Stupid, selfish mouth-breather: Boris Johnson wouldn’t wear a mask as he wandered the corridors of Hexham Hospital like a bad case of MRSA. And it seems his idiocy has been infectious.
This is what happens when you let spoilt children have their way when they’re pretending to be important politicians.
Boris Johnson got away with wandering through Hexham Hospital in Northumbria without wearing a mask and now everybody wants to do it, no matter how badly they endanger themselves and others.
It seems selfish idiocy really is infectious.
See the tweets below for examples of what Johnson has started. Note the word “another” in Dr Bhatt’s tweet – this is not an isolated incident.
Note also that a fight nearly broke out because of it. NHS staff already face violent patients every day, but here’s the prime minister – the prime minister – deliberately making it worse.
The poem, tweeted by The Far Field, puts the whole matter in context.
Why was I, I hear you ask In a hospital without a mask Because, as the world must agree, The rules should not apply to me Rules of any type or kind Are for those of lesser, lower mind So I am eternally exempt Because I hold you all beneath contempt. (Jemima Laing)
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I would ask how anybody could vote for a party leader this stupid, but we live in a country that is run by Boris Johnson.
Suffice it to say that, a matter of days after the murder of Sir David Amess and the subsequent hysteria about violent speech in politics, Keir Starmer was on Good Morning Britain, agreeing with Richard Madeley about giving Labour socialists “a good kicking”.
who are ‘they’ who are talking about giving the left a good kicking? is it the same people complaining about violent speech in politics by any chance? https://t.co/DsN7ly24EI
Perhaps he could be partially excused for being drawn into the conversation by Madeley – who knew exactly what he was doing and that it was unacceptable, have no doubt:
Ultra-hypocritical corporate media hacks switching instantly from faux outrage about the problem of hateful/violent political discourse, to haranguing Starmer for not giving the left a vicious enough "kicking"!
It seems that Madeley (and GMB) has lurched to the right after that programme’s period criticising Boris Johnson over his (many) Covid-19 failures.
A so called 'journalist' on TV talking about giving people a 'hard kicking' simply because they share a different political ideology. Don't you just love our free and objective media?
But be honest – in the light of this performance, do you think perhaps these people were always fascists? (It is fascist language, after all.)
As @GMB call for us to have a "hard kicking" let's never forget just 2 figures who advocated violence against the left! Hitler & Pinochet! We see you Madeley, Starmer & the greedies, agents of the ruling classes!#NoPasaranhttps://t.co/LxpzZDRQWZhttps://t.co/LxpzZDRQWZ
In light of his obnoxious comments about people like me, inspired by Corbyn, caring passionately about Climate Poverty Social Justice Rule of Law Peace Standards in Public Life
Why is the language Keir Starmer uses towards Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters always more aggressive than that he uses towards the Tories and the horrible things they're doing to the country? @UKLabour
And the answer, inevitably, is not long coming: he’s still desperate for some hard-right business mogul to bail Labour out of the bankruptcy he is plunging it into:
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Why are the UK’s news media avoiding any mention of the Metropolitan Police Service’s collusion in the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard?
Commissioner Cressida Dick was well aware of concerns about Wayne Couzens, long before he planned and executed his crimes against Ms Everard.
He had been nicknamed ‘The Rapist’ by colleagues at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which he joined in 2011, because he made some female colleagues feel uncomfortable, according to the Evening Standard.
The paper also reported that Kent Police took no action in 2015 after it was alleged that he had been seen driving around Dover, naked from the waist down.
And the Met – which he joined in 2018 – received further accusations of indecent exposure by Couzens on two further occasions. Neither of them were investigated properly in the days before he kidnapped, raped and murdered Ms Everard.
The BBC reported in July that the Independent Office for Police Conduct said a total of 12 gross misconduct or misconduct notices had so far been served on police officers from multiple forces in relation to the Couzens case, including about the handling of two separate claims that Couzens had indecently exposed himself.
And other recent cases show that police turning a blind eye to the crimes of fellow officers is at epidemic levels.
In this context, the Met put out a statement that its members were “sickened, angered and devastated” by Couzens’s crimes. Maybe they are – but is it only because he was caught?
“They betray everything we stand for,” the statement continues. But Met police officers betray everything they stand for on a daily basis.
Look at the Daniel Morgan case, in which the Met was found to be “institutionally corrupt” and Commissioner Dick herself was found to have obstructed access to vital information without reason.
And what punishment did she receive for this corrupt behaviour?
