The BBC is backing Boris Johnson. Tactical voting is the only way to beat them & beat them we must

For a man who plotted to rough up a journalist, Boris Johnson has got an awful lot of mates in the media.

In 2007, when I was pregnant, I got an anonymous phone call. “Boris Johnson will be in Thame tomorrow as part of his Mayoral campaign. You should stay away”.  He referenced articles I had written about Johnson’s refusal to insist a local Tory councillor, in his Oxford constituency, remove golliwogs from his upholstery shop window, despite complaints that they were causing offence. A racism row was brewing. An embarrassing backdrop for a London Mayoral campaign.

The caller wouldn’t be drawn on whether he was acting on Johnson’s instructions and I have no evidence that he was. There is no shortage of evidence elsewhere/everywhere, that Johnson is unfit for public office, let alone, the highest office in the land. If he is still prime minister on Friday, it won’t be a feat of Johnson’s merit, but an indictment of the British media’s abject failure to scrutinise him.

There was obvious media bias against Labour throughout the 2017 General Election, but I advised against challenging it, during the campaign. It would have been a huge energy and resource drain. The scale of the bias we’ve seen this time, though, is on an unprecedented scale, and needs calling out. Especially, as we enter the final hours before polling. If 2017 is anything to go by, an orchestrated campaign of character assassination against Jeremy Corbyn, will be unleashed and electoral rules will be broken, with impunity.

What’s different about this election is, it’s not just the usual Tory backing media barons that Labour is up against. If Johnson wins, forensic historians will scour the rubble of a broken Britain, robbed of its NHS, welfare state, humanity and dignity. As well as finding Tory DNA, the BBC’s finger prints will be all over it.

On Tuesday, a global organisation that tackles disinformation online, reported findings that 88% of all adverts by the Conservatives during this election campaign have been misleading, while not a single advert produced by Labour (a big fat 0%) has caused concern. Most news outlets' headlines ran with that shocking statistic. Not the BBC. It went with, General Election 2019: Ads are "indecent, dishonest and untruthful". Implying that all parties are as bad as each other. The truth buried beneath blatant BBC bias.

On Monday night, a fake news story, wrongly accusing a Labour activist of punching a Tory aide was reported by four political journalists, including ITV’s Robert Peston and the BBC's, Laura Kuenssberg. Kuenssberg’s coverage has been singled out, rightly in my view, for the following reasons; a) as licence fee payers, we hold the BBC to the highest standard, b) she has 1.1million followers all over the world who take, on trust, what she says as truth and c) the language in Kuenssberg’s reporting dispensed with the usual journalistic safeguards when reporting a story that hasn’t been verified. Two of the other three reporters prefaced their claims with “alleged”. Kuenssberg just reported the Tory fake news as fact, despite strict impartiality rules governing General Election coverage.

Ms Kuenssberg has form. Earlier in this election, she sought to discredit the father of a sick child when he dismissed Boris Johnson's hospital visit as a PR stunt and, in 2017, the BBC Trust found that she breached BBC guidelines of impartiality in a report about Jeremy Corbyn which was deemed inaccurate.

It was only when footage from the ground emerged, clearly showing that there was no punch, just the Tory aide walking into a protesters hand, that Kuenssberg and Peston apologised and corrected the record. 

What if the mobile phone footage to rebut the Tory lie, didn’t exist? The fake news story would have been seen by millions of people and, coming from the BBC, had the potential to influence the outcome of the most important election of our life time.

A senior BBC political journalist allowed the Tories to manipulate her into burying one of the most shameful moments in this campaign. The ITV interview (which went viral), where Boris Johnson, refusing to look at a picture of toddler Jack, suspected of having pneumonia, lying on a bed of coats on the concrete floor in A&E, grabbed the journalists phone and pocketed it. 

The same night, Tory trolls and bots spread fake claims that the photo of the sick child on the floor was staged, even though the hospital had already confirmed it was true. It spread quickly across social media and messaging services, potentially reaching millions of people after being amplified, again, by mainstream journalists, including The Telegraph’s Allison Pearson and Enoch Powell fan, Julia Hartley-Brewer. At least five Conservative candidates are also known to have spread the fake story.

The billionaire Tory elite send their sons (mostly) to exclusive boarding schools, like Eton, which Boris Johnson attended, in order to indoctrinate them into Tory ideology. Social interaction with working class people poses a risk of contagion and, God forbid, empathy. It is only by dehumanising vulnerable people that Johnson could come to perceive  "the poor 20%" as “chavs, losers, burglars" and "drug addicts". And, it is only when this narrative has been hardwired, that the Tories can inflict, what a UN report in March, described as causing “great misery” on people in the country with, “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies.

Boris Johnson knows that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. The well-being of democracy depends on the media pursuing truth with the same determination as those in power seek to obscure and distort it. 

