KernowDamo

Right, so following on from the local elections and the news that Keir Starmer’s labour Party is in real terms only polling some 7% ahead of the Tory Party right now, that is according to what is called the National Equivalent Vote, a poll taken from various extrapolations of local election data and used to give a projection, rather than a prediction of a General Election result and these have certainly been indicative for decades ahead of a General Election on how things may pan out. A large National Equivalent Vote lead, generally translates into a decent majority for whichever party is leading, so as much as people can quibble that local election results do not predict general election results, they can in fact be good indicators, if read in the right way. With Starmer not having a large lead in this poll, having in the region of half the lead he needs, we’re in hung parliament territory which in my view, given the prospects before us, is a good thing. For all the reasons that Labour underperformed once again in these local elections though, having failed to win more lost Tory votes than they gained to other parties, the one much of the media are fixating on is the matter of Israel and Gaza and Starmer’s ongoing unequivocal support for the genocidalists. It’s no wonder therefore that Starmer has earned himself the nickname Tel Aviv Keith and is no small wonder that is trending on social media again today as he no promises to listen and take on board those lost votes and pledges to win them back, but given he cannot be trusted to ever keep his word and has shown no sign of criticising Israel and siding with Gaza, in fact going so far as to sabotage parliamentary votes and having advocated that Israel has the right to commit war crimes even, how on Earth does he think he can win these votes back acting and speaking on this atrocity in the way he has? Right, so Keir Starmer AKA Tel Aviv Keith. He has apparently been listening to us following so many lost votes in the local elections, following lost councils even as he saw in Oldham, with independent and Green candidates winning almost as many seats between them as Labour did, with one significant reason being the ongoing genocide in Gaza at the hands of Israel, a nation Labour and its leadership remain in unequivocal support of. The problem Starmer has is that for as much damage in the public eye as he causes for himself and his party, it’s almost impossible for him to reverse that. He has on one hand believed it didn’t matter and therefore as far as policy announcements, or more often than that, policy scrapping was concerned, having binned everything he told people he stood for to now become a Blairite clone minus any of the charisma, but even more Tory than they were, he has told the nation that he doesn’t listen to us, doesn’t listen to our wants, doesn’t care about our needs after 14 years of Tory misrule, because he didn’t think he needed to. He was getting told he had these massive poll leads, no matter what Rishi Sunak tried he wasn’t gaining any ground and it didn’t seem to matter that Labour were offering barely anything different, because a change of face and simply not being the Tory Party appeared to be all that was needed to carry Keir Starmer to Number 10 come the General Election, when Sunak finally finds a spine to call it and stop squatting mandateless in Number 10 himself. The problem for Starmer as it turns out, is that those polls appear to be woefully mistaken. For one, they’ve never taken into account at parliamentary level the inroads smaller parties are making. The Lib Dems look to be making a frankly inexplicable recovery, what do they ever stand for after all? But so have the Green Party, now looking more and more in with a chance of gaining their second MP in Bristol and there has been the rise in independent candidates being financed within their communities to be able to stand as local candidates on local issues, something Starmer has caused additional and particular ire around the country over as he has parachuted favoured Starmerroid people in all over the place, to an extent pollsters clearly underestimated. We’ve seen entire Constituency Labour Party executives collapse on multiple occasions because of the draconian diktat being handed down by the Labour leadership, that people even in the party are choosing to sit on their hands and let these authoritarians own their mistakes. Even where parties might not have enough in them to necessarily take a parliamentary seat though, they will be making inroads into Labours vote. Remember that Starmer has been wooing that Tory vote for so long now and when it came to these local election results, he took roughly speaking just two fifths of it. All whilst losing support from his traditional support base AND there’s no guarantee any Tory voters lending Labour their vote now will do so again. A poll lead built on sand and so it perhaps is no surprise that the National Equivalent Vote projection – not prediction, but projection – a snapshot basically, is giving Labour just a 7% lead over the Tories. Totally different methodology, but much more believable given there is so little difference between Starmer’s Labour and Sunak’s Tories – people don’t want this, yet Starmer refuses to offer something different. I believe there needs to be a policy shift, I believe he needs to stop letting Rachel Reeves call all the policy shots, because she’s George Osborne in a skirt ready to inflict more austerity on us given the chance and nobody wants that again, but even doing that, would anyone believe him given how much he has lied to the public on so many things on so many occasions? It isn’t so much that aspect of things that the media or indeed Labour spokespeople are fixating upon, but instead they are blaming the matter of Israel and Gaza and Labour’s refusal to budge on their pro Israel backing that is upsetting many people and influenced how they voted. I completely believe and accept this is part of the story here in no small part, however how it is being presented is appalling, with the implication being this is a Labour Muslim problem only, based upon the Muslim vote as a demographic, having spectacularly collapsed for Labour, Starmer have blown half of the Muslim vote his party relied on and frankly since that news came out some time ago, I daresay the situation has probably got worse for Labour. This has on the other hand unfortunately allowed the media to lay the blame solely at Muslim voters and presenting this as a Muslim only problem, when it quite clearly isn’t. So many more people are equally disgusted with Labour’s Israel and Gaza stance than just Muslims. We’re all horrified by what we’ve witnessed, by what our politicians keep doing and saying, never choosing to stop arms sales, never choosing to condemn Netanyahu’s regime, always seemingly putting the blame on the people who are right now on the receiving end of the violence playing out in real time on our screens. Of all politicians, it’s really hard to suggest anyone who has caused more offence to those who want Israel censured, and boycotted and divested from and sanctioned than Tel Aviv Keith has. That piece of LBC footage will never be forgiven and never be forgotten and Starmer has only made worse on that in the intervening time since, because he has refused to apologise or even acknowledge he said what is clearly on film there. Cameras don’t lie, Keir Starmer lies like a rug. Following that of course, was the incident with the SNP ceasefire vote back in February. Sabotage as that was, aided it seems by the Speaker, willingly or coerced, we’ll probably never know, but if it’s the latter, having a PM with control like that over the Speaker, is unthinkable and certainly can’t be democratic. It was a pro Israel move, that served nothing but Starmer’s loyalties towards the Israel Lobby, the same Lobby that put him where he is today, backed as he was financially by figures eponymous with it, the likes of Trevor Chinn of the Jewish Leadership Council, to become Labour leader. With all of that baggage, both Israel related, policy related, add on his treatment of Labour members too, now he tells us, now it looks like his sure thing majority at the next General Election might be in doubt, that he’s going to listen to us. Are you really prepared to listen, but more importantly believe anything he says to placate you and try and win back your vote from this point forwards given his already proven conduct? You would have to have been born yesterday surely? It can never be about what Starmer says, but what Starmer does and he would have to do a lot right now to convince us of a meaningful shift. I’m talking the dissolution of Labour Friends of Israel for one. That would be a move that’d make me sit up. I’m talking demands for the expulsion of the bats**t Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely. I’m talking a reshuffle of his frontbench to bring socialists on his backbenches, what few remain, back into the fore to reshape policy and preferably bin off the likes of Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting. I’m talking about restoring the whip to Diane Abbott immediately. Frankly if Starmer were truly putting Labour and Labour values and the desire to see change as he claims his changed Labour is and wants to convince us of that, the single most important thing he could do is resign himself. Nothing Starmer says will have the slightest impact on me because his words mean nothing. He needs to show he’s listening not just say it and the extent to which I think he has to go to do that, means it simply won’t happen either. None of these things he will do, he will not change, he will just tell you he is. More fool you if you still trust this man. Labour’s actual, realistic polling based on actual votes and not mathematical algorithms means that the likelihood of a hung parliament has increased. Sunak can’t undo the damage he and his party have done in the eyes of the public and Keir Starmer really can’t either. So bring on a hung parliament, bring on the end of First Past The Post as the condition of any electoral deals to form a government and lets end this circus of self serving politicians bought and paid for by vested interests that never serve our interests. Made worse for Starmer of course has been the commentary from those Labour spokespeople on these results and the petty racism that has actually emerged showing not only has Starmer lied about all of the above, but those claims of dealing with racism in his party? Well of course they appear to be lies as well as this video recommendation will tell you all about and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so Israel is supposedly the only democracy in the Middle East then is it? That’s what we keep getting told is it not? That is what the pro Israel crowd, the Zionists on social media and mainstream media always tell us, our politicians, that Israel are the advanced, civilised and reasonable nation akin to our Western values, that is the point they all try to sell us and of course for an awful long time well past the point we should have known better we believed this, thought the last 7 months have been an eye opener for many and any belief that those Western narratives were ever being honest with us have now well and truly been exposed as rancid lies, made all the worse as those same media outlets and those same politicians continue to try and tell us we should be backing Israel still and that 40,000 dead Gazans and so many more tens of thousands injured, many with life changing injuries for some reason don’t matter. That is a genie that is never going back in the bottle. Of course for as much as we’ve relied on social media to be informed about the realities of Israeli barbarism and oppression, much of that has been channelled from foreign media doing a damn sight better job than any Western media have, risking their lives and too often losing them to the Israeli regime, who have had zero respect for the Press during this conflict, to inform us via those same social media outlets, even though in some instances, we have access to the likes of Al Jazeera as a TV Channel here too, but in a move that does nothing but reinforce the fact that Israel is anything but a democracy, they’ve just banned Al Jazeera, from being able to report and broadcast to the country. Right, so it seems Benjamin Netanyahu has had enough of all these people telling the truth about what he’s doing and these massive protests that keep happening in his country demanding that he resign and call elections and he’s decided to take it out on Qatar based media outlet Al Jazeera, who have been one of the shining examples of real wartime journalism on the ground in Gaza, having reported on the situation in Gaza from the start, having been targeted by Israeli forces themselves on numerous occasions, many of their journalists having lost their lives. This war in Gaza, as much as Israel like to call it that and as much as they have called it a war against Hamas, has instead been shown, by media outlets like Al Jazeera, to instead be a war on children, a war on journalists, a war on aid workers a war of mass graves and instead of being anything remotely about Israel’s right to defend itself, has been a real time display of genocide and ethnic cleansing. So much of what we’ve seen, what we’ve observed, how the minds of people who though they knew the craic of what the truth of the Israel and Palestine dynamic was, have been jolted into reality by the scenes we’ve witnessed for the last 7 months, the acts committed by the Israeli Defence Forces, the rhetoric from the insane parliamentarians of the Knesset that Netanyahu did a deal with to take power, people so far right, that they believe the people they have been slaughtering in the tens of thousands are a price worth paying to eliminate Hamas, a resistance movement, that you can absolutely criticise for their actions, but who probably would never have come into existence either, if not for Israeli occupation and the way they mistreat the people who’s lands they occupy and who have every right under international law, to resist their occupation. This means nothing to Netanyahu, nothing to Israel, these people are less than human anyway in their view, such is the way with apartheid regimes, as this Israeli one absolutely is, no matter how much our shameless politicians, so heavily lobbied by Israel and Israeli interests, we no longer are sure any more which country they are most loyal to, as we ourselves head into a General Election this year, seemingly with a choice of one Zionist or another to lead the country and so still, we won’t get a leadership who will do the right thing here. And we know all of this in no small part because of the bravery of the journalists on the ground in Gaza and it is because of that, that Netanyahu, now seeks to blind the eyes of the world, as if that will now making any difference at all and as such, one of the key outlets reporting on all of this, Al Jazeera, has now been banned from Israel. In a vote today, Netanyahu’s hard right cabinet voted unanimously, to shut down Al Jazeera following on from a previous vote where the Israeli parliament passed a law to temporarily shut down any foreign media who were perceived to be a threat to Israel’s national security, which is just code for any outlet reporting the truth about what Israel are doing, which is committing out and out genocide. How temporary this shut down of Al-Jazeera will be, we will have to see, as we will have to see if any condemnation of this completely anti-democratic move comes from any of our leaders, or whether they’ll support the move instead. It’s no stretch of the imagination to envisage Sunak or Starmer sending Al Jazeera the same way as Press TV or RT after all is it? Netanyahu put out a gloating tweet saying: ‘The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel’ They reported the truth, they exposed your lies, you couldn’t handle it, it’s made you into a global pariah state as a result of the revelations that have come from Al Jazeera and indeed a good many other credible news outlets too. They haven’t just banned Al-Jazeera from broadcasting in Israel though, they’ve seized their equipment too. Editing and routing equipment, cameras, servers, laptops, microphones, transmission equipment, mobile phones, you name it, Israel have taken it. Where does this leave those in Palestine then? That is occupied territory after all. Well Israel’s ban doesn’t extend to them at least not quite yet, but certainly the fear is, that it will come. Certainly that is the view of one of Al Jazeera’s reporters in the occupied West Bank, Zain Basravi has said in response to the ban: ‘So to have our journalists, our operations, threatened in this way … Definitely, the worry here in the occupied West Bank is that we will be next.’ But as much as this is blatantly censorship and an attempt to supress what Israel is up to, even though that ship sailed I’d venture to suggest, there’s a political motivation here as well, because Al Jazeera is in part state sponsored by Qatar and Qatar have been a leading nation in trying to act as mediators to bring about an end to the genocide and an actual ceasefire that is permanent and not another humanitarian pause, as is the current deal Israel are trying to sell, snake oil as it is, but which David Cameron is currently crowing as something Hamas should accept because it is a very generous offer. It isn’t, it’s just a pause and you take us for fools if you think we’ll believe that, because thankfully, we in this country are not yet solely reliant on mainstream media opinion passed off as news, there are credible journalists left in this world that are delivering for us and putting UK media to absolute shame, too many of them frankly have a neck to call themselves journalists, when they are little more than stenographers offering client journalism and not actually reporting actual events. To upset Qatar therefore, coming back to them, is in Israel’s view I would think a way to upset them and allow the victim card to once again be played, claiming they are biased towards Hamas, and no doubt they’re antisemitic and all the rest of the tired, worn out attack lines the professional victims of the Israeli government like to play. Fundamentally this move can be seen quite easily as an intentional damaging of the peace process because Israel do not actually want peace. They are blocking an investigation into what actually happened on October 7th, so what does Israel have to hide there? They are now gagging the media who insist on reporting the truth, they are sabotaging peace processes and refusing to put hostage rescue before taking out Hamas, much to the disgust of the Israeli people who will now be denied information. They are threatening still more violence as they are poised to launch an attack on a tent city as Rafah has become, now home to some 1.6m Palestinians, who are living in famine and squalor as aid continues to be denied to them. Nothing Israel are doing precludes me from coming to the conclusion they want the Palestinian people gone and gaza for themselves and the world just sits on its hands and watches. For now, Al-Jazeera can still report from within Palestine, but for how much longer remains to be seen. If Israel can scupper the media, the entire world will be running blind, but if anyone continues to claim Israel is in any kind of way, shape or form a democracy now, then you deserve every ounce of the derision you get in return. If Netanyahu thinks gagging the press now will help salvage Israel’s reputation, he’s a deluded fool and his sorry backside now deserves that ICC arrest warrant to be served more than ever. We’re still waiting for that to happen at time of writing despite it looking very promising it would come this week, with Genocide Joe Biden having issued threats to the ICC over this, because nothing seems to force his support for Israel to waver. They ICC have pushed back though, catch up with that story in this video recommendation here, perhaps the arrest warrant will drop this week, my God it needs to and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so there are warning signs following the local elections for the Greens and Independent candidates and you might be surprised to hear me say such things following what were ostensibly very successful local elections for them, having snatched seats from all parties, having hurt these parties and their aims and it has been brilliant to see that a lot more people appear to be turning their backs on establishment parties, so much so that now we’re looking at hung parliament territory according to an extrapolation by Sky News. However as many people who pay attention to such things know, local election results are not always a good indicator of General Election voting intention, though certainly you can pick out factors that do carry over. There are lessons to take away from this for Green and prospective Independent parliamentary candidates too though and they really ought to take note if they’re going to genuinely cut through at that level though. Right, so brilliant results for the Green Party and for Independent candidates up and down the country in this years local elections. The Greens now have 812 councillors nationwide, having added another 74 seats to their total. They have now become the largest party on Bristol City Council, Hastings Borough Council and Stroud District Council. They took 9 council seats in Maidstone off the Tories and took seats off Labour all over the place too and they got their first councillors in Bolton, Basingstoke, Cherwell, Kirkless, Plymouth, Redditch and more as well. It was undoubtedly a very successful night for them and more and more they are being seen by more and more people as a viable alternative for their votes, goodness knows they have the policy for it. As for the Independents, many of these candidates have been created in no small part by the actions of Keir Starmer and his changed Labour Party, which despite his protestations, are not more popular, they are less so. There are now another 93 Independent councillors serving their local areas on locally important issues, as these elections are meant to be about. I’ve covered numerous resignations of Labour Councillors in disgust at what Labour have been saying they’ll do in power and their unequivocal support for Israel despite the genocide they are committing and Labour have reaped what they’ve sown in that regard. One area I covered as such was Pendle, which saw a swathe of councillor resignations, between Pendle Borough Council and two town councils of nelson and Brierfield within the Pendle Borough area, 20 Labour councillors resigned just a month ago. Following the local elections this week, Labour has now been completely wiped out on Pendle Borough Council, they won 10 seats last time these seats were contested in 2021. All on Starmer. Additionally, you can look at the West Midlands Mayoral election too. The Tories are on their backside so badly now under Sunak, so reviled across the country, that their candidate Andy Street, the incumbent was seeking to distance himself as much as possible from his own party, yet Labour only just managed to beat them there, Labour won by just 1500 votes, hence numerous recounts and one leading reason for that was an independent candidate, Akhmed Yakoob, who took third place and nearly 70,000 votes, who was standing on a platform of resolving housing issues, burial service issues, various other local issues, he wanted more foreign investment apparently, which is quite economically Conservative, but also stood as a pro Palestinian candidate backed by George Galloway. Labour’s stance on Gaza hurt them and what will hurt them still further was comment from a Labour spokesperson ahead of these results, where Labour had feared they’d lost it, with a Labour spokesperson saying that: ‘It's the Middle East, not West Midlands that will have won Street the Mayoralty. Once again Hamas are the real villains.’ An absolutely disgusting, racist, entitled comment a massive slur against the people of the West Midlands, what a way to win your vote! These are votes Labour had already lost though, Yakoob took a disproportionate number of votes from Labour, it shouldn’t have been that close if Labour weren’t just as rancid in so many ways, far too similarly to the Tories in most of them. But that isn’t to say there are not lessons to be learned here and now so that the success Greens and Independents have seen at local levels can be carried forward to general election level. The first thing they need to get across is to convince people that voting for them will make a difference. Where people right now are disgusted by the main parties, by the Tories corruption and ineptitude, by labour politically being barely any different or indeed no different in many instances and of course the disgust people feel over the matter of Israel and Gaza. The biggest obstacle to that is the media and the lack of coverage given to them and to an extent that is beyond the control of these candidates, but we’ve seen the over platformed Reform UK, in a repeat of what used to happen with UKIP turning up on BBC Question Time and the like, yet they won just 2 Councillors nationwide. This should be something that is repeated ad infinitum, but I’d also argue that the sort of media platforms that give the likes of Richard Tice a wildly disproportionate amount of media coverage, aren’t necessarily the sort of platforms that give a more left wing a more altruistic candidate a fair crack. The BBC are the most at fault for this, but equally Talk TV might as well be Reform UK’s own TV Channel. This will become much more blatant in a general election campaign, especially if it is as usual the Greens getting censored in effect by lack of coverage, much more noise needs to be made about that sort of media conduct as we’ve seen in the past. Communication is key and although there’s little time in all fairness to implement something like this now, with the general election so close, developing their own media outlets, would benefit them more. If mainstream channels won’t platform you, develop your own, it’s working for George Galloway and his Moats TV, so why not alternative political parties as well? Certainly from the Green perspective, but also for many other smaller parties and Independents and definitely amongst many voters, there is a desire to see a hung parliament, which we appear to be on course for according to Sky News’ extrapolation of these results, in order to force through electoral reform so that parliament becomes truly reflective of the views of people up and down the country, so that every vote actually counts. In that vein, in order to achieve that goal, and this might sound completely counter-intuitive coming from a Green Party member such as I am, I really do think conversations need to happen between the Greens and Independent candidates and possibly other smaller parties, I’m thinking for example, the Liverpool Community Independents for instance, so that candidates working towards that aim, which delivering everything else these parties of independents stand for hinges upon, should seriously consider not standing against each other in some areas. Theres a means to and end situation here right now, there will be time after reform to stand for everything else you believe in and against each other to make those cases going forwards once that is done, but until First Past the Post is toppled, everything else will remain academic. Where there is common ground, use it, don’t fight it. A key issue that I’ve heard come up and this has actually led to people sticking with what they know and still choosing to back Labour or whoever at the end of the day, has been a lack of knowledge about what a given party stands for. Now I can say as a Green that all policy is on the Green Party website and they email you all the time with updates, but you can’t force people to open an email and you can’t force them to take time to read through a website. It just doesn’t happen, there has to be a more proactive way of doing things here and getting the message across and there’s a lesson from the past we can take, which worked before and therefore there is no reason it can’t do so again and actually this could bring the Greens and other progressive groups and Independents too, which would be a new Chartist Movement, a nationwide movement stood on a platform of, for example, electoral reform, with mass meetings nationwide, ordinary working class organisation determined to back candidates dedicated to a given aim. It terrified the establishment back in the 19th Century after all, in this day and age with all the additional freedom of speech and freedom of expression we have, there’s no reason it can’t be done again. Now these are just my ideas, this is just me spitballing, it is harder to c ut through at a parliamentary level than at local level, especially for independents, however more and more of them are standing, are being financed locally, by their own communities to enable them to do so, so the potential is there, the question is one of opportunity. We don’t have long before a general election, there isn’t long for alternative candidates to get some much needed cut through, I hope as much as the Greens all manner of Independents and other progressive candidates had great success this week, that they are looking at what not only worked for them, but what didn’t and still isn’t and what they need to do to make sure they get heard by the people who need to hear them. Meanwhile, for as much as Green and Independent success shouldn’t be played down either, massive congratulations to all who took part, stood up to be counted, Labour narratives of success are pretty dishonest when you drill down into their results overall as I did here on this video recommendation for you to consider watching next and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so as the International Criminal Court, the ICC, still weighs up the issuing of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister Yoav Gallant and the head of the Israeli Defence Forces, Herzi Halevi, attacks on the ICC from the US, warnings, threats against them have followed as their devotion to the genocide apartheid state means they are demanding Israel effectively be placed above the law even as they commit war crimes against the people of Gaza, even as they are now as I’m writing this, seemingly verging on a full assault on Rafah, where 1.6m Gazans are trapped with nowhere else to go. Despite the threats, the ICC is standing firm, Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has said that the ICC won’t be intimidated and won’t allow threats of retaliation to stand in the way of them handing out potential arrest warrants, yet despite that, an unhinged letter has been signed by 12 Republican Senators, all of whom have been recipients of Israel Lobby money, it speaking as loudly in the US, if not louder, than it does here in the UK, who have collectively accepted just short of some $7m from AIPAC or similar Israel centric sources. So have Israel and those supporting them in effect then bought 12 attacks on the very court set to start bringing litigation against members of their own government? Right, so the ICC, still at time of writing is said to be considering the issuing of arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and Herzi Halevi in connection with crimes committed against Gaza, which has had the usual response from Israel ,claiming victimhood and calling the ICC antisemitic, par for the course, we expect that response every single time do we not now? But for those nations still ardently supporting Israel, for those politicians doing so, so many of them in an assortment of countries who have received financial support from pro Israel sources, that is a problem, with the likes of France, the UK and the US all appealing to the ICC to not prosecute Israel, placing them above the law, seemingly for no other reason than they would lose significant donations as a result. If that is what drives them, even now after 7 months of witnessing genocide to plead and beg and scrape and grovel on behalf of those committing the genocide to not hold them to account, then how can we possibly not say they have been bought and paid for in which case? Threats have been aplenty since it was announced that the ICC were considering these arrest warrants for these Israeli figures, so much so that the ICC felt the need to issue a statement, basically telling those making the threats to stay in their lanes, part of which reads: ‘…That independence and impartiality are undermined however, when individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or against Court personnel should the office, in fulfilment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction. Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Article 70 of the Rome Statute. That provision explicitly prohibits both “retaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official” and “impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly his or her duties.’ So under the terms of the Rome Statute, the foundation of the ICC itself, it’s illegal to attempt to coerce the court into casting a blind eye in relation to its duties. We have to remember that the US cheered when arrest warrants were issued for the likes of Vladimir Putin, so it is complete hypocrisy now, to not do so given what we are witnessing the Israeli government ordering in Gaza, especially right now at this precise moment in time, as Rafah comes under assault as so many of us feared. Arguably the ICC has more jurisdiction with regards to Israel than they did with Russia though, since Palestine is a signatory of the Rome Statute, therefore they abide by the ICC, even if the likes of Israel or the US are not, but as is clearly now being shown, international law as far as the US seems concerned, only applies when they agree with it. In line with that thinking and also with the knowledge that Israeli Lobbying and funding works wonders to steer the minds of those who are only in it for themselves, this story has taken the most appalling turn in the US, with the issuing of yet more threats to the ICC it seems, but by a dirty dozen Republican senators, in the form of a signed letter that has to be read to be believed and if you wondered how arrogant self absorbed nightmares like Netanyahu ever reach power, it’s because of equally self absorbed arrogant politicians in other countries, providing support, even if it is ‘bought and paid for.’ The letter is brief, addressed directly to ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, but is a blatant threat too, saying: ‘Dear Mr Khan, We write regarding the reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may be considering issuing international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Such actions are illegitimate and lack legal basis and if carried out will result in severe sanctions against you and your institution. The ICC is attempting to punish Israel for taking legitimate actions of self defence against their Iranian-backed aggressors. In fact, in your own words, you witnessed ‘scenes of calculated cruelty’ conducted by Hamas in Israel following the October 7th attacks. The arrest warrants would align the ICC with the largest state sponsor of terrorism and it’s proxy. To be clear, there is no moral equivalence between Hamas’’ terrorism and Israel’s justified response. The ICC is also prohibited by its charter from proceeding in any case unless the relevant government is unwilling or unable to police themselves. You yourself have said that “Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.” By issuing warrants, you would be calling into question Israel’s laws, legal system and democratic form of government. Issuing arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel would not only be unjustified, it would expose your organisation’s hypocrisy and double standards. Your office has not issued arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or any other Iranian official, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad or any other Syrian official, or Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh or any other Hamas official. Nor have you issued an arrest warrant for the genocidal General Secretary of the people’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, or any other Chinese official. Finally, neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC and are therefore outside of your organisation’s supposed jurisdiction. If you issue an arrest warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty, but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our country demonstrated in the American Service Members Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty. The United States will not tolerate politicised attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees or associates and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.’ Oh where to begin. It isn’t self defence when it is against people you occupy and oppress, dragging Iran into your argument is an excuse, an excuse to cover 40,000 dead Gazans at Israel’s hands and tens of thousands more injured or still missing, presumed dead, buried under rubble. The largest state sponsor of terrorism in that region right now and arguably globally, is the one arming and support Israel the most and that is the US and do not speak of moral equivalence when clearly your morals have been bought and paid for. The ICC’s charter conditions are met because Gaza cannot police itself and is under attack and they, as part of Palestine are signatories to the ICC, giving them remit, Israeli law doesn’t supercede international humanitarian law, so they can have the best lawyers in the world, the ICC’s remit – which is in relation to Palestine anyway – is entirely separate, do not muddy the legal waters and let’s not pretend what Israel are doing are the actions of any kind of democracy. If the ICC don’t issue arrest warrants at this point observing what is happening in Gaza right now, the only hypocrisy would be in having done so for Putin but not for Netanyahu. Issuing Iran with arrest warrants for acting in self defence would be ridiculous, after Israel targeted their embassy in Damascus, is it only Israel that has a right to self defence then, or is it only people who donate to you? As for Hamas the ICC have said they are also under investigation, the fact arrest warrants haven’t been issued, well, if Israel would let investigators investigate the scenes of the October 7th attacks and talk to witnesses that might help wouldn’t it? What are they hiding? And as for dragging China into the argument, stop straining so hard here to miss the point, you’re going to hurt yourselves. The US and Israel might be outside the ICC but so was Russia and you cheered an arrest warrant for Putin, Palestine is a member of the ICC, their rights count, no matter how much you might wish they didn’t. I love your use of the word sovereignty, when neither the US nor Israel have sovereigns, but if you want to tie your fates together, well legally, you’re most of the way there anyway in the eyes of the world and bringing up the Invade the Hague Bill you passed is nothing less than a threat, which is frankly all that drivel ultimately ended up as. What a reprehensible bunch of shills, but then, how much of that ill feeling is from the heart, or from the wallet? All 12 of these Senators that signed this letter, Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell, Marsha Blackburn, Katie Boyd Britt, Ted Budd, Kevin Cramer, Ted Cruz, Bill Hagerty, Pete Ricketts, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott and Tim Scott have been recipients of pro Israel donations, from either the Israel Lobby or AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a massive lobbying body for Israel deeply rooted in Zionism. Between them, those 12 Senators have, according to TrackAIPAC.com, been given some $6.8m between them. Lobbying buys opinion, it buys votes, AIPAC in this day and age have some 100,000 members, many large very wealthy donors, exerts enormous influence and power and like all big money lobbying entities, is completely undemocratic when it seeks to shape public opinion when nobody voted for them. In response to those threats, the ICC is standing firm, frankly having been directly threatened itself, though Senator Katie Boyd Britt of Alabama has apparently said it isn’t a threat, it’s a promise, the ICC in my view should be considering some arrest warrants for some US senators too. This is disgusting, it does nothing to make the world safer, it makes it more dangerous, because none of this is conducive to bringing about peace, especially not in the Middle East right now and for the people of Gaza. It isn’t even just in government and amongst politicians that Israel have become so pervasive in however, as the ongoing US campus protests have shown, with a Columbia University Professor having been the one to call the police down on students, because she also happens to double up as a Deputy Commissioner for the New York Police Department in counterterrorism, which for some bizarre reason has an office in Tel Aviv! Find out all about that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so there was definitely a feeling of unease last night here at UK time as it looked liked after months of threats and amid a ceasefire deal that had suddenly gone sideways for Benjamin Netanyahu, he was ordering the IDF into Rafah, the last refuge of the Gazan people pretty much as 1.6m of them are trapped there, kettled is the term, cornered with nowhere to go, half of the people shielding there with no more than tents for protection, now being bombed, despite Hamas having literally agreed to release hostages as part of that same ceasefire deal that Netanyahu now doesn’t like. The scale of death and destruction that could now be meted out in a very short space of time, for no other reason that for Netanyahu to keep his grip on power, would be unparalleled to anything we’ve witnessed since October 7th and this is so appallingly preventable. Our leaders in our countries, our nations could have intervened long before now. Instead they chose to be on his side. If as feared Netanyahu does the unthinkable now in Rafah, this crime will be on them too, for standing aside, for casting a blind eye, for continuing to aid and supply that regime as they have with arms and military aid. Israel is a pariah state, an apartheid state, a rogue state and anyone still supporting them in a position of power, needs to end up in the Hague with them should the worst now come to pass. Right, so going to bed last night, with scenes of tanks and explosions already happening on the outskirts of Rafah, there was a genuine fear as to what I thought I might be waking up to this morning, and already it is scenes of absolute horror, but it’s also something that sad much as we’ve been dreading it, we’ve been expecting it too. Despite the devastation north to south in the Gaza Strip that has gone on since October 7th, at no point has there been a concerted global pushback frowm world leaders to condemn Israel for what it is doing. There have been pockets of it, South Africa, Nicaragua a few others who have actually sought to uphold international humanitarian law, while other signatories to it, have ignored it, seeking instead, to carry on their support, for the racist, colonialist project in the Middle East called Israel, who can do whatever clearly, obviously by their actions, and suffer no real consequences. It is no wonder they act like spoilt children anytime somebody chooses to criticise them for what they are doing. They have committed mass acts of genocide and still claim they are the victims, I truly am sickened by the attitudes of many of them, not least their mad government and their power tripping prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It takes a special kind of deranged to start bombing a community of 1.6m people, most of which are living in tents, but you’re in a whole new class of your own, when you’re negotiating for a ceasefire at the same time. Where Hamas have already agreed to this ceasefire deal, that I went over in a video yesterday, but that completely wrong-footed Netanyahu, thinking they would never agree to it, because there is no permanence written into the ceasefire as yet, yet Hamas did and it is Netanyahu now faced with the position of saying the hostages come first, of Hamas having agreed to this deal where all hostages will be released and now Netanyahu by his actions, clearly showing the hostages are completely meaningless to him, not that his statement issued yesterday afternoon our time, makes that clear: ‘Statement from the Prime Minister's Office: The War Cabinet unanimously decided this evening Israel will continue its operation in Rafah, in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war.’ They have a ceasefire deal on the table that Hamas have already agreed to, that would lead to all the hostages being released and still Netanyahu claims he’s going into Rafah to release hostages. He could’ve agreed to the ceasefire by now and hostages could have been released without a single shot having been fired today. So let’s not pretend this is about hostages, this is about him retaining his grip on power and no amount of bloodshed is a price too high to pay for that it would appear. Israel have already killed more hostages than they’ve saved, more will surely die assuming they are being held in Rafah, we don’t know with certainty, but certainly more civilians will. So far, at time of writing, a full invasion of Rafah has not yet happened, but what we have seen overnight, has been bad enough. IDF tanks have entered Rafah and are now sat 200 metres from the Rafah Border Crossing with Egypt and they’ve closed it completely, all on the basis that they had intelligence it was being used for terrorist purposes. Yeah, sure why would we possibly doubt you. Israel have now taken control of that crossing. All aid has been stopped from entering the Strip, more people will die as a direct result. Overnight there have been three strikes on Rafah itself and 12 people have been killed and yet Israel are now telling people to evacuate the area. Where to? They are trapped there, they can go nowhere, all this narrative serves is to allow Israel to say well we told them to go and anyone who says they can’t go anywhere or couldn’t go anywhere will no doubt be denounced as an antisemite. It’s a fact though, what route have you provided for them to leave Rafah and where are they going to? Absolutely nowhere. Are the tanks parked on Egypt’s lawn ready to blow the border crossing and allow people to flee into Egypt? Certainly it’d be a better outcome than the alternative, but are these people worth the political fallout for Netanyahu with Egypt? They don’t seem worth much at all to him. Equally though, his actions then reflect and incriminate all those who have supported him, his regime and his government in their apparent support for Israel the nation, but conflating the two, on one hand does a disservice to the great many Israelis out protesting against Netanyahu when they won’t, but also shames and appals people in this country and on the international stage when our leaderships are so out of kilter with our views. Here in the UK last week’s local elections have given both the Tories and to a slightly lesser extent Labour both bloody noses in regards to their pro Israeli support, but if as is feared a catastrophic Israeli strike on Rafah happens now, and especially in light of Netanyahu having spurned a ceasefire deal that Hamas accepted, there will be no forgiveness or forgetting what our leaders say or do now, because if the likes of Biden, Sunak, Starmer, von der Leyen and others who have ardently supported Israel from the beginning don’t change their tune here and now, end arms supplies, back BDS, condemn Israel for the rogue nation that it is, then each of them belong in the dock of the Hague alongside them. So far Keir Starmer has on social media just repeated the need for a ceasefire, something his party has previously sabotaged, release of hostages and aid to be let in. I really don’t know how many more times these calls must be ignored before he wakes up and says something else that would actually be meaningful. Biden is no better, nobody has supported Israel more. Rishi Sunak has said absolutely nothing concerning last nights events, issuing no statement thusfar on what is happened as we speak. That isn’t to say some are not speaking out from within the main parties, for example Sadiq Khan the newly elected London Mayor, has last night called for an arms embargo on Israel, going far further than anyone else in Starmer’s Labour has been prepared to go up until now, but I won’t be expecting that same sentiment from Starmer himself. More globally at the UN, the UN General Assembly has a draft resolution before it which could be voted on as early as Friday to recognise Palestine as a full member state, you might recall the US on the UN Security Council vetoed that the other week. Should this draft resolution pass, the UN Security Council will be asked to reconsider it’s decision, big deal you might think, but should Rafah be assaulted at the level it is feared it is about to be, then Biden would be literally throwing the presidency away I would imagine, if he chose to veto following that. It seems weak, but Israel may well see it happen because of their own actions. There’s a get out clause for the US legally, as Israel’s UN representative Gilad Erdan has pointed out though, however the court of public opinion will judge more harshly: ‘Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan has denounced a UN General Assembly (UNGA) draft resolution that would recognise Palestine as qualified to become a full UN member, saying it goes against the organisation’s founding Charter. “If it is approved, I expect the United States to completely stop funding the UN and its institutions, in accordance with American law,” Erdan said. US law stipulates that Washington can’t fund any UN body if it grants full membership to any group that lacks “internationally recognised attributes” of statehood.’ Biden would be a fool to hide behind that, especially when international law trumps domestic law at any rate. Fundamentally as I said in this video recommendation here from yesterday, Netanyahu opting to end the war and agree to a ceasefire would mean he finally has to be held accountable for his actions. This might be why Hamas chose to accept a deal they weren’t looking likely to without a permanent ceasefire, surely it’s obvious to everyone now therefore that there can be no peace, no end to what is happening in Gaza and indeed the West Bank as well whilst Netanyahu remains in charge and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so the old adage goes that you cannot negotiate with terrorists and certainly within political circles we’ve seen that used for gain. Here in the UK for example Jeremy Corbyn was accused of being a friend of Hamas and friends with the IRA, despite the way to peace, certainly where the latter was concerned, did require negotiation and was successful, leading to a peace process. With Hamas it’s been an ongoing thing, though of course it takes two sides to create tensions and both sides have to be willing and able to come to the table and negotiate in good faith to reach a resolution. The terrorist label when applied to Hamas therefore is an interesting one right now though, since they have over the weekend accepted a peace deal, that has been guaranteed by Egypt, Qatar AND the United States, which will include hostage releases and IDF withdrawal from Gaza and it is Netanyahu who is now saying no. The simple fact of the matter is that the hostages mean nothing to him, they never have in my view. He’s so far in now, his grip on power so intertwined with what Israel are doing in Gaza, that he cannot afford for it to end. Ever. So if terrorists are truly people you cannot negotiate with, who is really the terrorist here in which case? Right, so over the weekend there appeared to be a bit of an unexpected breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and this was somewhat unexpected because it does not amount to a permanent ceasefire, there are in fact serious concerns on the part of Hamas negotiators that following the US Elections this year, that there will be a renewed assault on Gaza by Israel. However despite that, Hamas have agreed to it, and their agreement, has thrown Benjamin Netanyahu into a complete panic, and that reaction might have been exactly what Hamas were banking on, that actually, despite the lack of a permanence in this ceasefire deal, there might still be a win here. Let’s take a look at this ceasefire deal first though, because if the only word you’ve heard about this is from our western media, or David Cameron crowing about a very generous 40 day ceasefire, then you won’t be fully informed as to what it is any more than Cameron appears to have grasped it. The deal as it stands now is coming in three phases, and this has been spelt out by Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar and reprinted by Israel based Haaretz, two nations definitely not in agreement with each other, so that does give the plan as presented by them a good deal of credence. The first phase will be 40 days long, during which the IDF’s activities will be suspended, forces will withdraw from populated areas, such as Rafah and from border areas with Israel, though the IDF will remain along the corridor they’ve built across the middle of Gaza, the Nevatim Corridor, which connects Israel to the pier that is getting built on the Gazan Coast by the US. Hostages will be released every three days, first women, including female soldiers for the first 33 days. Israel will be releasing Palestinian hostages they hold – prisoners as the media keeps referring to them as, though with so many not charged with anything, they are hostages – according to a given list, which will be 40 Palestinians hostages for every 1 Israeli hostage and all will be women in a like for like sense, half being those serving life sentences and half being those serving sentences not more than 10 years. When men begin getting released by Hamas, Israel will release 20 of their male hostages, based on a like for like age and health related basis, beginning with older and sicker individuals. On day seven, Hamas will submit a list of living hostages they hold except for those they’ve already released by then. On hostage release days there will be no air traffic, drones or IDF planes flying over Gaza for 8 to 10 hours a day. Israel must also during this time allow Gazans to return to their homes, so no longer will so many be trapped in Rafah and also allow in aid, still queuing up at borders despite Israeli claims to be letting it in. On Day 22, the IDF will then leave the Nevatim Corridor as well and will increase aid to the north of Gaza where it is most urgently needed, 500 trucks including 50 fuel trucks are the quoted figures. On day 34 of this first phase, the second phase will begin, so there is an overlap. I don’t quite understand that, but that is what is reported. Phase 2 will be 42 days long. Not all the details of this phase have been reported yet, but prisoner exchanges will continue, IDF withdrawal to border regions will continue, moves in principle towards a prolonged and lasting ceasefire deal, though that isn’t set in stone. The third phase that will follow that, again 42 days long, includes the release of all hostage bodies and a 5 year rehabilitation plan will begin to restore infrastructure, though no military infrastructure will be permitted. That is the deal as things stand, that is what Benjamin Netanyahu firmly believed Hamas would not accept, they have it appears accepted it, and he’s gone nuts and is now set on sabotaging the deal, because bringing the hostages home, if it hadn’t become obvious by now already, has never been his priority, but at this point in time, with global opinion turned against him and his actions and that of his government, his only priority still, instead of making things right, is how he can best cling onto power. Even now all that matters to Benjamin Netanyahu is himself and Hamas like many others could see it, knew it and acted accordingly to give him a very bad day, that is certainly one way of looking at this situation. Whilst these negotiations were going on, Netanyahu was already looking to push Hamas to reject it, and piling on pressure for them to do so, the sabotage already beginning by saying, whether they effectively agreed to this ceasefire or not, he was still going to go into Rafah anyway, eliminate Hamas, total victory all the other soundbites he’s stuck to. This has not gone down well in his cabinet, his Minister without Portfolio for example, Benny Gantz has called his rhetoric ‘hysteria for political reasons’ and what those reasons are, are becoming rapidly exposed. The closer Netanyahu comes to a peace deal, to a hostage exchange deal, the faster he runs away from it, or chooses to screw it up, by leaning on negotiators to prevent them from fulfilling a previously given mandate or by making hugely damaging public speeches, which screw things up. It is intentional and it’s intentional because if he agrees to any of this, his government will effectively collapse. His problem is that he was so sure Hamas would reject it, that he’d already agreed to it. If he goes through with it, he’ll lose his hard right headcase ministers, the likes of Smotrich or Ben-Gvir and that’ll collapse his coalition, if he doesn’t go through with it, the blame cannot possibly be laid at the feet of Hamas, it will be all on him and that will make life very awkward for Israel’s allies around the world to not call him out over it. It will also make negotiations impossible, or pointless, however you want to look at it, if he will just scupper things every time they aren’t going exactly how he wants them to. He's committed himself to going into Rafah, this deal stops him from doing so, making any move to do so counter to the agreement and he’s the only legitimate target for blame. Not even Genocide Joe could find a scapegoat to excuse Israel for that. He agreed to this plan believing Hamas wouldn’t and they have wrong footed him, I think knowing the problems it would cause him to agree to it instead. All the pressure is now on Netanyahu and not them. Benjamin Netanyahu is a guy who has lasted as long as he has and gotten away with it and gotten his way in whatever he seemingly wants, through threats, pressure, incitement and getting cover for it each and every time because Israel gets treated differently to every other country on Earth. Every time he has been elected it has been the equivalent of Israel dousing itself in petrol and setting itself alight, only for other nations with an interest in keeping this colonial Middle Eastern project alive, turning up to extinguish the flames. Right now Netanyahu is bleating that despite accepting the terms, he can’t not go into Rafah now as to leave Hamas intact would see an attack from them again in the future. I would remind people at this point that Israel is actively blocking an independent investigation into the night of October 7th and talking to witnesses, because they’ve done it already and the world should take their word for it. Not happening. Let investigators from the UN in, otherwise it looks like you have something to hide. A two state solution and a return to pre 1967 borders however, would completely negate Hamas’ reason to exist however. End the occupation, it is Israel’s illegal occupation, which must also end, the treatment of Palestine under their occupation has been exposed now too, which brough the likes of Hamas into existence. If Israel want peace, then they have to give Palestinians their right to exist back along with their lands, their rights and their freedoms. With Haaretz carrying much of this news and informing Israeli people as to what their leader is really doing and what is really going on with his intentions, his putting himself first and foremost and the recovery of hostages barely an afterthought, it’s a matter of time before Netanyahu probably seeks to gag them too, he’s done just that with Al Jazeera, uncovering far too much of what his diktat is doing to Gaza as they have been doing, too often at the cost of their own journalists lives and nothing quite screams democracy in action quite like gagging the free and fearless press – the real thing – as has happened here. Check out this video recommendation next for all the details on that story and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so how many times have we heard accusations, usually from pro Zionist sources that Hamas have infiltrated bodies to push their nefarious end goals? They were accused of infiltration the UN aid agency UNRWA as a very well known example of course, not that Israel could present any evidence and as such even staunch pro Israeli nations like Germany have restored funding to them by this point, though some nations are still holding out defying logic or common sense, such as the US and the UK. If we look towards the university campuses where, particularly in the US we’ve seen scenes of horrendous violence perpetrated by the police against students, there have also been claims that some of these students are indoctrinated and are acting as proxies for Hamas, but in a shock announcement relating specifically at this point to Columbia University in New York, coming from New York’s mayor at that, the violence on that particular campus, where this student movement of demanding divestment from Israel of their universities began, the violence seen there was instigated by a member of the University’s own faculty, who it seems is an Israeli spy! So who is it doing the infiltrating really? Right, so this story is so believable, so typical of Israel frankly to actually be the ones doing what they are accusing others of, hiding in plain sight and there seems to be no reason to disbelieve this given that this has come from New York Mayor Eric Adams – who praised the action it should be pointed out, so he’s glorifying this, not condemning it - and that we are being told by him that a member of the Columbia University teaching staff is actually a spy for Israel, but even worse than that, is also a leading figure in the New York Police Department, so that’s a two for the price of one infiltration within positions of significant power in New York City and does beg the question of how many more of these Israeli agents are there in positions of power across the US now, or indeed elsewhere and how much power do they actually have to bring to bear for the sake of another nation, against, in this case, US citizens? How are these people being promoted to such positions and who is authorising that and indeed are they doing so knowing where their true allegiances might lie? The staff member in question is one Rebecca Weiner, an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, at SIPA, which is the School of International and Public Affairs, part of Columbia University. However last year, Weiner was also made Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism of the NYPD, putting her in the unique position of literally being able to police Columbia University and those on it, seemingly in the interests of the Israeli state. How do we know that? Well according to Weiner’s blurb on the SIPA website, she: ‘Develops policy and strategic priorities for the Intelligence & Counterterrorism Bureau and publicly represents the NYPD in matters involving counterterrorism and intelligence.’ You might be interested to know therefore that according to news website The GrayZone, who appear to be the only outlet covering this story, the NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau maintains an office in, of all places, Tel Aviv. This Tel Aviv office apparently acts as a liaison between the NYPD and Israeli security, with Weiner as the go between. Here’s an excerpt from the GrayZone story, explaining how that worked: ‘A 2011 AP investigation revealed that a so-called “Demographics Unit” operated secretly within the NYPD’s Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau. This shadowy outfit spied on Muslims around the New York City area, and even on students at campuses outside the state who were involved in Palestine solidarity activism. The unit was developed in tandem with the CIA, which has refused to name the former Middle East station chief it posted in the senior ranks of the NYPD’s intelligence division. The “Demographics Unit” appears to have been inspired by Israeli intelligence as well. As a former police official told the AP, the unit attempted to “map the city’s human terrain” through a program “modelled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank.” A lawyer by training, Weiner oversaw negotiations between the NYPD and lawyers for local Muslims who had their civil liberties violated by its “Demographics Unit.”’ So how does all this relate to the police involvement on Columbia University campus then? Well according to NYPD reporter for independent new outlet WNYC, Bahar Ostadan, in a tweet dating back to the end of January, so well before these protests on US campuses began: ‘The NYPD liaison in Israel has sent “hourly” updates to NYPD headquarters in lower Manhattan since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, per NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner. “Not since 9/11 has a singular act of terrorism galvanized such a broad array of violent extremism,” she said about the Oct. 7 attacks’ Certainly that gives some idea of her views and where she receives intelligence from and of course by the time those campus protests began and certainly those at Columbia began, we now have an idea of the sort of person who was in a position of not only being on campus at her SIPA office, but having the police at her fingertips to move in and act. As Eric Adams himself reportedly said: ‘“She was the one that was monitoring the situation,” Adams explained, adding that the crackdown was carried out after “she was able to — her team was able to conduct an investigation.”’ Right, an investigation eh? What sort of investigation was that then? So the language and rhetoric being used on campus wasn’t political speech, wasn’t defending a political viewpoint, wasn’t taking a stance against genocide, it was terrorism apparently. Oh and she blamed Tik Tok too, just because there’s a ban in the US on the cards, lets get social media to carry some of the can too otherwise how else would many of us worldwide be so well informed and seeing with our own eyes the atrocity happening in Gaza at Israel’s hands, whilst Israel has literally it seemed got itself a spook planted not just in Columbia University, who teaches about counterterrorism, or is that what passes for it as far as Israel is concerned? But is also able to act upon it as she sees it, within the ranks of the NYPD too. And we saw what happened there as a result. Incidentally, the Tik Tok terrorism case she mentioned, the guy implicated in that, Sami Al-Arian, was a Palestinian academic, and he was never convicted of terrorism, so that was just a blatant lie on Weiner’s part. But the peak bit of hypocrisy, came from Mayor Eric Adams again as GrayZone also reported: ‘Throughout the press conference, Mayor Adams repeatedly cast the city’s crackdown on student speech as the only possible solution to ongoing campus encampments, citing undefined threats to the minds of impressionable youth. “There is a movement to radicalize young people, and I’m not gonna wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” Adams proclaimed. “Young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children,” he insisted, without specifying. “And I’m not gonna allow that to happen as the mayor of the city of New York.” After angrily proclaiming that his “uncle died defending this country,” Adams declared: “It’s despicable that schools will allow another country’s flag to fly in our country.” However, as an enthusiastic participant in New York City’s annual Celebrate Israel parade, Adams is no stranger to waving another country’s flag.’ And indeed here he is, flying the flag of another country last June. If we’re going to talk about infiltration by foreign state actors and terrorism, then we can’t ignore the fact it is clearly Israel very much doing that as exposed here and the power that some certainly, like Rebecca Weiner, can bring to bear seemingly in that states interest against the word, beliefs and convictions of America’s young people. They’ll never forgive or forget what is happening here and I should imagine it certainly won’t stop them either. The scary thing is we just don’t know how far the US state is prepared to go for Israel against it’s own people, but last time I looked, that’s called treason, and it is also playing out in real time on social media. At least here in the UK, the law is acting on the side of our students, or at least a legal group representing the interests of Palestinians are, as they’ve sent out letters to 82 Universities across the country, urging them to divest from their Israeli investments or face potential notices of liability. Find out more about hat story here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so I’m only today starting to cover the local elections, today being two days after polling day, on one hand because many of the results take that long to come in, but also because Man Flu struck me down on Friday, however nothing quite cleanses the system, to an extent anyway and cheers the soul like Starmer’s rancid excuse for a Labour Party falling woefully short of where they thought they’d be, having taken a mere fraction of the Tory losses. We’re talking about the same Tory Party still run be unelected, mandateless, and self serving to the point of wondering where he doesn’t seem to be personally cashing in with policy Rishi Sunak, this the most inept, useless, right wing and dangerous Tory Party many of us can remember and according to Sky News, Starmer can’t win a majority at all against them. Those super majorities the pollsters predicted? They appear to be built on sand, much like all of Starmer’s policy. Making announcements constantly of what he’ll take away from us instead of offer and we’re actually in hung parliament territory as a result. He has turned his back on traditional members and they’ve walked, they’ve left they’ve taken their votes with them and all they can respond with by way of explanation it seems, is to blame Muslims and Gaza. The Tories clearly have competition now for who holds the title of the Nasty Party and if Labour think resorting to petty racism will win back voters, they deserve to keep losing even more. Right, so Local Election results were as ever much more interesting than most of the mainstream media were letting, because as much as Sunak’s bunch of Tories absolutely getting the kicking they deserved in the results coming through, having pretty much lost half the Council seats they were defending, if Labour were on course for the super majority many polls were saying they were looking at come the General Election, the fact they failed to suck up most of those Tory seats, Labour won the equivalent of roughly two fifths of those lost Tory council seats, but they actually ended up losing ground elsewhere as they were making small inroads somewhere else. In very rough terms, of the lost Tory seats remaining, the Lib Dems, Independents and the Green Party took another fifth of the vote each, slightly more than that actually for the Lib Dems, slightly less than that for the Greens, but near as damn it, that’s where Tory seats went. A Labour Party on course for a stonking majority should be doing better than that, should not be losing so much of the votes they were chasing, and we know Starmer’s game plan is to obsessively chase Tory votes believing Labour voters will stick with him anyway, but from what we’ve observed, that isn’t necessarily the case and certainly when Sky News came out with an extrapolation for the General Election based on how voters voted here, it showed thar instead of looking at a comfortable majority government, that Keir Starmer is actually going to fall far short of a majority at all, although is likely to still be the largest party. According to Sky’s analysis, Labour is sat on 35% of the national vote, which needs putting in some context. The 2017 General Elections saw Jeremy Corbyn win 40% of the national vote for example and in 2019 when things went sideways thanks to internal sabotage, and Brexit being all that seemed to matter, Corbyn still secured 32% of the vote. It also doesn’t bode well for Starmer that in 2014, Ed Miliband did better in local elections than Starmer did here, though of course went on to still lose the general Election the following year. For those of us who have for years now been pointing at the Tories and Starmer’s Labour as being basically as bad as each other, a hung parliament, where Starmer will have to cobble together some kind of a deal with smaller parties, is literally the best case scenario, where electoral reform away from First Past The Post must be implemented ahead of the following General Election so that the UK truly gets a representative government and parliament, so that all parties must appeal to us and not just donors who can spend money on campaigns and who are who they end up really working in the interests of when they do get into power. Now there will be some of you who will I’m sure, especially Labour supporting people no doubt, who will be popping up saying Local Election results are not a good indicator of General Election results and as a rule, I would absolutely agree with that, but right now we have two Parties who are effectively one as bad as each other and although clearly from the results the Tories got that there is a big desire for change away from the Tories for a lot of people, they are equally not convinced by Keir Starmer’s offer to the country that he will be any better and frankly when that offer is a miserable one, watering down renationalisation, investment in a Green New Deal, the promises coming from Rachel Reeves amounting to more Cameron and Osborne-esque austerity, this might appeal to some Tory voters, apparently around two fifths of them only though, most people want a better choice and have instead chosen differently and that includes many Labour voters, now former Labour voters who chose differently. A couple of notable examples presented themselves to illustrate my point. Bristol City Council is a good one, lets look at that. Labour had a bad night here, with the largest Party there now, having gained 10 seats being the Green Party, coming up just two seats short of taking control of the Council. Labour lost 3 seats here, reducing their number of seats to 21 and the Tories losing 7 councillors, half their representation, all of these going Green too. The Lib Dems held all 8 seats they already had. To give an indication of where local election results can imply a General Election result, it is being widely reported, in numerous polls, that Green Party Co-Leader Carla Denyer, is on course to win the constituency seat of Bristol Central and dump Starmerroid Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire out on her backside. It is notable therefore to see that of the seats up for grabs on Bristol City Council, that the Green Party took every single seat in what will be Bristol Central. That is a local election result reflecting General Election voting intention. Now the numbers will change, they count for one day, the day of the ballot, but they do also reflect public opinion towards parties and that looks like it could carry through to a General Election looking at this. Let’s look at another example and another part of the country, we’ve been south, let’s go North and look at Oldham Council, which Labour have lost to No Overall Control. Where in Bristol the Green Party reaped the rewards, here in Oldham, it was a surge of Independent candidates that denied Labour majority control and indeed their placement as the largest group too. Labour lost 5 councillors, reducing their number to 7, the Lib Dems lost a councillor giving them just 3, the Tories also lost 1 councillor, being reduced to 2, yet the Independents, of which previously there was just 1 on the council, now form an independent grouping, though whether they formally stand as a group now going forward remains to be seen, though they would be the largest group on the council if they did as there are now 8 independent councillors there. This is staunch Labour country and if Keir Starmer’s changed Labour Party were truly looking to recover some of their Brexit inspired losses from 2019, people are not buying, given they just lost control of the local council. Now, why people choose to turn away from one party, Starmer’s Party as we’re talking about here, are always going to be varied and personal, but broadly, we can point to Labour policy choices and also the conflict between Israel and Gaza. Starmer is as bad, if not worse than Sunak when it comes to his pro Israel leanings, and if there’s one particular incident that nailed on just how ingrained an immovable on this issue he is, then it would be the scuppering of the SNP vote on a meaningful ceasefire back in February, where Starmer is alleged to have leant on Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, successfully so at that if true, because Hoyle allowed a Labour motion that should not have been permitted under standing orders. That move and how that was reported, how that shone a light on Starmer’s motivations, how far he was prepared to go for the Israeli regime despite all we are actually witnessing in Gaza, was a defining moment for many people. Fundamentally, the politics is appealing to a few Tories, it’s putting off a lot of Labour voters and for people who want to see an end to the genocide, neither the Tories or Labour are appealing! You only had to look at the recent Rochdale by-election to see that, also Lancashire, just like Oldham. Up and down the country, these are defining problems for Starmer’s Labour – they are seen as on the side of Israel, which they ardently are, and the politics is horrible Torylitism, but to ask them what is the problem? Well it seems they’re blaming Muslims. Casual racism is how some Labour sources are choosing to report their assessment of Labour’s underwhelming results and actually this shows how some in Labour in positions of being spokespeople are utterly unhinged in how they chose to express those findings. At time of writing the West Midlands mayoral result is still to come, but labour have said in the belief they have lost it that: ‘It's the Middle East, not West Midlands that will have won Street the Mayoralty. Once again Hamas are the real villains.’ So according to whoever this berk was, and this was quoted on the BBC, anyone who didn’t vote for Labour in the West Midlands is a Hamas supporter then? Hardly shows any intent on getting real and getting on the right side of history where Gaza is concerned does it? What kind of unhinged weirdos are Starmer’s Labour putting up to answer press questions? How bloody entitled are they as well? Ordinary people up and down the country appalled by what we are witnessing in the Middle East, appalled by Labour and Tory stances on it, don’t think like this. On Newsnight last night, Labour chose to deploy the Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Steve McCabe, to talk about the results, talk about the General Election projection put out and his answer was that: ‘We simply have to have bigger and better conversations with Muslim families around the country.’ Ah, so according to this obviously pro-Israeli MP, the issue is with Muslim voters. They are to blame are they? Labour’s hierarchy of racism rears it’s ugly head again, wasn’t this the narrative we used to expect from the Tories or UKIP? Rochdale was largely fought for on the basis of Gaza, but not exclusively so and again Muslims were blamed for Labour losing that to George Galloway, but when 75% of Rochdale’s voters are white, it’s a nonsense to think this is a Muslim voter issue – its an all voter issue and Labour still don’t get that, choosing to be Islamophobic about matters instead of taking a long hard look at themselves. People will not forgive or forget an ardently pro Israeli, supporting genocide party, who’s domestic policies are continuity Thatcher as well, something again that this lot can’t countenance as not being popular. Labour’s problems and the reality of them being short of a majority, or facing as such now as they seem to be based on these numbers, actual votes as they are, not just polling projections, is that quite obviously, they are still failing to recognise their very real failings and the more people who veer away from the Tories AND Labour ahead of the next general Election the better because of it. We might yet get the election result that will be forced to deliver the electoral reform we need, to have a country we can take actually, genuinely take pride in again, and not be stuck with governments that only serve themselves and establishment interests world wide. Labour have been handed a wake up call and instead of paying attention they are sticking their fingers in their ears and resporting to dog whistle racism whilst they are at it instead. Meanwhile of course the media will still try and aid and abet the status quo, not just giving Labour and the Tories soft soap interviews, where they still manage to say the wrong thing, but going on the attack against others, like George Galloway exposes how tied together mainstream media and mainstream politics truly are. Check out this video recommendation where they tried it on with Galloway again, but he’s far too savvy to just take that and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so much coverage continues to come out of the US as the protests against the genocidal Israel regime continue to be seen across social media, playing out in real time, as the police have invaded campuses and reportedly have actually stood aside to allow pro Zionist counter protesters to physically attack those protesting against the genocide in Gaza, but above all, protesting the links their universities may have through their business links to the Israeli regime and how they may be benefiting from a nation committing some of the worst atrocities many of us have ever seen. Just how far will things end up going, how much further escalation will we see in these US attacks against their own citizens for daring to hold a viewpoint others do not like? That isn’t democracy and what is being defended is utterly indefensible. However here in the UK, where similar protests have been taking place in Universities across the country, legal notices have been sent to the universities themselves if they too have been identified as having pro Israel ties and never mind countering their protests, if they don’t address these links, they now face prosecution for criminal liability. That is what I call supporting student protest. How about we see some of the same in the US? Right, so US violence on university campuses continues to shock and appal people bearing witness to the scenes being recorded on social media, being broadcast by eyewitnesses and the people being attacked, as pro Israel counter protesters drive that violence against students peacefully protesting their University’s ties to the Israeli regime, demand a say in ending those ties, those links that they do not wish to be associated with and the thought of ever standing against Israel no matter what they do for some people is just utterly anathema to them, to the point they are prepared to get violent, to invite violence and to drive police intervention. In the last several days we have seen for example at Northeastern University, the Daily Beast reported that 100 protesters were arrested because someone was heard to shout a phrase implying the unaliving of people of Jewish persuasion, I’ll put it like that to avoid getting censored, which gave the police cause to go in and make arrests, yet not actually of the person who said it, because as footage showed, that person was actually holding an Israeli flag and was amongst the counter-protesters. At the University of California, a young man called Aidan Doyle, he’s a YouTuber too, took to social media to explain how he had been trying to stop Zionist counter protesters from removing a barricade, which resulted in him being pulled in amongst them, where he recounts then being set upon, being hit with a rock, was hit in the leg with a hammer, slashed at his arm and pepper sprayed him. He also commented on seeing 19 year old girls having fared far worse, their faces covered in blood. Despite all of that he was committed to returning, calling for peace in Palestine and the dismantling of the Israeli regime. Now there will certainly be people thinking watching this, well yeah, whatever you would say that, he would say that we know who’s side you are both on in this, to which I’d argue that if you’re the sort of person to sneer at others who simply want the genocide the end, you need to have a long, hard look at yourself and by all means check out Aidan’s face and injuries on his YouTube channel, Aidan Doyle Politics. As bad as most of what we are witnessing is, there has been some good news, there has been some success on the students part in the US, for example Brown University is going to hold a vote on their students divestment demands in October, so they have now dismantled there camp – people power can have an effect, though lets see how that vote goes before we celebrate too much. Many of the people on these campus protests, not just students, but lecturers and professors as well are themselves Jewish and this is what is upsetting the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu the most, because it undermines his arguments that these campuses are not safe spaces for Jews, just as we’ve seen the same false reasoning levelled against the Palestine protests in London each weekend. Of course the student protests have spread to UK campuses too, campus camps like those we’ve seen in the US have now been set up at Uni’s here, including in Manchester, where students have set up what they are calling the somewhat long winded, but very much on point camp called the ‘Manchester Resistance Camp for Palestine to pressure UoM to cut its ties with Zionist entities and weapons manufacturers.’ Their demands are that the University end it’s partnership with BAE Systems, who make parts for Israeli F-35 jets and to end it’s ties with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. More camps besides this one in Manchester have popped up too, in Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, with more coming in Swansea, Lancaster and Edinburgh. It’s becoming a growing movement and potentially a growing problem for those here still ardently on the side of the Zionist regime, not least the Universities themselves, so could we end up seeing scenes such as those we’re witnessing in the US? Well you can never rule anything like that out, but the students here in the UK have something on their side that those in the US don’t necessarily and that weirdly, is the law, or at least some people acting on behalf of it. As of yesterday, the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians,, or ICJP, which is based here in the UK, based in London, had written to 82 of the 140 British Universities, warning them that their university officers could have committed a criminal offence if their institutions had profited from investments linked to weapons that have been used to commit war crimes. British Universities, just like their American counterparts, also invest money in companies, have shareholdings, generate returns for the university, therefore divestment demands from students should hardly be surprising, but between these 82 institutions, there are investments, not just in BAE Systems as aforementioned as is the case in Manchester, but also in Elbit Systems, who for example built the drone used to kill the World Central Kitchen aid workers some weeks ago now and also Caterpillar, who of course supply plant equipment to the regime. Any British university with investments in any company seen to be profiting from Israel in what it is doing in Gaza, risks being found complicit. The ICJPs Senior Legal Officer, Dania Abul Haj told Middle East Eye that: ‘Investment in these companies was already morally bankrupt… In the current circumstances, it is beyond belief that universities, which are educational institutions, paving the way for future generations of leaders and politicians, would continue to invest in them.’ And it is. If I knew I could be profiting from a nation committing such widespread genocide, that was acting in such an indiscriminate and inhumane manner, I wouldn’t want to touch them with a bargepole, but then I wouldn’t have wanted to invest in a nation which is an illegal occupier and oppressor of other people’s lands as Israel certainly has been since 1967. You have to think about this for a minute too, it shouldn’t just be the students appalled by what is happening in our Universities here, but all of us too. All these kids who go to University, pay enormous sums, rack up enormous amounts of student debt, the funding that they pay into the Universities for their tuition is coming from the public purse, it’s our money. Knowing that the University in question might be using that to invest in a company aiding in the genocide of Gaza right now are you happy about that? Is that good use of your money? As far as kids looking at going to University, I daresay if there wasn’t so much competition for places this might be a bigger issue, but it would I imagine certainly affect some kids choices as to where they choose to go for their further education, if they know one of their options is a potential investor in genocide versus another who might not be. Will British universities act to divest, or would they rather get dragged to court and it possibly being made public the extent of their Israeli investments? Seems a no brainer to me, but then, pro Zionists don’t appear to let rational thought dictate their actions, I guess we’ll see just how pro Israel some of these institutions are by what they choose to do next. Of course how much you’ll hear about it is another matter, with the media seemingly intent on burying a lot of this news, and even if they do cover it, what mainstream slant will they put on the story, seeking not so much to just report the news, but to shape opinion instead. They seem to have few qualms about complicity in many cases as this video recommendation will tell you all about and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so as people head to the polls today to vote for local councillors, metro mayors, police and crime commissioners and all the rest of it, Keir Starmer chose the day before, on International Workers Day at that, just to add insult to injury, to weaken Labour party policy on workers rights. He appears to have such disdain for ordinary working people, such contempt for them, that he was prepared to choose that day of all days to send a message out that he’s for the bosses and not for you and yet still thinks you’ll vote for him anyway, just to get the Tories out. Labour are no longer the people of the working class, made up overwhelmingly of faceless suits who’ve never had a real job in their lives and nothing quite dots the I’s and crosses the T’s on that than having a knight of the realm leading them. Starmer has lied to you again, so I hope you thought long and hard before putting a cross next to a Labour candidates name in today’s local elections. Right, so worker’s rights Starmer has watered down Labour policy on this score yet again, it’s not even the first time, having binned off plans some 8 months ago now to actually strengthen workers rights, telling us Labour would stand by the rights of workers as they are now under the Tories, which was hardly ambitious and certainly didn’t live up to the name of the Party – Labour, you’re called it for a reason, the trouble is those Labour benches, those Labour seats are filled with too many who’ve never done a proper days work in their lives and are therefore completely detached and out of touch with the lives of ordinary working class people and what we all need to do day in and day out to get by. But to choose the 1st of May, International Workers Day, it’s literally called Labor Day in some countries, to announce a weakening of workers rights under a future Labour government again I ask you, where the heck is the difference here between the Tories we have now and this red Tory with no more interest in making your life better than the cretins in power now? Why have the done it? Business and bosses, ie donors as far as Labour goes these days, have apparently been squealing like stuck pigs that Labour’s plan for a ‘New Deal For Working People’ as it has been trumpeted since 2021 now, will hurt them too much. A proper Labour Party would turn around and tell them, you’ve had it good for long enough, ordinary working class people need a better deal from their employers now, so suck it up buttercups, but instead Starmer has seemingly gone leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do instead. If you’re on their side, you’re a Tory. We have a party of big business and bosses already, we don’t need two, let alone be trapped by an unfair electoral system condemning us to only ever be ruled by one or the other. Labour had promised higher sick pay, they had promised and end to the disgusting practice of fire and rehire, even though under Starmer, Labour had engaged in that practice themselves after blowing much of the money Corbyn had left in the party coffers in multiple rounds of redundancies, only to try and hire some of them back again on worse terms and conditions. There was also a pledge to reverse anti strike laws even though Starmer refuses to attend pickets since he became Labour leader and banned frontbenchers from doing so as well, showing no solidarity with workers at all. Always with Starmer it doesn’t matter what he says, his word is so worthless you couldn’t afford to buy a copy of yesterdays newspaper with it, it is always what he does that matters, his actions speak louder and more importantly more honestly than anything he says. Fire and rehire, won’t show solidarity with workers and now wants to take more of your rights away to appease your bosses and not you. Just last February gone, he told business chiefs that it wouldn’t please everyone in the room, yet now business leaders are saying that having spoken to members of the party at several business meetings with them, they were instead feeling pretty relaxed about them. Seems safe to assume they won’t amount to much at all then? Apparently shadow ministers have been working to placate business leaders by bringing them on board and holding consultations with them on what they would like to see and these are to some extent apparently ongoing, hence no new version of the New Deal to publish, but when Labour are choosing to sit with the bosses to work out workers rights and not the workers, you don’t actually need to know what’s coming to know it’s going to be worse for you, as Labour seeks to look better to the eyes of business leaders, solely of course to neuter any Tory attack lines. The problem is the more like the Tories you act, the more you invite accusations of being Tories yourselves, If it walks like a Tory and talks like a Tory and all of that and actually given there is so little detail to put flesh on the bones of this now, it makes it look even worse than these plans to weaken workers rights came out on International Workers Day, because you don’t even have the common decency to announce in what ways it’s going to be a worse deal, just that it will be! This was supposed to be one of those mission led approaches to policy wasn’t it? Is it now his mission to weaken the mission he had before then and that is the mission led approach he’s now taking? Nevertheless, although details are scant, the Financial Times has mentioned a couple of points. Zero hours contracts which Labour were set to ban, now won’t be. Instead there will be a right to an houred contract reflecting a regular work pattern over the first 12 weeks of employment. Will this be an enforceable right or not though? Not clear. Starmer also touted a right to be able to switch off and not have the boss contact you in your free time, this was to be enshrined into law and now won’t happen either, it’ll be listed in the code of practice overseen by ACAS arbitration services, and smaller companies will be exempt from it entirely. The single status for employment is out of the window now, now reduced to a consultation, so a chat with bosses over that then presumably and where fair pay agreements were due to be implemented in all work sectors, that will now only be in the social care sector. They are also going to review parental leave, but again if it is only the employers you are interested in consulting with, how can these things ever be done in working people’s interests? Of course Labour figures, nameless of course are apparently all saying, this is not a U-turn, but when it amounts to leaving things as the Tories have them now, or weakening them further because instead of talking to the people your party is meant to represent, you’re talking to their employers! Well the fun and games is just beginning. Labour haven’t yet taken these ideas to the Trade Unions for their assent yet and they aren’t very likely to I wouldn’t imagine! Unite boss Sharon Graham, herself having been subpoenaed to give evidence in an employment tribunal case in Ireland, where she and her union are accused of being bad bosses, so a bit rich wading into this story, nevertheless tweeted out saying: 'Choosing May Day to give notice of watering down your promise to overhaul one of the worst sets of employment rights in Europe is beyond irony.' It’s impossible to not agree with that, even if it has come from her. Another far better spokeperson for the Union movement is Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union, who spoke to the FT in this excerpt: ‘Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, who currently holds the TUC’s rotating presidency, told the Financial Times there should be “no rolling back” of Labour’s “New Deal for Working People”. “My message is very clear, no rolling back . . . if there is any more rolling back on the New Deal, they can expect a hostile reaction to it,” he said. “People are not willing to just give up on this or retreat simply because Labour is the only show in town.”’ So here’s hoping if it does all come out, and let’s face it, that consultation with the unions could be a day of reckoning where more details may become public knowledge, more people will wake up to just how pathetic this future Labour government allegedly in waiting is and that more people choose a better alternative than both of these main parties that you can’t seem to fit a fag paper in between anymore. Meanwhile what details we do have about Starmer’s relationship to workers rights or lack thereof as has come out in previous months can be seen on this video recommendation here, what he’s already walked back on and given that’s his attitude, who would be brave enough to assume there wouldn’t be more U-turning and more watering down to come and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so first they came for Jeremy Corbyn and they threw the kitchen sink at him, they launched their chicken coups, they briefed against him in the press, they misappropriated funds, they stood against the will of the membership and for themselves, such is the state of the Labour Party, both then and now, the biggest barrier for change in this country as it purports to represent ordinary working class people, yet when those policies were put forward by somebody, they sought to destroy them at all costs. In no small way were the media not involved in that as well, they were the drivers of it, daily attack articles, interviews with opponents within the party and the slightest whiff of a scandal and well, it was on the hour every hour news. And so it now is, that George Galloway appears to be the next perceived threat to the status quo, having hammered his mainstream opponents in Rochdale back in March, now having announced a raft of parliamentary candidates and local council candidates, the Workers Party of Great Britain is building from the ground up, doesn’t have those internal saboteurs that Corbyn did have to contend with, yet the media are coming for him, as they did Corbyn before. Well for numerous reasons, Galloway is no Corbyn, but if the media think he’ll take an on air monstering lying down, they’ll quickly learn how very much he isn’t like Corbyn and how he possibly doesn’t need to be either. Right, so George Galloway on Good Morning Britain got subjected to what was a distinctly Corbynesque attack from both Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid, both seemingly looking to land a gotcha on a guy who simply won’t take it rather than actually ask him anything of any real pertinence or relevance, though of course these interviews always start nicely, they began by talking about Galloway’s vision for his party, to replace Labour to actually be the Party that Labour should be rather than this Tory tribute act it keeps becoming because of the damage done to it by the likes of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, turning the party into something that as Corbyn proved sadly, seems impossible to reverse and it only took Keir Starmer lying about everything he stood for, to get elected and then show his true colours as a return to that Blair style of politics to come. Now I’ve always been of the view, that the con Blair pulled, with the mainstream media onside, and no alternative media and no social media to push back on that, that that is how he got away with what he’d done, the Iraq War for example. Can you imagine how things might have been different if the level of social media scrutiny, social media, smartphones being in existence then, was as it is now especially in light of how we’ve been able to observe and judge the actions of Israel in Gaza for example? Blair and Bush would never have got away with what they did I don’t think and equally, Keir Starmer wouldn’t be able to either. It didn’t take long for the interview to descend into an attack though. Let Galloway get comfy then we’ll clobber him Corbyn style and see how he likes it and after much shouting over the top of Galloway, very much the attack centred on those GMB presenters effectively taking what Rishi Sunak had been saying about Galloway when he got elected MP for Rochdale and going from there, on one hand treating Sunak’s opinion as given fact and some kind of sage opinion, when of course it was just a pathetic swipe from somebody on his last political legs, who’s party got rinsed into 3rd place in Rochdale, and probably only managed to get that high, after Labour imploded during the campaign. This was a get Galloway moment and knowing what we saw happen to Corbyn over those years, this was a familiar sight to many of us. Whether you agree with Galloway, like, him or don’t, agree with him, or not, the spectacle of this media clown show by two pathetic presenters, one of whom should damn well know better even if you expect this drivel from the other, this isn’t how any sensible, supposedly informative current affairs interview should be conducted. Before you say anything about Galloway’s responses, the treatment he got, should be condemned. This offered those watching absolutely nothing, just served as a reminder that political opinions are clearly only permitted by those who fit into the narrow, what is deemed as acceptable political class. I very much consider myself outside of that I challenge it, so does Galloway, in that respect we have something in common here even if I vehemently disagree with him on several issues, but certainly there was no way anyone should be treated like this on a TV interview. It’s like these channels, these presenters see themselves as entitled to do so. If you choose to come on our platform you deserve what you get, might be the attitude, but when some are treated far differently from others depending on the political persuasion, then there is a pro establishment bias at hand and this was blatantly exposed once again here. Madely talking about Galloway being a Muslim, when he’s a lifelong Roman Catholic was pathetic, what were you doing you ridiculous man, but there you go, it was brought up. Susanna Reid, usually the sensible one, was unhinged in shouting over Galloway, you were endorsed by Nick Griffin she shrieked, well, he put out a tweet telling people to back Galloway as the least worst option, not exactly an endorsement, and Galloway refuted it. As he put it, how can I be a Muslim one hand alluding to Madeley’s nonsense, and also be someone who hates them, as the BNP do? The daft pair couldn’t even get their attack lines straight. Then he was accused of dismissing what happened on October 7th, he doesn’t, nobody in their right mind does, though an investigation is needed, independent of Israel to establish the truth. He was accused of glorifying Hezbollah, they’re a resistance group, they commit acts of atrocity too though, Hamas the same, it was the friends of Hamas line again, written slightly differently, that was used to bash Corbyn with. Same tactics. Frankly, GMB did Galloway a massive favour. People will have looked at that and thought if those two are clearly so afraid of him, then maybe his party is onto something, but its been growing at a rate of knots ever since the Rochdale by election made such widespread news, the scale of Galloway’s win sent shockwaves, has people sitting up thinking hang on a sec, is this worth looking at and indeed many seem to not only have done that, but put themselves forward as candidates too. Galloway made mention of cricketer Monty Panasar standing for parliament for the workers party, others include former UK ambassador Craig Murray, but there are also former UKIP candidates standing for the party too. Where Galloway identifies as being on the left and certainly when he is saying his party won’t stand against the likes of Jeremy Corbyn or Diane Abbott of Claudia Webbe if they stand as independents and would support them, candidates from the right, some of whom have apparently said some truly reprehensible stuff, being welcomed reminds us that Galloway has mixed with people on that side of politics previously before, the likes of Steve Bannon for instance, if the GMB presenters really wanted to ask something relevant rather than just echo the words of Rishi Sunak they might have pushed him on Bannon rather than Nick Griffin. Galloway is no Corbyn, not just in terms of political interview conduct, but in his associations as well. However Galloway is in a position that could be stronger than that of Corbyn. Where Corbyn was constantly at war with his own parliamentary party who hated him, Galloway doesn’t have that to worry about. Equally, he doesn’t need the mainstream media to push his talking points because he has his own Mother Of All Talkshows as it’s called, Moats TV which is regularly clipped and put on social media, allowing him to push back on anything at any time as and when he feels like it. The more the media treats him like Corbyn though, dubious candidates, policy still to come and be looked at of course as well put aside for a moment, the more people will view him as that possible new Corbyn figure in a political climate where people are becoming more and more desperate for change. He could be it, I still have reservations, I think for me it’ll have to be a case of waiting and seeing for a bit longer and indeed with local elections this week and workers party candidates standing all over, how well they do, will give an indication of how widely they are cutting through, so Thursday’s election results become more and more interesting to see. Right now though, if mainstream media hosts want to keep doing to Galloway what Good Morning Britain did, then he’s going to keep on reaping the rewards I think, especially in light of this interview having relied so much on what Rishi Sunak said about Galloway on the steps of Downing Street when Galloway himself had so much more to say to Sunak to his face in parliament and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so if there’s anyone in desperate need of a good headline right now it’s Rishi Sunak, especially as large chunks of the country prepare to go to the polls tomorrow for local elections widely expected to be an absolute drubbing for them, set to work out even worse than perhaps expected given the seats up for grabs were last contested under the height of Boris Johnson’s popularity, but of course the absurdly rich, out of touch and completely mandateless and unelected Prime Minister is staking everything this year, looking more ahead to a General Election, or perhaps running away from the thought of one, on Rwanda. And in that vein, the Murdoch Scum rag, as we on the left prefer to call it, the scum, because after all the Sun is something warm and bright and shiny, yet the paper named after it, is a bleak pit of despair where the truth goes to die, that shares more in common with something frothy and stinky being discharged into the sea by Thames Water. They are publishing a piece talking about the first asylum seeker having been deported to Rwanda, but the truth of this matter is anything but what the Scum are telling us. Right, so The Murdoch Scum have gone full grift for Rishi Sunak it seems, grifting harder than Captain Tom’s family, desperately floundering around in their own filth to try and find a good news story, a positive headline for the pathetic PM, currently enjoying a popularity rating amongst the British populace akin to somewhere, so dark, dank, smelly and horrible, even the cockroaches have moved out. So what have the Scum coughed up on their pages to help little Rishi out with then? Rwanda. Let’s peddle a story about Rwanda and what an opportunity befell the Scum’s top floater masquerading as a journalist, Harry Cole, who thankfully put out a tweet so I didn’t have to risk burning my retinas looking at the pages of said publication, not that I would have done, because I flat refuse to ever use that hate rag as any kind of referenced in my work whatsoever and if you think I’m perhaps being a bit harsh to Cole in my description there, when he’s the sort of person who looks so adoringly as this at Boris Johnson of all people, I think it tells you everything you need to know. At any rate he put out a tweet saying: ‘EXCLUSIVE: Britain has removed the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda, the S*n can reveal… The unnamed migrant was flown out of the UK on Monday evening. Historic moment as first time UK has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country.’ There’s a good reason it’s an exclusive though isn’t there Harry? That would be because it is a complete fabrication and lie and when I don’t need to go any further than the BBC of all sources to disprove this claim of yours, you know the entire story is grubby, dishonest gutrot. If not for a piece the BBC actually put out in March, I’d almost go so far as to say they’ve exposed the Scum’s lies because Sunak didn’t go to them first, but on the other had, so few people are I think taken in by government claims regarding Rwanda any more, that even BBC recognises, it isn’t in its best interests to go this far for the government. Right, so first, let’s pick out the one honest thing in this tweet, which is the person in question that has gone to Rwanda was a failed asylum seeker. That’s it, the rest is rubbish. The asylum seeker in question, was not removed to Rwanda, they were paid to go there. Yes, we paid them to go there. This person, who will have presumably risked their life to get here by small boat, because there is no legal alternative route to get here unless you’re from somewhere the government has a special deal with Ukraine certainly, Afghanistan supposedly, but not really in practice, has failed in their asylum claim for whatever reason, we don’t know, and as part of a voluntary scheme – so not the Rwanda deportation Bill at all, it has nothing to do with that, this is a completely separate deal – the government have now handed over £3000 of public money to get this person to go to Rwanda. Only Rishi Sunak could manage to unite both rotten lefties and frothing right wing migrant bashers over the stupidity of this plan. For the lefty like me, it’ll always disgust me that there is no legal asylum route, that the government thinks being so abjectly cruel to people who got here for whatever reason and failed in their asylum application, but if their country of origin is a safe one and by that I mean actually safe not just legislated as such like Rwanda, they should be returned there. For me, where is the logic of paying these people £3,000? For the right winger, they’ll have been looking perhaps at the cost of the Rwanda scheme already, nearly half a billion spent on deporting people, of which none have yet been deported and here is the government spending even more money to pay people to go there! Worse, when the BBC reported on this last month, as I alluded to a moment ago, they reported that the Tory business minister Kevin Hollinrake had said that this is a good use of public money and that he didn’t think the appeal of a free three grand would encourage people to come here. I tell you what Kev, I bet it does! Think of what they might be paying the people traffickers, if they get here they can either claim asylum, or at least get some of their money back before going to Africa! What planet were these people born on? Funnily enough Hollinrake’s comments were reported in the Times following an interview on Times Radio, so this was the Murdoch press in March, via the Times saying one thing and this month, saying the scheme is something else entirely. They don’t report the news, they try to shape public opinion, it’s no wonder Murdoch loves to claim he picks the Prime Minister at every General Election is it? The other absolute whopper of a claim by Harry Cole in his tweet there was that this was an historic first in the UK relocating a failed asylum seeker to a third country. It isn’t and isn’t anything close to being true. Last year alone, 19,253 people were voluntarily removed from the UK and of these 3,319 received a reintegration package or paid flights by the Home Office. As far as this Rwanda voluntary scheme goes, there appears to be no limit on it as to how many people annually will qualify, nor is there any timeframe set within which these voluntary deportations would happen in either. Also if the Tories were so interested in value for money, of the 5,700 potential Rwanda deportees they’ve identified, apparently only 2,143 continue to report to the Home Office. They have no idea where the rest are, so you, know, perhaps try finding them instead of paying others to leave eh? Now the Tories are still trying to claim this as a success story incidentally. Kemi Badenoch, a woman who signed off on renewal of arms licences to Israel a week after three British aid workers were killed, so evidently not someone with a reputation for being anything other than utterly cold blooded, has been bleating that people taking up the deal proves Rwanda is a safe country, but actually all it proves is you can send these people anywhere and they’d be happy because they’d have three grand of public money in their pockets, people who could be trying to get back for second helpings at some point in future perhaps at that. Yet flip that on its head and a lot of people have instead of taking the money, been seeking legal assistance instead to fight having to make that choice, which also implies if this was such a good idea, why have more people not gone, after all, so far, only one person has and this scheme opened up when the BBC reported on it, back in March. It’s a stunt, it’s a poor attempt at PR and people should once more be reminded why so many of us in this country say, do not look at the S*n, it’ll make you go blind and I’m not talking about the big, glowing ball of gas in the sky either. They’d have you believe Sunak’s plan is working, using people’s misfortune as spin for the very government heaping out the cruelty. Frankly if you buy that hateful rag, you’re as bad as the people who write for it. But if you think £3,000 is value for money to send these people away, I can just imagine some of the comments writing themselves at this point, perhaps watch this video recommendation here on the costs of Sunak’s Rwanda scheme and this pay to leave scheme running alongside it now being added on top. It’s your money after all that they are spending, public money, you might want to know the scale of the waste on this and remember that Sunak has bet the house on this scheme to save his backside and just how badly he’s likely to fail because of that and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so Joe Biden is desperately it seems trying to save Benjamin Netanyahu’s backside from an arrest warrant that could be issued by the International Criminal Court, but in truth he hasn’t got a leg to stand on and the most powerful politician on the planet, is utterly powerless in forcing the ICC’s hands. You see as much as the US is subject to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the ICJ, the same isn’t the case for the ICC. With the US not being an ICC member state, Genocide Joe can whine and bleat for Israel’s sake all he likes, but as far as the Chief Prosecutor goes, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. So will Biden’s efforts fail? Well by rights they should, however if they don’t, then something will have happened behind the scenes which the ICC had better have inordinately good answers for – that or the US for Israel’s sake might be prepared to do something a whole lot worse. Right, so Joe Biden, desperately unhappy that arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister the eternally scowling Yoav Gallant, and the Chief of Staff of the Israeli defence Force Herzi Halevi could be coming potentially at any time as I’m writing this, but reputedly at some point this week, from the ICC, the International Criminal Court and actually it isn’t just Biden because the Republican party are saying exactly the same, but they’re basically threatening repercussions if the ICC go ahead with this. Now last March when ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in relation to crimes committed against Ukraine, Biden was all over this, fully in support of it, fully welcoming the war crimes charges levied against him, based on territorial dispute – I’ll come back this point in a minute - but when the same likely charges are going to get levied against Israel? Well justice be damned, they are US allies and we’re not having this. Since when did Biden decide that acting like the mafia and issuing threats to the ICC was an election winning vote puller and besides, they have no say in the matter, no matter how much the whining going on and the behind the scenes conversations lets call them might be happening, the US has no jurisdiction here, they aren’t member states signed up to the Rome Statute, the requirement to be a member state of the ICC. Now, territorial dispute being the reason Putin got an arrest warrant levied against him, which Biden of course readily agreed with. Russia, just like the US, is not a member state of the ICC, so in what way could they prosecute Putin then? Well a territorial jurisdiction in law is defined as the authority of a court to hear and decide cases within a specific geographic area. It establishes the boundaries within which a court can exercise its power and enforce its judgments, but within the remit of the ICC, with it’s 124 member states around the world, jurisdiction can be established by referral of a case to the ICC by any member state and in the case of Putin, the initial referral came from Lithuania, which is a member state and 38 other states joined them in doing so subsequently. In