Commuters: to many of them, the idea of a four-day working week may seem highly attractive – but not on these ‘castle in the air’ terms.
Someone’s trying to lead us up the garden path:
The public sector should switch to a four-day week to create 500,000 jobs and help ease a predicted spike in unemployment following the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report.
The Autonomy think tank said “the time has come” for a shorter working week as the end of the government’s furlough scheme in October is expected to cause an unemployment crisis.
Research by the thinktank suggests public sector workers could move to a 32-hour week without any loss in wages at a cost of up to £9bn a year.
This figure, according to Autonomy, represents 6 per cent of the public sector salary bill and costs the same amount as the furlough employment scheme brought in to save jobs during the peak of the pandemic.
Who says any government is going to give public sector workers a cut in their working hours while keeping their wages the same (that’s a massive real-terms raise) – especially a Tory government? They imposed a public sector pay freeze for years!
And the claim that it would cost up to £9 billion a year – the same as Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme – is just more evidence that it wouldn’t work. Sunak is scrapping the furlough scheme on grounds that it is too expensive to continue indefinitely.
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Today – July 1 – conditionality and sanctions return to the UK’s benefit system.
This means the two million people who signed up for Universal Credit because of the Covid-19 crisis will now be expected to show they are looking for work, and will be sanctioned if they fail to do so.
For the first time, they will experience what – for example – people with disabilities have suffered under the Conservatives for the last 10 years.
Some people are about to be rudely awakened from their previous complacency, I reckon!
Perhaps they would like to take part in this national day of action, organised by one of the larger representative organisations for people with disabilities, DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) under its banner of the Scrap Universal Credit Alliance (SUCA).
Here’s what they’re about and what you can do:
There is now overwhelming evidence of both the serious harm that the sanctions regime inflicts on the most disadvantaged members of society and the fact that sanctions are punitive and counter-productive to the aim of getting people off benefits and into work.
Join the Scrap Universal Credit Alliance in our demands to:
Write to your MP asking them to put pressure on the government not to restart conditionality and sanctions.
We encourage people to write to their MPs.
Write to your local paper
If you think you may be affected by conditionality restarting and putting your safety at risk because you still need to shield, it may be worth gathering what medical evidence you have (for example if you received a letter or correspondence from the NHS telling you to continue shielding until the end of July) and pro-actively sending it in to your job centre/adding it in to your Universal Credit journal. It is difficult to know what to do given the complete absence of information from the government.
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Keir Starmer: I adapted this mock-up of him pretending to be a soldier from a right-wing site that was mocking him.
Isn’t it strange how Keir Starmer is attacking the legacy of Jeremy Corbyn in public while failing to offer anything better than watered-down versions of the former Labour leader’s policies?
Today is Armed Forces Day, so Starmer has rolled out a weak-ass offer to the UK’s serving men and women, under the banner of the existing “Friends of the Forces”.
It comes with absolutely no offers at all – just an undertaking to “listen” to the views of forces personnel.
Shadow defence secretary John Healey said he wanted to hear the views of service men and women. The party’s current position is that the Tory government should devote a chapter of its upcoming defence and security review to military personnel, overhaul the country’s covenant with serving forces, and champion the armed forces in public.
Compare this with Jeremy Corbyn’s five pledges for the armed forces, as described in Labour’s election manifesto last year that Starmer doesn’t seem to have read:
Fair Pay – scrap the public sector pay cap, which has seen a 5.8% real terms pay cut for the starting salary of an Army Private
Decent housing for forces and their families – end the growing reliance on the private rented sector
A voice for service men and women – consult on creating a representative body, similar to the Police Federation
End privatisation – root and branch review of outsourcing and a clear presumption in favour of public delivery of public contracts
Support for forces children – better access to schools with dedicated local authorities admissions strategy for the particular challenge of frequent school moves
Those were solid promises, not wishy-washy offers to “listen”. Corbyn’s plan would have made a difference.
Labour under Corbyn made a great offer to the Forces community. The misinformation ensured it didn’t cut through.
As an Army wife I was really impressed with the 5 pledges and the wider vision.
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This is a surprise – the Department for Work and Pensions has actually seen the light and done the right thing!