With just hours to go before polling, it’s worth reminding voters of the truth about Johnson’s insults to just about every group in society (except his rich, white, Bullingdon boy mates). His greatest hits include: Referring to Africans as “piccannines with watermelon smiles”, gay men as “tank top bum boys”, comparing Muslim women to “letterboxes” (which led to a spike in hate crimes) and depicting Jews as “controlling the media and being able to “fiddle” elections” in his book, 72 Virgins (I'm not kidding). There’s more. So much more, but such little time.

Our NHS, our planet and our communities cannot survive 5 more years of Boris Johnson. The sick child on the floor of A&E could be your child. The only way to stop the Tories is to unite against them. Splitting the progressive/Remain vote will gift Boris Johnson victory. I’m a Labour supporter and I’ve never voted tactically in my life. But this general election is different. The stakes have never been higher. It’s time to put country before party and vote the Tories out.

The greatest gift that you can give your loved ones this Christmas, is your vote. 

Post election update: Another 5 years of Tory rule. The right united to win while the Remain/second referendum vote was split 3 ways. 52% of the vote went to Remain parties proving what some of us warned for months, i.e. an election won't resolve Brexit. The country is just as divided now as ever. Labour & Lib Dems should not have agreed to a general election without getting a second referendum first. And to do it without agreeing a pact to stand candidates down in marginals was utterly reckless.

The SNP did well & has the mandate to press ahead for a Scottish independence & Northern Ireland returned a majority of nationalist MPs for the first time ever. That bodes well for getting the Stormont assembly up & running again. Don't be surprised if a united Ireland referendum is on the agenda.

Labour MPs that back Johnson's rights robbing, asset grabbing Brexit deal, must lose the whip

Boris Johnson will put his “do or die” Brexit deal before parliament on Saturday. With safeguards around worker’s rights, food standards and environmental protections, present in Theresa May’s deal, now scrapped, any help from the Labour benches to get this hard right Tory Brexit through, would be unconscionable.

According to analysis carried out by the FT, Johnson’s deal would make the UK significantly worse off than May’s deal, with an estimated loss per person of £2,000 a year and a hit to  public finances of up to around £49 billion a year.

Rami Cassis, chief executive of hedge fund Parabellum Investments, recently warned that the Brexit deal that Johnson covets, offers little benefit for millions of ordinary people who voted Leave . “The real prize is to create an environment with fewer protections for workers, no controls on banker bonuses, lower corporation taxes and, most likely, further privatisation of public services”. The UK may be trading one master - the EU, for another – the US.

Despite this, 19 Labour MPs could help Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, man of the [rich] people, get his asset grabbing deal through.

Here’s the codswallop they will invoke as justification. “My constituents voted to leave, anything else is a betrayal,” and this old chestnut, “It’s the will of the people”.

But, those of us who hold privileged positions, in which our guidance holds sway over sometimes, vulnerable people’s lives, we have a duty of care to tell the truth.

I’ve spent three years listening and talking to people about Brexit, many of whom have come to me for help with Brexit induced crises. When Leave voters regurgitate the lies they’ve been told as justification, I don’t passively nod in agreement. Apart from being patronising, it would make me complicit in the lie. I tell them the truth. The only hostile reaction I’ve had was when a racist shouted at me in my local Spar, protesting their right to lie, loudly, about my Turkish neighbours being illegal immigrants.

So, when all the forecasts indicate that Brexit will make your constituents poorer, impacting the poorest and women (who are already bearing 86% of the burden of austerity) the hardest, the defence that your constituents voted to self-harm 3 years ago and you’re holding them to it, won’t wash. It’s akin to me, as a therapist, responding to a suicidal patient by handing them a gun.

For Labour MPs struggling to combat common Brexit lies, here are some truths by way of conversation starters on the doorstep. When your constituents say they voted Leave for the £350 million a week for the NHS. Tell them that Brexit has exacerbated the NHS crisis. That 5,000 nurses and midwives from EU27 countries have left the NHS since 2016, most of whom identifying Brexit as the trigger.

On immigration, tell them what I told Caroline Flint, MP (also one of the Labour 19) at conference in 2018, when she said her constituents had “genuine concerns about immigrants taking their jobs”,

“Your constituents concerns might be genuine, but they’re not true. It isn’t immigrants who are depressing wages and imposing zero hours contracts and job insecurity. It is unscrupulous businesses (like Weatherspoons) exploiting cheap labour.

Tell them, immigrants are not responsible for plunging 14 million people into poverty, the 169% rise in homelessness and 700% rise in food banks. It was 10 years of Tory austerity that saw the richest 5% increased their wealth by 40%.

When your constituents parrot Dominic (smash and grab) Cumming’s meaningless sound bite, “Let’s get Brexit done”. Tell them that, even if Johnson does get his deal through, businesses will face ongoing uncertainty and erratic upheaval in trading arrangements for years to come.

