Apparently a Jewish woman who helped drive many of her fellow Jews out of the Labour Party for anti-Israel sentiment hasn’t been to that country since 1994 and is shocked to discover the apartheid it operates against Palestinians.
Does that ring true to you?
Or is she just professing horror in order to validate her own behaviour over the last few years?
It’s a bit complicated but here’s the journalist Jonathan Cook to explain:
Here is Dame Hodge telling British Jews they can't 'stand by' as Israel sinks into the abyss. And yet she's been one of the main instigators of the purges in Labour that have seen those very same Jews expelled in disproportionately high numbers – for supposed anti-semitism
Hodge isn't concerned about improving life for Palestinians – that's exactly what Labour's anti-racist Jews were persecuted for trying to do. It's the Israel lobby's attempt to create distance from Netanyahu's fascist government as a way to maintain their own credibility
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It’s the first time This Writer has agreed with Margaret Hodge in years.
She has said the government must ban online anonymity or make social media directors personally liable for defamatory posts, revealing that she receives tens of thousands of abusive tweets a month:
Hodge accused the government of deliberately delaying the online harms bill in order to avoid difficult conversations with powerful social media companies, and said she was prepared to take up a campaign to make sure the law was tough enough.
The Online Harms Bill arises from a White Paper produced last year – and This Site commented on it at the time.
The White Paper – and now the Bill (I expect; I haven’t actually seen any information on it since April last year) proposed a statutory duty of care, to be conferred on media companies including platforms such as Facebook and Google, online messaging services like WhatsApp and file hosting sites.
They would be required to comply with a code of practice, setting out the steps they must take to meet the duty of care. This may include designing products and platforms to make them safer, directing users who have suffered harm towards support, combating disinformation (for example by using fact-checking services), and improving the transparency of political advertising.
They would be expected to co-operate with police and other enforcement agencies on illegalities including incitement of violence and selling illegal weapons.
And they would have to compile annual “transparency reports” detailing the amount of harmful content found on their platforms and what they are doing to combat it.
The government would have powers to direct the regulator – initially Ofcom, with a dedicated regulator to follow in the future – on specific issues such as terrorist activity or child sexual exploitation.
I pointed out last year that the White Paper did not include any measures to stop people creating anonymous accounts.
If Ms Hodge wants to see that happen now, then I am all for it.
It will stop me receiving much (but not all) of the abuse I get from people wrongly accusing me of anti-Semitism after the Labour Party expelled me under false pretences (as shown in court).
But that’s not what was on offer in April last year. As I made perfectly clear, “regulating online media platforms will not stop people posting “harmful” content to them, if there is nothing to stop them from doing so. It is farcically easy to create anonymous accounts, from which to post objectionable and/or abusive content.
“Shut one down? That’s fine – the individual responsible can have another up and running in a matter of minutes, if they don’t have multiple aliases working already.”
And I made that point that “it has been argued that people must have a right to be able to post anonymously, because of personal circumstances that make it important – possibly for their personal safety.”
My response: “Fine. A system can be devised in which people apply for anonymity and the number of people or organisations able to ascertain their real identity is strictly limited. That would allow these individuals to continue functioning in the online world. And it would prevent others from abusing social media platforms. Any posts from an unrecognised anonymous account would be easy to flag up and isolate.”
If Ms Hodge is proposing such a system then I am behind her every step of the way, and never mind all the other differences we have.
Although – as a staunch witch-hunter herself – I wonder whether she would approve of that outcome.
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.Margaret Hodge: she once praised Jeremy Corbyn glowingly but is singing a different tune now. Why the change of heart? Political expediency?
For a leader who said he wanted to bring unity to the Labour Party, Keir Starmer has certainly caused a lot of division.
This Writer thinks the best conclusion to be drawn by those of us who are watching is that he lied; Starmer’s plan was always to cause the maximum amount of upset possible and ensure that Labour is incapable of opposing the Conservatives at a time when the Tory government is itself weak.
That is the only explanation that makes any sense at all.
So today the antagonism has intensified – as witnessed in the articles of that exhaustive follower of Labour’s woes, Skwawkbox.
I’ll level with you: this story is likely to develop so quickly and in so many different directions that it will be hard to keep up. But I’ll try to keep tabs on developments and point you to those that are of interest.
Skwawkbox tells us first that the unions have condemned Starmer’s continuing persecution of Jeremy Corbyn:
Unite’s Len McCluskey condemned Starmer’s ‘vindictive and vengeful decision which despoils Party democracy and due process‘ – and for acting in ‘bad faith’ in his ‘continued persecution’ of Corbyn – and accused him of destroying ‘party unity and integrity’ while undermining the EHRC report he has pledged to implement in full.
Fair comment, I think…
CWU general secretary Dave Ward went even further, describing Starmer’s action as ‘shocking’ – because it gives Boris Johnson a free ride over the serious issues of the day. Millions face redundancy, hundreds are dying every day and the government gets away with it. But Starmer wants a civil war.
Meanwhile a well-respected former Labour MP has quit the party in disgust at Starmer’s behaviour.
Former Colne Valley MP – and PPS to John McDonnell, meaning she worked as part of his shadow Treasury team – Thelma Walker has resigned her membership of the Labour Party, while expressing solidarity with former party leader Jermey Corbyn.
She made her feelings clear in a tweeted response to another former Labour MP:
“Labour MPs used [the PLP] as a vehicle for self-aggrandisement and personal attacks on those they didn’t agree with.”
“[I] witnessed the toxic atmosphere [in the Parliamentary Labour Party] every Monday evening. My stomach used to turn over before I went in the room. The same people would leave the meeting and report to journalists.”
That’s not the kind of Labour Party This Writer wants to have and I don’t think you want it either. But thanks to Starmer and his cronies, that’s the party we have.
On the subject of Starmer’s cronies, one of the reasons he kept Corbyn from rejoining the PLP seems to have been a threat by Margaret Hodge that she would quit the party if it happened.
Hodge has been a vociferous opponent of Corbyn, having spent several years denouncing him as an anti-Semite. It seems she is also a hypocrite, as a comment uncovered today shows:
“I was fighting fascism and that would be completely up his street. He takes stands on things and he fights his corner. I like that about him.”
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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