The decision paves the way for 85,000 benefit claimants to demand reimbursement as the fault in Universal Credit means they may have been left £500 per year worse off.
If you’re one of those affected, get your demand in now.
The Department for Work and Pensions has abandoned its lengthy legal battle to avoid fixing a “perverse” design feature in universal credit that has left thousands of working claimants hundreds of pounds a year out of pocket.
The minister for welfare delivery, Will Quince, told MPs he accepted that the DWP must correct the feature, which has resulted in serious budgeting problems for some claimants who are paid at the end of the month.
The issue currently affects claimants whose wages are paid two days earlier than usual when the month ends on a weekend or bank holiday. The system assumes they have been paid twice in a single universal credit assessment period, and none in the next, meaning their benefit payments fluctuate wildly.
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Let’s answer the question in the headline straight away: it seems 85,000 people may be able to claim compensation because the government deliberately failed to stop people getting less Universal Credit if their payday comes early because of a weekend or bank holiday.
Judges at the Court of Appeal have ruled that it was “irrational” for the Department for Work and Pensions – and the Secretary of State in particular – to ignore the fact that computer systems would assume that claimant had received double the money expected and cancel their payments.
The Conservative government has spent two years fighting this court case – indicating that, despite being well aware of the issue, Tories were determined to continue depriving some of the poorest workers in the UK of vital benefits.
Are they sadists? Or perverts?
Certainly perverts, it seems. In her judgment, Lady Justice Rose described the situation as “perverse”.
But decide for yourself.
The three judges at the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the Work and Pensions Secretary acted irrationally and unlawfully by making Universal Credit regulations which fail to take into account that the date monthly salaries are paid can vary because of weekends and bank holidays.
Government loses its test case appeal against 4 working mothers re how Universal Credit treats their earned income.
Irrational – decides CA today – for regs not to solve issue of people getting less UC where regular payday comes early because of a weekend. @rightsnetpic.twitter.com/2gc722Ql6M
The Government had taken the case to the Court of Appeal after single mother Danielle Johnson, along with three other mothers supported by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), won a High Court legal challenge.
They said the Government’s interpretation of regulation 54 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 meant some months she would receive much less in universal credit than in others.
Ms Johnson is paid on the last working day of each month and her benefit assessment period runs from the last day of the month to the penultimate day of the following month. When a weekend is at the end of a month, this means her wages go into her bank account earlier than in other months.
The Universal Credit computer system interpreted this as Ms Johnson having earned twice as much in one month and none in others, so her payment would be calculated accordingly.
It resulted in extreme fluctuations in her income and – in several months – she lost the work allowance part of the UC payment, meaning she was around £500 per year worse off.
If 85,000 people lost the same amount, that means the government was stopping them from receiving £42.5 million a year – not a lot in terms of a national government’s budget.
So why did the Tories create a system that forced this hardship on vulnerable women (among others)?
Why spend more money defending this irrational persecution of vulnerable women?
We can only conclude that this is yet more evidence that the Tories simply enjoy making poor people suffer.
And it worked: Ms Johnson suffered severe cash flow problems and between them, the four mothers fell into rent arrears, defaulted on council tax, incurred bank overdraft charges, borrowed money and even become reliant on food banks to make ends meet.
Lady Justice Rose commented that Ms Johnson “expresses her doubts whether she will ever be able to get back on top of her finances and worries that cash flow problems will mean she is unable to pay her rent, jeopardising her tenancy”.
We should also discuss the Tory government’s defence, which seems to be that changing the system would cost too much. It’s always about money with this mob, isn’t it?
So the court was told that any change to the computer system would cost at least £7.35 million – a fraction of what the government has saved each year by withholding money from 85,000 claimants.
And the Tories said there would need to be a wholesale move away from automation back to manual calculation in order to accommodate the changes demanded by the judges.
This would be an admission that the whole Universal Credit project – that was intended to be “digital by default” – is a failure.
And it’s doubtful that there’s any truth in the claim. Computer programs can be quite adaptable – or at least, they can in the hands of people who don’t have an agenda that involves the persecution of the vulnerable.
Of course the question arising from this is: what happens next?
Will the government automatically calculate the back payments owed to many tens of thousands of UC claimants and pay them?
I think we all know the answer to that!
