The Metropolitan Police is facing legal action if it fails to investigate reports of the Downing Street Christmas party in 2020, according to campaigners.
Cops under inspection
The Good Law Project last week said it had put the force on notice that it would take legal action if it did not investigate the gathering. On 19 January, a spokesperson for the campaign organisation, which uses the law to “protect the interests of the public”, said it had filed its claim in court.
In a statement on its website, the project said:
When we received the Met’s formal pre-action response to our judicial review claim, over its failure to apply the same criminal law to the Prime Minister as it applies to others, they told us not to publish it. We have never before been asked to keep a pre-action response hidden from you, our supporters and funders.
Yesterday, we filed our claim in court.
The Met now have until February 10 to provide their formal response. We also wrote to the Met telling them that when we get that response, we will publish the grounds for our claim. We will also publish their response.
If they want to, we invite them to make an application to the court to continue to maintain this secrecy. If they make such an application, we will let you know. Our position on that application to the court will be that justice must be seen to be done.
A Met spokesperson said the force received a letter before claim on 10 December which it responded to, adding that there was “nothing further to add at this time”.
The Christmas tree outside 10 Downing Street, Westminster (Yui Mok/PA)
A woman who claims she saw the prince Andrew Windsor with his accuser in a London nightclub is willing to give evidence in the civil sexual assault case against him, her lawyer has reportedly said.
Spotted
Shukri Walker alleges she was in Tramp nightclub in 2001 and saw the queen’s son with Virginia Giuffre and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre is suing the prince for damages in her home country of the US, claiming she was trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein – Windsor’s friend and convicted paedophile – to have sex with the royal when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
The prince is also alleged to have sexually abused Giuffre during a visit to Epstein’s private island, Little St James, and on a separate occasion at the financier’s Manhattan mansion. Windsor has denied the allegations.
Virginia Giuffre is suing Andrew Windsor (Crime+Investigation screengrab/PA)
Giuffre’s legal team has already made requests for witness accounts from a number of individuals including Walker and Windsor’s former equerry Robert Olney.
Lisa Bloom, who is representing Walker, said in a statement reported by a number of papers:
I am proud to represent Shukri Walker, who has bravely stepped forward as a witness and encourages others who may have information to do so as well.
She is willing to do the deposition Giuffre’s team is seeking.
Windsor appeared on Newsnight in an attempt to draw a line under the Epstein scandal (Neil Hall/PA)
William goes quiet
In another development, prince William Windsor faced a question about his uncle when he visited London’s Foundling Museum with his wife to learn more about the care sector. A broadcast journalist from Sky asked hims “Do you support Andrew?” as the couple left, but he did not respond.
The elder Windsor’s much anticipated appearance on BBC’s Newsnight in November 2019 was an attempt to defend his reputation in the wake of the Epstein sex scandal, but he opened himself up to further accusations with critics saying he failed to show remorse for the financier’s victims.
The duke denied he slept with Giuffre on three separate occasions when questioned by Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, saying one alleged encounter did not happen as he had taken his daughter princess Beatrice to Pizza Express in Woking for a party and they spent the rest of the day together. He also claimed that the same sexual encounter, which the American said began with the royal sweating heavily as they danced at Tramp nightclub, was factually wrong because he had a medical condition at the time which meant he did not sweat.
Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of helping to procure teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein (Chris Ison/PA)
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey has said the civil sex case risks overshadowing the queen’s Platinum Jubilee being celebrated this year. It’s previously been reported that the queen will “spend millions” funding the legal defence of her son despite the gravity of his alleged crimes. Said son stands accused of abusing a sexually-trafficked minor.
Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and a friend of Windsor, was convicted in the US on 29 December of procuring teenage girls for Epstein to abuse and will be sentenced this summer.
The queen has stripped her son of his remaining patronages and honorary military roles as the monarchy partially distanced itself from the duke ahead of potentially damaging developments in the lawsuit which is scheduled to go to trial in the autumn.
Nursing leaders have hit back at Boris Johnson after he announced that Plan B measures across England will be scrapped.
Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing’s chief executive, said the country could not rely on vaccines alone and the pressure on health services was unrelenting.
She said:
The Prime Minister’s decision to loosen the restrictions may have relieved the pressure from his backbenchers but will do nothing to relieve the pressure on the NHS.
We can’t rely on the vaccine alone when the situation is still so precariously balanced.
Time will tell whether dropping other measures when the pressure on health and social care services remains unrelenting was wise – particularly when thousands of unvaccinated nursing staff are facing the sack.
Ministers should adopt a cautious approach. The Government will regret sending the wrong signal to the public for political expediency.
With so many Covid-19 patients still in hospital, it would be very premature to conclude this wave is over. That is not what our members are telling us.
During Prime Minister’s Questions on 19 January, former Brexit minister David Davis used his ‘question’ to urge Boris Johnson to resign. It came not long after Johnson was hit by the defection of a Red Wall MP to Labour.
Impressively, this means the session was somehow even more disastrous for Johnson than last week’s.
"In the name of God, go"
Conservative MP David Davis directs a quote, from late Tory politician Leo Amery, to Boris Johnson.
Like many on these benches I spent weeks and months defending the prime minister against often angry constituents. ….
I expect my leaders to shoulder the responsibility for the actions they take.
Yesterday, he did the opposite of that. So I will remind him of a quotation, altogether too familiar to him, from Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain: ‘You have sat there too long for all the good you have done, in the name of God, go.’
Johnson responded by saying “I don’t know what he’s talking about”. His ignorance echoed the moment last week when he claimed he didn’t know that the party he attended was a party.
'You are just taking the mickey out of the British people by suggesting it was a work event'.
I think I’ve told this house repeatedly throughout this pandemic: I take full responsibility for everything done in this government
It comes as newspapers have been reporting on the so-called ‘Operation Big Dog’. This alleged plan is an attempt from the prime minister to save his job by sacking his staff. Arguably, this would be a case of others taking full responsibility – much like when former aide Allegra Stratton resigned back when Johnson still denied a party had even taken place.
The sight of a Tory calling out the bad behaviour of another Tory has drawn shock from many:
David Davis has just as good as called for PM to go in the Commons – wow
Other Tories, however, seem to have witnessed a different Tory party entirely (lending credence to the idea that Tories can’t recognise certain parties):
Bury South MP Christian Wakeford said the country needs a government that “upholds the highest standards of integrity and probity” but told Johnson “both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves”. His move to Labour was announced just minutes before Prime Minister’s Questions, which likely would have proven very embarrassing for Johnson if he wasn’t so entirely shameless.
Wakeford won Bury South, which had elected a Labour MP at every election since 1997, in 2019. He announced his decision in the Bury Times and sent a letter to Johnson explaining why he had lost patience with his leadership:
I care passionately about the people of Bury South and I have concluded that the policies of the Conservative government that you lead are doing nothing to help the people of my constituency and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse.
The leader of the Breakthrough Party had this to say on the defection:
New Labour MP Christian Wakeford voted in favour of a stricter asylum system & taking away the right to protest, voted against measures to prevent climate change & tax avoidance & abstained on the vote to extend free school meals.
You might get excited when you read stories in the mainstream media stating that the government has suffered a “series of defeats in the House of Lords” over the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. It is true that we have had a minor victory. And if it wasn’t for the relentless protesting and campaigning by the Kill The Bill movement over the last ten months, we would be facing a much worse bill. But don’t get too carried away with optimism.
For a start, most of the measures chucked out by the Lords were the additional amendments to the bill: these were added at a later stage by the Lords themselves. There’s still a raft of laws that weren’t challenged, and there’s a number of measures that, even though thrown out by the Lords, can still be added again when the bill goes back to the Commons.
Yesterday, the House of Lords scrapped a number of significant amendments to the PCSC bill.
Yes, the Lords’ amendments to protest law were scrapped
As hoped, the Lords scrapped the proposed additional amendments to protest. The offence of ‘locking on’ or being ‘equipped to lock on’ has been thrown out, as has the power to search someone for lock-on materials.
The government had proposed increasing the penalty for highway obstruction from a maximum of a £1000 fine to six months imprisonment and an unlimited fine. Whilst this was rejected, an amendment increasing the sentence for those obstructing “strategic road networks”, such as the M25 did get approved.
However, the new offences of blocking key infrastructure or infrastructure projects have been thrown out.
These amendments can’t be added back in by the Commons because they were proposed by the Lords in the first place.
Conditions on protests
The Lords did vote against the measure to give police more powers to impose conditions on a protest if they’re deemed too noisy or disruptive. But this can be added again when the bill goes back to the Commons, making a mockery of the whole process. Early indications from the government suggest this is exactly what it will do.
But not so widely reported is the fact that a massive watering down of the threshold for prosecution for breaching conditions imposed on a protest did go through. This is a key change of the wording of the 1986 Public Order Act meaning that a successful prosecution can be brought if someone “ought to know” the conditions imposed by the police. In other words, you could be convicted of breaching a condition even if you didn’t know they’d been imposed. Currently, it has to be shown that a person knew the conditions were in force.
And there’s a raft of measures that weren’t challenged at all
Most of the very laws that we began protesting about back in early 2020 weren’t challenged at all, so it doesn’t make sense to be celebrating a victory. The bill will still criminalise the way of life for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities by making trespass with the intention to reside in or near a vehicle criminal offence. It will allow the police to arrest travellers, and/or confiscate their caravans or vans, which are literally their homes.
And then there are the other new protest measures that will still be introduced. Offences such as prison sentences of up to ten years for tampering with a statue, or the prospect of up to a decade in prison for causing “serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience, or serious loss of amenity” on a demonstration are still in the legislation.
But there’s also a raft of measures in the bill that haven’t received as much attention that we should be just as concerned about.
The bill will change the minimum age of receiving a life sentence in prison from 21 years old to 18 years old, locking up young offenders who are usually from the most working class and difficult backgrounds. On top of this, the bill will introduce secure schools, which the government describes as a “planned new form of youth custody”. Secure schools will, essentially, be prisons for children aged from 12 to 18 years of age, and they will be run by charities: yet more money being funnelled into the private sector.
It will also introduce the Serious Violence Duty, which would force a range of local authorities such as youth groups, schools and health boards to collaborate with the police by sharing intelligence and data with them. The duty by these authorities to share data would undermine existing data rights and doctor-patient confidentiality.
This intelligence gathering is also likely to lead to the state issuing people with Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs), which will be rolled out in a pilot scheme.
The whole process highlights that we’re living in a facade of a democracy
While some campaigners are getting distracted by our victory in the House of Lords, we should really be focussing on is the fact that we live in a charade of a democracy. The very fact that we are relying on a house of unelected elites to salvage our basic rights should be sounding the alarm that we need serious system change. And the fact that certain parts of the legislation can be reintroduced anyway by the Commons makes even more of a mockery of the whole process. There are also complaints that the government deliberately forced the late timing of the debate in the House of Lords so that the bill couldn’t be unpicked properly.
So don’t get too excited by the victory. We still have a massive fight ahead of us, and we shouldn’t let this distract us from thinking that much has changed. Instead, let’s use this slightly good news as a starting point to regroup and reenergise the fight against the rest of the bill.
The police bill is the biggest threat to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in my lifetime.
It has direct parallels in history. In 1936, the Nazis passed a similar decree, which said that all Romany should stop traveling so that they can be kept an eye on by the police. This is the beginning of that thin end of the wedge of persecution. And we’re resisting it with everything we’ve got.
Part four of the bill created by Priti Patel will do three things. It will bring in a £2,500 fine for gypsies and travelers that are nomadic. It will imprison people that follow that way of life. And it will essentially get rid of our community from the British landscape.