Stephen Kinnock, one of the Labour 19 and MP for Aberavon, this one’s for you. Gifting the Tories a win ahead of a general election, will make your constituents wonder where your loyalties lie. Especially in light of recent analysis that predicts Wales will lose 2.3 billion as a result of Brexit, a loss per head of the population of £743.11, between 2021 and 2027.

For some, it's easier to fool people than convince them that they have been fooled. When it comes to this dog's dinner of a deal, any Labour MP that backs it, must lose the whip. They will do so knowingly causing harm to their constituents, their country and their party. There’s no coming back from that.

So proud of my boy & his friends for staging a school climate strike!

I couldn't find any other primary strikes online so these 10 kids are trailblazing climate warriors! They got the coverage they deserved here 👇

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/education/school-events/2019/07/09/shropshire-pupils-stage-school-climate-strike-to-coincide-with-mps-visit/

Ten children from nursery, primary and high school, staged a school climate strike in Bishops Castle, last Friday.  The organiser, Archie (my boy 💓) explained how the strike came about:

“Me and some friends were motivated to organise this climate strike after hearing about the others across the world, inspired by Greta Thunberg. We are in the middle of a climate emergency created by adults but because we children can’t vote, politicians are ignoring us. The school strikes have given us a way to have our voices heard. It’s our planet that is being destroyed. And our future”.

Plastic pollution is also a big concern for Archie, “When you throw out plastic (& baby wipes) it often ends up in a place called the Pacific gyre. It’s an island of waste plastic, about 3 times the size of France.

The strike was organised to coincide with MP, Philip Dunne’s, visit to one of the schools in town. It gave all of the children, irrespective of whether they attended the school, a chance to show their MP their concern about climate change.

Archie explained: “I heard that Mr Dunne was involved in helping to ban plastic straws so I wanted to congratulate him on that and to ask him to make banning fossil fuels his next mission”.

Dandelion (10) wanted to ask Mr Dunne about recycling, “I’m concerned that it seems the council are making it harder to recycle in town as they had taken away the public recycling bins”.

Chloe (12), who attends a different school to the one that Mr Dunne was visiting, explained why she wanted to be involved in the strike: “I think it is important that we take climate change seriously because we only have 12 years left to do something before we've gone so far the planet can't get better”.

India (10) said that she joined the strike “for more to be done to stop climate change”.

Whilst waiting for Mr Dunne, the children discussed the news that authorities are making contingency plans for the potential evacuation of a Welsh town, called Fairbourne, which is being gradually reclaimed by rising sea levels and erosion. Residents are referred to as potentially the UK’s “first climate change refugees”. 

Many of the children had recently watched “The war on plastic” on the BBC, which they found shocking. Poppy (10) explained how the programme motivated her family: “We do this thing where we go to the supermarket and any plastic we don’t want on products, like tomatoes or grapes, we return them. We write on them  #ourplasticfeedback”.

Aren’t School Strikes just an excuse to miss school?

The global school strikes have been dismissed by some as “just an excuse to miss school”, but Archie thinks that’s unfair. “I go to the best school in the world. I love my school. My teacher and the head and all the staff are awesome. I have worked very hard for my SATs recently. But, the best education in the world is not much good if we have no planet”.

The strike started at 8.30am on Friday and ended when Mr Dunne arrived at 10am. While waiting for their MP’s arrival, the children made good use of their time. Having marched to the town hall with their placards (getting lots of thumbs up and “well done kids”, along the way), India suggested doing a litter sweep of the park, “I suggested we go to the park and collect rubbish because normally there is a lot there. We collected nearly 2 bags full. I think we should all be thinking about looking after our planet and our local environment”.   

Under careful adult supervision, the children filled a (cloth) bag full of litter, including a lot of plastic bottles, before taking their haul back to school to show Mr Dunne in assembly and later recycle.

The children greeted their MP’s arrival with smiles and waves, which he graciously reciprocated.

Dandelion’s mum, Liz said, “The kids were so dignified and polite. I believe it was a real educational experience, especially listening to them articulate what they wanted to say to Mr Dunne. I’m very proud of them all”.

By ignoring the will of members, Jeremy Corbyn is leading Labour to electoral annihilation

Straddling the centre ground on austerity led to Labours electoral annihilation in 2015. Recycling a Tory Brexit would have the same outcome.

My article in the Guardian, entitled: "Jeremy Corbyn, Are you really with your foot soldiers on a second vote"?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/13/jeremy-corbyn-second-vote-brexit-referendum

See also: My article on triggering article 50:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html

On Brexit and Northern Ireland:

https://www.independent.co.uk/author/tess-finch-lees-0

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-good-friday-agreement-northern-ireland-troubles-violence-ira-border-a8297406.html

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/12/island-ireland-wants-move-past-if-brexiteers-will-let-it

On immigration:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-my-eight-year-old-thinks-he-could-be-deported-because-of-leave-rhetoric-clearly-its-time-to-face-a7095016.html

The Brextremists, including the DUP, want to rip up The Good Friday Agreement & are accusing the Irish of "obstructing democracy" for objecting. You couldn't make it up...