Will the Tories change the law to ensure that this situation is not allowed to arise in the future?
Or will they try to find another way to contest the ruling? Delay any payments resulting from it? Otherwise try to ignore the decision of the court?
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NOT YOU: On International Women’s Day we think of people who have improved the lives of women generally. There are men who have done more for women than Theresa May. There may even be animals who have done more [Feel free to disagree with some of the other choices if you like; I didn’t make this image].
It takes a special kind of ignorance to be Theresa May.
And it takes a worse kind of ignorance to treat it as a cause of celebration, as the Conservatives have.
On International Women’s Day, after she lied to us all about workers’ rights in her speech on Brexit in Grimsby, Theresa May answered only one question from a female member of the press.
ITV’s political correspondent Libby Wiener took issue with her about it as she was leaving the podium. Perhaps her team thought Mrs May’s answer was witty and appropriate; it wasn’t – in fact the only thing that would have been worse than the comment itself would have been publicising it to the world.
It’s only a few days since a member of the public told me it seems women leave their feminism behind the instant they become prime minister. Now that person is joined by a multitude of others. See for yourself:
I believe this zinger is otherwise known as a self-own.
— Left of Lenin #ACAB 🍊🍊🍊 (@LefterThanLenin) March 9, 2019
The fact u don't see how disappointing that answer was says a lot about you. A woman pm does nothing to mitigate all the harm. This Tory gov has done to women. In fact it probably makes it even more of an insult.
Theresa May knows she has made the lives of women – in general – much worse, but she doesn’t care. So on International Women’s Day, all she can say is, “I’m all right, Jackie*.”
*I know it should be “I’m all right, Libby,” but I’m drawing a comparison with the classic British expression used to describe those who only act in their own best interests, even if helping someone else will cost them a minimal effort – so cut me some slack, please?
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She seems to think re-tweeting an image denigrating Owen Jones as “The queen of bellends” is an appropriate way to behave after accusing him of anti-Semitism during Holocaust Memorial Day.
Mr Jones had been attacked by a Twitter account calling itself Peterrogers. He (Mr Jones) had been attacking the pathetic Brexit-related Liberal Democrat attempt to troll Jeremy Corbyn by claiming his backbone had been found in odd places and this person jumped in to attack him for failing to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day:
No where near as shit as your lack of post regarding the Holocust Memorial Day today? Is it because you are scared you will upset the pathetic bunch of antisemites who also enjoy your writing ? @RachelRileyRR@Sara_Rose_G@JVoiceLabour
(Note that Peterrogers had tagged in Ms Riley, in search of help from her and her supporters.) Trouble is, Owen Jones had put up several posts and links commemorating HMD. Here are a few:
Incredibly powerful from Lord Dubs, a refugee who survived the horrors of Nazism, who reminds us that the hatred which led to the Holocaust lives on and must be defeated #HMD2019#HolocaustMemorialDayhttps://t.co/0qtDdRuYPw
Horrific: 1 in 20 people deny the Holocaust happened, 1 in 12 think its scale was exaggerated, and almost two thirds can't say how many Jews were killed, or grossly underestimate the figure. https://t.co/cLJpT0q6gy
A few years ago, I went to Berlin with one of my closest friends and stood by a train track which took dozens of his relatives to be murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. #NeverForget#HolocaustMemorialDayhttps://t.co/sHRW8f3Dla
Fascism isn't to be debated, it's to be defeated. This is the inspiring story of the 43 Group, a British anti-fascist group set up by Jewish ex-servicemen who fought fascism. Let's follow their courageous example ✊🏻 pic.twitter.com/MmfOvSdTTQ#HMD2019#HolocaustMemorialDay
(We should remember that Mr Jones has fallen foul of genuine fascists recently. One wonders how those people would have greeted Ms Riley – and fears that it would be with open arms.)
