion of rural broadband, ATM closures and unfair postal charges challenged his own party directly, and his votes against equal marriage and equal gay rights ran against party policy.

Also, his claim that refereeing football matches would not interfere with his Parliamentary responsibilities – and his subsequent trip to Barcelona instead of voting on a Welfare Bill – is well-documented.

Let’s look a little closer at his attitude to travellers:

Tom London’s point is a good one. He doesn’t want tougher enforcement against a particular aspect of travellers’ behaviour that the public may find objectionable; he just wants enforcement against them because they are travellers.

So it is right to ask how people would have felt if Ross had been speaking about Jews, Blacks, Muslims, gay people or any other minority group.

And this is the Scottish Tory choice as leader of their party…

A man who opposes his party as much as he supports it, with a reputation for prejudice against a minority group for no reason other than that it exists, and who prefers to run off and referee football matches rather than representing his electorate.

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Tory policies are forcing shivering, starving children to brave sub-zero temperatures in rags

Temperatures have plummetted lately but poverty-stricken children are turning up at school in rags, with no food in their bellies.

That is the legacy of nine years’ Conservative government.

Voters would have to be cruel to the point of psychosis to allow this to go on any longer.

But that is exactly what the Conservatives want.

Child poverty could very quickly reach a 60-year high if the Tories are elected again, according to the Resolution Foundation.

If you don’t want school children to go hungry, there’s only one thing to do:

Vote Labour.

A teacher has shared her sadness over shivering schoolchildren who do not own winter coats.

As temperatures plummet, the teacher has told of how her pupils have been showing up to school with holes in their shoes and without coats on.

The primary school teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous, told GrimsbyLive that one child showed up in a blazer bought for a family occasion because he had “nothing else to keep him warm”.

Source: Teacher’s sadness over shivering schoolchildren with no winter coats and sharing snacks with pupils because they are so hungry – Grimsby Live

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Nurse given a year to live will use it to stop Tories ‘killing’ the NHS

David Bailey was diagnosed with aggressive oesophageal cancer in October [Image: John Gladwin/Sunday Mirror].

I don’t know David Bailey – but it seems he is well-known to others.

So let’s see what they have to say about this:

This is the kind of man who believes the Conservative Party is determined to destroy the NHS and – even though he may not have long to live – will defend it to his dying breath.

Any questions?

For 35 years, David Bailey has dedicated his life to helping save others – working as a nurse on surgical wards and in an overstretched A&E.

Now he faces his own fight for survival, diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Yet despite undergoing gruelling chemotherapy, David is determined to ‘do his bit’ to stop the Tories “killing” his beloved NHS.

He will take to the streets on Saturday [February 3] with thousands of others in a day of protest against the Government’s destruction of the health service.

He blasted a funding crisis which has cut beds, driven out nurses who have had no pay rise for eight years, and strangled recruitment.

He said many NHS services were becoming unsustainable though lack of qualified nursing staff, with 40,000 vacancies available.

David pointed to a 23 per cent drop in trainee nurses since the Tories’ £9,000-a-year tuition fee.

Source: Nurse given a year left to live says he will use time he has left to stop Tories ‘killing’ our beloved NHS – Mirror Online

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BBC’s Tricky Nick Robinson’s Misreporting of Alex Salmond on Scottish Independence – Beastrabban\’s weblog

Let’s keep up the pressure on the BBC’s Tory Reporter – sorry, that’s Political Editor – Nick Robinson and his misreporting of Alex Salmond. Here’s Beastrabban on the subject:

The debates over Scottish independence, leading up to the referendum last Thursday, threw the BBC’s pro-government bias into sharp relief. The Corporation’s reporter, Nick Robinson, selectively edited and then completely falsified his report on a question he asked Scotland’s then-First Minister about the possible damage independence might have to the nation’s finances.

As you might expect, Scottish Nationalists are massively unimpressed with this blatant falsification by the BBC, and there are several videos about it on Youtube. Here are some I found that make the case particularly well.

This video, The BBC Is Killing Democracy, gives footage of what really happened when Robinson asked his question. It then gives Robinson’s own highly selective report, pointing out how it has been altered and edited to present the answer Robinson wanted, rather than the one he got. It then moves on to Robinson’s final report, where he lies and states that Salmond didn’t answer the question. It then concludes with a brief resume of Robinson’s and Salmond’s careers, pointing out that Robinson was first head of the Young Conservatives in Macclesfield, and then national head of the organisation.

There were protests against the BBC’s biased reporting of the independence campaign outside the BBC’s headquarters in Scotland on the 1st and 29th June 2014. This video below, Protest Against BBC Scotland Referendum Bias shows pro-independence Scots discussing the Beeb’s bias, and their disillusionment with the Corporation.

.