None. Instead she was rewarded for it with a two-year extension of her job.
Real people are disgusted…
Not sickened enough to prevent you from attacking the Sarah Everard vigil, and trampling their flowers into the ground, were you?
… but does that really matter when the media – and the politicians – are backing these corrupt cops to the hilt?
Look at Labour leader Keir Starmer. In his speech at the party conference – on the day we learned Couzens had abused his police powers to arrest Ms Everard before abducting, raping and murdering her – he used rape victims as a tool of emotional blackmail to push for more police powers.
I’ll hand you back to Another Angry Voice for an opinion more succinct than any I could add:
It was only last year that Keir Starmer forced his Labour MPs to abstain on legislation designed to allow undercover cops to get away with raping women!
Yet today he's pretending that he cares about rape victims.
The Met’s comment says staff recognise the concerns raised by Couzens’s actions and will comment further after he has been sentenced for his crimes – but I have no hope that anything useful will be said.
We’ll probably hear that new measures will be put in place to prevent such crimes in the future – that will not be enforced.
They’re likely to say that lessons have been learned – but nobody will act upon them.
The end result is that women will be left in greater fear of violence against them than ever – not because of men, as some in politics and the media are signalling, but because of the police.
You can bet the Met won’t do anything to change that.
If you want proof, all you have to do is wait for the reports of the next crimes committed by officers of the Metropolitan Police.
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Bristol riot: there seem to be a huge number of images showing the police attacking members of the public – and none at all of police being on the receiving end. Just why were they on the streets with their batons, their dogs and their horses?
Isn’t it curious that, days after making a big song and dance about police suffering broken bones and a punctured lung at the Bristol riot (that they may have caused), the claims were retracted days later?
Avon and Somerset Chief Constable Andy Marsh admitted in a press conference that no officer of his had suffered a punctured lung.
And the force’s publicity department admitted that neither of the officers taken to hospital actually turned out to have broken bones.
The damage had been done, though – the public outraged at this apparent thuggery by people who had congregated in Bristol to protest against police mistreatment of women.
How will the police take back this:
Make this video trend. How is this lawful use of police powers in any circumstance? The only ones inciting violence and hypocrisy are the police – a fascist pawn of the govt to keep society in line with only one group’s values – the Tories. #KilltheBill#PritiPatel#PritiUselesspic.twitter.com/cmZyLYcGMG
Police assaulted me at the Bristol protest even though I told them I was from the press. I was respectfully observing what was happening and posed no threat to any of the officers. I have muted the latter part of the video to spare you all the pain of hearing my shrill voice. pic.twitter.com/a7a0Nnw0bG
And, having consideration of all the above, shouldn’t Lord Ian Austin reconsider his position in public life, hand back his peerage, and go home to spend more time with his prejudices?
Austin, formerly a Labour MP, was ennobled by Boris Johnson to sit as a non-affiliated peer after he quit the party as led by Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that it had a “culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance”.
Strange. He seems to be both extreme and intolerant. If Labour under Corbyn really had been like that, he should have fitted right in.
Current evidence shows the police inflicting extreme violence on people – many of whom were sitting down and/or offering no resistance, while suffering very few injuries themselves (and how many were self-inflicted or accidental?).
Austin has indicated that he supports this brand of extreme violent activity against people who are defenceless.
That is unacceptable in a public representative.
Ah, but we live in an unaccountable dictatorship, don’t we? He’ll ignore all his critics and continue with his offensive ways.
Sound and fury from 2011: discontent with the government of the day boiled over into riots – and for much less reason than might present itself in 2021. Boris Johnson is hastily banning large protests – but will anybody care?
Here’s a disturbing truthbomb from Richard Murphy:
He makes good points.
Boris Johnson is promising a much better summer than we had in 2020 but the early indication are that he will disappoint us yet again.
As matters stand, history is sure to remember him as the prime minister who promised us the world and then took our world away from us instead.
So he reckons Covid-19 will be under control. Why are our health experts planning for another surge in cases, to hit us around July?
At the moment, half of the UK population is half-vaccinated, and there will be shortages from April onwards. That’s the reason variant strains of Covid are appearing; the virus is mutating to beat the defences of a half-protected population.
Johnson reckons we’ll all be able to resume our foreign holidays. How can we, considering the state of foreign nations’ vaccination regimes?
And Johnson reckons the UK’s industries are going to bounce back – what’s the phrase? “Build back better”? – with a boom during the summer. But post-Brexit problems indicate that any such economic explosion is likely to be a damp squib.