the case of Israel, just like Russia, they are not member states of the ICC either, therefore again territorial jurisdiction must be established, however making this slightly different it the fact that Palestine, despite having observer status at the UN and not full member status, is a signatory of the Rome Statute and has been since 2015, therefore is a member of the ICC too. Now Joe Biden accepted this territorial jurisdiction in the case of Russia and Ukraine – Trump as it happens had been blocking this, he’d applied sanctions to the then ICC chief prosecutor because he didn’t agree with territorial jurisdiction here, but Biden overturned this - therefore saying the court has no jurisdiction with regards to Israel, is complete hypocrisy and won’t wash. The ICC in turn are pushing back, with the current ICC Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, saying in no uncertain terms that addressing what is going on in Gaza at Israel’s hands, is exactly what the ICC was established to address: ‘Current ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan visited Ramallah and Israel in December, meeting Palestinian officials and families of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. Khan called Hamas’ actions “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address,” and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Khan said “international humanitarian law must still apply” in the Israel-Hamas war and “the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied.” After the visit, Khan said an ICC investigation into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”’ So it’s not even just Israel that are being looked at here, but Hamas as well, though of course as I wrote about in another recent video, Israel are blocking the UN from investigating the scene and talking to witnesses who saw the events of the night of October 7th and that makes no sense if it was all Hamas’ fault that night as Israel and many other allied nations keep on saying does it? So what can Biden try and do about this then? He can’t keep saying there is no jurisdiction, he’s a hypocrite for doing that and that will rapidly get exposed given how many people, especially all those protesting, students on campuses the most high profile example right now, but plenty of others too will point this out, so he’s engaging in what some outlets, the Times of Israel for one, are charitably calling diplomacy, that Biden is currently engaged in a ‘nonstop push over the telephone’ to prevent these arrest warrants from being issued. Threats is certainly what other outlets are referring these to, but such are the lengths he’ll go to for Israel and the unusual position of desperation he finds himself in. Now if I were of the opinion that Karim Khan was subject to such coercion and having said already that the court has jurisdiction and this being demonstrated by Palestine’s membership he’s in a bit of a bind if he does do a U-turn, I’d imagine we’d have seen or heard something before now, but also I’d expect the pressure to come from those Tory ties he has, to come from the UK and Sunak rather than Biden and it isn’t clear if that is happening or not, though I’m sure if Biden said jump, Sunak and Cameron would go how high over this. It’s said Biden is part of diplomatic efforts, so the UK may well be involved and seemingly right now to no avail. So what else can Biden try? Well there is the small matter of the American Servicemembers Protection Act, better known as the Hague Invasion Act, which swears down if the ICC try and prosecute US allies, they’ll literally invade the Hague. If Biden thinks he has problems on US campuses right now for his ongoing support for Israel, try invading the Hague and see what reaction you get then? Now I’ve been quite caustic towards Karim Khan and the 6 months of inaction he and the ICC have seemingly shown towards Israel, so I’m going to change tack for a moment with this line of thought. US relations with Israel have been staunch for a long time, so perhaps the ICC were of the view that the prosecution case they were investigating – bearing in mind ICC investigations into Israeli figures in relation to Gaza predate October 7th, a case has been open into allegations dating back to 2014, but has certainly ramped up since with talk of arrest warrants now being issued and in no small part has that comes from Khan having visited the region as aforementioned, but also because prosecutors have in literally the last few days been speaking to the staff of the Nasser Hospital and Al-Shifa hospital where the mass graves of hundreds of patients and other staff members have been uncovered, but in the name of protecting witnesses, we literally know nothing more than people connected to those hospitals have been talking to the ICC. As far as Biden goes, the timing is what makes me think Khan might have bided his time, because the US have elections this year and this policy of constantly supporting Israel is not popular amongst US people. Do these hospital interviews or whatever is going on have more bearing on the speed things are now seemingly happening? I’d argue that it damn well should, amongst so many horrifying stories to come out of Gaza in the last nearly 7 months, this one in particular stand out for the sheer scale of death, destruction and depravity caused by Israel’s forces at the command of their leaders. So let’s say the arrest warrants get issued. What then? The US will still support them no doubt, but for the 143 member states signed up to the ICC, that is a lot more difficult and that does include us here in the UK. We’d be obligated by law, to arrest those individuals should they ever come here and it’d make the Tory government’s ongoing support for Israel and indeed that of opposition parties, meaning you Keir Starmer to continue to unequivocally support the state with arms and aid still, potentially putting Tory MPs then at risk of prosecution for aiding and abetting I would imagine. Ironically this might be even worse news for Keir Starmer, because he’s heading into an election period and can you imagine still choosing to support Israel as a former human rights prosecutor after arrest warrants get issued and still try and convince people he can be trusted? I mean he lies like he breathes anyway, but wriggle out of this one! At any rate, it’ll be an interesting few days looking out for those arrest warrants being issued and seeing some people who deserve to have a really bad day have one collectively. Human rights laws, humanitarian laws, international laws they have to mean something and we have too many politicians trying to water them down or erase them on behalf of one the most egregious genocidalist states we’ve borne witness to, to excuse them the deaths of tens of thousands of people that they have caused. It can’t be allowed to stand. If those laws are rendered worthless than the whole world is screwed. There are no excuses, but some of the worst attempts at them have of course come from the media as much as politicians. Silence is complicity and their silence over what happened at those two hospitals and the mass graves uncovered has damned them utterly. Where many of us have been kept in the dark, at least the ICC haven’t, so let Biden and Co panic, if they want to go down with Israel and its government then that’s on them, find out all about the media blackout in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so whilst the Tories make wild claims, such as the DWP Minister talking about disabled people, misleading the public by saying they are getting thousands of pounds a month when really they just need a grab rail, or with Rishi Sunak promising more reforms to the benefit system because the bill is too high, ignoring the fact its 14 years of Tory rule making so many people sick. When Sunak talks of reform he’s simply talking about getting a bigger stick and throwing more people entitled to support off it, because that’s the kind of depraved creature he is, a social conscience colder than a polar bear’s nutsack combined with a national popularity and likeability factor that’s in the same region as nappy rash. But as harsh and cruel as they are, if you think Reform UK are likely to be any better, then the opinion of Reform UK leader Richard Tice’s partner in the Torygraph today, should make you think twice, because surely her opinions are representative of the party she’s clearly so closely tied to? Right, so Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott, for it is she, partner of private company masquerading as a political party Reform UK leader, the permagrinning, permatanned businessman Richard Tice, has in yet another attack on those on benefits, of which she knows absolutely nothing, cannot relate, cannot understand, cannot appreciate the difficulties of living on because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, penned a piece in the Torygraph entitled: ‘Get benefit claimants back to work – cleaning our filthy streets.’ Let’s jump on the Tories bandwagon and why not, Reform are after all, just another bunch of Tories, the type that for them, the Tory Party are too left wing these days. According to Oakeshott the rubbish on our streets is now piling up so high in steaming piles of goodness knows what that she has to apparently play hopscotch to get around it. She cannot abide, does not understand it, after all apparently the streets in Dubai shine when she goes there and when you see litter there it’s a noteworthy event. Slow news day then? You must have gone when the weather was better. Why are our streets dirtier? Apparently it’s alcohol that is to blame, we’re all drunks in comparison it seems and that is why. Where is the civic pride she moans as she bleats about we the proles who throw our kebabs in the gutter and throw up on the streets. It must be true after all, because the Leeanderthal, Lee Anderson took a photograph of an alleyway with black bags piled up and he’s never staged a thing in his life after all…apart from getting his mate to act as a punter when he was filmed electioneering, or making a mockery of poverty with his 30p meals, though of course Oakeshott once said those in poverty could live on porridge because oats are cheap. Fundamentally, this is someone with a background wealthy enough to have been sent to a prestigious private school, where it’s £17K a term to be sent there, choosing to lecture poor people about being poor. Povertysplaining to those in poverty I guess you could call it. She is linked to Reform UK though, as she’s the partner of Richard Tice, himself a multimillionaire property developer, so again, fully knowledgeable about life in poverty and when his partner is spilling her guts in the paper basically saying there’s work to be had for benefit claimants if they really wanted it and we should be making them work if they can because the narrative is always one of living on benefits being a lifestyle choice, when if either of this gruesome pair had the slightest inkling of actually living on them, they’d realise it is anything but. I suppose those foodbank lines are people choosing to be that poor they have to access food in that way? You can afford some porridge if you clean our drains though eh Isabel. She was on Question Time last November and made the claim that people on benefits are just mucking around: Even disabled people are not safe to her mind, so would they be under Reform UK? Of course it totally ignores the fact many people forced to foodbanks are already in work, that many people claiming benefits are in work as well, including many disabled people, but the support keeps getting cut, withdrawn, and instead of acknowledging that, it’s all about these people that are apparently lead swinging, because there are so many people out of work, they cite figures of 5m on their website, that that can’t possibly be right, they can’t possibly all be ill, there has to be an issue here and if that is the kind of mindset of Reform UK and it’s leadership, well in what way are they really saying anything different to what Rishi Sunak and Mel Stride have been on the last week or so? Anyway, I thought I’d go onto Reform UK’s website to see if there was anything along the lines of benefit reform plans laid out yet and I found this document on there, they have a policy page, with four documents, one devoted to healthcare, another to Starmergeddon, and a working draft of a social contract I suppose you could call it, but there was another there called Reform is Essential, which, although it didn’t have anything particularly benefits orientated on the face of it, I thought this was probably the best one to go and have a dig through. It’s only 16 pages, most of it devoted to lowering taxes and bashing migrants, but there were a few choice nuggets in here and when I introduced this video as being along the lines of are Isabel Oakeshott’s rancid Torygraph musings akin to Reform UK policy, is that what she’s subliminally peddling here, well, I might not have been all that far off. There’s not a lot on benefits here, its focused on doing one thing somewhere else in order to get people back into work, kind of thinking. So let’s get into it. According to Reform UK, there are 1.5m more people on benefits since the pandemic and they desire a return to pre 2019 levels of benefit claims, feeling this is too high. Nowhere do they seemingly ask themselves why that number rose through the pandemic, they can’t quite seem to grasp that people might have got ill and are still suffering the ill effects of illness. There’s this thing called Long Covid for starters, ever heard of it? I tell what they have heard of, Vaccine injury! Tice and Co want an inquiry into THAT. Now all vaccines carry a risk of adverse side effects and inevitably these can be severe, but the narrative that these jabs which literally saved lives, were inherently dangerous is just garbage, it’s dangerous talk and its why we’re seeing rises in things like measles again now. The consequences of catching the disease outweigh any risk of complications from a jab. Now if for example Reform UK are so obsessed with people being made ill by the jab though, does that not show you that more people are ill due to the pandemic from another point of view though? A nonsense one, but if you believe it, then your own policy idea is still undermined is it not? Of course being Reform UK, they had to shoehorn in immigration to their benefit reform plans, and according to their document here, they believe a zero tolerance approach to immigration – only allowing in the same number of people that emigrate each year, and ensuring they are only the skilled people we need – will raise low wages and encourage people to take up work when they aren’t currently. So by that rationale, you’re still saying everyone on benefits, is there out of choice then? By definition that must be what you think, because how else do you tie more vacancies and better wages, which I am unclear on how that arises, more vacancies creates demand perhaps, but its no guarantee and certainly when you still struggle to fill them, will you accept that some people on benefits simply cannot work, or are you going to find an even bigger stick for them? You can club them with the entire bloody tree, if they can’t work, they can’t work, it doesn’t mean they are feckless but it does appear that this is the thinking within Reform UK. And pretty much that’s all I can find that is in print and concretely written down, but it might as well have been written by Oakeshott herself in my opinion. If you hate the Tories for what they are doing and saying about benefit reform right now, Reform UK are certainly no better than that on the face of it and I’d certainly take anything Oakeshott writes on one hand with the contempt it will almost certainly deserve, but also a window into how that party would run things should it ever become more prominent. And if you think I would leave Labour out of all of this, well here’s a video recommendation for you on that where Starmer formally ditched plans to enshrine the rights of disabled people into law, his party clearly no better either, if you want a good place to start, I’d opt to go and have a look at the Green Party policy pages on that – not only can you find all party policies in detail, but Universal Basic Income as is their plan will restore dignity and end poverty completely and we wouldn’t even have these debates anymore and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so this story seems absolutely nuts, but it seems that not only are Israel using Artificial Intelligence programs to label Palestinian individuals and their families as potential targets for bombing, but that amongst the data used by the AI systems to choose targets is real time data being provided by the social media messaging service WhatsApp, owned by Meta, the umbrella organisation which also includes Facebook. So what is this AI that has been developed, how on Earth can Israel claim to be avoiding excess casualties when it is allowing a computer algorithm essentially to pick targets and how on Earth is WhatsApp data coming into their possession, in real time as it would have to, to target a given person in a given place at that very moment, in order to launch airstrikes on that area? Right, so if you were wondering how on Earth Israel were killing so many innocent civilians, the committing of genocide in Gaza in their relentless pursuit of Hamas and were of the opinion they simply didn’t care, you weren’t wrong in that assessment, but it isn’t actually the entire story either, because it might not be people choosing these targets and being indiscriminate about it, but an Artificial Intelligence program for generating targets is being used by the Israeli military, going by the name Lavender, and it doesn’t appear to be that choosy either, though of course like any AI a lot of that can come from how it is designed and programmed, but also it seems is based on the data it is provided with to generate such responses. Now some news sources ponder the morality and ethics of using such a method to select targets, I personally think we passed that point long ago, but if you still consider the IDF the most moral army in the world or in any way ethical in what they do, the evidence they’ve blatantly planted, from laptops with Hebrew keyboards, to pointing at calendars as if they are some kind of Hamas task lists and weaponry stored behind MRI machines in hospitals, well, there’s probably a Nigerian Prince in your emails with the deal of the century for you. So what is this Lavender AI? Well here’s an excerpt from the Israeli magazine +972 to explain. Prepare to be horrifed: ‘According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.” Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes. During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all. Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses.’ Indiscriminate targeting, the kill lists generated treated as Gospel, which ironically is the name of another AI the Israeli’s apparently use, which marks building for targeting in the way Lavender targets people. +972 also made reference to the IDF choosing unguided missiles for these targets, so-called dumb bombs, which destroy whole buildings, instead of targeting levels, and which of course create more casualties, the basis being the dumb bombs are cheaper and they ‘don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people.’ It's a vile creation, it’s an abuse of AI, which more and more of us are using, and it’s come to light that some of the targeting data of individuals has come from WhatsApp and my good friend Steve Walker at Skwawkbox has been investigating this and in one of his latest articles is indeed asking the very relevant question right now, as to how Israel are getting this data. It tickled me in a weird way I suppose, as we have the prospect of tiktok being banned in the states, because they don’t like the Chinese ownership of the platform and feel threatened by this, and yet US owned WhatsApp might be feeding Israel targeting data, so who’s the bigger social media threat here? How are they getting the data though? Well Skwawkbox postulated a couple of possible ways. Now your data held by any social media platform is protected under confidentiality laws, wherever the platform is based, and indeed the content of any messages on any bigger platforms certainly have a level of encryption involved and certainly this is the case with WhatsApp too, end to end encryption as is the claim, however a 2021 Freedom of Information request to the FBI turned up something rather interesting in relation to WhatsApp and this is that although the message contents remain confidential, sender and receiver metadata can be obtained by the authorities in real time, with no more than a 15 minute lag, whereas other platforms cannot provide such data in anything like as fast a manner and therefore WhatsApp access by the likes of the FBI, by law enforcement, is very useful to them in seeking to apprehend a given target, who might be sending or receiving WhatsApp messages. Could the US therefore, be providing this data, in real time to Israel, or do the Israeli authorities have such access? Bearing in mind that Lavender as stated previously was most heavily used in the early days, post October 7th, how long have they had this AI and how long might they have had access to WhatsApp for? Well, we don’t know for sure that this is how they got the data, but given the real time requirement needed to enact airstrikes, it is certainly plausible. This assumes the US are knowingly allowing Israel access to this WhatsApp metadata though. Perhaps they don’t? Perhaps they’ve been hacked. Another plausible possibility as Skwawkbox identified is the Israeli cyber-security firm NSO, which were sued by Apple back in 2021 for allegedly targeting Apple users with their Pegasus hacking software, which has also targeted WhatsApp users and has certainly been used to ill effect before, it is known for instance that the Saudi’s used it against the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and we know how that story turned out. At the end of the day, these are two possibilities, quite plausible, but we need to know how the Israelis are obtaining WhatsApp data in order to target and kill Palestinians in Gaza. Could this all amount to more charges at the end of the day against the Israeli state or ministers within it? Well we shall have to wait and see, but right now a bigger problem for Netanyahu is that impending potential arrest warrant from the ICC, that Biden is trying to block, but it seems he’s not having much luck! Oh dear, how sad, never mind here’s hoping the ICC stands firm, but will it given the Chief Prosecutor’s Tory links? Well he might, he’s digging his heels in apparently, but find out all about that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so as the Tories decide to begin the week by rounding up asylum seekers like cattle ahead of planned deportations to Rwanda, it seems that isn’t quite enough on it’s own as benefits bashing in the run up to local elections this week and of course a general election at some point this year, if Rishi Sunak can stop running away from it, is flavour of the month once more, because ensuring people who get by on the bare minimum, even despite having additional needs being told they’re going to lose even more is a sure vote winner amongst the hare-brained getting something for nothing obsessives we seem even now to have too many of. As life gets tougher for us all, some seem incapable after 14 years of the Tories doing that to us, to put two and two together and attribute the blame to them, some still think its those on benefits, even if they are disabled. A shrinking minority of people I would hope, but certainly enough that the Tories still think they are a demographic to appeal to and to do that, DWP boss Mel Stride has told such a whopping stinker of a lie about how much people claiming Personal Independence Payment get, he either doesn’t understand his own brief, or doesn’t care to. Too thick or too ignorant, the damage is the same when this wrecks people’s lives and actually recklessly endangers them too. Right, so that was the latest Dr Death in charge of the Department for Work and Pensions there, Mel Stride, talking about the blunt instrument that is Personal Independence Payment, or PIP. According to Stride, it is worth thousands of pounds a month. Can you imagine how people might receive that news? By virtue of a disability, these people, going by what the minister there said, are getting more money than some people do at the end of the month when their wages come in. Can you imagine how some people will react to that? I don’t have to imagine, as a carer when I’ve been out with my disabled wife or daughter, I’ve seen reactions when we pull up in the blue badge spaces and what some people feel emboldened to say to their faces, usually before I’m noticed it has to be said, to which they get the same response I’m going to give to Mel Stride, because clearly he doesn’t know what he is talking about, he is either too thick, or too ignorant to know his own brief, or he’s lying intentionally to ramp up support for more benefit cuts amongst people so dumbed down from reading right wing hate rags, the sort of people who think it is right and just to accost people in the street, by promoting more ill feeling towards them. What the hell do you think you’re doing you clueless, dangerous individual? So let’s shred Mel Stride’s claims here, because they can’t be allowed to stand. First off, PIP is not worth thousands of pounds a month. We’re in April, so if we talk in terms of the maximum possible award here for a moment, PIP is awarded based on two components, a daily living component, the higher rate, for the maximum award, now worth £108.55 a week and a mobility component, the higher rate of which is worth £75.75 a week. PIP is paid every 4 weeks, so this amounts to a maximum possible 4 weekly, so a monthly near as damn it amount of £737.20. Here’s another nugget of info before I move on. Despite nearly being in May, not one PIP claimant in the country has received that amount yet. Why? The DWP, Mel Stride’s department, pay PIP a month in arrears, so the new values won’t kick in until next month. The maximum amount anyone got this month was based on last years rates, which is a maximum 4 weekly amount of £691. Of those people who get that maximum award, many will have a Motability vehicle, Motability being a car leasing charity, who in exchange for the maximum mobility component of the award, will lease the disabled person in question a car. You have to have the maximum mobility component award to get the car. If you get the lower rate of mobility, you can’t lease one, but obviously it would help with public transport costs to make your life easier. So if you need a car, the maximum award you might get in cash terms every 4 weeks, is just £434.20. Not thousands of pounds Mel Stride. People might not qualify for the mobility component at all, they might only get the daily living component, which could by up to £434.20 ever 4 weeks, but if you get the lower rate, that’s £302.60. Where the higher rate of the mobility component is now £303, it could on the lower rate, be just £114.80. You might only get one component or the other, depending on your needs because that’s the biggest thing with disability, even amongst people with the same sort of disability, or life affecting illness, it affects people in different ways and to different extents. Gone are the days when doctors decided these things, those people most familiar with our health issues and in comes PIP with it’s assessors, many of which are not medically trained, the entire idea of the benefit change to PIP and to Universal Credit from the prior system, which although it had its faults, wasn’t in itself designed to remove support, was to reduce the welfare bill, which necessitates by its very remit, the throwing off of some people from the benefits they should actually be entitled to. Getting through PIP assessments, which require a massive form to be filled out and an assessment, which on one hand decides if you’re eligible for anything and if so to what extent based on a one size fits all points system, which, given disability doesn’t work like that, you can see how the Tories have engineered their benefit bill reduction. You have to realise what people use this money for. These are people who cannot get around as normal perhaps. A wheelchair user for example might need their mobility car to get to work and without it, they wouldn’t be able to work. Were you under the impression at this point that PIP was an out of work benefit perhaps? No it isn’t, it is totally non means tested and there to support people in work as well as out of it. People with mental health issues who have qualified might use this money to pay for counselling and therapies of varying sorts. Others might have adaptations that need to be bought and then maintained. Mel Stride spoke of rails, trying to sell his plans of replacing regular PIP payments for some people with one off adaptation grants, but say somebody needs a stairlift. It used to be that, especially if you lived in a housing association or council property, that maintenance of stairlifts and power lifts and through the floor lifts were included in the housing benefit, the landlord in these instances paid for an annual service. The Tories removed that too. So having an adaptation is one thing, but keeping it working then becomes another. Fundamentally, removing the regular payments to people as a move to reduce the welfare bill further, will only serve to isolate people, damage their health further, increase mental health issues, which the government are especially keen to crack down on, believing standard life stresses are being diagnosed as mental health issues warranting extra financial support, never once is it occurring to these depraved thickos that their actions are directly contributing to the rise in cases. There are 3.3m people on PIP in this country. 