Are the English really so stupid that they would start a fight rather than wear a piece of cloth that could save lives?
Days after Boris Johnson was photographed wearing a face mask in a shop, the Conservatives have backed away from making them compulsory in shops.
Was this because retail businesses voiced fears that shop staff would face violence if they were asked to enforce such a rule?
And what about people who would be exempt, because of disabilities or breathing problems? Would they be caught between staff who don’t know they don’t have to wear masks, and customers angry at the exemption?
The UK’s record on face masks is shockingly bad, compared to other countries; only 36 per cent of our people wear them in public compared to 78 per cent in France and 83 per cent in Italy.
So now retail staff must face an increased possibility of catching Covid-19, along with anyone else visiting their shops.
It seems to This Writer that the pig-headedness of the anti-maskers has allowed the Tories to once again increase the risk for us all.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
This story will be full of apparent contradictions. It is, in fact, about betrayal.
It features Nazis making stiff-armed salutes next to the Cenotaph, and claiming to be supporting Churchill.
The same people, who say they love the rule of law, have attacked police.
And while claiming to deplore violence at the Black Lives Matter demonstration in London last week, they flew to it within minutes of starting their own demonstration.
There is sense to it – although it’s hard to see because people in authority would prefer you to remain confused – and the mass media support them in that.
This story is best told from the response to the removal of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol last week – triggering a movement to remove other statues glorifying slavers and racists including calls for the removal of the statue to World War II prime minister Winston Churchill in London – and its actual defacement. In fact, the story started decades ago, as we will see.
The threat to Churchill’s effigy seems to have brought every far-right-wing lunatic in the United Kingdom out of the woodwork to demand action to protect a man they claim as an inspirational, ideological leader. Figureheads demanded that every “patriot” – take note of the language – should be in London to defend the statue during the next scheduled Black Lives Matter demonstration in London – on June 13 (today).
Black Lives Matter organisers weren’t having any of that; their demos are always intended to be peaceful and there was a clear threat of violence in the so-called “patriots”‘ call to action. They pulled out and left London to the lunatics.
Meanwhile, the authorities boarded up the statue, leaving nothing for the “patriots” to protect.
They went anyway – and caused scenes that have been branded in the mildest possible terms as a “national disgrace”.
To learn why the far right thought it necessary to scandalise the country – possibly the world – we need to go back many decades, to examine the career of their idol Churchill.
The claim is that they are protecting the legacy of the man whose leadership saved us from Nazism and the politics of Hitler. But the people saying that are the same people who, today, threw Nazi salutes at the cenotaph in an insult to everybody who died to protect us in the 1939-45 war.
These people are not celebrating a victory over fascism!
So what are they celebrating?
Churchill was a racist and an oppressor of his own countryfolk. That is the Churchill the far-right revere.
Look at the Tonypandy riots massacre in Wales in 1910. As Home Secretary, Churchill sent first Metropolitan police officers, then the 18th Hussars – who shot down the striking miners. It is widely believed that he ordered the use of live rounds, although he denied it.
Or shall we talk about his actions in Liverpool, the following year?
How in the name of all that is holy is this the first time I have ever heard about this? I knew about the Welsh miners. I had no idea about this whatsoever. https://t.co/6iguOH2efz
— CrémantCommunarde#ActivistLawyer ⚖️ 😷 ✋ (@0Calamity) June 12, 2020
I’m sure there are other examples but let’s look at the racism:
According to his biographer, John Charmley, Churchill believed in a racial hierarchy and eugenics, and that at the top of this were White Protestant Christians.
He said it was ‘alarming and nauseating’ seeing Gandhi ‘striding half-naked up the steps of the vice-regal palace’ in India. He also said ‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion’. So it should be no surprise that he allowed three million people to die in the Bengal famine of 1943, in which Churchill refused to deploy food supplies.
The Bengalis starved because their grain had been sequestered as back up supplies to feed British troops. In the end they weren’t needed. Churchill also said that the famine was their fault for having too many children.
I'm not allowed to say Churchill was responsible for the deaths of 3 million people in Bengal without mentioning his leadership in WW2, but I am allowed to mention his leadership in WW2 without mentioning the 3 million deaths he helped cause. Apparently.