He knows all this.
Why else do you think his government has legislated to restrict protest events to the point where anything that is actually noticeable is to be punished with imprisonment?
It is exactly the wrong response. But he’s a Tory and doesn’t know how to do anything apart from punish the poor.
His decisions are all wrong. They are equivalent to clamping the lid on a pressure cooker and turning it up to maximum. What do you think will happen?
I hope I’m wrong.
If I’m not, I just hope that anyone resorting to violent protest remembers that indiscriminate vandalism won’t do anybody any good – 2011 taught us that. It is pointless harming the innocent.
If you’re angry with the government, make sure it’s the government – and its enforcers – who feel the brunt of that anger.
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Attack: this image from the Bristol Post was captioned “Bridewell police station under siege” but the only violence I see is by a policeman attacking a woman with a truncheon and a stick. What do you see?
It takes only one comment like this to reverse the narrative completely – and here it is, in two tweets:
2/2 Every step of the way police escalated. Every step of way they knew that is what they were doing, but were just perhaps bit surprised at how many of the crowd were willing to go from a sit down protest to fighting back rather than allowing police to attack them with impunity
Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees may find himself on the receiving end of some very sharp reactions after he supported the police without waiting for the other side of the story!
He said: “Smashing buildings in our city centre, vandalising vehicles, attacking our police will do nothing to lessen the likelihood of the Bill going through. On the contrary, the lawlessness on show will be used as evidence and promote the need for the Bill.
“This is a shameful day in an incredible year for Bristol.
“We have had numerous protests. Our police, city representatives and I have been able to point out with pride that we have faced these moments of conflict without the physical conflict that others have experienced. Those who decided to turn today’s protest into a physical confrontation and smash our city have robbed us of this.”
What will he have to say if it turns out to be true that the police are “those who decided to turn [the] protest into a physical confrontation and smash [the] city”?
Considering the way the police in London treated a peaceful vigil on Clapham Common; or the way a drunken policeman assaulted a woman on her way home from work and walked free from court after admitting it; or the fact that a policeman is accused of kidnapping and murdering another woman who was on her way home from work…
Considering all the allegations of racist behaviour notched up against the police – not just last year during the Black Lives Matter protests but going back through the decades…
Considering this…
For those of you condemning the apparent violence in #Bristol and muttering darkly about the #PolicingBill being pushed through, remember Orgreave and how that was reported.
[The Battle of Orgreave, during the Miners’ Strike of 1984-5, was reported as happening because picketers attacked the police when in fact it was the police who attacked the picketers; reporters edited their footage to create a false story.]
Considering all of the above, it seems far more likely that the police were responsible for the violence in Bristol last night, rather than a few hundred people who were, at the time, sitting down.
If those people defended themselves, this is no reason to condemn them or their protest for descending into violence. Everybody has the right to defend themselves against unprovoked violent attack, no matter whether the attacker is in a uniform or not.
If Bristol’s police were ordered to turn this event into a riot so their political leaders could use it as justification for the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that will permit them to inflict brutal oppression on innocent people, then the plan appears to have backfired.
The peaceful protest was mostly over by the time they came out from the Bridewell. From a high point of around 3,000 people, their own figures say only around 500 were left when the violence began.
The others, having made their point, had gone home. No matter who started the violence, they have been smeared by the police claims.
And observers elsewhere have demonstrated that they are unimpressed by the protestations of the police and politicians – pointing out the future of protest under the Police Bill:
Let's be clear the mob you should fear isn't the one on the streets of Bristol but running the government. #Bristol
— John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) March 21, 2021
The Tory bill means peaceful protesters face 10 years in jail.
PEACEFUL. PROTESTERS.
TEN. YEARS.
Yet centrists say people are wrong to get angry about it.
It just beggars belief.
We might never get another chance – yet here they are telling us to just be nice and get along.
Let's be real, nothing would be happening in Bristol were it not for police attacking the vigil for Sarah Everard last weekend, or the government trying to push through a bill which restricts civil liberties.
You don't keep the peace by clamping down on peaceful protest.
At the end of the day, there is a big question to be answered – and it’s one that would not even be considered if the police had not made themselves the puppets of Conservative governments many times in the past:
Or did you organise this in advance in order for the police bill to get through the house. https://t.co/jfpZ7MCv3t
It is impossible to condemn the people for the Bristol ‘Kill the Bill’ riot when we know it is entirely possible that it was engineered by Priti Patel and the police.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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