I’ve been starting a campaign called the ‘Drive to Survive’ campaign where we’re getting as many people as possible to come together at key events, outside parliament, Appleby Fair (the world’s biggest horse fair), to show that gypsy, Roma, and traveller people, that we have a voice, that we are powerful, that we’re not the criminals, rogues, and vagabonds that we’re painted to be and assumed to be, and that we’re not going anywhere.
The Conservative Party is using this bill, the police bill, to not just clamp down on legitimate protest, which is an important part of any democracy, but to culturally cleanse the British landscape of our community. We’ve been here for 500 years, and in that time, we’ve been hanged for who we are, we’ve been sent to prison and deported for who we are. Things got better, but with the arrival of this bill, we will see our culture being effectively outlawed.
So we need to come together as a community with other communities, other ethnic communities, to say that this isn’t good enough.
It has direct parallels in history. In 1936, the Nazis passed a similar decree, which said that all Romany should stop traveling so that they can be kept an eye on by the police. This is the beginning of that thin end of the wedge of persecution. And we’re resisting it with everything we’ve got.
The mainstream media makes the demonisation of our community possible.
Whether it’s the Daily Mail, or the Sun, or lurid, horrible television programmes on Channel Four. It is the one thing that drives hatred of the Gypsy and traveller community. There are issues over where people put their caravans. There is an undeniable conflict. But what makes it worse is when people are whipped up into a frenzy of racial hatred.
So I became a journalist about 30 years ago now to try and unpick that. And I’ve earned a living at it. But it’s still as strong now as it was when I started. So the media has a lot to answer for. The media can be part of the solution. But at the moment, it’s largely part of the problem.
I think one thing that you see with the police bill is it’s undeniably a form of legal persecution. But the good thing that’s come out of it is like never before gypsy communities, the Irish traveller community, new travelers are working together and making links like never before to defend their cultures.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And I’ve never known a year like it, where people, particularly within left-wing politics, began to embrace the issues that affect our communities. And see this not as some kind of weird lifestyle issue, or some kind of weird social issue, but as a genuine issue of racial equality. It is an issue that should be at the heart of anybody that cares to try and fight racism. And we embrace and we need all the allies that we can get in this struggle.
Our media is dominated by rich billionaires. It’s enormously important that we all support independent media, because the truth is out there, but it’s often obscured by rich people’s agendas. So by supporting The Canary, you’re helping to make sure that that truth can break through.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has refused to give his unequivocal backing to Boris Johnson as the threat to the prime minister’s leadership grows over partygate allegations.
Sunak finally breaks cover to support Johnson. Well, I say 'to support'… To refer the journalist "back to the PM's words", say the code is clear on the consequences of lying, repeat the mantra about hypotheticals, then walk out of the interview when the journalist persists. ~AA pic.twitter.com/zYJy2rXanF
The potential successor as Tory leader abruptly ended an interview on 18 January when pressed if he gives his full support to his boss. He instead said he believes Johnson is telling the truth and backs his request for “patience” during a Whitehall investigation by senior official Sue Gray.
I see Rishi Sunak chose to be 200 miles away today when Boris Johnson was giving his non-apology The parties took place next door to where he was, he should have known they were happening and didn’t report them to police as a law abiding neighbour He too must take responsibility
So far six Conservative MPs have publicly called for Johnson to go amid widespread public anger over claims of lockdown-breaching parties in No 10. Jeremy Hunt said in an interview that his ambition to lead the party has not “completely vanished”. Former aide to the PM Dominic Cummings has expressed the opinion that a “leadership contest is imminent”:
The is SW1 code for: leadership contest is imminent, sign up early if you want a seat in Cabinet, am on phone to donors & getting office set up, there has to be one non-brexit nutter in last 2 https://t.co/bXlK7RbQZM
Cummings has also claimed that Johnson lied to Parliament over the parties. Downing Street denies this, but appeared to accept that he would have to resign if he “knowingly” misled the House of Commons.
In his first interview since Johnson’s apology to MPs over the scandal, the chancellor said he accepts his explanation that he was not warned in advance about a No 10 drinks party during lockdown in May 2020. He told broadcasters:
Of course I do. The Prime Minister set out his understanding of this matter last week in Parliament. I refer you to his words.
Sue Gray is conducting an inquiry into this matter and I fully support the Prime Minister’s requests for patience while that concludes.
Asked if the PM should resign if he lied to Parliament, Sunak said:
I am not going to get into hypotheticals, the ministerial code is clear on these matters.
Pressed on whether Johnson had his unequivocal support, Sunak swiftly broke off the interview, walking off with a microphone still attached.
The chancellor’s hours of silence after Johnson’s apology to the Commons last Wednesday over the 20 May 2020 “bring your own booze” garden gathering in No 10 has been seen as conspicuous.
Meanwhile, a potential Sunak premiership is already drawing criticism:
Hunt, who has served as both foreign and health secretary (and has at times been the “most disliked frontline British politician”), discussed not having given up hope to become Tory leader. The House magazine said he denied actively considering a run, before adding:
I won’t say my ambition has completely vanished, but it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring.
Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss are seen as the frontrunners for any challenge to the prime minister. Sunak is a billionaire former banker; Truss has long been ridiculed for what News Letter referred to as an “odd speech” in which she was “enraged by imported cheese but overjoyed at pork markets”.
Hunt was the strongest opponent against Johnson when he won the leadership in 2019, coming second before being comfortably beaten.
While only six Tories have publicly called for Johnson to quit, many more are believed to have privately written letters calling for a vote of no confidence. One route to a Tory leadership contest is for 54 letters to be submitted by MPs to chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservatives Graham Brady, though he keeps the running total a closely guarded secret.
In a desperate bid to cling on to his leadership, Boris Johnson has made devastating announcements that will appeal to his right-wing anti-refugee following. Not only has he stated that he will give the military primary control of the Channel in order to keep migrants out of the country, he has also announced that people reaching the UK are to be processed in either Rwanda or Ghana.
This announcement comes as the racist Nationality and Borders Bill, which has passed its second reading in the House of Lords, is being pushed through parliament. The legislation includes measures such as ‘push-back’ interventions to stop refugees from reaching British waters. It’s part of the government’s inhumane “new plan for immigration” which would rather see people drown than reach safety.
Peace Pledge Union (PPU) argued that the government is trying to distract the public from “partygate” by targeting the world’s most vulnerable people. It said:
It is pure fantasy to suggest that the world’s problems can be solved by armed force. A third of Channel refugees are from countries that have been attacked by UK troops. Now Boris Johnson is deploying those same troops to stop them fleeing to Britain.
PPU continued:
Instead of knee-jerk militarism, we need real, grown-up policies that tackle the root causes of global problems. This plan will do nothing to address the threats that we really face, such as price rises, poverty, health crises and the climate emergency.
Even veterans of the navy – whose staff don’t usually have much of a collective conscience when sent in to help with Britain’s war machine – are outraged:
So Priti Patel is planning to use the Royal Navy to turn back refugees in the Channel. As an ex Serviceman I have never been more disgusted in the British Government. I cannot imagine how the sailors will feel having to obey those orders.
I'm a proud Royal Navy vet and i can tell you now we would never ever leave migrants to drown in the sea, I've been involved in rescuing migrants/refugees all over the world, we get a sense of pride in rescuing people, I'm so fucking offended by this fucking despicable govt…
As the government becomes more and more fascistic in keeping people out, Patel has stated that she “won’t be deterred from doing what is right by the British people”. No-one with an ounce of empathy would agree with Patel and Johnson’s callous policies that leave people to drown. And if they had listened to the thousands on the streets protesting the police bill at the weekend, they would have also heard across the country that “refugees are welcome here”.
It comes as no surprise that neither Patel or Johnson expressed their sorrow when yet another man drowned in the Channel off Calais on 14 January. He was from Sudan, and fell overboard on a boat containing 32 other people. He was, no doubt, someone who was desperate to find a safer place to live, and he is just one of many who have been failed by our government. Johnson, Patel, and the Tories have his blood on their hands as they continue to block any safe routes across the Channel. And they will be stained with yet more blood when the Nationality and Borders Bill passes.
Saturday 15 January saw thousands taking to the streets around the country to protest what was billed the ‘last legal protest’ before the PCSC Bill passes.
Firstly, protest itself isn’t going to be made illegal by the bill (but it remains to be seen how many of us will be facing prison for causing disruption on the streets), and secondly, today’s sitting in the House of Lords doesn’t mean that the bill will suddenly pass this week.
Yes, 17 January sees the Lords voting on crucial public order amendments to the bill. But the bill will then go back to the Lords for a third reading and a vote. After that, it’ll return to the Commons where any amendments will be debated. If the Commons doesn’t approve the Lord’s amendments, the bill will go back to the Lords and it can then “ping pong” back and forth until both houses agree on the bill. Finally, the queen has to grant royal assent (though this is just rubber stamping) where she will sign off the bill, and make it an Act of Parliament. This means there’s still time to take to the streets and make ourselves heard.
Labour peers have already announced that they will oppose the draconian amendments directed at protesters. These amendments include the new offence of ‘locking on’ and the possibility of going to prison for six months for obstructing a highway or blocking “major transport works”.
There’s also a miniscule chance the Lords will reject the bill completely when it goes through its third reading. But don’t get your hopes up: if this were to happen, it would just delay the process a bit more. And certainly don’t get hopeful that the queen will step up when it’s her turn to sign the bill off!
But this timeframe does mean we’ve still got opportunities to raise our voices and show our dissent before this draconian bill becomes law.
Protest won’t suddenly become illegal, but it will increase police violence
Even if the bill passes, it’s likely that demonstrations such as those across the country at the weekend will still be tolerated. The Canary’s Emily Apple points out:
The new laws on highway obstruction won’t change the Ziegler ruling that protest is a legitimate use of the highway, and one that has to be balanced in terms of human rights.
The Supreme Court’s Ziegler ruling recognised that obstructive protests are still protected under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
So then, what will change for protesters? Well, what we are likely to see is an even harsher form of policing, where thugs in uniform will be further able to brutalise communities under the protection of the law. Apple says:
What the bill will do is change the policing of protests and what it empowers the police to do. And I think it’ll mean a return of a lot more harassment and disruption, especially if the stop and search provisions go through. It will shift the dynamic massively and make things more like they were in the early 2000s when people were saying that they couldn’t face going to protests in London because of the levels of police harassment.
Apple continues:
But importantly, the bill won’t stop effective protest or direct action because direct action relies on people willing to risk breaking the law. Many things in the bill are already illegal. For example, highway obstruction is an offence; if you lock-on to something you’re either blocking the road, or if it’s private land, you’re potentially committing aggravated trespass. We’ll see more arrests, even if they don’t result in successful prosecutions, and the penalties people will face if they’re found guilty will increase. But if the government believes it will end disruptive protests, then it is very much mistaken.
Let’s remember that banner waving didn’t historically bring about social change
So let’s continue to get on the streets, to cause disruption, and to make ourselves heard. But while we do this, it’s important to remember that we cannot only rely on our politicians to bring about change.
And we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that banner waving is the answer. Our government relies on us believing that the facade we’re living in is actually a democracy, and that marching from a-to-b and chanting slogans is the limit of our power. We allow the state to divide us into good peaceful protesters and bad violent protesters. The state does this deliberately in order to divide and rule us, and by playing along with this narrative, we are made much weaker. We end up wasting our energy criticising each other, rather than the true culprit that brutalises us: the state.
As we take to the streets, let’s think about what else we can do to bring about real change to this monstrous capitalist system. Let’s think about how we can make our movements stronger, and how we can create better ties in our communities – especially with those who are going to be most affected by the bill. Let’s think about real alternatives to capitalism, and how we might seriously go about creating direct democracy once the bill is passed.