— Jessie is so tired. (@TheJessieKirk) June 12, 2020
This racist also said that ‘Keep Britain White’ was a good slogan for the Tories to go into the 1951 general election.
Let’s look at his attitude to World War II. Boris Johnson has claimed that the former prime minister “saved this country and the whole of Europe from a barbaric fascist and racist tyranny, and our debt to him is incalculable”.
But according to historian of fascism Martin Pugh, Churchill wasn’t opposed to fascism in itself; he was simply concerned that Nazi Germany threatened British interests in the North Sea.
And Peter Hitchens has pointed out that Churchill wasn’t interested in saving the Jews; he was simply honouring treaties with Poland and France. He knew about the extermination camps but neither said nor did anything about them until they were liberated during the allied invasions of Germany and Poland.
My 92 year old father is an expert on Jewish history and anti-Semitism. He has never forgiven Winston Churchill for knowing about the Nazi death camps but failing to act on that knowledge. FDR and the Red Cross were similarly grossly negligent.
So it should be unsurprising that people of good conscience have reached the logical conclusions about Churchill:
The way Churchill is remembered in the UK has always been tied up with ideas of white superiority. Why do you think so many people of colour are critical of the way he's celebrated? The way the far-right are behaving today is terrifying but not surprising.
I have already mentioned Boris Johnson’s history-denying defence of Churchill as a fighter against fascism, when he was no such thing. Is it any surprise, then, that after he was told to “grow a pair” and defend the continuance of the statue (by people like the boxer Tyson Fury), he leapt to it?
“The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country – and the whole of Europe – from a fascist and racist tyranny,” he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
“It is absurd and shameful that this national monument should today be at risk of attack by violent protestors. Yes, he sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.
“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations.”
Sadly, here he is undermined by the UK government itself, which has indeed edited and censored the UK’s collective past:
British Establishment:
“People cannot just go around erasing British history if they don’t like it!”
The news story refers to the destruction of records detailing crimes committed by the British Empire in its colonies, during its final years. Apparently Mr Johnson thinks it is perfectly acceptable to edit and censor the past when it reveals inconvenient facts.
He has attracted appropriate criticism:
Johnson clearly anxious here that any possible future statue of himself not be immediately thrown in the sea. https://t.co/zX7iWjJRXj
What conclusions may we draw so far? That far-right-wingers in the UK made an issue of defending Churchill’s statue because they are racists, just as he was? That they hoped to disrupt the planned Black Lives Matter demonstration in order to beat up black people? That they relied on Boris Johnson for support because he is a racist (“picaninnies with watermelon smiles”, remember. “Letterboxes” and “bank robbers”, remember)? That the Nazi salutes in London today were as much for Johnson as they were for Churchill?
That they were relying on a rise in racism in the UK caused and promoted by successive Conservative governments since 2010 – most especially around the UK’s membership of the European Union and Brexit?
From ‘legitimate concerns’ about immigration to Nazi salutes at the Cenotaph in four years flat. These goons are just a symptom. The disease begins with media & politicians.
The UK urgently needs to recognise what has been unleashed and normalised by Brexit because that is a vital context for what is happening today. Sure, EDL etc have been around for much longer, but the fact is that the far right has never been more emboldened.
— Prof Tanja Bueltmann (@cliodiaspora) June 13, 2020
We should also take note of another aspect of the far-right-wing malady: exceptionalism. They adopt what it suits them to adopt and ignore the inconvenient facts – such as the fact that their ally in support of Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson, also presided over the ejection of Churchill’s grandson from the Conservative Party:
This exceptionalism is especially strong with regard to statues of slavers, racists and other oppressors who, we are told, made Britain “great”:
The statue obsession is another bit of English exceptionalism. We know all about Communist propaganda statues, about the Nazis – some even know about the history of the Conferederate statues in the US – but don’t see that ours are in any way the same.
See, Katarzyna b-m was saying anyone who is uncomfortable with the way people behave in their home (or indeed, home country) – such as their choice of decoration – is welcome to leave. The comment may be considered dog-whistle racism towards Ash, who is a person of colour. But Ash just batted it away with the pertinent observation that, when the British invaded other people’s homes in the time of Empire, they did the exact opposite; instead of leaving, the British changed those other nations and didn’t give a fig about the feelings of the natives.