So it is understandable that Mr Jones responded to Peterrogers with proof that he had, indeed, posted about HMD. But the troll (let’s call him what he is) simply complained that the post he saw wasn’t strong enough (it was about fighting fascism, for crying out loud), as you can see:
Very Jesuitical post. You must have agonsied over that in order not to upset your base. How about something straight and condemning antisemitism rather than praising people fighting facist? @RachelRileyRR @Sara_Rose_G @JVoiceLabour
So Mr Jones did the obvious and pointed him to other posts. This is very generous as all he had to do was direct that person to his timeline and suggest he see them for himself. By now, other people were commenting on the thread – such as Keith Simmonds, who made the following suggestion:
This is shockingly poor behaviour. Mr Jones had posted several tweets condemning anti-Semitism; Peterrogers had simply ignored them. And of course Mr Jones is known to have campaigned strongly against anti-Semitism.
And indeed I’ve done article after article, speech after speech, TV appearance after TV appearance condemning the horror of anti Semitism. But this person has nothing but bad faith.
Bad faith is what it is: an “intent to deceive”, a “refusal to confront facts”.
By now, Ms Riley had stepped in. Having been tagged in from the start by Peterrogers, she posted:
The real victim of the Holocaust @OwenJones84 🙄 You pretend this isn’t happening in your own party, the place where British Jews see the most direct danger with their fostering of Jew-hating rhetoric. Today of all days, sod off. https://t.co/abFDYsTtus
What a despicable pack of lies and nonsense. Where does Owen Jones suggest he is a victim of the Holocaust? Nowhere. Nor does he pretend that anti-Semitism (referred to as “this” by Ms Riley) does not exist in the Labour Party; we will see that he posted links to some of his previous writings about it. Labour does not foster “Jew-hating rhetoric” either. Ms Riley provided absolutely no evidence to support her claims because they are not true.
As for British Jews seeing Labour as a “direct danger” – that is because people like Ms Riley, who have a political agenda, tell them to see it that way. If they were confronted with the facts, they might feel very differently about it.
She followed it with a smear:
Hey @OwenJones84, you know when you said that antisemitism should be driven from the left without compromise…then you came out in support of @AaronBastani who tries to discredit anyone who does so. Just wondering, which is it? Asking for a friend. (✡️)🌹 pic.twitter.com/y5ji2kdmPR
And so did my old buddy in the battle to save people with long-term illnesses and disabilities from the DWP’s chequebook euthanasia, Sue Marsh:
This is just bizarre. None of those tweets are antisemitism. I have absolutely no idea why you have to attack like this while *actual* fascists are on our streets. #YesYesIAmJewish
Mr Jones himself came back with a list of links to his writings about anti-Semitism, and added a further point:
What's so astonishingly ironic about your attack, @RachelRileyRR, is that I've been repeatedly attacked for speaking out against anti-Semitism, including for being used by the "Israeli lobby". And no, that's not being a "victim" (I'm not), just setting the record straight. pic.twitter.com/33kPEvqise
His point was that he has been attacked over anti-Semitism – by individuals claiming to speak for Jews – no matter what he has done. He just can’t do right for doing wrong (any course of action leads to a negative outcome).
Not good enought for Ms Riley, who dug into Mr Jones’s background for her next attack:
Thing is @OwenJones84 I call BS. You’re full of it.
And the thing I “attack” is your virtue signalling hypocrisy, and your lack of self-reflection to AS apologism that any genuine anti-racist would surely do?
The links seem to refer to claims that Mr Jones edited Wikipedia entries about Israel while he was at college, and that he defended Jeremy Corbyn against “guilt by association” claims of anti-Semitism.
By now, Ms Riley’s followers had cottoned on that another dogpile was in the offing, and had started bombarding Mr Jones with their usual torrent of abuse. I had a taste of it over the weekend and you can sample it here.
So it is unsurprising that Mr Jones gave her a taste of it, and put the record straight over her claims:
Oh, and if you're going to try and attack me over things I did when I was 19 years old, 15 years ago, you can at least get your facts straight.
I'll keep fighting anti-Semitism, including on the left, and stand with Jewish people against those who spread bigotry and hatred. pic.twitter.com/LByWKE3MCn
That was when Ms Riley posted that tweet at the top of this article – the one that resorts to low and vulgar abuse.
Oh: and the fact you defended a far right activist who taught his dog to raise its paw to statements like "Sieg Heil" and "Gas the Jews", but you relentlessly attack a socialist who passionately and repeatedly confronts anti-Semitism says all anyone ever needs to know about you pic.twitter.com/dDrQPRjtMJ
You can read another perspective on this story on Zelo Street.