The article below was published in today's Indy.


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/backstop-brexit-northern-ireland-dup-malthouse-amendment-vote-withdrawal-eu-a8752056.html

The Brexiteers solution to the backstop? Starve the Irish into submission

Throwing Anglo-Irish relations under the banjaxed Brexit bus has caused untold hurt and harm. Anna Soubry’s apology to the Irish people yesterday, though welcome, cannot assuage the damage that Tory Brexit has caused.

Nestled between bog and gorse, infused with the ubiquitous aroma of burning peat, is my family home in the West of Ireland. The Connaught landscape is dotted with almost indiscernible white crosses on high, inaccessible land. The un-consecrated burial grounds where famine victims, like my ancestors, were buried.

When Priti Patel threatened to starve Irish people into Brexit submission, she picked at a scab that has taken centuries to heal. My family’s reaction echoed that of the nation, as the tearful emojis flooded my Whatsapp threads this week.

Over 1 million people starved and another 1 million emigrated on "coffin ships" to escape starvation. In 1847, when the potato crop failed for two consecutive years, the famished Irish, whose land was appropriated under British rule, were evicted by their absentee English landlords. Instead of providing relief, Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary to HM Treasury, continued to export food from Ireland, abandoning the poor to the ravages of the free market.

The scars of the famine run deep and are immortalised in the balled, “The fields of Athenry”. If you’ve ever walked into a pub in Ireland with a trad session in full flow, you’ll have sung along to the haunting chorus. Even if you can’t discern the lyrics, there’s a melancholy that descends the room as we close our eyes and sing the saddest song in homage to our ancestors.

Note to Tory Brexiters: There is no context in which it is ever acceptable to threaten, hint or joke about using food as a weapon against the Irish. Or anyone.

Meanwhile, also this week, the Belfast Telegraph published a survey which revealed that 65% in Northern Ireland would now vote Remain -(a dramatic increase on the 57% in 2016) and 60% think a united Ireland is more likely after Brexit. 

As a (protestant) friend of mine from Belfast said, “Theresa May bangs on about the will of the English people, ignoring entirely the will of the Scottish and Northern Irish people who voted to Remain in the EU”. 

Who could’ve imagined that a united Ireland would be delivered, albeit accidentally, by a hapless Tory government.  

UN condemns child poverty in UK as "a social calamity and economic disaster"

“The state does not have your back any longer. You are on your own”.

Those were just some of the UN’s scathing criticisms of the Tory's “punitive” austerity agenda. Professor Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, spent 2 weeks in the UK and met people driven to the indignity of using food banks.

In his Channel 4 interview (see below), he was visibly angered by the fact that the UK is one of the 5^th richest company in the world, yet the level of child poverty in this country is a “social calamity and economic disaster”. He lambasted the fact that the Tories could eradicate poverty, if it wanted to but that it chose not to. Austerity, he said, was a choice and the poorest in society were paying for it.

When asked how the government responded to his damning findings, professor Alston said, “They’re in denial”. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

https://www.channel4.com/news/un-expert-says-austerity-has-condemned-millions-to-poverty

The BBC did its best to bury this report on the day it was published. If it wasn’t for Channel 4 showing footage of Professor’s Alston’s tour of Britain, followed up with extensive coverage of his findings, it wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

Meanwhile, Labour's John McDonnell gave a heartfelt interview about the impact of austerity on his constituents, wherein he explained that, whilst he works with Tories and is polite and constructive, he can never forgive them for what they’ve done to the poor & vulnerable. Professor Brian Cox was offended by this & took McDonnell to task. So, let’s just recap, Brian:

Fourteen million people are living in poverty. 1.5 million in destitution. There has been a 169% rise in homelessness and 700% rise in food banks. Some 120,000 deaths have been linked to austerity yet, the richest 5% increased their wealth by 40% in last 5 years….

Seriously Brian. What planet are you on?

Ryanair's failure to condemn racist rant is tantamount to condoning it. In Brexitland racism is all the rage!

From today, passengers booking flights on Ryanair will be able to request not to be seated next to a racist. For just £110 (one way) customers can avoid the perils of the random seating option, which is free, but could result in you being racially abused and having to move in order to placate the racist.

Or, you could boycott Ryanair and fly with an airline that doesn’t condone racism. For the avoidance of doubt, failure to condemn the racist abuse of a grieving disabled pensioner is tantamount to condoning it, which leaves the company exposed should a legal case be brought against them.

Ryanair’s defunct 1990’s style PR mantra that, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” (there is - the PR "guru" Max Clifford), combined with O’Leary's obnoxious pugnacity, have turned the brand into the VHS of the aviation industry. Old fashioned, unreliable and stuck in a time warp.