With these statues, of course, it is native Britons who want rid, so the argument is nonsense. But that’s right-wing exceptionalism for you.
We’re getting close to the events in London today, but should first consider two more elements in this mix: the police and the press. Both have been put between a rock and a hard place.
The police, you see, were prompted into action last week against Black Lives Matter demonstrators – although members of Avon and Someset Constabulary wisely avoided a confrontation with those who pulled down Edward Colston’s statue, even though it was done illegally. The far-right extremists who planned to challenge any demonstration this weekend were claiming to be upholding the rule of law – but their subsequent actions made it clear that this was not true. What were the police supposed to do with them?
And the news media have been instrumental in supporting the rise of racism in the UK over the last few years – faithfully reporting the Tory governments’ claims that immigrants have been responsible for many of the nation’s ills, among other questionable practices. The extremist demonstration in London today was a logical result and progression of these reports – but what sort of treatment did reporters expect if they pointed their cameras at the violence that happened today?
Right-wingers are doing Nazi salutes in front of the Cenotaph … yet the media want you to believe it's the left who don't respect British history!pic.twitter.com/wzqlDoY1vQ
It tells us that racism is still alive and well in the UK and that most of the people in this video clip are there to stick it to the blacks.
Next thing we knew, these people who claimed to be celebrating Churchill the man who led us to victory over the Nazis were performing Nazi salutes in front of the police (and also in front of the cenotaph in an insult to the people whose deaths that monument represents):
Far right thugs, emboldened by their pin up boy Boris Johnson, attacking police. This is what happens when you vote a man into office who has not only said many racist things, but who has declined any opportunity to apologise for them pic.twitter.com/MpLRj3SLDM
Interestingly, the Nazis doing the saluting were again contradicting themselves; they’re all for police brutality against black people (because they’re racists) – but if the cops turn a heavy hand to them, it’s a different story and they react with violence:
I thought they loved the Police and wanted to protect them?
How are you defending Churchill’s statue on the basis that he defeated the Nazis and then doing Nazi salutes in front of his statue?!? The state of it all.
Just to make this clear #BLM in London was cancelled. So no one try to say the peaceful protests are in anyway connected to this 👇 at all. Ever. https://t.co/RDB9fnt22H
— Юридически привилегированный Londongrad (@LPrivileged) June 13, 2020
Bottles, cans and smoke bombs thrown in the last half hour at police and their horses in Parliament Square by football firms/far-right protesters. Anyone who is thought to be media is also being threatened. pic.twitter.com/m0nv91uAsO
Turns out it's the far-right who are the thugs after all. You'd think the opposite from Britain's media, especially of the last 5 years. https://t.co/QbucIzYWAd
A photographer has just had his nose broken at Parliament Square by far-right anti-BLM protestors. I’ll be waiting for the condemnation from the PM and the media.
Right-wing thugs on their anti-black protest in London have broken a journalist's nose. Others shout "wanker" at him and throw stuff as he moves to safety.
Wow the BBC have not reported the Nazi salutes at all and are even giving Paul Golding a quote….wtaf? They are promoting the far right+ still saying BLM are the violent group.
BBC News – Black Lives Matter: Police impose restrictions on London protests https://t.co/g2ilTL0lPf
The United Kingdom remains a hopelessly racist nation.
It is racist because the history we learn reeks of it. Our monuments venerate it. Our government promotes it. And our (white) people take their cue from all three.
This situation will not change because our government – and the most powerful people in the UK – want to keep it the way it is.
It puts us at each others’ throats instead of at theirs.
And why is it about betrayal?
Simple. This overt racism is a betrayal of everyone who has been led to believe that Britain is better than that.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
This is a time of medical crisis – so why do some people think it is okay to attack nurses?
What a shame.
The media have been full of stories of people pulling together (while observing the rules on social distancing) – but we must also admit that the pandemic has provided some with a perfect opportunity to debase themselves.
It seems that nurses – who are putting their own safety at risk to help people with the coronavirus – are being targeted with threats, violence and worse, by people who can only belong to the worst elements in our society.
For example:
NHS worker spat at in the face twice after 10-hour shift in Manchester – Manchester Evening News https://t.co/HS4WcbgpJi
If that man had the coronavirus, he may have been deliberately trying to infect her. Even if he didn’t have symptoms, he could still have the disease, of course.