Reports say the government will scrap the TV licence in five years time. In the meantime, it’s expected to freeze the current fee at £159 per year for the next two years. Culture secretary Nadine Dorries said she wants to:
discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling great British content.
Given what we’ve previously written about BBC bias, scrapping the licence could be a welcome move. After all, there’s no reason why people should have to hand over their hard earned cash to a media outlet that doesn’t fully represent them.
While, of course, there’s a lot about the BBC that people value, it seems that the BBC‘s biased role in defending the political establishment has made defending the licence fee very difficult, and it’s made the slippery slide into privatisation all the more inevitable.
What the licence is supposed to do
The law says we must have a TV licence if we “watch or record programmes on a TV, computer or other device as they’re broadcast”. We also need one if we “download or watch BBC programmes on iPlayer – live, catch up or on demand”.
This licence fee allows the BBC to produce content for television, radio, and online. Part of it also goes towards rolling out broadband and funding “Welsh Language TV channel S4C and local TV channels”. The fee also means the BBC in the UK remains advert free. So far so good – with the added benefit of knowing your favourite programme won’t be interrupted by incessant ads.
So scrapping the licence will have an impact on elements of the BBC that some people value:
Maybe we should call it the David Attenborough Licence instead of the TV Licence?
Hi Nadine. The BBC provides disability programming, Welsh/Gaelic language programming, provides educational resources to schools and colleges and maintains the Freeview transmitter network. How do they continue to do these things that aren’t profitable under your model?
BBC COMEDY Monty python’s flying circus the office the fast show Steptoe and son only fools and horses porridge Fleabag Victoria wood Hancock Blackadder Dads army Fawlty towers Nighty night the royal family Harry Enfield little Britain WHAT YOU GOT SKY ?
But there’s more to the BBC than comedy, nature, and language programming. There’s also news and current affairs. And given the licence fee directly supports this, defending it has become a real challenge. A fee that should go towards quality public broadcasting clearly does not always do that:
A number of other people on social media, including journalist George Monbiot, hit out at BBC political bias:
I would dearly love to be able to come out in unequivocal support of the BBC, as it comes under government attack. But while its dramas and a few of its documentaries are excellent, its news and current affairs are such a disaster zone that I find this very hard. Thread/
Cancelled my tv license in 2013 because of the level of BBC bias against independence ahead of the referendum. I’ve never looked back or regretted it for a second. If anything, time has vindicated my choice. https://t.co/n2Ba74XJOS
I happily got rid of my TV licence many moons ago, mainly because the BBC's coverage had gradually only gotten progressively more partisan. Unless its constitution could be quickly, radically rewritten to prevent bias from creeping in again, then good riddance I say
In England you always had to pay for a TV licence to watch any live television– money that goes to funding the BBC. Having to fork up cash like that to support British state propaganda is an insult.
Some people who work for the BBC defended the fee based on how cheap they perceive it to be. But they were soon put in their place:
These arguments make no logical sense to people who do not want these things but are forced to pay for them anyway – that's this issue. It is up to individuals whether or not it is something they want.
Dan earns £295k per year from reluctant British licence fee payers and spends £600 a week on taxis.
He doesn’t want to lose the gig, so he thinks people on minimum wage, who occasionally watch live broadcast TV, should be forced to pay via threat of imprisonment.
43p a day to keep the country's most toxic news provider going – from helping launch the Iranian coup in 1953, to promoting the second invasion of Iraq, via the pandemic and Corbyn: BBC news's clawed hand has been instrumental in the degradation of our species. Enough already. https://t.co/XIzSHofhpe
As we’ve written at The Canary, the BBC is a biased news organisation that represents a real threat to democracy. So whether we defend the licence fee really depends on whether the government actually wants it to be a proper public news broadcaster. Something it clearly doesn’t want.
And failing that change of heart at the national broadcaster, we could all do a lot worse than supporting truly independent media instead.
After years of Thatcher-style neoliberalism, the election of Jeremy Corbyn saw Labour return to its socialist roots. The media hated this – as did the celebrities who prefer ‘sensible’ politics that maintain their lifestyles while doing nothing for the rest of us.
In the end, these figures got their wish, and politics returned to the socialism-free status quo. This meant the election of a Tory government that was openly at odds with public services. Predictably, this will now mean the end of public funding for the BBC – much like previous Tory and New Labour governments meant the end of publicly owned infrastructure.
For some celebrities, however, this has proved something of a shock.
Socialism for the ‘lovies’
Broadcaster Dan Walker defended the BBC licence fee, saying it’s “43p per day”.
The problem from a socialist perspective is that’s 43p for an institution that props up the Tories/New Labour and the econonomic system we loathe; it’s 43p for an institution thatmisrepresents and slanders us.
Gary Linekar had this to say:
The BBC is revered, respected and envied around the world. It should be the most treasured of National treasures. Something true patriots of our country should be proud of. It should never be a voice for those in government whoever is in power. https://t.co/4aR5cmDLI1
The problem here? Namely that anyone without their head up their arse knows the BBC has always acted as the “voice for those in government” – the difference is Lineker doesn’t like the current flavour of neoliberalism.
This is what he had to say in 2017 just before Labour’s socialist policies saw the party increase its vote share by more than any other leader since 1945 – coming within an inch of electoral victory (despite two years of being hammered by outlets like the BBC):
This is Armando Iannucci on the end of the BBC as we know it:
First you come for @channel4 because you don’t like its reporting of events. Now you come for the BBC because you don’t like its reporting of events. Have you ever considered whether it’s the events themselves that are the problem? https://t.co/T3P91H1Lzt
The ‘third way’ was the name given to the privatisation-fetishising politics of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. It revolved around taking the policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and bundling them with limited social progress. The thing about neoliberalism, however, is its stomach for privatisation is bottomless.
We live in a world in which all companies seek permanent, never-ending growth. How do you achieve that if you’re a private company making inroads into the public sector? With more privatisation, obviously. This means the natural end point for neoliberalism is every sector in private hands – much like the BBC soon will be – and only a fool would have expected otherwise.
Deborah Meaden believes people will miss the BBC when it’s gone – much like how socialists miss that time when there was a hope their future could contain anything besides the dull, grey misery of relentless social-decline:
For those kicking the BBC right now…you will miss it when its gone….. https://t.co/7OJhUxsOCb
Meaden couldn’t bring herself to vote for Corbyn in 2019. She was happy to vote for Labour in the past, however (presumably when they were rampant privatisers given that’s been their default since Blair):
Ironically, there’s an answer to this problem that would satisfy both the socialists and the celebs, and that’s to… go back in time and vote Labour. Turns out the party had a solution in 2019 that would have seen the BBC receive more stable funding without a need to apease the government. Imagine how terrible that would have been!
One of the great Corbyn era derangements was the response to his media reform proposals, which saw him genuinely called a threat to press freedom. They are still strong, and could make a good foundational basis for a campaign to defend the BBC on the basis of what it could be. pic.twitter.com/SeinTY0Wzh
50 years ago on 30 January, in the Bogside of Derry city, civil rights protesters marched against the British government’s policy of internment without trial. Started in August 1971, this policy resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of almost 2,000 Irish republicans, Catholics, and nationalists over a four-year period. The peaceful protest began at 3pm, and about one hour later 13 people were dead. A 14th man later died from his wounds. The British parachute regiment murdered them all.
Despite the 2010 Bloody Sunday Saville inquiry exonerating those 14 people from any wrong-doing – which their families already knew – not one British soldier went on trial. In fact, in July 2021, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) announced that soldier F – the one soldier from that day who was supposed to stand trial – would no longer do so. The PPS said there wasn’t a reasonable chance of getting a conviction. Then in December 2021, in political magazine Village, author David Burke reported something even more sinister about the day of the massacre:
The behaviour of Support Company of 1 Para, also known as ‘Kitson’s Private Army’, [general Frank Kitson] on Bloody Sunday, indicates that a secret mission was assigned to them, or some designated number of them.
Burke claims the two paratrooper companies (C Company and Support Company) in Derry that day were on two separate missions. C Company, who “wielded batons”, were prepared to engage potential rioting and make arrests. Support Company, meanwhile, donned war paint and had their rifles ready.
Inquiries, inquiries
The day after the massacre, British prime minister Ted Heath announced that lord Widgery would chair a judicial inquiry. But the Widgery inquiry was a total cover up. It ignored key witnesses and evidence and attempted to blame the march organisers for the 14 deaths. Additionally, it threatened the media with contempt of court should it report on the inquiry’s anticipated findings.
As the British government announced Widgery’s inquiry, the British Information Service told lies about those its soldiers had murdered. It claimed four of the dead were on their wanted list, and another victim had nail bombs in his pocket. All completely false.
While the much lauded 2010 Saville report exonerated the victims, it didn’t fully call out Widgery’s outright lies. It simply told families what they had already known – their loved ones had done nothing wrong. No prosecutions followed. So in effect, it was another whitewash.
Separate missions and MI5
Burke claims four of the soldiers in Support Company, including soldier F who he names, may have been acting on:
secret orders from [colonel Derek Wilford] to provoke a reaction from the IRA
This would have given Support Company the “excuse it needed to invade ‘Free Derry’” so it could engage in “a street battle with the IRA”. At that time, Free Derry was a no-go area for British police and the army. But the IRA wasn’t active in the area that day.
According to Burke, the parachute regiment wasn’t necessarily interested in whether the IRA was active or not. He claims British military intelligence and MI5 had a “deceitful” spy working in Free Derry. This spy then lied about the presence of 40 IRA gunmen that day. This, according to Burke, would have been “like a red rag to a bull” for Kitson and Wilford. But Burke also believes that the parachute regiment’s plan of attack would have gone ahead without the peddled lies.
So it would appear as if Soldier F, as well as others in Support Company, were acting on orders and a clear plan for that day. The rest is now tragic history.
Fighting back against the Tory amnesty and “collusive behaviours”
The Tories appear set on proceeding with an amnesty that would protect people like soldier F, and his commanders, from prosecution. Before that amnesty even becomes law, the PPS has decided, for now at least, that soldier F won’t stand trial. Families of soldier F’s victims haven’t given up, though. Instead, they’re seeking a judicial review of that decision.
In what appeared to be an act of solidarity with soldier F’s victims, Colum Eastwood, leader of the Irish nationalist party SDLP, named this soldier under parliamentary privilege. Eastwood did this just days after the PPS announced the decision not to prosecute. He said:
The people of Derry know his name. There is no reason for him to be granted anonymity. No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species.
In the lead up to Bloody Sunday commemorations, the Northern Ireland police ombudsman released its findings from an investigation into alleged collusion between police and loyalist terror gangs. On 14 January, the ombudsman’s report said there had been “collusive behaviours” between the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), and British police.
This report looked at the years 1989 to 1993. These “collusive behaviours” involved the murders of 19 people and the attempted murder of two others. But the ombudsman:
found no evidence that the RUC [previous name for the PSNI – Police Service of Northern Ireland] had any prior knowledge of the attacks.
The announcement came as little surprise to victims’ families. And, along with Bloody Sunday, it marks yet another dark chapter of Britain’s role in Ireland.
Support from Corbyn
It’s been 50 years without any real justice. But Kate Nash, one of the founding members of the Bloody Sunday March for Justice, told The Canary that the absence of justice “doesn’t take its toll” on the justice campaign team at all. In fact, they’ll continue to “put pressure of the British government” she says. Nash is part of a cross-community campaign for the British government to drop their plans for an amnesty.