On becoming aware of the scandal, Ryanair should have killed the story by acting quickly to condemn the racist abuse of Delsie Gayle. By outlining race related policies and reassuring passengers that training will be stepped up to prevent further incidents of hate crime on their flights. Opting for radio silence just exposes the ineptitude of the all-white, male dominated Ryanair board. 

Have they learned nothing from the court case 10 years ago, where 5 black men (the only black passengers on the flight) were ejected from a Ryanair plane because one white passenger complained to the captain that the calypso musicians looked suspicious? Even when censured by the courts, Ryanair refused to apologise.

Watching the heart breaking ITV interview with Ms Gayle, I was struck when she said that she has travelled by plane for over 53 years and had never experienced anything like that before. This vile, flagrant racist rant was accompanied with a threat of physical violence and comes at a time when Brexit race hate attacks are at epidemic proportions.

Not everyone who voted for Brexit was racist but I'm pretty certain the racists voted for Brexit. That’s an important distinction, borne out by the UN special rapporteur on racism in May. “The environment leading up to the referendum, the environment during the referendum, and the environment after the referendum has made racial and ethnic minorities more vulnerable to racial discrimination and intolerance,” she said.

Liz Fekete, director of the institute of Race Relations believes that the referendum debate and result emboldened a lot of people. They felt justified. They thought they could say racist things in public. They lost their shame. “Let's be honest. Racism is mainstream. Anti-immigration is mainstream in our political culture. We have had a political rhetoric around immigration with ministers talking about creating a hostile environment for undocumented workers”.

I cried when I heard the EU referendum result. I was still crying when I got to the school gates when another mother asked me if I was okay. When I told her that I felt like an unwelcome immigrant for the first time in over twenty years of living here, she said, “We didn’t vote to keep people like you out! We don’t see you as an immigrant, Tess!”.

An awkward conversation ensued about what type of immigrant she thought she was voting to lock out of the country and how dark the tone of the skin to qualify for deportation. Then,  Demented with grief (the loss of hope to hate) - more so than anger - I went straight home and ordered a T-shirt online, with the words, “This is what an immigrant looks like,” emblazoned across my chest. I wore it standing at the school gates every day for a week. I still wear it now (though not every day. I only have the one...). It's my way of rebelling against the everyday racism that thrives in the toxic Tory swamp of Brexitland.

The burgeoning evidence that the EU referendum unleashed an tsunami of far right bigotry is borne out by the daily race hate attacks directed, not against immigrants like me, but those of a darker hue. Women of colour have been disproportionately targeted, often in front of their children.

A friend of mine said she went from never being racially abused in her life to being targeted on a regular basis, since Brexit.  In a recent incident she was told that “British people” voted for P***s like her to leave. To which she replied, “No, you voted for the white foreigners to leave. Us P***s get to stay!” She jokes about her repertoire of acerbic ripostes but I don't laugh. My heart hurts with all this hate.

Instead of containing the monster that Brexit unleashed, the right wing/mainstream media is feeding it. The BBC’s decision to portray Tommy Robinson as a martyr, silenced by the media - before giving him a 20 minute platform to incite hatred, together with the decision to platform alt right, racist, former Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, were either recklessly ill-judged or deliberate attempts to stir the already simmering pot of racial tensions. 

Journalism is supposed to be about speaking truth to power, not baiting the powerless and calling it “balance”. Shame on Ryanair, shame on the Tories & shame on the BBC. 

The Labour Party conference: A government in waiting

From Emily Thornberry to Diane Abbott, Labour oozed talent, ideas & competence at this years conference. As I said to Sky news after Jeremy Corbyn's speech, "If I were Theresa May, I'd be shakin (no "g") in my Jimmy Choos.

The press scrum right in front of me. They were tripping over themselves to get shots of JC.

Hugh Grant looked decidedly hacked off at the..... "Hacked Off fringe event" re Islamophobia in the MSM. He totally blanked the Telegraph reporter who pleaded with him to do an interview. I asked her in the meeting if she could put in a good word for me with her bosses. "As a human rights, socialist journalist, it's been a life long ambition to write for the Telegraph" I said. "How do you rate my chances"? That was the ice breaker. My main question was "As a journalist, how do you feel about the Telegraph's recent cartoon depicting Labour Party members as rabid dogs, with an image of Mohammed wagging the dog's tail"? In fairness to her, she gave a brilliant answer, "I'm only in the job a few weeks"! The audience laughed with her,  I welcomed her & it was good natured. In the Labour Party we challenge wrongs without attacking individuals. That's the gentler kinder politics I signed up to.

If you watch nothing else today, watch this incredibly powerful video that tells a stroy, captures the mood of the nation and inspires - all in 4 minutes. "Our Town" has had more than 1 million views within 48 hours.