I’d like to address her claim, “This is a dog-whistle @OwenJones84. The #JC4PM brigade will hear “political smear by Jew.””
This is exactly the kind of gross generalisation and double-standard that witch-hunters like Ms Riley like to make. They complain that they are victimised for being Jews, but think nothing of claiming that all supporters of Jeremy Corbyn must be anti-Semites.
And the claim is wrong. I certainly don’t see Ms Riley’s actions as being “political smear by Jew”. Ms Riley needs to take responsibility for her own actions.
That’s one of the positive elements that came from my contact with her supporters over the weekend – that I was able to establish that the claim that Ms Riley was being challenged because she was Jewish was a lie. I’ve made a little image to sum up the issue:
Feel free to use it against witch-hunters like Ms Riley for whom the label is appropriate. I do fear it will be abused but that’s the problem when people start witch-hunting – accusing others of anti-Semitism under false pretences; it makes it easier for genuine anti-Semitism to become established. But these frauds need to be singled out somehow.
Extra: Another witch-hunter tactic is a form of psychological projection, in which they claim ownership of some form of discrimination that others say they are receiving. Yesterday the despicable @GnasherJew troll account claimed that @LabLeftVoice had demanded that Ms Riley undergo racial profiling to see if she “is really a Jew”:
In fact, @LabLeftVoice – an account run by a Jew – had finally had enough of Ms Riley’s friends like @GnasherJew denying her own Jewishness and had offered to undergo racial profiling herself in order to provide absolute proof of her own ethnicity.
She told This Site: “I said we’ll bring ours you bring yours.. Gnasher showcased it and put my post tiny and just said look LLV asking Riley and Oberman to be racially profiled.. bcos yet again.. they omitted I’m Jewish to their ‘fans’.
“They are the ones who constantly deny left Jews are Jewish and it’s sick. I’ve had enough of it.. I’m not sure what to call it apart from delegitimising.. dehumanising.. but it is also an antisemitic act to delegitimise Jews with different beliefs.”
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As Samuel Miller states below, December 3 was a day of mourning in the United Kingdom.
Tory austerity has killed thousands upon thousands of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities – but they have hit on what they think is a brilliant wheeze, making it seem that the deaths are either the logical conclusion of benefit claimants’ physical condition or their own decision in the case of suicide.
They have deliberately plunged millions of sick and disabled people into appalling poverty. Remember the £30 cut in Employment and Support Allowance for people with long-term illnesses? Tip of the iceberg.
And they love it.
So I agree with Samuel here:
International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a day of mourning in UK. We remember the human catastrophe of Tory austerity and draconian welfare reforms which prematurely ended the lives of countless sick and disabled people. The DWP & its ministers must be held accountable.
On #WorldDisabilityDay it's important to remember that the Tory government has spent the last 8 years systematically abusing sick & disabled people, cutting their support, & forcing them into destitution.
If Britain cares about disabled people at all then STOP VOTING TORY.
My lifetime award for DLA was cancelled: My lifetime award for DLA was cancelled and the message I got from this was that my life had been cancelled. I fought for disabled people’s rights in the 80’s and expected to be able to correct this error in …… https://t.co/tI2NofsITS
[Important] Nearly 50,000 Disabled People Hit By 'Appalling' Cut To Benefits In Last Year Alone, Analysis Reveals | HuffPost UK https://t.co/PitdpVV9yn
Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, has changed its policy to support people who have long-term illnesses and disabilities. Consider:
We believe that all people with disabilities deserve dignity and respect. This #IDPD, here’s our plan to create a society that works for all people with disabilities 👇 #IDPD2018pic.twitter.com/j5KSeMqD0A
Some of us have been campaigning for these measures for nearly a decade, since the Conservatives slithered back into office in 2010.
Some of us have been campaigning for much longer.
This government has treated the disabled people in the UK so appallingly they should be ashamed. This cruel conservative government has no heart or compassion.
There is a better way for government to treat people with disabilities. It is a way that grants them the dignity they have been denied by the Conservatives, and that offers them a decent standard of living.
With the Tories facing annihilation in Parliament over their arrogant determination to force a duff Brexit deal down our throats, we may soon have an opportunity to take that better choice.