Bloody Sunday March for Justice has a full programme of events from 24 to 30 January. This includes a conversation on 28 January between Jeremy Corbyn and Bloody Sunday justice campaigner and journalist Eamonn McCann.
Given it’s the 50th anniversary and that poet Thomas Kinsella died a few weeks ago, it seems fitting to end with an extract from his poemButcher’s Dozen. He wrote this in the aftermath of the massacre:
The prime minister is reportedly preparing to oust members of his inner circle over the partygate affair. It comes as another Conservative MP called for him to resign.
As my old pal Dennis Skinner used to say
“WHEN POSH BOYS ARE IN TROUBLE THEY SACK THE SERVANTS”
Boris Johnson is devising a policy announcement blitz and a cull of his top team. It may be in an effort to survive the publication of senior civil servant Sue Gray’s report into lockdown-busting parties in No 10, the Sunday Times reported.
Oliver Dowden says we need to “address” the culture of Downing St – but @BorisJohnson *is* the culture – the culture of entitlement, the culture of carelessness & the culture of lies. The culture is set at the top. @BorisJohnson has to go.
Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, and his deputy Stuart Glassborow are likely to be forced out of Downing Street, according to the newspaper. It was Reynolds who emailed staff inviting them to “bring your own booze” drinks in the No 10 garden during the first coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown. No 10 chief of staff Dan Rosenfield’s position could also be at risk. But officials in Downing Street refused to be drawn on the reports of a staff shake-up when asked about them.
Boris Johnson is preparing a plan to stay as PM – with staff sacked instead.
The plan is reportedly called – I kid you not – “Operation Save Big Dog”
What a coward! For once, he needs to take responsibility. And resign.
The alleged plan comes as a sixth Conservative MP called for Johnson to quit over his handling of the revelations. Former children’s minister Tim Loughton, in a post on Facebook, said Johnson’s position had become “untenable”. And Loughton added that Johnson’s “resignation is the only way to bring this whole unfortunate episode to an end”.
Apologising for the “great hurt” caused to his constituents by the allegations, the East Worthing and Shoreham MP added:
Frankly the issue for me is not how many sausage rolls or glasses of prosecco the Prime Minister actually consumed. The reason for my conclusion in calling for him to stand down is the way that he has handled the mounting revelations in the last few weeks.
Obfuscation, prevarication and evasion have been the order of the day when clarity, honesty and contrition was what was needed and what the British people deserve.
I have regretfully come to the conclusion that Boris Johnson’s position is now untenable, that his resignation is the only way to bring this whole unfortunate episode to an end and I am working with colleagues to impress that view on Number 10.https://t.co/HhjiUHVpPW
Loughton said he knows “what I need to do” if the prime minister doesn’t quit in the “next few days”. It’s an indication that he could be prepared to submit a letter of no confidence in Johnson to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs.
A mounting lack of confidence
Only a handful of Tories have publicly declared that they’ve submitted letters to the 1922 Committee. According to the Telegraph‘s sources, about 20 letters might have been handed in. However that’s still well short of the 54 needed to trigger a leadership vote.
The Sunday Times reported that Johnson will look to get on the front foot and save his position by making a series of what are being referred to as “populist” announcements in the coming weeks. It comes after he admitted last week to attending the No 10 garden party on 20 May 2020.
Johnson will allegedly focus on reducing the NHS backlog and tackling the small boat crossings in the Channel, while freezing the BBC licence fee for two years, it was reported. The Conservative Party leader could also put in place a “booze ban” in No 10 following the series of embarrassing claims of coronavirus rule breaking. In most workplaces, drinking alcohol is prohibited as standard.
Columnist Tim Walker noted that the BBC has not been a big problem for Johnson:
Inconvenient truth: none of the stories that have brought Johnson down were broken by the BBC. pic.twitter.com/GcaIziJ3Y7
The Canaryhas reported on the numerous times when the BBC actually seemed to provide support to Tory governments.
Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary Martin Reynolds, left, is reportedly set to be ousted (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA)
Apologies (after being exposed)
Downing Street drew the ire of furious Tory MPs as allegations of wrongdoing continued to emerge last week. No 10 was also forced to apologise to Buckingham Palace on 14 January. This was after it emerged that two staff parties were reportedly held on the eve of the duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
Former minister Andrew Percy, MP for Brigg and Goole, said he was “irritated” staff couldn’t see that such alleged behaviour was “not acceptable”.
Meanwhile, the spotlight intensified on the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, after she admitted to breaching coronavirus guidelines. The Sunday Telegraph published a photograph of her embracing a friend at a social event in London in September 2020.
At the time, government guidance called for people to “stay two metres apart from people you do not live with where possible”, or one metre if taking the extra precaution of meeting outdoors. The rule of six was in place at the time the photograph was taken, which the paper said was 17 September.
The @metpoliceuk fined Rita Ora £10,000 for hosting a private party just a few months after this, and urged the local council to revoke the venue's licence. I trust they'll be meting out the same treatment to Carrie's pal and this members' club. https://t.co/v0pATSehjH
Mrs Johnson was one of a group of six seated outside celebrating a friend’s engagement. Mrs Johnson regrets the momentary lapse in judgement in briefly hugging her friend for a photograph.
Reports have previously suggested that Carrie Johnson, a former Tory adviser, was present at the 20 May 2020 “bring your own booze” event. A photograph published in the Guardian shows her sat with her husband and Reynolds in the No 10 garden on 15 May, five days earlier.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has said a photograph of him drinking with a number of party staff in a constituency office last year was “no breach of the rules”. And he said there was “no comparison” with the prime minister.
Drinking on the job?
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Starmer was asked about the picture published in the Daily Mail. The image first emerged in spring 2021.
Taken several days before the Hartlepool by-election, the image was captured through the window of a building in Durham. And it shows Starmer drinking a bottle of beer and standing close to two people while another pair can be seen in the background.
The country was at that time in step two of the road map out of the third lockdown. Indoor mixing between different households was not allowed except for work.
Starmer said:
I was in a constituency office just days before the election. We were very busy. We were working in the office.
We stopped for something to eat and then we carried on working. No party, no breach of the rules and absolutely no comparison with the Prime Minister.
He added:
It was perfectly lawful to meet for work, which is what we were doing. The party that was put to the Prime Minister on Wednesday happened because an invitation was sent to 100 people saying ‘let’s have some socially distant drinks in the garden and bring your own booze’. There is simply no comparison.
In most workplaces, drinking alcohol while working is a sackable offence. Recent revelations suggest this is not the case in British politics.
The first major nationwide protests of 2022 erupted on Saturday 15 January. It saw people out in force up and down the UK as they continued to try and ‘Kill the Bill’.
2021: the year of the fightback
Home secretary Priti Patel’s authoritarian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the police bill) has caused uproar. Many see it as racist against Black people and the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community. It will also clamp down on our rights to protest, to roam, and to take strike action. Amnesty International said the bill:
represents an enormous and unprecedented extension of policing powers
2021 was filledwithprotests over the bill. Some of these weremarred by police violence. Courts havesentsome protesters from Bristol to prison – possibly the shape of things to come.
Since the Tories first unveiled the police bill, they’ve made several changes to it. It’s now even worse.
So, on 15 January, people hit the streets once more to show their anger over the bill. They were also raising awareness of it.
Kill the Bill once more
Protests took place in various places: from Leeds to Liverpool, to Bristol and Bath, to Cardiff and Nottingham. The protests also highlighted another nasty, racist piece of Tory legislation: the Nationality and Borders Bill.
— (((Neil says, #SpitOutThePropagandaTheyFeedYou))) (@chezzy51) January 16, 2022
People were out in force in Bristol and Bath:
PHOTOS: #KillTheBill protests in Bath and Bristol today as part of the National Day of Action, a last-ditch pushback against the now almost inevitable #PCSCBill. The legal right to protest about to be extinguished in the UK. #PolicingBill
Today, hundreds took to the streets of Camborne to protest against the #PoliceBill ahead of a vote in House of Lords on Monday. Organised by Cornwall #KillTheBill it began outside George Eustice MP's office, blocking the road, before marching through town to the police station. pic.twitter.com/lKuKdl71WI
In Bath, film director Ken Loach spoke. He said of the police bill:
It is a truly damaging and dangerous piece of legislation. And it does attack our fundamental rights.
Film legend and life-time champion of the vulnerable & oppressed, Ken Loach speaking at #Bath#KillTheBill protest.
"Demonstrations are entitled to be a nuisance in fact they have a responsibility to be a nuisance because if they are not they will be ignored." – @KenLoachSixteenpic.twitter.com/hFif7AyWRv
Meanwhile, in London, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn raised his voice. He said:
I want us to be strong, and confident, and thoughtful enough to recognise that all over the world, young people have all the hopes, the enthusiasm, the imagination… they have that sense of determination. And they do not want to live in a divided, racist society.
Protest gives people hope, opportunity and the dream of a better world.
But 15 January’s protests weren’t without the police causing problems. In Manchester, one cop was singled out for violent behaviour:
Legal observers today in Manchester witnessed this GMP officer pushing & striking out at peaceful protestors. He was also involved in the arrest of 3 young people who had left the #killthebill protest. If you have any video footage of this officer pls send it us. #Manchesterpic.twitter.com/zYvliaTjHy
Other cops in Manchester were also filmed being heavy-handed:
At the #KillTheBill demo Manchester today. A cop throws a woman to the floor, then he threatens to do it again. What a brave, brave man. Cops are perpetrators of male violence. They don’t need more powers. Fuck the police. #ACABpic.twitter.com/j8rPwZv11L
In London, the Met were allegedly also using facial recognition technology:
Potential facial recognition van at #KillTheBill protest in London – at the rear end of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Stay safe Mask up Resist police surveillance! pic.twitter.com/tIAz6ZJvfF
— Black Protest Legal Support UK (@blkprotestlegal) January 15, 2022
They were “protecting” the Winston Churchill statue again. But the cops also got a taste of their own medicine:
Overall, it seemed that most protests went through peacefully. While it also seemed the turnout was good, there is an argument for future protests to be more disruptive. The time for just A-B marches is quickly passing. The UK needs people to make it ungovernable for the Tories. 15 January’s protests were good to see, but walking with banners on a Saturday isn’t going to stop the authoritarian legislation that the government is pushing through. We need more direct action, before the UK’s descent into corporatefascism is complete. The challenge with this is, if the police bill passes any direct action could result in prison sentences for people. So, people need to decide if that’s a price worth paying for our most basic of rights.
Scandalous as the partygate revelations hitting Boris Johnson’s government are, they shouldn’t distract from the accusations of “dodgy” and “illegal” acts in which it’s up to its neck. Nor should they distract from Tory attacks on our health service and civil liberties.
But more importantly, this scandal shouldn’t hide that the Tories haven’t completed their destruction of all that’s good. And there’s still time to stop them. In fact, these scandals might just have given the fight back the shot in the arm it needed. An opportunity for change, if you will.
The All Under One Banner (AUOB) Scottish independence movement certainly believe it is. It’s organising another rally for Scottish independence on the back of this latest Tory scandal. It will take place on Saturday 22 January in Glasgow:
While the movement for Scottish independence has been growing for some time, recent Tory scandals from partygate to PPE – in addition to Johnson’s disastrous handling of the pandemic – have given it even greater impetus:
Author Edwin Hayward, albeit tongue in cheek, also sees it as an opportunity for Scottish Tories. They could finally use Scottish independence to get rid of Johnson as their leader:
Perhaps the Scottish Tories could rid themselves of Boris Johnson by backing Scottish independence.