It gets much, much worse:
NHS nurse and mum-of-three is stabbed to death in the street near her home – Mirror Online https://t.co/Lq3ppwGP2h
But when one selfish individual left an expletive-ridden note on a nurse’s car, they got more than they bargained for.
The note was left under her windscreen wiper after she returned home from a 12-hour shift, and read: “How f***ing stupid and dangerouse (sic) parking here do it again you will be sorry!!!!!”
Her response: “Whilst most people were out clapping for the NHS, you were writing this.
“I am a nurse and working long hours in this very stressful time. Please choose your words wisely.
“Every evening I have arrived home from work this week there has been nowhere for me to park as most people are staying at home.
“This note has been reported and I ask all of my neighbours to please look out for anyone acting suspicious around my car,
“This note is shameful in any circumstance but even more so at a time like this. #BeKind”
As a society, we must not tolerate this. Passers-by took a photograph of the man who spat at the NHS worker; neighbours are keeping an eye out for the nurse’s car. Of course a murder inquiry has been launched in the other case, but we should all be vigilant.
Yes, there is an emergency, and we must look after ourselves.
But more than ever, we need to look after each other.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Victims: These are not disabled victims of hate crime fuelled by the Tories. As recent articles by Life News and the New York Times have stated, the Nazis’ first victims were the disabled too.
How soon they forget.
Today’s announcement that violent hate crime against disabled people has risen by 41 per cent is bad enough, along with the 71 per cent increase in offences with an online element.
But why is no mention made of the fact that disability hate crime rose by a harrowing 213 per cent – it more than tripled – after the Conservatives first came back to office in 2010?
And it is also significant that prosecutions of hate violence against disabled people have been reduced.
Oh – by the way, the increase figures for the last year are from only 25 of the UK’s 43 police forces – only slightly more than half.
So we may conclude that the real number of violent hate crimes against disabled people is far, far higher than stated.
The Leonard Cheshire charity sent requests to all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and the full responses from 25 forces showed there were 5,015 offences of disability hate crime recorded by police in 2018-19 compared to 4,111 the previous year – a rise of 22 per cent.
In 2017-18 the figures showed 1,805 of these offences had involved violence, rising to 2,538 in 2018-19.
Twenty-three of the forces were able to provide data to show how many had involved an online element. There were 201 offences in 2017-18 compared to 344 in 2018-19.
Significantly, the number of cases that resulted in charges or a summons had dropped, the charity said. In 2017-18 there were 330 of these cases were pursued – eight per cent of the total – but this dropped 293 in 2018-19, six per cent of the total.
So: an astronomical increase in hate crimes against people with disabilities, coupled with a reduction in the already-pitiful number of these crimes that lead to criminal prosecutions.
And we don’t even know how many led to a conviction!
It all contributes to my years-old claim that Tory anti-disabled propaganda has fuelled hate crime against disabled people.
As I stated in 2017: “Not only have the Conservatives manipulated the benefit system to force claimants into destitution and death, either by the worsening of their conditions or by despair-fuelled suicide, they have also manipulated the public into helping that agenda with violence.
“And the policy has been so successful that the Tories have expanded it to encompass hatred against people from foreign countries and (now) pensioners.”
In support, I quoted This Site’s long-term friend Mo Stewart in Welfare Weekly, who stated:
“Aided and abetted by banner headlines, DWP Ministers insisted that many claimants of out-of-work disability benefit were ‘inactive’, ‘skiving’, ‘scrounging’ and ‘workshy’.
“Claimants of such benefits were clearly a burden to ‘hard working tax payers’, so these dishonest people must be identified and forced to find work.
“These totally false claims have worked well, with a 213% increase in disability hate crimes during the Coalition government’s term in office.”
The falsehoods certainly seem to have worked on employees of the DWP, whose staff were recently recorded accusing benefit claimants of “faking it”.
The headlines today are almost meaningless. They are there to make you feel bad for a moment. But nothing will be done to stop hate crime against the disabled because it is Tory government policy – as it was in Germany under the Nazis.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Offensive: It seems increasing numbers of people think violence against homeless people is acceptable. Is it because our government has implied that it is? Beware. The de-humanising of a group in society is one of the biggest steps toward fascism [Image for illustrative purposes only].