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The Campaign Against Antisemitism has been pilloried for its unreasonable attack on Jeremy Corbyn.
Long-term readers of This Site will, I hope, understand and forgive me if my enjoyment of the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s discomfiture seems more than fulsome.
The organisation, which seems to have been founded as an offshoot of the Israel Advocacy Movement, and appears dedicated to countering criticism of the government of Israel by accusing the critics of anti-Semitism, put Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in its sights last week.
The claim was that Mr Corbyn had failed to mention Jews in his Holocaust Memorial Day statement. This was untrue. It was later found to be true that Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was in fact guilty of this omission (if any guilt need be applied – HMD commemorates all victims of the Nazi Holocaust, and victims of several other genocides as well), along with Vince Cable and the Chief Rabbi, as I understand it.
Today, the CAA published a grudging apology for jumping the gun. But the organisation refused to lay any guilt on Mrs May, Mr Cable or the Chief Rabbi – despite the fact that they had definitely done exactly what Mr Corbyn had only been accused of doing.
Here‘s what the CAA had to say. The apology – if you can call it that – is at the very end:
Objectively, it is clear that the collective reaction of Jewish organisations to Mr Corbyn’s failure to mention Jews in his message in the memorial book was different to the Chief Rabbi’s or the Prime Minister’s. Diagnosing the reason for that difference is important.
Mr Corbyn has presided over an unprecedented tolerance by a modern British political party for anti-Jewish racism. After action was not taken against numerous antisemites in the Labour Party, he commissioned the Chakrabarti report. The report was a whitewash and its author was reportedly told in advance that she would earn a peerage from it. Now, under conditions of secrecy recommended by the report, we do not know what is being done about the many cases of antisemitism waiting to be heard. However, we do know that Ken Livingstone, who claimed that Hitler “was supporting Zionism”, was not expelled from the Party despite the objections of 107 Labour MPs who said “we will not allow it to go unchecked” before mostly falling silent. Nor has the Party yet dealt with figures such as Jackie Walker. We also know that Mr Corbyn and his allies have been dismissive of allegations of antisemitism for a long time, and have had trouble speaking about the Party’s antisemitism problem without alluding to far less evident issues with Islamophobia and “racism in all its forms”. This is compounded by the fact that Mr Corbyn already sought out and defended antisemites from Raed Salah to Reverend Stephen Sizer, long before he was in the political spotlight.
For these reasons, Campaign Against Antisemitism and other Jewish organisations around the world are particularly concerned about Mr Corbyn. In this instance, Mr Corbyn has a defence that he did just the same thing as others whom we have not criticised, but context is everything and the heightened concern of Jewish organisations worldwide has not sprung from nowhere. However, upon reflection, on this occasion we expressed our concerns in a manner that was open to allegations of double standards, and that was a mistake.
Much of the above is disinformation – hogwash of the foulest kind. The Chakrabarti report was not a whitewash; it was an honest attempt to address an issue that many still believe to have been blown out of proportion by organisations like the CAA, for political purposes, rather than their stated intentions.
The claim that Ken Livingstone said Hitler “was supporting Zionism” makes it seem that he was suggesting the Nazi dictator was in full agreement with all the aims of German Zionists at the time. He wasn’t; he never said that. Mr Livingstone’s comments referred to a very specific instance in which his aims and those of the German Federation of Zionists coincided. The CAA’s claim here is therefore such a strong exaggeration that it may as well be considered a lie.
It is just as well that the CAA does not describe its complaint with Jackie Walker. Allegations about her stem from her attendance at a closed-door, “safe space”, “training” session run by the Jewish Labour Movement, from which none of her words should have been recorded, let alone quoted to the press and used against her. She had taken issue with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism which had been adopted by the Labour Party – on very solid grounds, as it happens, and as this dissection of the document by a leading lawyer shows in graphic detail. In fact, the only part of the definition put forward by the JLM that the IHRA has actually adopted is the first two sentences. The text that follows – 11 examples – includes seven that refer to the state of Israel rather than Jews, as this work by Jewish Voices for Labour explains.