Private hospitals to be given £1bn windfall without having to do a single operation Lorries stuck at border for up to 4 days due to Brexit VIP lane declared unlawful Schools beg for more air purifiers Bill to stop protest continues
While there are those who may believe it’s better – for the sake of independence – to leave Johnson in power, AUOB feels that risk is too great:
5/ This emergency march for independence has the slogans 'Sack Johnson, End Tory Rule, Independence Now', because we have a corrupt individual, a corrupt Westminster system and the solution of independence available to us as soon as we exercise the right to self-determination.
The simple act of removing Johnson won’t deliver Scottish independence. Nor will it, by itself, reverse the damage done to people’s lives or livelihoods by years of Tory policy. In fact, it will only result in Johnson being replaced by “another rotten Tory”. But if the Scottish independence movement sees the culmination of Tory scandals as an opportunity to take to the streets, then surely other movements will too. And they could then build on their existing street campaigns.
The attacks on what we value most are so serious that we could be living with their consequences for some time. But there is real hope. Because, large as the Tory majority is, the Tory leadership didn’t have loyalty in its ranks even before the partygate scandal got as big as it has. So, whoever takes over from Johnson could find themselves in a tricky position if public anger against Tory rule becomes widespread.
It’s no surprise to anyone that the Tories are corrupt. Nor is it any surprise that Starmer’s Labour doesn’t offer a real alternative. The Scottish independence movement sees this, and the time to act is now.
Vigils took place across Ireland and beyond on Saturday 15 January in memory of 23-year-old Ashling Murphy, following the murder of the Co Offaly teacher.
Irish police are continuing to hunt for Murphy’s killer. Murphy was found dead after going for a run on the banks of the Grand Canal in Tullamore.
The Garda said it had made “significant progress” in its investigation. But they were not releasing details for operational reasons.
Solidarity
People gathered at locations across Ireland on Saturday afternoon to remember Murphy. And hundreds attended a vigil in Cork on Saturday morning.
Vigils have spread beyond Ireland in recent days, with events organised in Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as in Brisbane, Australia.
Organising a vigil in Liverpool for Ashling Murphy, for anyone that would like to attendpic.twitter.com/ol2Rpzu2eE
Moreover, Park Run runners in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland held moments of silence on Saturday morning for Murphy:
As a mark of respect for Ashling Murphy, we will be observing a moment’s silence before our parkrun tomorrow. We hope to see you in the forest @ 9.30am.#shewasgoingforarunpic.twitter.com/K6DQbHymu4
At a vigil in north London on Saturday, people held candles and stood in silent tribute outside the London Irish Centre.
Traditional music was played in honour of Murphy, a talented fiddle player, while some of the crowd quietly sang or hummed along.
Beautiful but heartbreaking singing at Ashling's vigil in Cork this morning.
I welled up when I saw the crowds walk from town as I cycled. Every one of them has a story, every one of them has a friend. This tragedy has touched us all pic.twitter.com/3tJD5KciGE
— Eoghan Ua Laoghaire Mac Giolla Phádraig (@eoghanolf) January 15, 2022
Anna Johnston, cultural officer at the London Irish Centre, said people had come together in solidarity with those who knew and loved Murphy “and all the women of Ireland and further afield who are angry, distressed and heartbroken”.
Addressing the crowd, she added:
Today, along with Ashling, we remember all the women who have had their lives stolen through gender-based violence. We shouldn’t be here, and Ashling should be.
Significantly, the vigil in London took place alongside widespread protests and unrest over draconian laws:
There will be two things firing up protesters today. The first is news of Ashling Murphy’s killing in Ireland. The second is that 2/3 of voters think the PM should resign – which could mean a changing of the guard, inc ministers like Priti Patel who are spearheading these bills.
Ashling’s murder has also renewed calls for an end to violence against women:
Ashling Murphy a 22 year old teacher brutally murdered by a stranger as she ran along a route called Fionas Way in Tullamore named after heavily pregnant Fiona Pender a 25 year old who disappeared in local area 1996. When will women be safe?????#ashlingmurphy
Broken hearted for her loved ones and all of us devastated by her murder. I am so sick of going to vigils. Men need to stop killing us. This isn’t something I can fix. It isn’t something women can fix. It is not on us. #AshlingMurphypic.twitter.com/IrCY6jH9uv
A clip from my @bbc5live interview this morning ahead of today’s London vigil for #AshlingMurphy
I’m not mourning her because she’s a teacher who played the fiddle (?!) – but because she’s yet another woman who was brutally killed by a man, like too many of our sisters pic.twitter.com/CVzHx4Swry
Activist and former TD Ruth Coppinger called on Saturday for a “major conference” on gender-based violence. She said:
This is a watershed moment that must be tapped and lead to meaningful change
Moving tributes
Thousands of people gathered in the late afternoon in Tullamore, Dublin, and Belfast on Friday 14 January, as Ireland continues to reel from Murphy’s murder.
Murphy’s family attended a candlelit vigil near the murder scene on Friday evening.
At the event, her father Ray Murphy paid a poignant tribute to the talented young musician by performing her favourite song on the banjo. He broke down in tears while playing the final chords of When You Were Sweet Sixteen.
Murphy’s family walked on the opposite side of the canal to where she was assaulted and murdered on 12 January.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin said that the murder has “united the nation in solidarity and revulsion”.
On Saturday, Irish police investigating Murphy’s murder released Radu Floricel. He told local paper the Offaly Express of his “horrific experience”. Floricel, who was declared no longer a suspect by gardai on Thursday 13 January, said:
I feel terrible for the misfortune of the young woman and the family. I can’t even imagine what they are going through
The scandal surrounding prince Andrew may have just gotten a whole lot bigger, now that the FBI are extending their investigations to include UK contacts listed in Ghislaine Maxwell’s ‘little black book’.
FBI investigations could see some of those contacts as potential witnesses, if not perpetrators, in what’s been described as a “pyramid scheme of abuse”.
The contacts
The Canary has obtained an unredacted copy of Maxwell’s address book. It’s just under 100 pages long and includes more than 2000 persons. And more than 300 of these are UK contacts. A redacted version is available here.
The list includes royalty, such as prince Andrew (the duke of York), as this extract from the little black book shows:
There are also sportsmen, world leaders and celebrities. Bill Clinton is listed, as are Tony Blair and Donald Trump. UK names include Phil Collins, Simon Le Bon, Mick Jagger, Richard Branson, the late David Frost, Tamara Beckwith, Naomi Campbell, Jonathan Dimbleby, and numerous peers such as Charles Spencer and titled ladies.
Other well-known names include David Blaine, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Rupert Murdoch, Alec Baldwin and Courtney Love. There’s also Ralph Fiennes, Ted Kennedy and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.
On the last two pages of the unredacted little black book is a handwritten list of names headed “important emails/addresses”. Preceding this is a handwritten list of female names (forenames only) under the heading “Visitors massages”.
The names on the little black book were reportedly compiled by Maxwell in consultation with Jeffrey Epstein. In August 2019, Epstein allegedly hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. It’s understood he may have molested nearly 80 underage girls.
Inclusion in the contacts book does not mean a person has committed a crime.
Accusations
In August 2021, Virginia Giuffre sued prince Andrew, alleging she was forced to have sex with him at Maxwell’s London home. She further claimed that the prince sexually abused her at Epstein’s Manhattan home and elsewhere. The lawsuit states:
In this country no person, whether president or prince, is above the law, and no person, no matter how powerless or vulnerable, can be deprived of the law’s protection.
Twenty years ago Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account.
In December 2021, a New York jury convicted Maxwell over procuring teenage girls for Epstein.
Royal witnesses
Meanwhile, prince Andrew has been stripped of his military titles and royal patronages. He will now contest the case brought against him by Giuffre as a private citizen. It’s understood that the prince will no longer be referred to as His Royal Highness (HRH) in an official capacity.
Should no out-of-court settlement be agreed, the prince could face trial later this year. It’s reported that members of the Royal Family – including Meghan Markle, prince Charles and Sarah Ferguson – may be called as witnesses.
Robert Olney is prince Andrew’s former equerry, an “officer of the British royal household who attends or assists members of the royal family”. Olney’s name is listed in the little black book, and Giuffre is seeking testimony from him.
Also, Shukri Walker has stated that she remembers seeing the prince with Giuffre on the evening he claimed he was at Pizza Express. She added that also present were Maxwell and Epstein. Walker said she “will do her duty” and testify if called as a witness.
Meanwhile, journalists Edward Helmore and Mark Townsend argue that the guilty verdict against Maxwell:
could increase public pressure for further prosecutions and push men in Epstein and Maxwell’s orbit to settle actions against them.
Can of worms
As for the comment by prince Andrew’s legal team that the legal case is turning into a “marathon not a sprint”, it could not be more true. Indeed, in combination with a scandal-ridden Tory government (PPE, Downing Street parties, etc), the Epstein/Maxwell sex scandal has the potential to even eclipse the Profumo affair.
A huge can of worms has been opened, with no doubt many more revelations to come.
Boris Johnson is facing mounting pressure to get a grip on the drip feed of revelations about No 10 rule-breaking as he fights to stay in office.
He’s even coming under fire from fellow Tories. Former Conservative minister Tobias Ellwood said the prime minister must “lead or step aside”. He told the BBC: “We need leadership”.
The comments by the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee came as further claims emerged of regular “wine time Friday” gatherings in Downing Street while coronavirus (Covid-19) rules were in place.
‘Johnson must go’
People on the Left are calling for Johnson’s resignation too. People Before Profit – a group of workers and trade unionists, tweeted:
We are calling an Emergency Protest this Saturday to demand that Johnson and the Tories should go following revelations of parties in Downing St over lockdown.
The Mirror said that the weekly events are a long-standing No 10 tradition, including under previous administrations. And they continued after coronavirus restrictions were introduced prohibiting indoor mixing between households.
The newspaper said staff bought a £142 fridge to keep their bottles of alcohol chilled. And Johnson was aware of the socialising.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
There is an ongoing investigation to establish the facts around the nature of gatherings, including attendance, setting and the purpose with reference to adherence to the guidance at the time.
The findings will be made public in due course.
Ministers have called on disgruntled Tory MPs to wait until senior civil servant Sue Gray has published her investigation into claims about lockdown-busting parties in government.
But backbencher Andrew Bridgen said he did “not need to see what Sue Gray says to know that, for me, Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country”. The North West Leicestershire MP confirmed he submitted a letter of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership “some time ago”.
Only a handful of Tories have publicly declared they’ve submitted letters to the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs. But the Telegraph said sources estimated about 20 might have been handed in – although that’s well short of the 54 needed to trigger a leadership vote.
Wine time Friday
Bridgen, asked by BBC Breakfast about reports of “wine time Friday” sessions in Downing Street during lockdown, said:
It doesn’t matter, quite honestly, if the Prime Minister was present or not present.
Ultimately, he is responsible for what goes on in Government, he is responsible for the culture in No 10, and what we’re seeing is a culture where it is one rule for them and the rest of us do as we’re told, and that’s just not acceptable.
I’m not sure that any apology is going to put that right.
Johnson faced further embarrassment this week after Downing Street was forced to apologise to Buckingham Palace on Friday 14 January. It came after it emerged that two staff parties were reportedly held on the eve of the duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
Witnesses said alcohol was drunk and guests danced to music as two after-work events merged on 16 April 2021. A person was sent to a local shop with a suitcase to buy wine, according to the Telegraph, which first reported the allegations.
Gray is said to have been “completely blindsided” by the latest revelations, the Times reported.
The newspaper said the Cabinet Office official is concerned that Downing Street staff are withholding information about parties from her as she looks to establish the facts.