Chuka Umunna should be attacking the Tories, not falsely accusing Labour of institutional racism

With Labour ahead in the polls and the Tories on the ropes, a Blairite sabotage attempt was predictable. The failed coup of 2016 wasn’t because they believed Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t win, it was because they feared he could. 

In 2016, a UN report singled out The Sun and The Daily Mail for inciting racial hatred. That Trevor Phillips courted these outlets to attack the Labour leader on Sunday, is shameful. But then this is the man who, as chair of the Equality body, was forced to apologise for propagating "bogus and alarmist" falsehoods that Britain was blighted by race ghettos.

I was involved in rolling out race training with the police in the wake of the MacPherson report. Just when we were making progress, Phillips told the Metropolitan Police board that institutional racism didn’t exist. "Time to move on", so they did and the Met remains institutionally racist as a result. 

It was Labour right winger, Chuka Umunna, who fed the media frenzy by scurrilously labelling fellow members, “attack dogs” and accusing his own party of "Institutional racism". A term that is indelibly linked to the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. 

Scrutinising Labour against Macpherson’s established parameters, Umunna’s allegation is not substantiated by the evidence. Labour has the most diverse Shadow Cabinet in British history, five of whom are BAME women. Of the 52 BAME MPs elected to parliament in 2017, 32 are Labour. Several seats with a high BAME population, switched from the Tories to Labour, achieving an incredible 11.5% increase in the vote share in the 75 most ethnically diverse areas. 

And then there’s the Labour leader’s record on race. Jeremy Corbyn has literally been on the front line, fighting racism, antisemitism and fascism, his entire life. To accuse him of racism is farcical.

Given that Labour is the natural home for those of us committed to fighting oppression, injustice and racism – in all its forms, it’s not surprising that the Chakrabarti report found that, although there’s much work to do on antisemitism, the Labour Party is not institutionally racist.

  

So where are these “racist" "attack dogs” hiding and who are they?

Is it the junior doctor who worked a double shift, got racially abused on the way home, then donned his rosette to campaign for his Labour candidate? Why? Because he knows that you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.

Is it the teacher who went into the profession to inspire and educate children but found herself acting as “a shock absorber against the impact of Tory cuts”?

Or, is it arch Corbyn fundamentalist, Chelley Ryan, whose twitter timeline is riddled with this kind of antisemitism,

“To minimise the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is Holocaust denial. 6 million Jews were killed, not 270,000. I am reporting & unfollowing this person and I hope a lot of my followers do the same. These people give Corbyn and us all a bad name. We must call it out!"

These are real people. Labour and Momentum members. I'm appalled that friends who pounded the pavements alongside right wing MPs are now being targeted for abuse - by them. Irrespective of whether the candidate was Left or right wing, Momentum indiscriminately mobilised foot soldiers to knock on doors - in every marginal last year.

The abuse continued on Sunday, when The Telegraph depicted Labour members as a vicious dog with a Muslim pulling its tail. Apart from being deeply offensive, it’s indicative of a moral crisis at the heart of Britain’s political discourse. Wherein denigrating Muslims remains an acceptable form of racism. Have we learned nothing from Jo Cox’s tragic death at the hands of a far right fundamentalist? 

Propping up the Tories

As Tony Blair said when he ousted Larry Whitty from the NEC chair, “All change is the difficult”. Nowadays, General Secretaries are elected (not appointed) and we have moved on from a time when Formula 1 tycoons could hope to buy tobacco advertising exemptions – from a Labour leader.

Although the move away from the corporatisation of New Labour is clearly hard to accept, Tony Blair’s recent attempts to sabotage the party’s democratically elected leader, are unacceptable. No doubt Blair’s unfettered attack on Jeremy Corbyn will have boosted Momentum membership last week but to have given cover for the Tories was unforgivable.

The astonishing admission by Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland Secretary, that she was clueless about the history and political sensitivities of the region when appointed, went viral on social media. Instead of leading with that news item, Tony Blair, who claims the Good Friday Agreement as his legacy, helped to bury it.

Peace in Northern Ireland is in the balance, thanks to Theresa May’s reckless incompetence, yet Tony Blair, and 36 hours later, Chuka Umunna, turned their guns on their own leader?

It’s akin to a Liverpool player tackling their defender so that Chelsea can score a goal. If you have more in common with the other team (war mongering, de-regulation, austerity, privatisation), either get off the pitch or just go and play for the other side.

The Tories are Cheating & Lying to Get Bonkers Brexit Through Parliament. Elsewhere - On Another Planet - Trump redefines the English language

Lib Dem MP, Jo Swinson, went ballistic this week when she discovered that Tory MP, Brandon Lewis, had voted in a crunch Brexit vote. The problem was that they had a pairing agreement. She was on maternity leave so couldn't vote and he agreed to not vote either.

Pairing is an arcane parliamentary tradition invoked if a member cannot vote for reasons of illness or maternity leave, for example. To make it fair, an MP from the other side agrees not to vote either. Except, Mr Lewis reneged on this arrangement, helping Theresa May inch a little bit closer to Brexit Armageddon.