Ms Walker was also attacked for suggesting that Holocaust Memorial Day should commemorate other holocausts than that which was perpetrated by the Nazis. The claim against her was that HMD does commemorate other atrocities, which is true. But it doesn’t commemorate all of them, including – for example – the genocide of indigenous American peoples over 500 years that claimed 100 million lives. And of course the protestations of certain people, including the CAA, when certain other people didn’t mention Jews in relation to HMD – the manner of their complaint – made it clear that they consider it to be a day to commemorate what happened to Jewish people, rather than the others. It is an attitude that has caused a certain amount of friction, as revealed by reactions to previous articles on This Site.
The claim that Mr Corbyn and Labour have been “dismissive” of allegations of anti-Semitism might possibly be explained with a counter-claim that some of those allegations are vexatious – especially those put forward by organisations like the CAA against Mr Livingstone, Ms Walker and, for that matter, myself.
As for the allegations of links between Mr Corbyn and anti-Semites, a group of British Jews wrote to the Jewish Chronicle to berate it for making the same claims during his initial campaign to become Labour Party leader, in 2015. Their letter stated:
Your assertion that your attack on Jeremy Corbyn is supported by ‘the vast majority of British Jews’ is without foundation. We do not accept that you speak on behalf of progressive Jews in this country. You speak only for Jews who support Israel, right or wrong.
“There is something deeply unpleasant and dishonest about your McCarthyite guilt by association technique.
But that is exactly the “deeply unpleasant and dishonest” technique being used by the Campaign Against Antisemitism again, in the article published yesterday (January 28).
Notice that the CAA article goes on to say Mr Corbyn “has a defence that he did just the same thing as others whom we have not criticised”, but this is a lie. Mr Corbyn did mention Jews in his words; the others did not.
Particularly pertinent to This Writer is the comment that “context is everything”. Yes it is – and that is the reason I remain disappointed that the Campaign Against Antisemitism took so many words from my articles and presented them, out of context, in an attempt to make me appear to be an anti-Semite.
In the light of yesterday’s words, perhaps it is time the organisation took down its lying article and published a full, frank and grovelling apology for its hate-filled attack on an entirely innocent man.
Finally, note that the apology at the end really isn’t one. All the author of the article can manage is an admission that the attack on Mr Corbyn was a “mistake”.
What kind of mistake?
The tone of the article suggests its author is sorry the CAA was found out, not sorry that it attacked an innocent man irresponsibly. That would certainly correspond with my own experience of its behaviour.
But it seems time is running out for the CAA and its fabrications. The attack on Mr Corbyn spawned a huge backlash. Here are some of the responses to its inflammatory article, which it tweeted out to the world in the form directly below:
Is this a campaign against antisemitism or against Corbyn? Disgraceful on this day of all days that you divert attention away from the Holocaust and on to petty political squabbling. I presume you will be moving on to attack Theresa May? pic.twitter.com/MoPqMI0PZv
He did mention Jews. It’s important to read the whole statement before you make guesses or assumptions. Will you retract this tweet or make an apology? pic.twitter.com/OHsr3TF4aa
— Lineal Conker Champion of the World (@NUFC_OurClub) January 27, 2018
Frankly flabbergasted at the number of tweets saying Jeremy Corbyn was disrespectful and anti-semitic for not mentioning Jews in his Holocaust Memorial piece. Except he did. Some very pernicious disinformation going on. Thanks to @AaronBastani for sharing this: pic.twitter.com/X8QendJiPR
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) January 26, 2018
And the far-right – the real anti-semites – pitching in.
— Messmore Breamworthy #GTTO #IVotedLabour (@socialistMike) January 26, 2018
I'm offended that nowhere in the Holocaust coverage this morning is there any mention of the gypsies, homosexuals, JW's and others consigned for extermination!
That’s the problem with campaigns that are motivated by hatred rather than justice: They are always exposed in the end.
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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:
.@originaldbailey, it was an honour to meet you in the summer. I'm so sorry to hear of your illness.
Your dedication to our NHS is an inspiration. I hope we can stand together again soon to defend our precious NHS that cares for us all.https://t.co/jswxUbDbUi
The extraordinary courage and humanity of @originaldbailey, a man I am honoured to know, is both a testament to the courage of our nurses every where and to the human spirit, a man who is a true hero of our time https://t.co/0aHadHaD5W
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.
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