If I was to say prince Andrew Windsor is something of an oddity, you’d probably look at his family and say “so… like the rest of them then?”. And you wouldn’t exactly be wrong. But what I mean specifically is that unlike most of his military-cosplaying family, he actually did serve in a conflict. In his case, it was the Falklands/Malvinas War as a helicopter pilot.
It was there, he told the BBC (during a now infamous interview meant to offset the impact of abuse allegations), that he suffered an overload of adrenalin which left him allegedly unable to sweat. That unusual claim has since been challenged by his accuser, Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre claims to have been sex trafficked by the now-convicted Ghislaine Maxwell at the direction of the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. She claims she was subsequently sexually abused by the prince – charges he denies.
The latest turn in Windsor’s ongoing scandal of alleged sexual abuse shows something important. That is, like the monarchy, we place the military on a pedestal it does not deserve. As if it’s an institution which represents the very highest moral standards.
Stripped
It must have stung the duke to lose his titles by order of the queen this week. The duke’s ‘His Royal Highness’ (HRH) title was also rescinded. As a result, he was told he would have to face the coming civil action as a private citizen.
The move followed an open letter to the queen from a group of 150 ex-military members. It asked that the prince be removed from the various honorary military roles he had occupied. So, no more LARPing as a colonel in the Grenadier Guards for Windsor.
Other roles removed include, according to the Guardian:
honorary air commodore of RAF Lossiemouth; colonel-in-chief of the Royal Irish Regiment; colonel-in-chief of the Small Arms School Corps; commodore-in-chief of the Fleet Air Arm; royal colonel of the Royal Highland Fusiliers; deputy colonel-in-chief of the Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeths’ Own); and royal colonel of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Veterans
150 former military personnel published their open letter on 13 January. The letter was formulated with the anti-monarchist campaign group Republic. In it, the veterans say Windsor’s position was “untenable”:
We are therefore asking that you take immediate steps to strip Prince Andrew of all his military ranks and titles and, if necessary, that he be dishonourably discharged.
It is clear for all to see that Prince Andrew has been proven unfit to wear the uniform of any of Britain’s armed forces. That he is able to continue in numerous roles within the military is a disgrace, and an insult to those who continue to serve with distinction.
Martial fantasy
But there’s a problem with these claims. And it isn’t just that it shows how limited and centrist republicanism is in this country. More importantly, there’s no basis whatsoever for the suggestion that the military is adverse to a culture of misogyny, rape, or sexual abuse. If current reports are anything to go by, these issues are endemic.
In 2021, a landmark parliamentary report showed that two-thirds of women service personnel had faced sexual harassment or abuse. As the Guardian had reported, it:
…features evidence of gang rape, sex for career advancement and trophies to ‘bag the woman’
This was the real face of military culture around women.
Under the rug
MP, veteran, and subcommittee chair for women in the armed forces Sarah Atherton said at the time:
The stories we heard paint a difficult picture for women. A woman raped in the military often has to live and work with the accused perpetrator, with fears that speaking out would damage her career.
She added that:
We heard accusations of senior officers sweeping complaints under the rug to protect their own reputations and careers. While many commanding officers want to do the right thing, it is clear that, too often, female service personnel are being let down by the chain of command.
Spike
In October 2021, the Child Rights International Network published figures on sexual violence against young women and girls in the military. These showed a spike in such offences in recent years.
Then in December 2021, measures were proposed as amendments to the Armed Forces Bill 2021. The aim was to make the military a safer place for women. But in the end, key proposals were voted down. And Atherton, who rebelled in the final Commons vote, resigned from her government role.
No moral institution
There’s a problem in the way we look at our major institutions in this country. The truth? Well, neither the monarchy nor the military set a moral example for us. And the notion that the military is too upstanding to have an accused abuser associated with it is wrong. Ultimately, this kind of poorly thought out claim does a disservice to us all.
BBC News managed to protect the Tory government, MI5, and the Royal Family on Thursday 13 January. Because it provided cover for them all. And it also showed that it’s as much a threat to our democracy as Boris Johnson is.
13 January’s news
Three stories dominated the headlines on 13 January. These were:
The Met refusing to investigate government parties until after the government’s own internal inquiry. The parties took place while the rest of us were under coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions.
The queen cutting all military titles from her son prince Andrew Windsor. This was amid ongoing accusations of his alleged child sexual assault and the related court case.
The UK security services, MI5, naming Chinese lawyer Christine Ching Kui Lee of trying to interfere in UK politics for the Chinese Communist Party.
The UK is a supposed democracy. So, you’d think the BBC would make the ongoing scandal involving an elected prime minister its most important story; even more so when lawyers have threatened the Met with legal action over its stance. But if you’re News at Ten, then that wasn’t the case.
BBC News: getting its priorities wrong?
Its show on 13 January decided to run the stories in the following order:
First, Andrew and the Royal Family.
Then, Lee and the Chinese Communist Party.
Next, Johnson and the government parties.
What’s the problem with this? Well, it’s a case of a thinly-veiled form of bias:
Bias by Placement is the pattern of placing news stories in a way that downplays information supportive of the minority viewpoint. It is the news that editors and producers consider most important… As a general rule, story placement is a measure of how important the editor considers the story. In order to measure bias by placement you can observe where a newspaper places political stories and which political party is placed on the front page, with a big picture, as well as asking yourself who the articles tend to make look bad. Bias by placement can occur with newspapers, television, and radio news.
In the context of BBC News, bias by placement is what its editors choose to feature as the top story, and then in what order to put the others in.
It was a similar story on the BBC News app. As one Twitter user noted:
Currently no. 2 in the BBC news app for top stories. (Don’t know whether that’s on page clicks or their own set “top stories”.) They wrote an analysis piece on Prince Andrew and just a news piece on Johnson. (1) pic.twitter.com/Wn44EYduPj
Moreover, at the start of News at Ten, the BBC did not even include the government parties story in its headlines round-up:
Other forms of BBC bias
Of course, BBC News‘s bias by placement is on top of how it framed the three stories, too. For example, the BBC‘s royal reporter Nick Witchell presented the Windsor story with a large dollop of “flawed logic” bias about the queen. Witchell said of the Windsor situation that:
the Royal Family have acted very quickly
Considering the accusations against Windsor first came to light in December 2014, the queen taking over seven years to strip him of his titles is hardly ‘acting quickly’.
Then, the MI5/Chinese Communist Party story was equally biased. This time, it was bias by omission. Because BBC Newschose not to mention that foreign powers interfering in UK politics is hardly uncommon. As the Morning Starreported, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have all used various means to do this. This additional context from BBC News would have allowed the viewer to make a balanced judgement on the severity of MI5’s claims.
is committed to achieving due impartiality in all its output. This commitment is fundamental to our reputation, our values and the trust of audiences.
But in reality, any sense of balance or even critique of the government and the establishment is firmly beyond the BBC‘s remit. As The Canary has documented, it’s always served as an arm of the state. As I wrote:
The BBC always has been, and always will be… part of the establishment “ecosystem” in the UK, and globally. This makes it the most noxious of media outlets.
the biggest problem is that the BBC is still the most used news source in the UK. Overall, it has dominance and therefore is actually more dangerous than the Sun and the Daily Mail. People still believe that it’s a bastion of impartiality. They believe what they’re reading and watching is accurate, and a fair reflection of the situation.
13 January’s News at Ten did little to show otherwise. And that’s why the BBC, much like Johnson, is such a threat to democracy in the UK.
Energy company E.ON has apologised for sending socks as presents to customers as a way to help them keep warm ahead of a massive spike in energy prices.
Despite the ongoing fuel crisis, neither of the two largest parties in the UK are currently promoting the idea of re-nationalising the sector.
‘We’re sorry for how we made you feel’
The company shipped a free pair of polyester socks to 30,000 households it supplies with energy, the Daily Mail reported. The customers had reportedly engaged with one of E.ON’s energy saving campaigns last year and the socks were there to encourage them to continue to save energy. E.ON said it should not have gone ahead with the plan in light of major price rises that are about to hit millions of households.
The company said:
If you recently received a pair of socks from us, we would like to say we are incredibly sorry for how we have made some people feel.
In light of the seriousness of current challenges that many people are facing, this mailing should have been stopped and we are sorry.
The apology comes just days after rival energy firm Ovo said it was sorry for giving customers advice on how to save energy. In an email to customers, Ovo dished out normal advice like putting on a jumper, but also more uncommon remedies such as eating lentils/ginger or cuddling up to pets.
Increases looming
The government has just a few weeks before Ofgem announces its new price cap. Experts expect that the price of energy will soar by more than 50% to around £2,000 for the average household. It could remove around £700 from the pockets of struggling families across the country at a time when prices are also going up in shops.
Ofgem will set the new price cap in early February before it comes into force on 1 April. The government and energy companies have been in talks to decide how to offset the price hike. Many are advocating a cut to VAT but that will save households less than £100 each. Some energy companies want the government to back loans worth £20bn, arguing this will let the sector smooth the price hike so it does not hit customers all at once. Another suggestion is to increase the amount that is available for people under the Warm Home Discount Scheme, and expand eligibility.
The crisis has led to talk of nationalisation, albeit not from the Conservative or Labour parties. In September 2021, Keir Starmer actually made it clear that Labour would not re-nationalise the failing sector despite how popular such a move would likely be.
The fact that the company’s continued operations are being paid for by the UK government shows how straightforward the process could be
They also noted:
Since the privatisation of the energy sector back in 1990, energy companies have funnelled billions of pounds back to private shareholders. Since then, the price people pay for their energy bills has continued to increase despite the argument that a privatised energy sector would be more efficient and therefore cheaper
Three Extinction Rebellion activists have been cleared over a 2019 stunt which saw them cause 77 minutes of disruption to a central London train.
Protest
Reverend Sue Parfitt, 79, Father Martin Newell, 54, and former university lecturer Philip Kingston, 85, were unanimously acquitted by a jury at Inner London Crown Court of obstructing the railway following their protest at Shadwell Station on 17 October 2019. Kingston super-glued his hand to a Docklands Light Railway (DLR) train while Parfitt and Newell climbed on the roof and said prayers for the planet, shortly before 7am.
The trio said they were strongly motivated by their Christian faith, while Kingston said the futures of his four grandchildren also prompted him to take part in the protest.
In what they said was an attempt to appeal to the public and the government about the dangers of climate change and the financial institutions whose actions damage the planet, they targeted a train which was one stop away from Bank, in the City of London’s financial district.
Extinction Rebellion protester Phil Kingston who has glued himself to a DLR train at Shadwell in east London (Max Kara/Twitter/PA)
Some 15 trains were delayed or cancelled but none were stuck in tunnels.
This was partly because, according to the activists, they had planned the demonstration to ensure there was no risk to public safety, by taking measures including targeting a station above ground and having 10 more Extinction Rebellion activists on the platform to ensure violence did not break out.
In April last year, six Extinction Rebellion protesters were cleared of causing criminal damage to Shell’s London headquarters despite the judge directing jurors they had no defence in law.
An apology from the prime minister’s former director of communications over a No 10 party the night before the duke of Edinburgh’s funeral has heaped further pressure on Boris Johnson as another Tory MP called on him to resign.
“Anger and hurt”
James Slack, who until last year was Johnson’s director of communications, apologised on the morning of 14 January for the “anger and hurt” his leaving party in April 2021 is causing. Slack, who is now deputy editor-in-chief of the Sun newspaper, said he took “full responsibility” and was “deeply sorry”.
In an emailed statement issued by the Sun’s publisher News UK, he added:
This event should not have happened at the time that it did.