He claimed it was “an honest mistake” but Swinson wasn’t having any of it. “It’s called cheating”, she raged. Or, “lying”!😈

Turns out that Lewis was apparently ordered by chief whip, Julian Smith, to break the pairing, and vote. The Times reported seeing evidence that that had been the case and Theresa May got herself into yet another pickle. Then it emerged that Mr Smith has form when it comes to targeting women on maternity leave. Apparently he had previously “lied” to Tory MP, Andrea Jenkyns, allegedly ordering her to come to London to vote, on multiple occasions, while she was on maternity leave. 

Fortunately, Tory veteran Michael Heseltine, waded into the row and helpfully explained the fundamental flaw that underpins the pairing protocol. “It’s a gentleman’s agreement” he said. Pausing whilst the slower listeners (it was a Radio 4 interview) caught up. There you have it. The gentleman's agreement, like the old boys' club, is strictly men only. Women need not apply, and if you dare? By god, there will be penalties.

Britain, like the Tories, is in the final stages of decrepitude. I can literally hear the bones creaking.

Elsewhere, Trump left our shores, amid contrails of flatulence and fury, to hang out with the man to whom he owes his presidency. Vladimir Putin. During a Press Conference in Helsinki, he dismissed FBI and CIA claims that Russia meddled in Trumps presidential election. Trump said there was no reason why Russia would interfere with the US elections. But, when it all kicked off back home and people in his own party were calling him a traitor, he helpfully clarified that what he meant to say (though it should have been obvs – PEOPLE – jeez – cue rolling, mad eyes) was wouldn’t. Got it? There’s no reason why President Putin wouldn’t interfere in his presidential election! It’s a double negative, apparently 😱

So, integrity, truth and decency in politics have been replaced by stupidity, lies and contempt for democracy -on both sides of the pond. What could possibly go wrong.

I’m off to have a Brexit breakdown at an undisclosed, secure location. On arrival, all gadgets and electronic equipment will be removed so that I won’t be a danger to myself - or others. For the next 5 weeks, I’m pulling the plug and going off grid. 

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this little vid - one of my personal favourites of the 2017 General Election. It's called Liar, Liar. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxN1STgQXW8

The NHS is 70 Today. Happy Birthday!

The NHS is 70 years old today. It was conceived and given birth to, by Labour. Resisted by doctors and blocked 21 times by the Tories, the NHS is Labour’s greatest achievement.

Nye Bevan created the NHS so that everyone, whether rich or poor, could have equal access to healthcare – free at the point of use. He warned at the time that the NHS would last only as long as folk are prepared to fight for it. In its 70 year history, the fight has never been harder and the stakes never been higher.

All around the country, hospitals are being shut, beds cut, services axed, all in readiness for full blown privatisation. The leaner the NHS machine the more attractive it will be to the US capitalists bidding for contracts. Everything from mental health to children services is being outsourced to privateers, whose priority is not patient care. It’s profit. Hiding behind the NHS logo, the NHS itself is being broken up and, brick by brick, it’s being dismantled and destroyed.

To mark the NHS’ 70^th birthday, the National Health Singers, have launched a new single, “Won’t let go”. It’s a kick ass fight back tune that Jeremy Hunt will be hoping flops. For that reason alone it’s worth buying - in a bid to help it on its way to Number 1 in the charts!

See the vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paUzAOCw228

Today, I’ll celebrate the heroes - the nurses, doctors, healthcare workers and porters that keep the NHS alive, but I’ll also be mobilising my community against those that are bent on killing it. We must fight - now - against cuts & closures to our vital services. If we don’t, there’ll be nothing left to salvage from the Tory wreckers' rubble. Complacency and apathy are not an option. Future generations will never forgive us if we fail to act now.

Happy 70^th, NHS 💙

Stop Tory Brexit!

This week, more than most, I felt like I was drowning in a cesspit of Tory generated excrement. Just when you think a new low is not possible, the Tories reached new depths of depravity.

By Wednesday, they had blocked upskirting legislation, lied about NHS funding, claiming it would come from a fictionalised “Brexit dividend,” and made sick and pregnant women cross the lobby in wheelchairs, in a bid to force through the doomed EU withdrawal bill. The Tory/DUP democratic heist has put us in the hands of the three musketeers. What could possibly go wrong?

Theresa May called a snap election last year to get a mandate for a hard Brexit. The people’s answer? “Not on your Nellie”! Yet, here we are, a year later, with the Brexit time bomb strapped to our collective chests. This is a Tory suicide mission and they’re bent on taking us all down with them.

Elsewhere, in the real world, the EU rejected Theresa May’s Northern Ireland back stop. The subject that no-body talked about in the referendum campaign, is now the circle that just can’t be squared. And still May carries on like a demented despot in charge of a runaway train.