14 years of Tory rule has seen that number rise to that, but in a country of 67m people, it’s not a lot of people who qualify all things considered and you have to consider other drivers like the fallout from the pandemic amongst that too, Long Covid being a real ongoing issue for many people, but equally as I said before, a lot of these people will be working and stripping them of their ability to work, by cutting the additional support they need to meet their additional needs is false economy all the way. That should be obvious, but the Tories are solely focused now on trying to appeal for votes of course. Instead of handing out sweeteners, it’s now seen as a vote winner to attack minority demographics and paint them as part of a something for nothing culture. Mel Stride telling the world on BBC News that disabled people are getting thousands of pounds every month when all they need is a grab rail is reckless, it’s irresponsible, it’s a straight up lie and will anger people buying into that mantra and potentially endanger disabled people out in public as a result. We know it can and will happen, we’ve seen it before. I eagerly await the UN report on UK disability, because it it is anything like other reports from the UN that have been done covering social security and disability support under the Tories, it will be damning and the Tories will deny it viciously, but it’ll be true. Take from someone who’s family have lived it for enough years to know. In fact whether you’re in work or not you should be hearing alarm bells when it comes to the Tories attitude towards the sick, because they plan to effectively outlaw getting sick now. If you really think the disabled are your enemy, try getting a sick note from the doctor the next time you get ill, because all of a sudden, you’ll need an assessment for that. If this ever becomes law, you’ll find out what the long term sick and disabled have endured for years under the next government but it’ll be too late then after you gave your vote away to combat something fore nothing culture won’t it? That isn’t you so why are you getting treated like this? What did you do? Disability is nobody’s fault and it could happen to any of us, via illness and via accident, so don’t voter away something just because you don’t need it and I hope you never do, but be glad it exists if it does and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so there have been acts of depravity and evil frankly that we’ve witnessed for nearly 7 months now as Israel have made their way through Gaza and as they now verge on a big push into Rafah, to finish the job, the evidence has been uncovered of perhaps one of not, just the worst spectacles of atrocity we’ve yet seen Israeli forces carry out, but possibly one of the most egregious and despicable acts perpetrated in living memory, as the bodies of people have been uncovered in Khan Younis, in the grounds of what was left of the two hospitals of Nasser, where 700 bodies have been uncovered and the Al-Shifa hospital, what was once the largest hospital in Gaza, where 1500 bodies have been found. If you don’t know about this, then that is because right up there with the evidence of mass murder that has been found at the site of these two hospitals, is the fact that our media have barely touched it and where they have, they seem only interested in telling Israel’s version of events. This story is going round the world across social media and it is pretty much the only place you’d know about it from and that is staggering not just because of the scale of evil, and there’s no other word but evil for this, but equally in that there appears to be a concerted move by the media as a whole to play it down. And that scares me senseless, because it has you asking the question just how far will our politicians and media class who are so often intertwined with each other go, for the sake of the people perpetrating a crime such as that we are bearing witness to, if you happen at least to be looking in the right place. Right, so this is a story of such unfathomable evil, you almost look at it and wonder where to begin with this, because, well trying to get your heads around such a large scale example of utter deviance, of what amounts to civilian murder isn’t something we’re designed for, the kind of acts we read in history books that should be consigned to them, that none of us imagined would be something we’d have to deal with in our own lifetimes. Never again moments, shocking us because they are. Perhaps its like I’ve said in other videos, that our media censor so much that we’ve become insulated in the west from such things, but social media removes those blinkers and reveals to us what the media would prefer us not to know, the evil being committed by people allied to our own governments, who continue to aid and arm them even as the hospital grounds of 2 hospitals reveal more than 2000 bodies of murdered people, because mass graves don’t just materialise out of nowhere and claiming these people are all Hamas as we know some of the worst spokespeople will, is just sick. Hospital grounds as these were, investigation clearly found who was dead and buried and of course it was going to full of patients and hospital staff. Akram Al-Satarri, a freelance journalist based in Gaza has reported that the evidence shows that the bodies being found consist of patients and medical staff and that the manner in which they have been found was consistent with many of them having been buried alive. Many of those found still had cannulas in, still had catheters in. Others were found with their hands bound including children. Others were found having been shot in the back of the head at point blank range execution style. Other bodies were heavily mutilated, with signs of surgery showing where organs had been removed, eyes, livers, kidneys, removed. What struck me most of all in listening to the report he gave, he was talking to the Democracy Now YouTube Channel, huge US based independent media outlet, was that this wasn’t even the first time he’d observed such scenes as this in Gaza, that in 16 years of him reporting as a journalist, he’d covered similar incidents in 2008 in 2014, in the last several leading up to where we are now, where for the first time we’re hearing about so much of this, the scale and the grim detail of just how Israel oversees, occupies and oppresses the Palestinian people. It is horrifying, not just in the scale, but when you hear that all of this has been done before you realise just how badly western countries, for the sake of their pro Israel alliances have failed to uphold international law and the media has kept us virtually completely in the dark over it. We talk in terms of Israel becoming a pariah state in 6 months from being widely sympathised with globally and you think to yourself now, pariah just isn’t a big enough word and every politician selling their soul to support this shouldn’t be within a million miles of power. Now, because of social media, because of independent media doing what the billionaire owned press repeatedly fail to and the insane levels of bravery you have to have to be a journalist in Gaza, where having the word ‘Press’ splashed across your chest and back don’t mean Jack as far as being protected from being shot at by the IDF goes, but now the UN and others are saying there needs to be an investigation. It’s not good enough, sorry screw that, sanctions on Israel pending the result of this investigation. End the aid, end the arms, look at what they are doing with it when you give it to them. Bodies being found in scrubs, having had their organs illegally harvested, go on, say it’s Hamas again! Nobody in their right mind can possibly listen to these accounts, see the chillingly graphic images on social media and keep exonerating Israel as if anyone else in Gaza was remotely able to commit such a scale of genocide in hospitals, of staff and patients. I am writing this and I am genuinely struggling to not say something that cause this not to be published because it is so hard to convey how this makes me feel and to give this story the weight it ought to have. We have seen this rage on for months now, we’ve seen Israel destroy churches and mosques, destroy schools kill so many people in Gaza, innocent people tens of thousands of them and then you get cases like these two hospitals in Khan Younis and realise these people are not just being killed indiscriminately, butt hat it is actually even worse than that, it is as bad as it can be. I can’t fathom the terror these people will have felt. Being buried alive, being made to get down on your knees knowing you’re going to be executed for no more than being Palestinian. But then they can’t even leave you be dead with out desecrating you. Stealing your organs, I mean my God. We are, if not before now which frankly we were, but definitely now at a point where arms sales and other military aid to the Israeli regime has got to end. It must stop now, there must be no forgiveness of any politician not doing supporting such a move and how in light of this any of them cannot be seen as complicit in genocide I do not know. I’ll single out the US though because Genocide Joe is saying there will be no US participation in the investigations here. There is no bigger enemy of the Gazan people aside from Israel than the US right now. Frankly I challenge, no I dare right now any politician to try and justify any of this, because right now any of that, any talk of of denying that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, denying what is in front of all of our faces in this story, is just pure hatred of Palestinian people. When we go out and protest against this every single weekend, we’re supposed to believe the likes of Gideon Falter who the media couldn’t platform enough a week ago that these are hate marches, and that he just wanted to cross the road and not disrupt. When Suella Braverman calls them hate marches and demands the head of the Met Police resign for not taking stronger action when protest is still our right and always will be even if you try to take it from us, again the media all talk over that story too. Student protests in America spreading around the world now to other countries and they have the police attacking them as their views become secondary to national interests in Israel. That gets more coverage than the reason they are protesting. It is twisted. But where were the media to tell this one though? Where are they here? Sky did a piece on Tuesday, talking of the UN human rights chief’s horror at what had been found at Nasser, yet they by-lined this with: ‘Israel says it examined bodies previously buried by Palestinians near Nasser hospital while checking to see if any of its hostages were among the dead. It says claims it buried the bodies initially are "baseless and unfounded".’ Israel’s response there. Of course. God forbid they don’t get their denial in. The Guardian reflected those optics in their coverage of the same story, but they were exceptions, because most just ignored it. And now, having seen what has happened here, our politicians and our media, sit and wait seemingly for it all to happen all over again in Rafah. This isn’t good enough and I wish I had an answer for what I think must be done. Here? Well, we’ve local elections happening later this week, perhaps send a message to the Tories and to Starmer’s Labour both, both of them utterly and unapologetically pro Israel by casting a vote elsewhere and when the media come crawling around for opinion, tell them it’s a protest vote for their siding with Israel. Tell them it’s a solidarity move with Palestine, but at the end of the day with politicians like this, with the Israel Lobby so influential amongst them, with all that spells for how this country might be run as far as we’re concerned, as far as Palestine goes, there will be no change in direction, without a change in our politicians and the media in what it decides is newsworthy and what is not a drastic change is needed at that. Too often it is left to smaller, yet far more credible independent media outlets to deliver and thanks to social media, that does somewhat level the playing field, but they rely on all of us to highlight and point to and read and share and support to do so, one of which, Declassified UK made an appalling discovery that again the mainstream have totally ignored, a grubby deal between the UK and Israel due to last until 2030, find out all about that one in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks

Right, so this weekend has been full of news about another Tory defection to Labour, Keir Starmer once again throwing his arms wide open to welcome another rancid right wing Tory to his Labour Party, they do seem to be such a good fit these days after all. No checks, no nothing, just straight no matter what they might have said or what they might have done or indeed what they’ve voted on in the past. Where left wingers fail to get selected for liking the Foo fighters, or liking a tweet once upon a time by the Green Party, being a Tory apparently doesn’t preclude you in any way of joining his Labour Party as an MP, but there’s another less spoken about angle to this, and that is the Israeli ties that this Tory MP has, that perhaps earned him his free pass in the Party of Zionist with out qualification Keir Starmer, so by all means lets talk about newly minted Labour MP, the Tory defector Dr Dan Poulter, who’s politics in no small part make him a good fit for what is now a Tory B Team, but also a Party likely more pro Israel than the one he just left. Right, so Tory MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Dr Dan Poulter has defected to Starmer’s Labour, and exactly as happened when Christian Wakeford defected to Labour from the Tories a couple of years ago, Keir Starmer opened his arms, crowed to high heaven about such a coup, that even Tories are now choosing Labour as if this is some kind of great win, when actually it should horrify naturally Labour voting members of the public, not to mention those members of the party who actually care what the party stand for and not just about winning for the sake of winning as seems to be Starmer’s strategy, not quite knowing what he’ll do when he gets there, but his ambition as we already know far surpasses any political ability he might have. If Tories are welcome in the Labour Party, then it is no longer the Labour Party. End of, find someone else to vote for. Starmer even went as far as issuing a statement saying: ‘It’s fantastic to welcome Dr Dan Poulter to today’s changed Labour Party. My Party is back in the service of working people. Our mission is to grow the economy and rebuild our public services. I’m delighted that Dan will be helping us get the NHS back on it’s feet. Across the country more and more people are switching to Labour because they know only this changed Labour Party can deliver the change Britain needs. It’s time to end the Conservatives chaos, turn the page and get Britain’s future back. I’m delighted that Dan has decided to join us on this journey.’ Now I appreciate that might get some people’s blood pressure boiling, the immediate response to that being one of, you’ve written about Tory chaos, when you’ve literally just welcomed one of them into your ranks, no ifs, no buts, no equivocation, not to mention the changed party has been changed into the Tory Party B team, the plan to grow the economy is built on zero investment it seems and the NHS getting back on its feet apparently means more privatisation! Making this even more pointless and vapid, the brazen politicisation of this move, is the fact that Poulter, despite defecting, is still going to stand down at the next General Election, it’s not like he’s jumped ship because he thinks he’s losing his seat, though this is the natural conclusion many people will jump to, such is what most people think of the Tories, but it shows Starmer has damaged his reputation in the eyes of Labour voters, for a one day headline. What is the point? Well he continues to chase Tory voters, they seem to be the only voters that matter to him, his natural long time supporting voters he expects to stay whatever he does, not necessarily true in favour of pulling in disaffected Tories who might back him now, but won’t in future. There’s also the small matter of Poulter being subject to a misconduct probe into inappropriate behaviour with women 6 years ago, but that hasn’t precluded him being auto welcomed into the parliamentary Labour Party. Meanwhile of course Diane Abbott remains suspended after a year, for sending the wrong copy of a letter to a newspaper. Starmer is a political pygmy, but that’s nothing most of us don’t already know either. But actually there could be more to this as I alluded to in my intro, which I’ll come onto in a moment. Now Dan Poulter has of course made his excuses for leaving the Tories and he’s citing the NHS for this and what they are doing to it. He’s been an MP since 2010, 14 years, he therefore saw the Lansley Health Reforms introduced, the single most damaging assault on our NHS ever, as competition on steroids got introduced, already had been going on under the previous Labour government as we know and the Major government before that when stuff like PFI got introduced, which Blair ran with, Andrew Lansley picked up the baton when the Tories got back into power and saw even more health services outsourced to private companies and this is why we have a poorer health service despite so much more money being put into it as right wing media mouthpieces love to point out, but when more of it is going into the pockets of shareholders of outsourcing companies, it doesn’t tell the story of how much money is actually getting used as we might believe it is. This is a guy who resigned from the British Medical Association, the Doctors Trade Union in 2012, when they voted to strike over reforms because he didn’t believe doctors should ever go on strike. They should have to Dan, that’s the truth, yet you were part of the government at that point that drove them to it. But now, after 14 years as an MP seeing the damage to the NHS his now former party had done throughout all of that time, he has now decided that NOW the Tories are a danger to the NHS and thinks Labour would be better, therefore he’s joined them for however long is left before the general Election. Has he ever met Wes Streeting? Streeting is of course Starmer’s weasel of a shadow Health Secretary and he has been creaming his pants at the thought of more outsourcing, more involvement of the private health sector, even though it has no capacity to do so. Everything Poulter has previously supported. In fact Streeting’s tweeted out response to Poulter’s defection makes me wonder if he had ever met Dr Dan, as he said: ‘Proud to welcome Dr Dan Poulter MP to the Labour Party. As a frontline clinician, he’s seen the damage that 14 years of Conservative government have done to our NHS. Delighted to have his support and look forward to working with him, especially on mental health reform.’ You might want to look at his voting record you absolute weapon. But then there’s couple of reasons that actually roll into one concerning Dr Dan Poulter and why Wes Streeting might be fanboying him a bit at this point and with Labour wanting more private sector investment, that might pay off for Dr Dan too, so is this more the reason he’s defected? Back in 2021 Poulter became a non executive director of a company group called Kanabo. Now Poulter as it happens, is a psychiatrist, that is his field of medicine, so joining Kanabo, which is a medicinal cannabis company, knowing the psychological effects of cannabis use, be this a medicinal company or not is an interesting one, but even more interesting is the fact that Kanabo are based in Israel, so is this as much part of the reason he has been welcomed into Labour, as vociferously pro Israel as they are then? Well, Poulter resigned from Kanabo just over a year ago now according to Companies House, however combined with alleged links to the likes of the Jewish Chronicle, who’s funding is disturbingly mysterious and lobbying for Israeli interests – certainly for a good two years he had business links in that regard too, during which time he may have been lobbying, why else do politicians take up directorships, be they executive or non-executive after all? So there might be even more to his pro Israel proclivities than at first look. The question this brings to my mind is given how pro Israel Keir Starmer’s Labour is, did this preclude any skeletons in in Poulter’s closet, from the NHS policy he was part of, former health minister as he has been, to those Israel links and again it begs questions about what sort of government this changed for anything but the better Labour Party has for government going forwards? We know Poulter won’t be part of it, at least not in parliament, behind the scenes who knows? So this story right now is one of embarrassment for the Tories, but it should worry those backing Labour too, it should be making you think. And if the NHS and Labour potentially continuing the destruction of it where the Tories leave off hasn’t got you thinking, perhaps U-turning on cleaning up our water and rivers will as instead of cleaning up, Starmer’s changed Labour just voted with the Tories to weaken the powers of our already weak water company watchdog OFWAT, so that they have to allow these polluters to prioritise profits over handing out fines. That economic growth Labour keeps bleating about? Seem there’s no limit to what they’ll do to deliver, including stink up our rivers even more and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so despite everything the Israeli regime have done, it seems there’s no low in this ongoing genocide that will apparently prompt the UK government to do the right thing and take some proactive approaches to dealing with the scale of destruction and loss of life happening in Gaza, but now it seems there might actually be an explanation for that, because frankly I don’t know which is the more unbelievable issue here, what this Tory government actually did months before the events of October 7th that are now seemingly tying their hands, or the fact that the mainstream media have utterly ignored it, leaving it to be unveiled by independent media outlet Declassified UK and their excellent journalism because thank God there are some people in this country still capable of actual journalism, because we should have known about this over a year ago and they sure as hell didn’t do this in our name or our interests if they’ve kept it so damn quiet. Right, so what have the Tories done Damo, what is it that explains their consistent acquiescence to Netanyahu’s regime? Well it’s not news to say that Israel is considered an ally by the UK, we did have a hand in creating the now genocidal pariah state, but the extent of that alliance goes further than just warm words and the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the UK and Israel back in 2021, itself an appalling act, Israel was behaving then no better towards the Palestinian people and their lands that it occupies then as it does now, but last March, the Tories beefed that memorandum of understanding up to an Accord and everything we’ve witnessed since has been in line with that new Bilateral Agreement, that policy, named the 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations, published on the government website on the 23rd March last year, the same day it was signed by the Foreign Office and the Foreign Ministry of Israel and apparently nobody has ever noticed it and it is properly vomit inducing in light of everything we’ve witnessed over the last 6 months, but now we know it is this roadmap being put into practice that we’ve actually seen reflected in the actions of our government. Here’s an excerpt of the intro: ‘The bilateral relationship has never been stronger. Our 2 countries complement each other’s strengths. As freedom-loving, innovative and thriving democracies, Israel and the UK are proud of our deep and historic partnership. We are firm friends and natural allies. In November 2021, the British government and the Israeli government, signed a Memorandum of Understanding elevating the UK-Israel bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership. This represented a signal of intent for both countries to cohere, deepen and expand cooperation across our mutual priorities for our mutual benefit. This roadmap outlines how this strategic partnership will continue to serve our collective interests. This roadmap, which defines our bilateral cooperation until 2030, will serve as a ‘living’ document. Through regular high-level engagement, our bilateral relationship will continue to evolve as a more modern, innovative and forward-looking strategic partnership.’ Freedom loving democracies? For who? Deep and historic partnership, sure, it’s one of imperialistic colonialism. Firm friends and natural allies, because apparently our leaders are just as depraved as theirs are then? We have a government wanting to deepen and expand the relationship with Israel, when a majority of the public right now, would much prefer we divested from them instead, certainly globally we’re seeing that, the student protests largely happening in the US but not exclusively and the retaliation from the state against that, shows who’s side said leaders are on. So what sort of things does this roadmap, which lasts until 2030, include then? It quickly mentions security and defence co-operation, well we’ve seen plenty of that when it should be banned, our obligations under international law supercede this verminous piece of legislation. Apparently both are patriotic nations, go stick a flag in it. Naturally there’s a whole section devoted to antisemitism but there’s a particular paragraph in it that is a real stinker: ‘Tackling the disproportionate focus on Israel in the UN and other international bodies, including attempts to delegitimise it or deny its right to self-defence. All states have a duty to comply with their obligations under international law, but scrutiny must be measured, impartial and proportionate. The UK and Israel will work together to tackle the singling out of Israel in the Human Rights Council as well as in other international bodies. In this context, the UK and Israel disagree with the use of the term ‘apartheid’ with regard to Israel. The UK and Israel believe that the latest ICJ referral on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict represents an inappropriate recourse to the Advisory Opinion mechanism as this undermines the efforts to achieve a settlement through direct negotiations between the parties, which remains the only viable path to a lasting peace.’ So apparently the UN are biased against Israel and the UK will stand against that, especially where people talk of its right to exist, which is a legitimate argument within law, as was raised when Nicaragua took Israel to the ICJ, or deny it’s right to self defence, which sadly under the same international law you claim to respect, doesn’t apply to people it occupies. But to actually attack the Human Rights Council for having raised issues and legislate that the UK will not recognise the term apartheid in regards to Israel is abhorrent. That is gut wrenching, Israel is an apartheid state, it oppresses another people based on an ethno-religious basis, writing no on a piece of paper doesn’t change that fact or other people’s acknowledgement of it. Crucially here, despite international law and therefore the initial rulings of the ICJ superceding this farce of a document, that is denied too. But there’s still more. Another section is on Defence and Security and here, they devote a whole paragraph to Iran! ‘Iran: we work closely to counter the current threat from Iran, including the IRGC. We will work to ensure Iran never has nuclear weapon capabilities; we will seek to counter Iran’s destabilising regional activity, including weapons transfers, conducted either by itself or through proxies; and we will confront the threat posed to us both domestically. We support a stable, secure and peaceful region where all can benefit from the rapid advances taking place and closer social, economic and technological ties.’ Let’s not forget Israel attacked their consulate in Syria, there was a response from Iran, a limited one I felt all things considered, but what did we do? Defend Israel from Iranian attack despite that and claim the attack from Iran was unprovoked along with the media supporting who failed to report on this nasty grubby backroom deal with Israel over a year ago back in March of 2023. There is a lot more to this, you can read up on a lot more if you look up 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations, but what I want to look at now is how this deal, this agreement has been implemented. For one, the UK is tied to taking Israel’s side through everything we’re observing even now, though sas I said before international law should supercede it, yet clearly it isn’t by the actions we’re seeing. Despite having seen 40,000 dead Gazans, all manner of international aid workers, not least British ones, arms sales continued. Declassified UK have covered numerous other incidents that can be pointed at in line with this agreement too, with Israeli military aircraft visiting the UK for we know not what, military aid being sent out, and the use of the UK airbase on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, which the US have been using to fly weapons into Israeli via the Nevatim Air Base, which was one of the military target’s Iran chose in it’s return attack on the apartheid state. Israeli personnel are receiving training here in the UK, the RAF itself from Akrotiri has been flying spy missions for Israel. Everything the UK has done leading up to October 7th, and since is in line with this document that you almost certainly will have had no knowledge of at all. It explains why the UK are acting how they are, but doesn’t in any way excuse that, or make it right. I’m also wondering what in all of this talk of bilateralism, we actually get out of this? Is it just arms sales and favourable opinion from the Israel Lobby or what? Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at this, there was similar wording and documentation when South Africa was subject to BDS in its apartheid era, something this document also makes known that the UK opposes, but also South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ has been opposed by ministers here and now too, how many times have we heard Tories say what South Africa is doing is wrong after all? Moreover as Declassified UK have also pointed out and discovered in their research, there is a secret government defence agreement with Israel dating back to 2020, which has never been published and therefore we don’t know what else this rancid bunch have agreed to behind our backs either. It's no wonder international law is on its knees as it fails to be upheld, the ramifications of that failing and us all falling into potentially another world war as a result, the very thing these laws are meant to prevent, are clear to see and our governments are sleepwalking into it seemingly for no other reason than continuing to cosset a state that is committing genocide. It is disturbing stuff that governments are prepared to go to such extreme lengths for extremists and makes you wonder what other starts might have been doing too. Meanwhile, as we continue to see those students kick off around the world at what is being done in their names that they do not want, the price of Zionism is a high one as this video recommendation showing the consequences for the national union of students and the million pound mess they’ve landed themselves in over it will tell you all about, possibly coming to US college campuses soon as well and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so at the risk of distracting from where focus should be, which is the ongoing plight of Palestinians, it’s still important to challenge the ongoing pro-Israeli narratives and we’re seeing that in no small part in the US, on college campuses, students saying enough is enough and being referred to as antisemitic mobs taking over in the words of Israel’s genocidal maniac of a Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, because they wish their colleges to divest themselves of financial interests in Israel, to disassociate themselves from the Zionist regime, very much a not in our names moment and because college administrations have kicked back over this, the movement has spread across multiple colleges and Universities. Young people in America are not backing down. So where will that end? Well for as much as what is happening in the US is gaining a lot of traction, where this ends is demonstrated in an appalling underreported story that has actually been rumbling along for years now in this country, the sacking of a democratically elected union body president for holding anti-Zionist beliefs and the cost of which to her former administration for siding with Israel, which has now passed the £1m mark. Right, so let’s start with what has been going on in the US here, on US campuses, which began at Columbia University in New York, but because of what has happened there, the reaction they’ve got, it has spread, such has been the horrified and appalled reactions by other students in the US and across the world actually as is beginning to take hold also. It began at Columbia, where the students have been protesting the administration there, the New York Times have put an article out reading: ‘College Protesters Make Divestment From Israel a Rallying Cry’, using the chant ‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,’ demanding the school administrators do just that, the D form BDS, possibly the least understood word amongst Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, to divest is simply the opposite of invest, so pull all financial interests they might have in the state of Israel out and this has spread from Columbia, to Yale, Harvard, University of Southern California, Cornell and more. It’s a growing movement, though the divestment demands might vary slightly as this excerpt from the NYT shows: ‘What it actually means has varied in scope, and level of detail. At Yale and Cornell, students have called on the universities to stop investing in weapons manufacturers. Columbia students are demanding the sale of holdings in funds and businesses that activists say are profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the longer-term occupation of Palestinian lands — including Google, which has a large contract with the Israeli government, and Airbnb, which allows listings in Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.’ Now the counter argument being presented is that the effect of divestment from schools, colleges and universities would be negligible, but that isn’t the point. It is students, and teachers it has to be said as well, exercising their right to take a stand against the genocide they see happening, that their government refuses to stop funding and of course as this story becomes bigger and bigger, it becomes more a source of national embarrassment, and when those in charge are so ardently pro Israel, from government level down to school administration level, they haven’t helped themselves in how they’ve reacted, from arrests, to barring students from entering campus, because peaceful protest just isn’t acceptable to them. Footage across social media has shown significant police aggression, yet all the time you have to remember what the so called law are actually standing to protect – Israel being allowed to commit genocide and the state protecting that. At Columbia, students were allegedly attacked with the Israeli chemical skunk, that the IDF use against protesters and Palestinians, delivered by two former IDF soldiers at that so the story goes and reputedly this stuffsmells worse than raw sewage. It’s grim. More grim, was Netanyahu, seemingly belying how insignificant an impact these4 actions might have, putting out a video, a sickening video, calling these protesters an antisemitic mob, conflating hatred of Jews with legitimate criticism of the Israeli state, nothing new there, but he actually went so far as to compare what is happening in America to what happened in 1930s Germany, because he is the sort of person to do that. The genocidalist once more playing the victim and expecting to be believed. He won’t be by those protesting, his arrogance will harden resolve I hope and a great many anti Zionist Jews around the world are expressing solidarity with the students, because there is absolutely nothing antisemitic in what they are doing, standing up for the oppressed and against the oppressors. But where does this ultimately end, or where can it end? Well for an insight into how things can pan out further down the line, it’s worth looking at an ongoing story that has had far, far less coverage and actually takes place here in the UK and this is the story of the sacking of the elected President of the National Union of Students, so this is directly relatable to what is happening in the US, the sacking of Shaima Dallali. Shaima Dallali was elected to the full time employed position of President of the NUS in March of 2022. She has always held staunch pro Palestinian beliefs, she has been outspoken in her condemnation of antisemitism as well, however she is also avowedly anti Zionist, which of course as we know is not antisemitic in and of itself. As much as the state of Israel would like state criticism to be considered racist, it isn’t, but that hasn’t stopped those who think that way, or would seek to use that as a weapon, from seeking to bring her down for her views, even though they are protected under the Equalities Act of 2010. Following her election, the complaints began. Personal abuse and threats as well, all amounting to conflating her legitimate views with being racist, but also, in what strikes me as remarkably Islamophobic, complaints relating to her association with Muslims and Muslim human rights organisations were made as well! Some truly charming people. Choosing to act on these complaints the NUS undertook what became a farce of an investigation, seemingly designed to ensure her dismissal. Complainants were allegedly allowed to decide who would investigate and the terms of the investigation against Shaima Dallali, she wasn’t. She wasn’t allowed legal representation, written submissions from here were refused to be admitted as evidence in her case and the complaints were publicised. She finally learned that she had been dismissed from her role as President in the November of 2022 and found out via Twitter. It was the first day of Islamophobia Awareness Month at that. Well, she hasn’t accepted it and in March of 2023, she commenced Employment Tribunal Proceedings against the NUS, for unfair dismissal and she had had much in the way of well wishes and support already ahead this move, from the likes of the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and FOSIS, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, who represent Muslim students. Part of the statement issues by the Muslim Association of Britain reads: ‘This is the first time in the history of the NUS’ existence that a democratically elected President, who also happens to be a Muslim, black, Hijabi woman, has been removed from their position. There is no doubt that this is an act of Islamophobia that sends a clear message to Muslim students that they are not welcome in the NUS. The NUS is allowing a hostile environment which demonises, marginalises and exposes Muslim students and those engaged in pro-Palestinian activism to Islamophobic attacks.’ Absolutely true in my view, this is very much the hierarchy of racism playing out before our eyes surely? So where do things stand now? Well the case is still ongoing and the costs are adding up. The NUS have accepted that Dallali’s anti-Zionist beliefs are protected under the Equalities Act, but they haven’t relented, they haven’t backed down, they haven’t settled. According to the Times, rare praise for actually covering something relevant for once, showed that the investigation in 2022 cost the NUS £622,500 and legal costs for 2023 amounted to another £222,500. Therefore to date it seems entirely plausible, especially since none of those costs factor in the legal fees covering Dallali’s defamation claim, that the NUS has already shelled out over £1m in fighting this. The cost of Zionism it would seem. Six years ago, the NUS nearly went bankrupt, so how can they sustain this? Well there’s a spokesperson’s quote at the end of the Times piece said the union had: ‘Committed significant time, money and resource to tackling antisemitism in [the] NUS and across the student movement. We will do whatever it takes to achieve this.’ Including go bust? For what? £1m that could and should have been spent on students has instead been wasted fighting a battle instigated not by people fighting antisemitism, but weaponising it instead. Criticism of Zionism isn’t racist, it is a protected characteristic, it is our right to be appalled at what the Israeli regime says and does and no matter how much they say otherwise, it doesn’t make it true and if the NUS lose their shirt fighting this, they’ll only have themselves to blame. Meanwhile of course the weapons sales continue, not just in the US but from the UK as well, David Cameron signing off on more arms sales just two days after the deaths of the World Central Kitchen aid workers no less, three of whom were British, thus giving the impression Cameron values those sales more than he does British lives, find out more about this shocker of a story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so Labour have just voted with the Tories in a measure which will fundamentally impact the ability for OFWAT to fine water companies who continue to pollute our rivers, lakes and seas as we know they have been doing with impunity since EU water cleanliness legislation got dumped following Brexit. We know the Tories have had no interest in addressing this situation because stuff the environment when the economy is flatlining, what we need to see is profit, profit, profit to bring their economic output up, even if that means their outflow contains a lot more nastiness. This is all a part of the government’s desperate last gasp of this administrations ability before they get bounced out of power to promote growth and somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and Labour, instead of standing up for the environment, have instead helped them do this. Why? Because Starmer is apparently too scared to oppose it. What a leader in waiting eh? Right, so Rishi Sunak has built himself up a not at all undeserved reputation for not giving the slightest whiff of a care for the environment and for climate change, the biggest crises of our time, because they require long term thinking to solve. That isn’t the same as kicking the can down the road to the 2050s or 2060s to deal with the likes of river pollution as their current thinking is, that means starting now and not expecting a quick fix, but the only quick fix Sunak is interested in is how to maximise economic output and to hell with the consequences and this is the perfect case in point. You see Sunak’s bunch of ecological extremists have pushed through a duty on the water regulator OFWAT, which will change it’s remit in how it handles water companies. Basically these water companies will now be incentivised to put profit over reducing sewage pollution, what the Tories are calling their Growth Duty, prioritising profits over all else and when we’re all sick and tired of the mess and ecological and environmental damage being done by these sewage spills, it is mad to think the Tories fancy this as a vote winner, but they aren’t looking at the environmental impact, they’re looking ahead to what they hope will be more favourable growth figures. Growth, growth, growth, its an obsession, its impossible to deliver infinitely and at the expense of the environment, with the long term damage this short term thinking will do, it will just cost billions more in the future to put right. Well the Lib Dems, yes remember them? They do still exist, well they forced a vote yesterday at time of writing, the draft Economic Growth (Regulatory Functions)(Amendment) Order 2024, to try and amend the line in the Order reading ‘have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth’ within OFWATs remit, the line which effectively changes the watchdog’s priority when cracking down on water companies and they lost, 395 votes to just 50. Just 50 MPs stood up and stood by the environment and this didn’t include a single Tory or a single Labour member. The ramifications of this change seem obvious to me. Where rampant pollution has happened previously, where the equivalent of slapped wrist fines have been meted out, adding up to a not inconsiderable £100m in cut water bills because of it, instead of addressing that, the Tories are now engineering things so that OFWAT puts greater emphasis on the economic impact to water companies if they are caught polluting and may be as a result of that less inclined than they even were before, to hand out further fines. If OFWAT were regarded as toothless before, this move renders them jawless now along with it. Here’s an excerpt citing the environmentalist viewpoint of this move: ‘Richard Benwell, CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “The growth duty once again privileges business bottom lines over nature. Public demand and environmental need are totally clear – Ofwat should be promoting investment in nature and ensuring polluters pay. “A new duty that obliges the regulator to think twice before taking environmental action is headed entirely in the wrong direction. Parliamentarians are right to oppose this backward step. “The real economically responsible action is to protect the natural assets we depend on. Political parties should commit instead to a new green duty on regulators to ensure they take action to stop climate change and restore nature.”’ What are the point of having these watchdogs, these quangoes, non governmental departments, whatever the given watchdog in anything might be, if they are being charged to turn a blind eye? We all lose out, so Sunak, might get some kind of last minute boost and also be able to point to the drop in fines and say clearly this must mean the water companies are cleaning up, when actually the complete opposite might be the truth of the matter. Now Labour could have stood against this. Sure, the Tories have a working majority still, they likely couldn’t stop it, but they would be on the right side of the argument, so what excuse is given for them to have sided with the Tories instead of siding with the environment, with clean water and holding private water companies accountable for the damage they keep doing? Well apparently, they were too scared to. Keir Starmer is yet again running scared that the Tories might say something mean about him and in this case, they decided, in a move that absolutely should nail on in even the most ardent of Labour supporters minds, that they are just the Tory Party B Team now, are equally as skewed in their priorities and absolutely won’t be doing much different to what is happening now under Sunak and Co, because Labour backed this policy on the basis that they didn’t want to be seen as anti-growth. Red Tories voting with Blue Tories to wreck the environment in the name of profit. I wonder if outspoken water campaigner Feargal Sharkey will be doing another ring-round for the Labour Party after this? Green Party peer Jenny Jones summed this legislation up when it came up in the Lord’s the other week when she said: ‘We have torrents of sewage pouring into our rivers, onto our coastline, into our chalk streams. But instead of stopping it, this proposal aims to increase it and instead of giving Ofwat tougher powers to regulate the water industry…Ofwat are now being told that economic growth is more important than clean water.’ She is absolutely right. There is no excuse for Labour adopting the same position as the Tories on this, you expect them to be money grabbing parasites, Labour are supposed to be better, not just as bad, but to be just as bad for no better reason than being scared of being criticised – and it isn’t the first time I’ve had this argument regarding Labour and especially Keir Starmer, afraid to rock the boat in case the Tories pick on him, well, you’re in the wrong job if criticism scares you, because if he becomes PM he’ll collapse within a week! My God, it was less than a month ago, 29th March, that Starmer was saying that Labour would put sewage dumping water companies into special measures and then he goes and votes like this? Just shows what he says and does are always two different things. The Tories will always be mean, they are the nasty party, but so is Labour now and for the most pathetic of reasons. If Tory scorn scares them so much, they will run the country as if the Tories never left. Of course if we get real about this though, it’s only certain criticism they will fear and it will be over the economy, because of course whoever is winning the argument on the economy is going to be the party heading for power. That is how it has always worked. Right now, Labour can’t lose it seems, that massive polling lead of theirs, why should they fear criticism from the has been Tories who will soon get annihilated when Sunak finds his spine and calls the election? Perhaps their lead isn’t as solid as they imply at times and certainly pulling stunts like this, siding with the Tories, well that should be punished in my view. They should be more afraid of supporting them on anything, than being seen as a worse economic option, but then perhaps it isn’t a matter of votes, but of donors and if Labour are seen as being anti business, anti-growth, now reliant on donors as the party is, they might lose them and then where will they be, as un popular as Starmer is, his Party having spurned and purged so much of it’s active membership? Fundamentally I think this is nearer the mark. Starmer’s party is now as bought and paid for as Sunak’s is and therefore cannot afford to act in our interests even as they court our votes. I shan’t be wasting my vote on either party, I’ve never voted Tory and I never will, regardless of the colour of rosette they wear. The only Party that is going to prioritise the environment and our waterways, renationalising these blasted companies, taking back control of our water and making sure it gets cleaned up, is the Greens and that’s where my vote will be going. Renationalisation of water isn’t simply an economically sensible decision, though the outlay could be significant, because again we have to look long term about this, it will take time to fix what the Tories have destroyed, there is a moral case for it, to not renationalise is completely amoral, as this video recommendation will set out the stall of, my recommended next watch for you and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Right, so pride, patriotism, flying the English Flag on St George’s Day, is this something you do? Is this something you take pride in? If so why? Now I’m not one such person, I’ll say this up front, but then I consider myself Cornish rather than English, I have no issue with flags per se, the Cornish Flag of Cornwall’s Patron Saint, St Piran, is incorporated into my logo, it’s nice to have pride in your roots and flags certainly symbolise that. The trouble is, the English Flag, much like the Union Flag, is becoming more and more a source of shame for a lot of people and for no small wonder when we see what is being done in our name and who is being seen as representative of British patriotism, more and more being seized upon by the far right, more and more seen as a symbol of racism and not national pride, not to mention a symbol of hypocrisy too, especially amongst our political class because St George wasn’t just the English patron saint after all. Right, so, St George’s Day, not a day many of us will have celebrated, unlike other saint’s days we don’t get a bank holiday for it for one and that might be one reason why scenes like this happen every year, the day being marked by scenes such as this, the far right draping themselves in the flag claiming as they so often do to be patriots, expressing civic pride by getting pi**ed as a newt and causing chaos in the streets, fighting with the police, with 6 arrests ending up being made. Whilst it is just an ordinary work day for most of us, in large part probably not even acknowledging it even was St George’s Day since it makes no difference to us, it gets left to the likes of this bunch to mark the day and therefore the day gets remembered for scenes like this, rather than anything remotely to do with national pride. It becomes a day or national embarrassment and shame instead as this is how the eyes of the world see the English. No doubt apart from wearing the flag, they probably have it plastered all over their social media as well, along with the word patriot no doubt. Well, there’s nothing patriotic in the police needing to organise a response that requires riot gear is there? One of these a*seholes yesterday actually hit a police horse with their umbrella. It's no wonder the English Flag is seen more and more as something to fear, as something representative of far right ideals rather than anything else, not helped by the presence of people like Tommy Robinson and all in a ll it looked very much like the far right’s last show of fake patriotism last year, when the Cenotaph was desecrated. Due to how the flag has been adopted in the way it has by the far right in this country, it has arguably become more a symbol of racism and this isn’t even a recent thing, because for decades it’s been used as a symbol of white supremacy, of leftover imperialistic leanings, for people of colour it is a symbol of something to fear and this was spelt out on Good Morning Britain by guest Dr Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham University who said: ‘The English Flag isn’t just a symbol of racism, it may be the primary symbol of racism in this country, because of how it has been adopted and co-opted by the far right. In my mum’s generation it was keep Britain white and being chased down the street being called a m**key. In my generation it was the National Front telling me to go home and now you have the EDL the BNP and all these other groups right? And to be fair, if all the same people hurling out all this abuse, waving this flag, having it tattooed on their chest, then what else could it possibly be?’ Scenes such as those in London that we saw, it’s pretty hard to disagree, especially with the lived in experiences he and his family and absolutely so many other people of colour in this country have experienced. Dr Andrews summed it up well further on in his interview when he said unless it is a match day, seeing that flag being flown in a pub meant it was a no go zone – a real no go zone, not the fake ones again right wing voices claim exist in this country and naturally they were full throated in their opining on these scenes of disruption in London. Former Tory Party Campaign Organiser and media mouthpiece Sophie Corcoran took to twitter deciding to do a yeah but what about Just Stop Oil attack on the police for taking to task these ‘patriots’ and not peaceful protesters blocking roads. It’s called upholding the law, a little thing called causing a public disturbance. I know it offends your sensitive snowflake right wing proclivities, but people are still allowed to protest. She also wrote whilst captioning Just Stop Oil protesting and the scenes from London with the police: ‘Police when you’re woke breaking the law, vs police when you wear an English flag on St Georges day’ Again, Just Stop Oil weren’t breaking the law. Stamp your tiny feet, scweam and scweam until you’re sick, but it doesn’t change anything. Good of Soph to bring up the far right swathed in their flags and reinforce the opinion of Dr Andrews I felt though, when noting the need for the police to step in there. She was particularly vocal as another tweet of hers also bears mention, again attack the police: ‘They stand there and watch just stop oil break the law They stand their and watch Palestine protestors use extremist language and support terrorism But all of a sudden they learn how to police when a bit of patriotism is involved.’ No doubt someone will have spotted the grammar and punctuation mistakes of this so-called journalist there, I’ve left them in as I’m quoting her directly, so don’t have a go at me for them, but it tickled me no end that Corcoran now chose to attack Palestine protesters too, because when as the title implied I asked where was Gideon Falter in all of this, this disruptiveness and if Corcoran bothered with research too, she’d know that St George isn’t just the Patron Saint of England, he’s also the patron Saint of Palestine. You’d imagine Falter and his ilk ought to be calling the entire celebration of St George antisemitic then surely? St George was a Roman Soldier, his mother was a Palestinian and he never came to England, so he has more in common with Palestine, more times to Palestine than he ever did to England, but then he’s also a Patron Saint in Ethiopia, Brazil, Iberia, Bosnia and many other places besides. The only link he really has to those swathed in flags disrupting the police in London in my opinion, is that he also happens to be the Patron Saint of skin disease sufferers and syphilis. Of course being tied to Palestine via Patron Saint certainly isn’t enough to sway our politicians either, who do little to discourage the abuse of the flag when frankly they do it themselves, weaponising it for political gain. None have been more obvious about that than Keir Starmer, who is frankly running of places to stick more flags up around himself, has now got it plastered all over Labour membership cards, but equally, when the flag has come to symbolise right wing leanings, is abused by the far right as it is, to see any politicians doing likewise becomes off-putting too. Starmer put out a gushing video yammering on about pride and national identity, yet how can we be proud, especially when it’s coming from him, when he supports Israel, still committing genocide in Palestine, the flag of Saint George, also being a flag flown there, the red cross on white background has been his symbol since the Middle Ages, it’s not actually unique to us, owned by us, just because we tend to use it more. The flag has become a symbol of division in our society, not cohesiveness, yet Starmer has also said he wants to use the flag as a symbol of patriotism, a mark of patriotism. Why? Jeremy Corbyn again. Yes, the jam making vegetable botherer is still living rent free in Starmer’s head, his justification is because under Corbyn, the Labour Party was seen as not patriotic. Why is that? Because he wouldn’t bow low enough to the Queen? Those scenes on the streets of London are how that flag and patriotism go together. It’s horrible. Public services crumbling, we’re all harder up and worse off, and he wants to talk about flags making it better. If you want to make the flag a symbol of something good again, then do something about it. Jeremy Corbyn had planned on making St George’s Day a Bank Holiday. Everyone could then celebrate it, how that flag comes to be remembered could be far different than it is now, being allowed to be dictated by the far right, and just talking about flags and standing against flags like Starmer insists upon, just makes you look like one of them. Make it stand for something different, or is that not possible because it was Jeremy Corbyn’s idea? As for the Tories because who could leave them out of this, they solidly reinforced the belief that the flag symbolises racism as their rancid Rwanda Bill happened to pass on St Georges Day. If that doesn’t sum up the meaning of patriotism in England in this day and age here and now I don’t know what does and nothing sums Tory failure up quite like it does either as this video recommendation will fill you on all the reasons that Bill will still fail and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.