James Slack needs to clarify or resign as deputy editor of The Sun. How on earth can he have kept this out of the paper? Who else attended his leaving do in Downing Street and kept quiet? How many editors? How many in the lobby? https://t.co/JXWeWVYnCi
It comes after the Telegraph reported that advisers and civil servants gathered after work for two separate events on 16 April 2021, on the eve of prince Philip Windsor’s funeral. The events were to mark the departures of Slack and one of the prime minister’s personal photographers, the newspaper said. The two events are said to have started separately and later merged.
The newspaper reported accounts from witnesses who said alcohol was drunk and guests danced to music, with a person sent to a local shop with a suitcase to buy wine.
I’m very proud that thanks to Brexit and the end of metric tyranny we are finally able to serve wine by the suitcase once again. These are the ancient liberties Nelson and Wellington fought to defend.
The next day, the queen attended her late husband’s funeral wearing a face mask and socially distanced from her family at Windsor Castle, in line with coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions.
James Slack, deputy editor of the Sun, is at work in the newsroom as planned while also being at the centre of the biggest story in the country… it's claimed he had not told fellow Sun managers about his leaving do until contacted by Telegraph yesterday. https://t.co/LulOK4WRJb
James Slack in Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA)The queen at the funeral of her husband in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, last April (Jonathan Brady/PA)
“Wholly unacceptable”
Conservative MP Roger Gale said the gatherings were “wholly unacceptable”, and confirmed he had submitted a letter of no confidence in Johnson to the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs. On the evening of 13 January, his Tory colleague Andrew Bridgen became the fifth MP to have publicly said they had written to committee chair Graham Brady.
The Telegraph reported that as many as 30 letters have been submitted so far, with a total of 54 needed to trigger a vote.
I have been described as a serial critic of the Prime Minister and, in a sense, that is true.
My letter calling for a leadership election goes back to the Barnard Castle event when the Prime Minister failed to take what I regarded as appropriate decisions and actions to remove (former top adviser Dominic) Cummings from office, because what happened then was quite wrong.
I decided then that if the Prime Minister was not capable of exercising the right kind of judgment, then we had to have another Prime Minister.
Gale praised Boris Johnson’s delivery of the vaccine rollout and Brexit, but added:
The problem is that the man’s judgment is flawed.
He added:
I don’t think that the image of the Downing Street branch of the Majestic Wine Warehouse is doing us any good at all.
Meanwhile, a councillor from the Sutton Coldfield Conservatives – an association in a safe Tory seat that withdrew its support for Johnson on 13 January – said the move reflected “local views at the very grassroots levels”.
Councillor Simon Ward told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The conversation we had last night … was really about what I think we have the right to expect from our leaders and the standards of leadership we expect from them, and the trust that we put in them.
He said:
This is about what the right thing is for politics, what the right thing is for our leaders, how this reflects on our country as well, and it’s just massively disappointing and it reflects very, very poorly on us as a nation as well.
In run up to May local elections, talks underway about how to avoid haemorrhaging voters.
A source tells me "there are calls to actually denounce him in literature" – eg “Bins not Boris” or “I’m as angry with Boris as you are – but don’t throw away your council because of it”.
Security minister Damian Hinds denied Johnson was hiding from scrutiny by saying he had to reduce his social contacts after a close family member tested positive for coronavirus. Downing Street said Johnson would be taking precautions until 18 January after he cancelled a planned visit on 13 January.
When my family or close contacts test positive I am expected to be at school teaching (after using LFT to test).
Although the legal requirement to self-isolate does not apply to vaccinated contacts, they are advised to take daily tests and “limit close contact with other people outside your household”.
Security Minister Damian Hinds (Peter Byrne/PA)
Hinds told Times Radio:
Well, I think you are advised to reduce social contacts to the extent you can.
The Prime Minister was, look, in front of 650 Members of Parliament on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, he has been absolutely available to be questioned, to be scrutinised, as of course our leaders must.
Hinds said he had been “shocked” by the party claims, and that they would now form part of an investigation by senior official Sue Gray. He added that Slack’s statement “doesn’t change the fact that we need to get to the bottom of … we need to hear the full set of facts about this, that particular evening but also the other events and gatherings”.
At the time of the two newly-reported gatherings on 16 April, government guidance said:
You must not socialise indoors except with your household or support bubble. You can meet outdoors, including in gardens, in groups of six people or two households.
It brings the total number of parties or gatherings alleged to have happened across Whitehall during restrictions to 14.
Sue Gray’s report is expected to criticise the culture in Downing Street (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
The so-called “work event”
On 12 January, the prime minister apologised for attending a “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown, but insisted he believed it was what he called a ‘work event’ and could “technically” have been within the rules.
Members of the government urged Johnson’s critics to wait for the findings of Gray’s inquiry before passing judgment after Tory MPs began publicly calling for him to quit. The Times reported that the inquiry was expected to find no evidence of criminality but that the investigation could censure Johnson for a lack of judgment. The newspaper said Gray was expected to avoid concluding whether Johnson breached the ministerial code, as this would fall outside her remit. However, it said she is set criticise the culture in Downing Street, of which Johnson is the ultimate person in charge.
Imagine the police saying they wouldn’t investigate a case of workplace sexual harassment until an internal inquiry determined whether it had happened or not.
It’s an admission that the rule of law doesn’t apply to Downing Street like it does to the rest of us. https://t.co/CvH0MMp4rO
Molly-Mae is just one in a long line of privileged people who peddle the myth that their success is simply down to hard work and self-belief, and that’s all it takes to ‘make it’. Curtis Daly explains why this is bullsh*t.
Video transcript
The idea that all you need to be “successful” in our society is to work hard, is as pervasive as it is toxic. It’s time for us to pick apart this myth.
Social media erupted after Instagram influencer Molly-Mae made comments about her success on The Diary of a CEO podcast.
As you saw from the video, Molly-Mae claims that the true path to success is an individual’s ability to just go for it, that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, and all we need to do to ‘make it’ is to work hard. Despite acknowledging different economic backgrounds, she then completely ignores it anyway and simply explains that if you want something bad enough, hard work equals success.
Her point is not a new one, it’s a classic Thatcherite take which we have all heard before.
Molly-Mae is completely wrong, and here’s why.
Firstly, we need to look at how we define success.
Most of Molly-Mae’s success came after appearing on Love Island, a scenario that doesn’t happen to most of us. Her chances of being on the show increased because she is white and meets societal beauty standards.
Molly-Mae is working with companies that profit from scandalous, poverty wages. Should we really call anyone successful when their wealth is created by the exploitation of people and the planet?
Off the back of Love Island, Molly-Mae secured a deal that earned her £500k in one year with Pretty Little Thing. The parent company is BooHoo, which was found to be paying their staff as little as £3.50 per hour in some instances. They also decided to keep their factories open during the height of the pandemic, with no regard for the health of their workers.
Molly-Mae, and other CEOs, are literally making money off low wages. She directly benefits from scandalous, poverty wages as it enriches her, and many others in her position.
Wage labour is exploitation. The value that you bring to the company is taken away from you, and then a cut of that value is given back to you.
Is this how we want to define “success”? Success should be about more than wealth accumulation. And should we really call anyone successful when their wealth is created by the exploitation of others?
Then there’s the question of whether just working hard gets you what you want.
Different walks of life do determine where you end up, or it’s at least an incredible indicator of someone’s future. If you’re born in a poorer household, then of course opportunities are limited; worse healthcare options, lower standards of education, harder to provide a varied and healthy diet and fewer social links to lucrative opportunities. The options you have are often limited at birth.
What if you are disabled, or suffer from chronic illnesses, and need support as a result? Without that support – and many sadly do go without it – how can we expect everyone to have access to the same level of opportunity in the same ‘24 hours in a day’?’.
With bigotry still prevalent in today’s society, opportunities for those in minority groups are often limited.
Austerity also negatively affects these groups much more, pushing individuals into worse economic situations.
The collapse of social democracy in favour of neoliberalism has had a huge impact on society at large, with a significant decline in social mobility.
The welfare state and public services have been slashed for over four decades. .
Neoliberalism has caused a huge spike in income inequality and people’s purchasing power has been in severe decline
It’s not because young people are buying too much avocado on toast that they’re struggling, it’s because the rules have changed.
Buying a house is out of reach of many people as a result of wages not keeping pace with skyrocketing costs.
A lot of the success stories you see in legacy media paint a picture of young individuals or couples in their early twenties purchasing their first home through a can-do attitude. But almost every single time you look a bit deeper, and see that it was actually thanks to mummy and daddy.
These stories are aimed at those who are lucky enough to even look at buying a house. In Britain we still have thousands who are homeless. What do we say to these people? Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps? One day you too can be invited on to a reality show that will almost certainly give you endless possibilities afterwards?
If only rough sleepers use that spare change given by passers by and just simply invested in a startup or Bitcoin ( and don’t get me started on crypto currency).
Then there’s the factor of necessity due to everyday struggles. Humans will look at more immediate solutions when in more desperate situations.
When we worry about putting food on our table, paying bills, and rent, this can be overwhelming. Our immediate needs mean that long term planning and decisions will always be on the back foot and are already much harder to achieve.
Let’s look at this in a more radical way.
The issue with Molly-Mae’s comments is fundamentally a problem with capitalism.
How can we expect those at the bottom to simply just work harder to become successful, when capitalism literally rigs the system against those without capital in favour of those with it. That is why economic inequality explodes in a free market system, and social policies from the government ameliorate it.
Whether you work in a factory, retail, or hospitality, let’s say you bring in hundreds or even thousands of pounds for the company in an hour. The value was made through your human labour, yet in return, you will only receive 8,10, or maybe even 15 pounds an hour. The remainder of that value is never to be seen.
This is the reality – the reality of inequality under capitalism. It’s also a reality that inequality is being exacerbated further through social policy or a lack thereof, which means we need to understand the idea that simply working hard equals success is a load of bullshit.
On Monday 10 January, campaigners announced that Elbit – Israel’s biggest private drone maker – will close its Ferranti factory in Oldham. The company has sold Ferranti business despite a massive £6m drop in resale value.
The shutting down of Elbit’s Ferranti factory in Oldham is the culmination of years of campaigning by local organisers in solidarity with Palestinians and Kashmiris.
The victory in Oldham should be a reminder of how powerful the combination of community organising and militant direct action can be.
And – for me – it reminded me of the people I’ve met whose lives have been torn apart by Israeli drones, and who have been calling for these factories to be closed down for years.
Elbit: profiting from the death-trade worldwide
Elbit manufactures around 85% of Israel’s drones which have been used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.
For example – during Israel’s 51 day attack on Gaza in 2014 – Israeli drones killed 840 Palestinians. Drones were alsoused extensively in Israel’s 11 day attack on Gaza in 2021.
Elbit’s Ferranti factory in Oldham manufactured imaging and surveillance systems for Israel’s Hermes drones, which have been used to kill Palestinians in Gaza. Elbit is also responsible for manufacturing small calibre ammunition for the Israeli army.
The company is part of a joint venture to manufacture drones for the Indian army, drawing criticism from local people in Oldham – where there is a large Kashmiri population – many of whom are horrified at the prospect of “drones that were used in the bombing of Gaza” being “mass produced in India” and used in the repression of Kashmiri people.
“Campaigners must prevent these Israeli war crimes that kill our dreams and kill our children”
The news of the closure of Elbit’s factory also reminded me of a series interviews I carried out with another comrade as part of a Corporate Watch research project into Elbit in Gaza in 2013. We interviewed survivors of drone attacks and family members of Palestinians killed in Israeli drone strikes.