I wonder if this is the reason my story about homeless children being housed in shipping containers didn’t get much of a response – that Tory propaganda has done its job and most people think homeless people are only good for a beating?
If people didn’t object to children being housed in freight boxes, this may explain the reason: They think it’s fine to do more harm to the homeless while pretending to help them.
Am I right? Have homeless people been de-humanised to the point where nobody cares what they suffer – until it happens to them?
A homeless man was kicked and pushed to the ground by a group of men after they “pretended to help” him.
Video footage filmed by one of the attackers shows the 43-year-old victim being shoved in the back and sent flying to the ground in Coventry.
An eyewitness claimed the victim had fallen over drunk and lost one of his shoes before a man “went over and held out his hand to help him up…then kicked him in the back”.
The homeless man was later taken to hospital and had to have stitches in his lips, according to another witness.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Speaking engagement: Chris Williamson at a previous event.
Chris Williamson, a Labour MP facing trumped-up charges of anti-Semitism, has been forced to change the venue of a speaking event in Brighton after thugs threatened hotel staff with violence and social media abuse.
He tweeted an email from the Holiday Inn, Brighton, which stated: “Over the past 24 hours, our hotel and employees have been subjected to abuse and threats from members of the public on the phone, on email and on social media outlets.
“We cannot allow our guests and employees to be put at potential harm and we will therefore have to cancel your booking.”
This Writer hopes the hotel has lodged a complaint with the police.
Mr Williamson tweeted that the meeting would go ahead at another location: “We will never allow thuggery and intimidation to stifle freedom of speech!”
Rest assured, the meeting will still be going ahead at a different location. We will never allow thuggery and intimidation to stifle freedom of speech!#ChangeIsComing
Mr Williamson is to face a hearing before Labour’s National Constitutional Committee – the so-called “kangaroo court” that has expelled other members (including This Writer) on the basis of flimsy, nonsensical and trumped-up charges.
He has won the support of many Labour Party members, and also that of leading intellectual (and Jew) Noam Chomsky, who branded the accusations a “disgrace” and an “insult to the memory” of Holocaust victims.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Propagandists for the apartheid Israeli government took a psychological battering when thousands took to the streets of London for a demonstration of solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine.
Thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday to mark the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe), and to call for an end to the latest hostilities between Israel and the remnants of Palesine that the Israeli government is working hard to destroy.
The demonstration was organised for by the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB), Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and Stop the War Campaign (STW).
If you need a reason to understand the need for such a demonstration, consider:
Armed factions in Gaza have given Israel until Monday to deliver on its commitments under a ceasefire agreement reached earlier this week.
That ceasefire brought to an end more than 48 hours of violence across the Gaza-Israel boundary that left 27 Palestinians in Gaza dead – 14 of them civilians killed by Israeli fire – as well as four civilian fatalities on the Israeli side.
The agreement reached on Monday is understood to be similar to understandings that brought an end to major Israeli offensives in Gaza in summer 2014 and November 2012.
The immediate steps expected by Palestinian factions include the reopening of the fishing zone, the transfer of funding from Qatar and the reopening of Gaza’s commercial crossings.
“In Gaza, where the economy struggles for survival and residents face adverse humanitarian conditions, every additional day that passes until these further restrictions are lifted by Israel has severe implications,” Gisha, a human rights group that monitors Israel’s siege, stated on Tuesday.
“Traders cannot fulfil their business commitments, patients miss crucial appointments for life-saving treatment, and fishermen cannot feed their families,” Gisha added.
The rights group said that “Israel’s use of its control over the crossings to deliberately harm the civilian population in Gaza has to stop.”
Even when Israeli bombs aren’t being dropped, the status quo in Gaza – under air, sea and land blockade for more than a decade, and military occupation for half a century – is far from normal.
Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands now inside Israel, which forbids Palestinian refugees from exercising their right to return because they are not Jewish.
One wonders what the severely-outgunned Palestinians will do if Israel refuses to to honour the conditions of its own ceasefire – but what else can they do, other than demand that agreements be honoured?
And while it is true that neither side in this conflict can claim the moral high ground, one has to ask why the side with overwhelming military superiority insists on continuing to inflict terror on the weaker side – if not in order to wipe it out altogether, eventually.