Members of the TSSA union have balloted for strike action just 6 months into the tenure of their new General Secretary... Right, so rail strikes. We’ve had them before but the strike action balloted for this time is a bit different. No Mick Lynch this time, we’re not talking about the RMT so sorry to disappoint you there perhaps, Lynch is a competent trade unionist and his union have a great deal of respect for the man, as do many members of the public who have seen him bodying anyone trying to go up against him and failing miserably. No, the union in question is the TSSA, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, a union that had already been rocked by the exposure of bullying and sexual harassment in the ranks, to the point a full enquiry into matters had been launched by Baroness Helena Kennedy, a KC, and the previous General Secretary, Manuel Cortes was sent packing. The reason for the strike action now, is because despite promises to implement the recommendations of the Kennedy Report – which itself followed on from another report into bullying and intimidation, the Conley Report - it hasn’t happened. It appears nothing has actually changed at all despite the election of a new General Secretary, who incredibly, has in the space of just 6 months, driven members to strike again, for all the same reason it appears as before. Right, so the TSSA are going on strike, rail strikes again, the TSSA are a rail union, but not exclusively so, they represent workers from across the travel and tourism industry and as such represent people from rail to shipping, to IT. It’s a union that has been mired with problems for a significant length of time as the Kennedy Report showed, the union harboured a culture of sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation of staff, it was so damning, that senior figures were swiftly removed or resigned, the house was supposed to be cleaned out and a new era for the union to begin should have been what happened, but it hasn’t. Naturally there had to be a new General Secretary elected and the Kennedy Report recommended that this should be someone promoted to that level from within the ranks, someone familiar with the union and it’s membership, their needs represented by the necessary experience. Sadly that didn’t pan out, rather unfairly, those in the TSSA overseeing the process, chose to publicly back one candidate above all others, making a recommendation to members on who to vote for, the establishment choice you might say. The TSSA’s own website still has this advice on it, reading: ‘The process is underway to elect our union’s next General Secretary, it is up to you – our members – to decide who leads our union. The way we elect our General Secretary has changed for this election, for the first time your Executive Committee has nominated a candidate and is recommending that members vote for Maryam Eslamdoust as the candidate best placed to implement the cultural change that TSSA needs and deliver membership growth and industrial success.’ ***Subscribe to the channel here*** https://www.youtube.com/KernowDamo?sub_confirmation=1 ►ABOUT ME: Hi, I'm Damien Willey. I'm a former welder, but now I'm a writer, blogger, vlogger and presenter and interviewer with Socialist Telly (Please do go and visit what we all get up to on https://www.youtube.com/c/SocialistTelly) I'm an unpaid carer for my disabled wife and daughter and as such we know all too well the difficulties that associated with that living in Tory Britain and I personally believe the answer lies in socialism. This channel, along with my other social media act as outlets to push back against that, to demand better of our politicians and leaders, to pull apart the media spin that supports them and the way the UK is run and to give a voice, loud as mine is, to the voiceless. ►CONTACT: Email: damien.willey@outlook.com ►SUPPORT: If you appreciate the importance of alternative media in the UK and enjoy my work please consider financially supporting it. Various options to suit all budgets, please visit linktr.ee/KernowDamo to find out more. Please support Independent Media. ►SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Alternatively please share this video on your favourite social media & if you'd like to see what I get up to elsewhere, yoy can also find links to my presence elsewhere at linktr.ee/KernowDamo Damo Rants Kernow Damo rail strike,rail strike news,rail strikes,rail strikes uk,rail strike update,uk rail strikes,rail strike latest,uk rail strike,strikes,strike,train rail strikes,unions,mick lynch,train strikes,union strike,working conditions,train strike,railway strikes,tssa,tssa rail union,maryam eslamdoust,tssa rail strike,tssa strike,tssa no confidence vote,maryam eslamdoust tssa,kernow damo,damo rants,gmb union,tssa bullying,skwawkbox,tssa strike ballot

Footage of pro Israel advocate Gideon Falter attempting to disrupt the Palestine March through London last weekend has gone viral. Right, so once more this weekend we've seen epic solidarity marches for Palestine happening up and down the UK and in other parts of the world too, but this weekend, one chap in particular has drawn attention to himself and this is a guy called Gideon Falter, who was seen in London, in video footage that has gone viral trying to walk against the flow of the pro Palestine march in London, being prevented from doing so by the police amidst claims to have been just passing through. He wasn't. He allegedly turned up with a guy yjat must have been pushing 7ft as a bodyguard and a cameraman, drew attention to himself and got himself platformed by mainstream media as a result. So what was he playing at? Less important is he was doing, rather more important, is why he was doing it and in who's interests. Right, so that was a selection of clips featuring pro Palestine march botherer Gideon Falter. He was taken to task by the police for trying to disrupt the march that happened last week and was prevented from doing so. The second clip there showed his extremely large bodyguard and cameraman as he was taken aside by the police. This wasn't Falter's first attempt to interfere with a march as last November, as the next clip showed, he tried to drive what was apparently a promotional van as close to the crowd as he could forcing the police to step in again and of course protesters to do what protesters do, even if they didn't know Falter himself, they'll have no doubt known the livery on his van. And the fourth clip is Falter having won his moment in the spotlight, being taken to task by someone a darn sight more knowledgeable and honest in Ben Jamal, the Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, because absolutely there are Jewish people in these marches, a lot of them, huge numbers of Jewish people are as appalled if not more so by the actions of Israel in Gaza and historically throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories and are very much on these marches wherever they are happening. But Ben Jamal also made another comment in another part of that interview he had with Kay Burley, where he said: 'People need also to be aware of who Mr Falter is and the organisation he represents.' I very much agree and indeed it is who Falter represents that is arguably more important that who Flater himself is and there are two organisations I want to talk about here, I know which one Ben Jamal is referring to, but there is another that Falter is linked to and it's important they are both more widely known about because it sets out the agenda he and these organisations have. So let's cease at this point to pay Mr Falter any more attention, it is I fancy, what he craves and sufficient mainstream sources have given him the platform to complain about Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley and demand he resign for letting people march in solidarity with Palestine, free speech evidently only extends as far as his own opinions go, the platform to complain these marches should be banned all playing into the hard right narratives about hate marches. ***Subscribe to the channel here*** https://www.youtube.com/KernowDamo?sub_confirmation=1 ►ABOUT ME: Hi, I'm Damien Willey. I'm a former welder, but now I'm a writer, blogger, vlogger and presenter and interviewer with Socialist Telly (Please do go and visit what we all get up to on https://www.youtube.com/c/SocialistTelly) I'm an unpaid carer for my disabled wife and daughter and as such we know all too well the difficulties that associated with that living in Tory Britain and I personally believe the answer lies in socialism. This channel, along with my other social media act as outlets to push back against that, to demand better of our politicians and leaders, to pull apart the media spin that supports them and the way the UK is run and to give a voice, loud as mine is, to the voiceless. ►CONTACT: Email: damien.willey@outlook.com ►SUPPORT: If you appreciate the importance of alternative media in the UK and enjoy my work please consider financially supporting it. Various options to suit all budgets, please visit linktr.ee/KernowDamo to find out more. Please support Independent Media. ►SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Alternatively please share this video on your favourite social media & if you'd like to see what I get up to elsewhere, yoy can also find links to my presence elsewhere at linktr.ee/KernowDamo Damo Rants Kernow Damo israel,israel hamas war,israel war,israel news,israel gaza war,israel attack,gaza,israel palestine,gideon falter,antisemitism,campaign against antisemitism,racism,caa,met police,uk news,sky news,jeremy corbyn,anti israel protests,no go zones,mayor of london,victim blaming,openly jewish,anti semitism,sadiq khan,jewish national fund,jnf,jnf uk,zionism,israeli settlers,kernow damo,damo rants,iran israel,jvl,jewish voice for labour,jlm,ben jamal

Right, so the House of Lords as they so frequently seem to do, have finally backed down over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill and it has passed. Perhaps after seeing nearly a quarter of a billion pounds spaffed on this scheme so far, with Sunak seemingly intent on spending whatever it takes to see this happen, they figured a return was needed? Perhaps they were just sick and tired of debating this as the night drew on, late night votes a tactic to force the hand of tired peers, though given how often we see peers sleeping on the job anyway, I’m not sure why this is so off-putting to some of them, but in all seriousness as invariably happens, the peers decide to ‘acknowledge the primacy of the House’, which is to say they throw in the towel and let the Commons get its way. This is supposed to be Sunak’s big deterrent to those crossing in small boats, but it won’t be, it is doomed to fail and more people will die trying to cross, 5 more fatalities in the Channel happening as this law was being debated in the Lords, just to prove it. This plan is doomed to fail, it cannot possibly work for all manner of reasons and when it fails, things will get consistently worse for the Tories electoral chances. Right, so the Rwanda Bill has passed the Lord’s stage, it’ll now go on to get royal assent and pass into law. Sunak is positively bouncing with glee as people, the likes of his own parents, who come here as migrants, people who come here to seek asylum, now faced deportation to Rwanda. Or do they really, because you can pass all manner of crackpot s**thousery into law, just because it becomes law does not mean it is good or right, or even workable and when it inevitably blows up in the Tories faces yet again, the blame game will start again, Starmer can smile to himself as the votes roll in for him in response, despite doing and standing for absolutely nothing, or absolutely nothing different, because the Tories become seen yet again, as stupefyingly incompetent. The Rwanda scheme is a ball and chain around their necks, yet they can’t resist wearing it. It’s punching themselves in the face and calling it winning votes. So it’s law now then. Great, when will the first flights take off then? Well Sunak is gurning all over right now, saying July, no ifs or buts, however there is one very big but here, a great big fat elephant in the room, which is who is going to fly these people to Rwanda then? Which airline is prepared to do so, because they weren’t exactly queueing up at the door of Number 10 to accept contracts for this job before? Well one body advising airlines to give this work a wide berth is the UN, who have issued a warning to airlines not to take up these flights, not to accept the work, because if they do, they could be held responsible for violations of international humanitarian law. Both airlines and their regulators could end up being found guilty of complicity in any human rights violations as a result of people being sent to Rwanda, but I’ll come back to the legalities of this in a moment. If major airlines are not likely to want to risk being grounded over accusations of human rights violations, accusations and charges even of human trafficking would not be good for business, then who would be? Well, it seems Sunak has possibly thought of that already and again proving that money is no object, because Sunak is apparently going to charter private flights, an airfield and commercial charter planes are already booked for specific flights. Well how much is that costing then? Well we don’t know the charter company, we don’t know the deal the government might have done with them, but we do know it is a damn sight more expensive than a standard commercial flight. I went onto a flight booking site, I used Kayak, and an economy flight on RwandAir, from Heathrow to Kigali, costs £591 if I planned on leaving on the 6th May. Last month, James Cleverly, our misnamed Home Secretary went to Rwanda to sign a new treaty over these deportations and took a private chartered flight, which apparently cost £165,000. Amazing that the Tories can find money for whatever they want whilst letting public services fall into ruin isn’t it? Now I can’t say the disparity will be as great as that, though I do find it entertaining that Rwanda literally have their own flagship airline and they evidently won’t let them be used for these flights either! Whatever the final price tag is though, it will be dearer than ordinary flights the likes of us would take. But of course this all predicates upon these flights getting off the ground. They were stopped before, they will almost certainly be stopped again. Legislating that Rwanda is a safe country is stupid, when under international law it isn’t and under a ruling from our own Supreme Court, it isn’t either. Making laws to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling is one thing, but going to the European Court of Human Rights will ground those flights. It isn’t a foreign court as Sunak keeps inferring, it is an international court. Of course we have the spectre of Sunak threatening to take us out of the EHRC if they choose to stop these flights, which they will and they’ll clog the system up by taking on cases on an individual basis amongst those chosen to be deported. Let’s not forget that for all of Sunak’s posturing about taking us out of the EHRC, it wouldn’t actually matter, because assuming the migrants are coming from a UN member state, they’ll be entitled to EHRC representation versus our own system at that point, having joined the likes of Russia and Belarus as international pariah states. That’s a heck of a step down the road, I appreciate, the bigger question I have given none of us elected Sunak to run the country is who does he think he is even suggesting this, but that’s the extent he says he’d take us to if needs be to get those flights of the ground, all of our human rights having gone in the bin to get to that point as well. Anyway, getting ahead of ourselves a bit there. Suffice to say, legal challenges will again cripple matters, almost certainly past the point of a General Election Sunak is hell bent on losing and as this fails, he’ll lose even more heavily, to no sympathy from anyone. Keep adding up the costs by this point too of course, because as I said at the start, we’re already nearly quarter of a billion pounds into this with Rwanda with not a single migrant deported. As for how many migrants will be deported? Well the Home Office are currently only preparing a list for the first flight that probably won’t take off anyway, so all this gumpf, all this Sunak posturing and they haven’t even got the list yet, but the first list of 200 migrants is currently being drawn up. Yes all of 200 migrants and that is as many as we will be sending to Rwanda each year. That works out as 0.7% of all migrants who came to Britain and claimed asylum in the whole of 2023, let alone all of those from before still stuck in an asylum backlog, some 128,000 people as I understand it at this moment in time, that’s according to a BBC piece from the end of last month and just 200 of them can expect to be put on a flight to Rwanda, so asylum seekers have a 1 in 640 chance of being sent Rwanda anyway and if we take the cost as it already stands at what we’ve spent on this ridiculous Rwanda scheme already, those first 200 asylum seekers, will have cost us £1.2m a piece to send there. Do you really think that’s cheaper than just housing them here? Each migrant could on that basis have paid for half a dozen houses to be built, paid the annual salary of 40 teachers or nurses. The waste is incredible and doesn’t even put a dent in the asylum backlog. The chances of anyone being sent there are next to nil and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this isn’t putting asylum seekers off. Fundamentally, this is where the policy failure is its most damning, because the boats will still come and nothing underlines the failure this policy will be, then the reported deaths of 5 more people trying to cross the channel as the Lords were debating and finally relenting on this policy last night. The I reported that: ‘At least five migrants are reported to have died off the coast of France. A police operation is under way on Tuesday morning after an attempt to cross the Channel. French newspaper La Voix Du Nord has reported at least five migrants have died. It is reported that the French coast guard said there was a failed attempt to cross the Channel and police were at a beach after the incident.’ They will still come. There’s next to no chance that they’ll be sent to Rwanda, they may be stuck in the system for a long time, but that is down to Tory failure to invest in public services, in this case asylum processing. The money they’ve blown on this Rwanda vanity project to appeal to racists and bigots frankly, would have been better used here. Rather than send these people to Rwanda and risk legal cases, delays all costing vastly more, the figures of used as I said are based on things as they stand now, they will get far worse as the Tories will throw more money at this and likely get nowhere. A sane government would have gone down the road of a new returns policy with the EU, so that we take our fair share of migrants. If you are worried about where to house them, ask the government why they’ve failed to build housing sufficient to meet their obligations not only to asylum but to all of us struggling with housing here. The failure is the governments, so do not blame the migrants. If the government wanted to save lives and stop people drowning in the Channel, they could create a legal asylum route, but they won’t and we haven’t one since Blair got rid of the last one we had. Simple legislative moves to save lives and invest in the system to process these claims. Instead the Tories had to turn it into a culture war costing us an arm and a leg in a desperate last bid to save their electoral chances and doesn’t it prove how detached from reality they all are, but especially that worm Sunak, that this is what he thinks appeals to us to vote for him. It’s no wonder the party faces extinction does it? Meanwhile another problem with the Rwanda scheme that positively shattered Suella Braverman’s deportation dreams is the fact that all that lovely housing she implied we were paying for to house them, the housing she visited, has been sold off to local Rwandans because we weren’t paying for it at all, it was affordable housing being half paid for by the Rwandan state, surely they didn’t lie to us? Find out all about that little nugget on this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.