One of the women speaking is actually an English person living in Scotland. She states that she is voting for independence for Scotland because she is worried about the Westminster establishment’s destruction of the NHS and tuition fees. She states her daughter will not be able to afford to go to uni, and the only people that will, will be the elite.

Robinson’s deliberate falsification of Salmond’s answer is important far beyond the immediate debate about Scots independence. Regardless of one’s personal opinion of that particular issue, it should concern everyone worried about the Beeb’s pro-establishment bias. It’s clear and undeniable evidence that the Corporation has blatantly lied in order to serve the interests of the Tory Westminster elite. It also shows how Tricky Nick Robinson really is little more than a Corporation apparatchik spouting propaganda, and that the BBC is now well and truly the establishment’s equivalent of Pravda and TASS, the state news agency in the Soviet Union or the various state-controlled newspapers and broadcasters in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

There’s more video in the Beast’s article.

Notice that the Beast singles out the Tory Westminster elite. The Tories were pulling out all the stops to make sure they could salvage something from the referendum, if only by fouling the reputation of the BBC, which they hate.

In this context, it is also easy to believe they tried to foul Labour’s good name north of the border by putting Labour representatives up as the faces of the ‘No’ campaign and then stabbing them in the back. For example, fears voiced by the ‘No’ campaign on pensions were torpedoed by the Coalition government – an organisation which was not only supposed to be part of the ‘No’ camp but should also have been, reasonably, expected to provide correct information to that group’s other representatives on any particular subject.

What a stitch-up.

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Woolly mammoth to be new leader of Conservatives?

The police welcome David Cameron to the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. His austerity cuts are expected to cripple forces across the country, with part-privatisation already an unwanted reality for some.

So is everyone having fun atmaking fun of the Conservative Party Conference?

The event has been unfortunately-timed, as it turns out a mammoth has been found, frozen in Russia, after 30,000 years. Inevitably it will be the subject of much scientific study and debate, but really, if they wanted to look at a species of woolly monsters long overdue for extinction, they need only go to Birmingham.

Further evidence of unfortunate timing can be found in the International Monetary Fund’s latest report, which shows that the Conservative-led austerity policy has utterly failed to restore confidence and there is “considerable” risk of further deterioration in the economy. Its forecast for the UK in 2013, which stood at 0.2 per cent growth, has now been downgraded by 0.6 per cent to minus 0.4 per cent. That’s a lot, in economic terms.

UK Prime Minister – and Conservative leader – David Cameron, said the UK economy is “slowly healing”.

It is comments like this, along with the general direction of his – let’s try to call it – ‘leadership’ that probably prompted polling organisation YouGov to headline its latest press release ‘Cameron needs a miracle to win’. The poll of voting intentions shows that the Conservative share has slipped to 31 or 32 per cent – the same as in their “crushing” defeats of 1997 and 2001. Any question comparing Labour leader Ed Miliband with Mr Cameron shows significant advances for the Labour leader.

Other poll results are confirmed by comments on the Conservative conference (which I have lifted from Twitter. I don’t intend to give attributions – is yours among those below?).

Fewer than 30 per cent think [the Conservatives] have done a good job on health, education, transport or reforming welfare benefits: “‘We’ll end something for nothing culture’- Tory rich boys who inherited wealth and claimed disability benefits they didnt need”; “I could save 10bn by cutting MPs’ expenses, grace and favour housing, government contracts, offices that are never used etc etc”; “Labeling those on welfare as lazy layabouts is defamation of character and those responsible should face the full force of the law”.

71 per cent think the gap between the richest and poorest has widened since the Tories came to power; and by two-to-one, people think the north-south gap has also widened (Northerners themselves agree by three-to-one): “Misery to those without whilst ensuring prosperity for those who have. They don’t even try to hide it!”.

Just 13 per cent say the government has met their expectations that Britain would be governed well; far more – 34 per cent – say ‘I expected them to do well, but they have been a disappointment’.  Half of those who voted Conservative in 2010 share this sense of disappointment. Most people think they have made no progress at all to get Britain out of recession, reduce immigration, clean up politics, or fulfil their pledge to make theirs ‘the greenest government ever’: “This government should have come with a public health warning the size of a trillion fag packets.”

Let’s look at some of the speeches. I am grateful to the Tweeter who labelled his comments on the Chancellor’s speech ‘Osborne porkies’, pointing out some of the inconsistencies between Gideon’s words and the facts. So: “Attacks Ed M for not mentioning deficit when Labour leader mentioned the debt. ‘We were straight with voters before election’ – Except about NHS, VAT increase, child benefit. ‘Blair achieved nothing in a decade’ – Except minimum wage, devolution, academies, Northern Ireland agreement etc”.