The pundits got Brexit wrong. They got the outcome of the 2017 General Election wrong and they are doing it again. In their bubble of groupthink and incompetence, they have completely misjudged the anger out there on the streets. It is palpable for anyone who engages with real people in the real world. Far from getting £350 million a week for the NHS, Brexit is driving the final nail into the coffin. Closures to A&Es and hospital services are being predicated on staff shortages – brought about by the hostile immigration culture and fear generated by Brexit. When we need them most, foreign nurses and doctors are fleeing this country in their droves.

Who’s to blame for Brexit? The Tories and the right wing of the Labour party who, for years, threw immigrants under the bus, accusing us of stealing British people’s jobs, blaming us for the housing shortage and admonishing us for not assimilating into the British way of life, whatever that is.

Having scapegoated immigrants for years, Chuka Umunna, was a bad choice to be the poster boy of the Labour Remain campaign. It’s a bit like putting Trump in charge of UNICEF. Labour’s rhetoric had moved so far to the right, under New Labour (in a bid to woo UKIP voters), that there was a vacuum in political discourse - promoting the benefits of immigration.

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople, failed to inspire. Producing the toxic trio (Blair, Brown and Campbell) was a serious strategic error. The idea that the men who presided over the global financial crash could boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, was in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

New Labour was part of the problem. Progressive Labour can be part of the solution. That’s why I’ve signed Momentum’s Stop Tory Brexit petition 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-tory-brexit-momentum-petition which calls for the many to have the final say.

For anyone who hasn't read my angry Independent Brexit articles (there are many), here's one to get you going: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html

One year on from Grenfell, survivors remain traumatised & homeless. Deprived of justice & peace

I wrote the blog below shortly after the preventable inferno at Grenfell tower that killed 72 people. Twelve months on, survivors remain traumatised, homeless and without justice. The raw feelings captured in this blog haven't diminished with time so, to mark the one year anniversary, I'm re-telling the story. Undiluted, unedited and unapologetic. 💚💚

The acrid stench infused the air. The landscape, adorned with messages and memorials, struggled to reconcile the veneration of dignified grief and irreverent, visceral anger.

I oscillated between both. Grief hung in the ether like a flammable fume. Volatile, toxic, debilitating. The photos of those whose lives were lost. The prayers, the pleas, the eulogies. The human faces behind the headlines.

Days before, some of the dead and feared dead would have taken the train journey I just took, walked the route I just walked to get there, sat in the park around the corner that I just sat in and exchanged perfunctory pleasantries with the local shop keeper like I just did.

The photo of Isaac caught my eye. He left school at the same time as my little boy that day. He will have had his tea, maybe smearing ketchup on his school jumper, like mine did and went to bed, forgetting to brush his teeth, like mine did. Wrapped in a blanket of love he may have told the spiders lurking in a corner of his room a story, like mine did, before drifting off to sleep clutching his threadbare teddy, like mine did.

The difference between Isaac and my child is, Isaac lived in a tower block with no fire sprinklers, exposed gas pipes, combustible cladding (cheaper than the non-combustible yet aesthetically pleasing variety) and dodgy electrics prone to potentially lethal surges. Illegal? You’d think so, but Tory cuts to legal aid means rights are now only available to those who can afford to buy them. That ruled Grenfell Tower residents out.

Five weeks on and survivors are still homeless and dependent on sporadic, demeaning state handouts. A hundred quid here and a voucher for a hotel there isn’t good enough. Survivors need certainty, security and dignity. That starts with a secure, safe home. Some children don’t know if they’ll be returning to the same school in September because they don’t know where their new home will be. Some survivors say they’ve been told to accept homes without being allowed to see them first. Others say they fear being forcibly rehoused outside the borough. I’ve been told of survivors who’ve been threatened that declining housing they’re offered, however inappropriate, would be deemed as elected homelessness, and would incur benefit penalties.

Even now, survivors are being excluded from key decisions that will impact their future. Security firms were employed, at tax payers expense, to “keep them out” of Kensington and Chelsea’s council meeting on Thursday. Scenes of survivors being kettled into a public gallery, side-lined and silenced, prevented from participating in decisions about their own lives, were a national disgrace. The footage of Tory councillor, Mathew Palmer, mouthing “Don’t let them in” spoke volumes about the Tories’ contempt for humanity, decency and democracy.

Making my way back to the tube, I was stopped in my tracks by a child. She was surveying the messages pinned to the street railings and was transfixed by an elaborate picture of a dove. She asked her Dad what the text around it said. “I don’t know love, it’s written in a foreign language”.  I squinted to read it, “It says, Suaimhneas stíoraí da anam, which is Irish for, may your souls rest in peace”.

If the souls that perished in Grenfell are ever to find peace, they must first be afforded truth and then justice. We owe Isaac, and all those who died with him, that much.