Opposition to that was another reason for the London march.
A highlight of the day was the speech by activist Ahed Tamimi, who served an eight-month prison sentence for slapping an Israeli soldier after her cousin, then aged 15, was shot in the head at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet, severely wounding him.
There was considerable opposition to the Conservative government of Theresa May, over its support for the Israeli government:
The Labour Party’s position is clear. In government, it will recognise Palestine as a sovereign state. Labour was well-represented on the demonstration:
Of course, this is the reason supporters of the Israeli government are so keen to smear Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters in the party as anti-Semites, in the face of the evidence showing he has supported the Jewish people as well as Palestinians.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Coming up (Labour) roses: Mr Corbyn kept smiling both before and after the ‘egg’ attack at the Muslim Welfare Centre in Finsbury Park.
Absolutely stunning: The mainstream media is still claiming that Jeremy Corbyn was attacked with an egg when he was punched in the head.
It undermines respect for the British news media.
The evidence was that Mr Corbyn was struck on the right side of his forehead and the culprit – named John Murphy – has admitted assault by beating.
It was not assault by beating an egg.
The Mirror‘s report of Mr Corbyn’s account is telling:
‘Mr Corbyn, who was largely uninjured but left with a red mark, noted Murphy’s face was “contorted” with rage and he appeared “very aggressive”.
‘In a victim impact statement read to court, the Labour leader said: “I was shocked and surprised when the assault occurred as I have always felt safe and secure at the Muslim Welfare House.
‘”The assault was completely unprovoked and threatening.
‘”Whilst I’m determined to make sure I’m able to interact with people as I always have, I now have to be more cautious.
‘”I feel these kinds of attacks drive a wedge between elected representatives and those who elected them in the first place. We are now reviewing and increasing my security protection.”‘
It seems an egg was involved, as Mr Corbyn had to wash it off, but this was a physical assault – not a prank with a food item.
Of course we know Theresa May has been stoking ill-feeling against MPs, encouraging attacks on our elected representatives.
This Site reported on the attack against Lloyd Russell-Moyle last week.
And Mrs May has been reported to the Metropolitan Police for inciting violence against MPs.
Strangely, though, if the violence is against Labour MPs, nobody in the media seems to want to mention it.
UPDATE: Murphy has been sentenced to 28 days in prison. The mainstream media is continuing to play down the attack, despite the discovery of online death threats by Murphy and others.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
We always knew Theresa May’s “hostile environment” extended to more people than immigrants and EU nationals.
She doesn’t like people from broken homes either. Perhaps it’s her puritanical, daughter-of-a-vicar blood.
Mrs May would prefer it if people – mostly women, of course – who suffer domestic abuse would suffer in silence, rather than burdening the Department for Work and Pensions with annoying claims for benefits.
Annoyingly – for her – the morals of the age require her government to present the appearance of one that cares when people come to harm.
So the DWP has devised a wealth of rules designed to make it seem it is doing its best for victims, while in fact keeping them in poverty and pain.
There’s an entire page on getting help if you’re a victim of domestic abuse on the DWP website.
On the page it lists certain conditions, yes conditions, victims must meet.
They include;
“You will need written evidence from a person acting in an official capacity showing that:
your circumstances are consistent with those of a person who has had domestic violence or abuse inflicted, or threatened, upon them, during the 6 months prior to you notifying
you have made contact with the person acting in an official capacity to tell them about any incidents that have occurred in the past 6 months
“You must provide your evidence to Jobcentre Plus as soon as possible but no later than one calendar month after you first told us about the domestic violence and abuse.”
So a victim of domestic abuse not only has to open up to work coach about their abuse, then they get asked for proof?
The requirements do not end there. Once they’ve decided to accept that you have been a victim, you MAY be allowed a 13 week break from looking for work, but only if you satisfy the next set of criteria.
The most notable of them being,
“you have not had a 13 week break from work-related requirements as a result of previous domestic violence within the last 12 months”.
In some cases of domestic violence, the victim may return to their abuser. This is well known and it’s hard to think the DWP wouldn’t have known this.
This means a benefit claimant who’s endured repeated abuse, just has to battle on because they’ve been unfortunate enough to be abused twice in a year.
The simple fact is that life on benefits is appallingly hard – the Conservatives have deliberately made it so.