Osborne’s big idea – the plan to offer employees shares in the company where they work, if they give up their rights to, for example unfair dismissal tribunals, came under bitter attack: “‘We’re all in it together’ – unless you’re an employee”; “Osborne’s shares for rights plan shows he’s never employed people. If first thing you say is ‘I want the right to sack you’, people will go”; ” So you get shares in a company… Lose your rights… get sacked with no comeback and paid pence for your shares”.

(This last comment is the nub of the matter. Osborne says the amount of shares on offer could be worth between £2,000 and £50,000, therefore it is possible that employers will try to get workers to barter away their benefits for what is, in the current economic climate, peanuts. Do these people really think we are monkeys?)

Today (Tuesday) Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, made a speech in which he tried to appear to be supporting Mr Cameron while in fact setting out his credentials as a possible future leader. His comments about the Conservatives being the tools to clean up the national mess drew scorn: “Boris the mop, Dave the broom, Osborne the dust pan, Gove the Jay cloth and Hague the sponge – the cabinet according to Boris!”

His self-congratulation about London’s bus conductors attracted this: “Doesn’t mention they will cost £38 million a year and won’t be able to collect fares”; and on his comments about Labour spending: “Yes, Boris, Labour was so excessive in its spending that your party pledged to back its […] plans right up until 2008”.

Final comment on the conference so far: “Tories laugh at Boris being an incompetent buffoon… Clearly the required skills to lead a country!”

Back in the 1980s, on the best radio panel show in the world (I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue), Tim Brooke-Taylor once defined ‘politician’ as “A liar, cheat, double-crossing two-timing scoundrel and lover of nude women. Oh, it’s also a snub-nosed toad.”

All I can say about that is, bring on the snub-nosed toad. I’ll let the nude women pass. They might be Theresa May and Nadine Dorries. Or Maria Miller (that would be REALLY grisly, wouldn’t it?)

Could this be the Coalition government’s biggest cock-up yet?

Not only does this look like happy days are on their way – for SMUGGLERS – but it also shows up what an irresponsible idiot David Cameron really is. He tried to cover up his mistake by calling it a clerical error when it is clearly nothing of the sort. Please spread this information around – especially in coastal areas!

Phone hacking, Leveson and the AC/DC affair

Certain people seem to be forgetting that the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press was partly prompted by a newspaper’s interference in criminal investigations after a schoolgirl was murdered.

It is understood that reporters from the News of the World (I don’t know how many of them did it) hacked into Millie Dowler’s mobile phone, listened to voice messages left on it, and then deleted them, allowing new messages to be left and illicitly monitored, and leading her parents to believe that the teenager, who had been killed by Levi Bellfield, was still alive. This act also hindered the police investigation into what had happened.

Rebekah Brooks, a close friend of Conservative MP David Cameron – who later became leader of the Tories, and Prime Minister in 2010 – was editor of that newspaper at the time. The New York Times alleged that, if the allegations were true, then it was possible Mrs Brooks knew about the hacking and allowed it.

I am a newspaper reporter – and was editor of The Brecon and Radnor Express for a while before running my own online news business for a few years. I know the scale of our respective operations was vastly different, but I can promise that I always knew how my reporters were getting their stories. If I didn’t know, I asked.

Mrs Brooks was followed as editor of the News of the World by one Andy Coulson, who went on to become Conservative Party Communications Director and then Director of Communications for the Prime Minister (when David Cameron assumed that role in 2010). He had taken up the Conservative Party position after resigning from the newspaper over the phone hacking affair. He had been subjected to allegations that he was aware his reporters were hacking into the telephones of private individuals, including celebrities.

The Andy Coulson/David Cameron (or AC/DC, as I propose to call it from now on) relationship is the important issue here.

The main question behind the Leveson Inquiry has always been this: Did David Cameron allow a criminal, who used illegal methods to monitor the activities of others, into the heart of the British government?

This would have been a colossal error of judgement – possibly an unforgivable one.

The editor of The Independent seems to have forgotten that this is what it’s all about. Responding to a letter from the Inquiry, Chris Blackhurst claimed that Lord Justice Leveson was “loading a gun” that he was preparing to fire at the newspaper industry.

He told the BBC it was “a point by point demolition of the industry”, describing it as a “diatribe” raising criticisms that did not bear any relation to practices at his “end of the market”.

This is a man who badly needs to get over himself. Serious questions have been raised about the behaviour of our national newspapers, and if the Inquiry has found that they are justified, then they need to be addressed.

He does not know the full extent of the Inquiry’s findings. The letter he received is a standard part of inquiry procedures and gives notice of possible criticism, offering those concerned a chance to respond before a conclusion is reached. They are one-sided because positive findings do not necessitate a warning.

And we should not gloss over the fact that Mr Blackhurst has broken the rules by making the complaint. The letter he received was confidential and those who receive such correspondence are obliged to keep them that way and not discuss them openly.

By whining about it, Mr Blackhurst has made Leveson’s point for him.