The system means survival is slightly easier for couples (at least, that has been This Writer’s experience) – and it is entirely possible that domestic abuse victims, in the impossible situation of being unable to find paying work and unable to survive under the cruel conditions of Universal Credit, end up believing they have no choice other than to return to their abuser.
Once there, DWP rules say they must stay for at least a year – no matter what abuse they suffer.
Some might even die.
But that’s why it’s called a “hostile environment”, you see.
The DWP won’t care because the death of a claimant is listed as a “positive benefit outcome”.
Information on where abuse victims can get genuine help is available in the Universal Credit Sufferer article.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Oppressor: It seems Johnny Mercer wants young people to join our armed forces so a Tory government can order them to brutalise others in the name of far-right-wing political dogma.
What kind of twisted mind does Plymouth’s Tory MP, Johnny Mercer possess?
He has started a huge debate with a claim that there is nothing wrong with killing to defeat the enemies of a nation.
Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to him that, to many of us, he is an enemy of the United Kingdom.
By his own reckoning, would I not be well within my rights to gather a few dozen like-minded people, track him down and beat him brutally with baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire (for example)?
If, as Tory MP Johnny Mercer claims, there's nothing wrong with killing to defeat your enemies, the millions suffering Tory austerity in Britain should have risen up and wiped him and his cronies out long before now. #Austerityhttps://t.co/R16N9vdtxQ
No, of course I wouldn’t. He doesn’t mean it like that.
We’re told he made his comment in a tweet encouraging young people to join the army. It stated: “The application of violence to defeat the enemies of the nation has become worryingly unpopular. Nothing wrong with fighting (yes killing) for values/what you believe in. The oppressed/bullied/tormented/voiceless deserve it. Join the fight; best thing you’ll ever do.”
So he wasn’t discussing “the application of violence” for “values you believe in”. He meant he wants young people to enlist in order to apply violence in the name of values he believes in.
And what about the line that “the oppressed/bullied/tormented/voiceless deserve it”? If you think he means they deserve protection, think again!
Mr Mercer means the oppressed/bullied/tormented/voiceless deserve to be oppressed/bullied/tormented/voiceless.
If you don’t believe me, just look at Conservative policies regarding sick and disabled benefit claimants since 2010.
It’s a philosophy you can see espoused in the movie (and, I suppose, novel) Starship Troopers. Author Robert A Heinlein had imagined a future civilisation in which far-right politics had conquered the world and in one scene, a character states that violence is “the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived… Naked force has resolved more issues throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence never solves anything, is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay.”
This is what Johnny Mercer believes – but notice that he doesn’t want to put himself at risk in the application of that “naked force”. He wants the plebs to do that for him.
Note that he served in the Army as an officer, not in the ranks.
Officers are the people who decide how troops should be deployed, and send them out – often to their deaths. But they don’t often put their own lives on the line, and I wonder how often they expect to be asked to take the lives of others, as Mr Mercer is clearly asking others to do in his tweet.
My point is that it is easy to sign orders for other people to die, and to expect other people to carry out those orders. But it is less easy to actually do it oneself.
So what does Mr Mercer’s tweet actually mean? As indicated, this has been the subject of heated debate.
An article in The Independent has published several responses which make good points, as follows:
“Noelle Moysi said: “Is this really what you mean? You’re an MP and words matter. Jo Cox was killed by someone fighting for what they believed in. Jo Cox’s murderer saw her as an enemy of the nation and shouted the words Britain first as he did it.”
“Helen Troup said Mr Mercer’s remarks were “exactly the justification used by the IRA of course”.
“Lavendar Luke said: “I believe synth music is better than guitar music. Yet when I kill and fight for my beliefs I’m ‘a psychopath’ apparently. Thanks for standing up for me Johnny.””
My own suggestion about the meaning of the tweet would be this:
It means he wants he wants the young people of the United Kingdom to put themselves at risk of death in order to subject the oppressed/bullied/tormented/voiceless to the worst far-right-wing domination possible, while he and his fellow Tories sit back and call the shots.
No thanks. If he wants to go around bullying other people – at home or abroad – he can damn well try it on his own and see how far his “values” get him then.
These Tories always talk big when the odds are stacked in their favour and it’s your life on the line.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