I remember Gazan mother and father Mona and Basil Ash-Shawa, whose 18-year-old daughter was killed when an Israeli drone fired a missile through the window of their living room a year earlier. They told me how they had failed to find any justice for their daughter through the Israeli court system and how it was up to campaigners to find that justice. Basil told us:
The death of my daughter was a war crime by the Israeli military. There is no excuse for it. When you have an 18 year old daughter that is a dream and that dream was killed. She was my only daughter. Campaigners must prevent these Israeli war crimes that kill our dreams and kill our children. When will it stop? Our case shows that Israel does not care about international law. People should take note.
I also remember the Abu Zor family, who we interviewed as they sat with their children amid the ruins of their house in Gaza City. They had survived an attack by an Israeli drone and an F16, which had killed three other members of their family. A female family member – who wished to remain anonymous – called on people internationally to take action against Israeli military companies operating internationally:
These weapons are being tested in Gaza on us. If they brought tanks to fight us they would lose but instead they bring warplanes. These kids now do not have a mother, if their father is sick, who will care for them? We do not need just words.
There is a big profit in it for Israel to market these drones. They want to be the strongest and selling these weapons helps them to do that. Other countries should not buy weapons from Israel. Israel wants war all over the world. We want these factories to be destroyed completely.
Years of campaigning
International movements have been taking the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of Israeli arms companies for many long years, in an attempt to heed the calls for solidarity from people like the Ash-Shawa and Abu Zor family
In response to Israel’s brutal occupation – and to the massive Israeli attack on Gaza in 2009 – Palestinian civil society groups called for a two way arms embargo of Israel in 2011. This two-way embargo demanded that states cease selling weapons to Israel, and also that they refrain from buying armaments from Israeli companies.
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) calls for global campaigns against Elbit.
The movement in the UK begins to take off
Demands for the closure of Elbit’s UK sites snowballed during Israel’s murderous attack on Gaza in 2014, which killed at least 2,251 Palestinians. Direct actions against Elbit’s factories increased in momentum as Israel attacked Gaza. Campaigners occupied the roof of Elbit’s Shenstone factory on the Midlands, and they blockaded the gates with lock-ons at the company’s Kent premises.
The Canary spoke to two local organisers: Adie Mormech – a long time Palestine solidarity organiser from Manchester Palestine Action – and Wakas, from Oldham Peace and Justice.
Adie told us that the campaign against Elbit in Oldham started in earnest in 2016:
We started in 2016, and we’d done a lot of awareness raising with stalls and petitions and everything else – as well as the regular demonstrations.
Wakas said:
our first protest took place in 2016. So it’s nearly been a five year long campaign. Oldham Peace and Justice was formed in 2019, off the back of so many groups doing smaller actions.
Wakas continued:
I think [the victory in Oldham] just shows you that it’s all about the grassroots, it’s from the bottom up.
We didn’t get much cooperation from the council. We did get some support from some counsellors, and some support from MPs. But that was about it. And we did realise that if you were going to do it, it was going to be from the people. It was the community coming together to push out Elbit Systems of the town
Urgency
Adie has lived in the Gaza Strip – working as a teacher and organising in solidarity with Palestinians – for two years. He said:
Many of us – like myself – have been to Palestine. I was there in Gaza for two years. I saw what these weapons were doing. I lost a lot of people myself, including my own students. All this just increases the urgency of the actions – and that’s how it should be bearing in mind the crime that’s taking place.
According to Adie, the key to the campaign’s success was the combination of local organising with direct action:
it was only once serious direct action [started] to actually stop what the factory was doing – then the benefits of having such a great support base of local campaigning on the ground – local groups such as Oldham Peace and Justice and United For Palestine – paid off
Adie told us that he was part of a three day rooftop occupation of Elbit’s Oldham factory in 2019. But – up until then – actions at the Oldham factory had been “sporadic”. According to Adie, there was a “massive intensification” in the campaign once direct action group Palestine Action began to target the factory.
Palestine Action was founded during the first coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown in 2020 with the aim of ending UK complicity in “the ongoing colonisation and military occupation, and subjugation of Palestine”. Since the group was set up, it has regularly targeted the Oldham site with the aim of closing it down. A statement from the group says:
The first action taken in Oldham by Palestine Action, in late August 2020, involved spraying premises in blood-red paint, symbolising the Palestinian bloodshed made possible with Elbit Ferranti technologies. Following this, actions accelerated. Windows were smashed in an occupation in November 2020, while an action taken in collaboration with XR North in February 2021 caused over £20,000 in damages. In April 2021, activists not only occupied the site but gained entry to the factory, smashing the roof, windows, air vents, and undermining future operations by covering equipment and computers in red paint – over £100,000 of damages were caused, and the site remained shut for well over a week.
On July 5th, three activists gained entry to the site, allegedly causing £500,000 of damage and closing the factory for a number of weeks. More recently, in August of this year, activists blockaded the factory – blocking roads with vehicles and locking onto gates – and occupied the factory itself again. There have been a number of other actions taken at the Oldham site, with the factory forced to closed for a significant number of weeks in total due to damage caused.
Palestine Action says that 36 people have been arrested for actions against the factory, but that none of them have yet been brought to court.
‘A crescendo’
In May 2021, Israel bombarded Gaza for 11 days running. An uprising began across all the parts of historic Palestine, and the international solidarity movement rallied to support it.
This Israeli attack marked a crescendo in the campaign – according to Adie – and led to the setting up of a group called United for Palestinians. From May, determination to close down the factory increased. Adie said:
A lot of the Asian families got involved locally after May. We had demonstrations every week from May until now – 30 weeks. Blocking the road every time and – of course – some terrific direct actions in January, February, April, and more
Adie said that the campaign pushed hard in Oldham to get the message out in local media, and on social media. He said that after May there were:
lots of great young activists rousing the community and making great speeches to come [to the demonstrations]
Adie said that the trick was:
Upping [the ante] so that we were taking the road every time… It wasn’t just about standing outside. We had to disrupt business as usual, because business as usual is creating these horrific weapons and killing machines purely based on the need to cause damage and destruction – that’s what their profit margin is depending on – on that level alone, that was the impetus to do a whole lot more… and it was all levels that we were upping it – and that’s where we win.
Persistence
Wakas told us that when people in Oldham took their first actions against Elbit, “the police and Elbit Systems thought it was a one off”. He said that it has been all about persistence and determination. According to Wakas:
It’s just been a campaign of being persistent and patient, and sometimes it looked like we were getting nowhere. And others it seemed like we got somewhere one step forward and two steps back… This campaign has always been like that. And it was just about who would buckle first. It was either Elbit Systems or it was going to be the people of Oldham. And the people Oldham have lasted longer than Elbit Systems!
Not the first time
This isn’t the first time that a concerted campaign by Palestine solidarity campaigners has closed down an arms company premises. In 2010, US arms giant Raytheon closed its doors after a years long local campaign in Derry in the North of Ireland. Campaigners protesting the sale of weapons to the Israeli state broke into the Raytheon on two occasions and – on one occasion – successfully destroyed computers and other equipment. Members of the Derry campaign visited Oldham in 2020 to speak to campaigners and to give inspiration for the campaign against Elbit.
It “took us all by surprise”
Wakas said that campaigners had been aware that the factory might close, but that the speed with which it happened was a surprise. He told us:
We had an inkling feeling that Elbit Systems and Ferranti Technology were on the way out. And we’ve known for a while that something big was going to happen. But the speed and the secrecy around Elbit Systems exit from all them, has took us all by surprise.
Adie and Wakas agree that it is a great victory, but that the struggle to push Elbit out of the UK will continue. According to Wakas:
It’s just so great. I’m lost for words. But at the same time, you’ve got to remember this is just one site, there are eight other places that Elbit profits from – including three factories – in England
The company alsooperates out of the ParcAberporth drone testing facility in Wales.
Adie agrees with Wakas’ point:
Its a wonderful wonderful day – its a wonderful achievement. But there’s a whole lot more to do, its just one factory, there’s a lot more around the country. We are hoping that this is the green light for more action, a domino effect… We are hoping that that [this] can take place around the country and we can finally get all these Elbit arms factories out.
“Palestinians are not struggling alone”
Campaigners held their weekly demonstration outside the Oldham factory for the last time on 11 January, except this week the demonstration was a celebration. Shahd Abusalama – a Palestinian woman who is originally from Gaza but now lives in the UK – was one of the revellers. She told The Canary:
I was just at the rally party in front of the no longer Elbit factory! The atmosphere was electric, and many people came from other cities in the UK! The best street party I attended with such a diverse crowd of few hundreds I’m guessing, all celebrating Elbit-free Oldham.
Such grassroots-led organisations revive our hope and reassure us that we the Palestinians are not struggling alone. They also remind us that it seems impossible until it’s done, with the people’s will and power.
Elbit has repeatedly dismissed the demands of the local community in Oldham to leave their town, and its presence has inflicted a lot of emotional distress on them throughout the past 5 years of consistent campaigning to shut Elbit down, knowing the central role they play in the oppression of the Palestinians and the Kashmiris and other oppressed communities around the world. But they never gave up and continued to protest week after another, inspired by the persisting Palestinian anti-colonial resistance against British and Zionist colonisation of our lands.
Now Oldham people don’t have to put up with having Elbit so close to their homes, schools and workplaces, but there are 9 other Elbit sites remaining in the UK, and many more around the world. Until [they are gone] the struggle to shut Elbit and all profiteers of oppression continues, and so does the struggle to free Palestine!
Featured image is of the final celebration outside what used to be Elbit’s Ferranti factory, via Adie Mormech (with permission)
Burning biomass – namely wood – for energy is a key feature of the UK’s net zero plans. The government already heavily subsidises energy company Drax’s tree-burning power plant. Meanwhile, it’s poised to potentially provide masses of further funding to Drax and other energy and industry giants to try and develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) capabilities to reach net zero. The government currently categorises bioenergy as a ‘clean’ fuel due to the fact that, over long timeframes, wood can be a renewable source.
Campaigners and scientists have challenged the green credentials of bioenergy, and bioenergy’s CCS potential, known as BECCS, though. And recent comments from a senior figure on the UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) suggest that officials are finally listening to their warnings. The jig could well be up for the ‘clean’ credibility of this energy source.
“A key issue”
The CCC’s head of carbon budgets addressed the Environment Audit Committee (EAC) on 5 January. Dr David Joffe gave evidence to the EAC on negative emissions technologies. BECCS is one of these potential technologies, whereby bioenergy plants could theoretically capture the carbon produced during production processes on a large scale and store it to avoid it entering the atmosphere.
Scientists have, however, raised concerns over the potential environmental impact of bioenergy and the uncertainties surrounding its large-scale carbon removal potential. Campaigners, meanwhile, have shown that bioenergy is incredibly carbon-intensive and evidence indicates that it’s already driving the destruction of long-standing, carbon-holdingforests. The thinktank Ember has also estimated that Drax’s proposed new BECCS power plant could cost over £31bn in public subsidies over a 25-year lifespan.
Joffe’s recent comments suggest that the CCC is heeding those warnings. Responding to a question from the EAC on “concerns about the sustainability of biomass as a source of fuel for BECCS”, he admitted this was a “key issue”. Joffe said:
There are big challenges to ensuring the sustainability of biomass grown outside the UK. It is not impossible but it is very difficult.
The head of carbon budgets continued, asserting that the UK shouldn’t be “relying on” biomass imports on a “large scale” for its greenhouse gas removal plans.
“Throwing good money after bad”
In response to Joffe’s comments to the committee, Sasha Stashwick, who is a senior advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a campaigner with Cut Carbon Not Forests, said:
It’s refreshing and encouraging to see the Climate Change Committee speak plainly about the problems associated with Drax-style BECCS. Drax burns millions of tonnes of trees imported from forests around the world. These supply chains are known to be high-carbon and high-risk. Handing the company tens of billions more in subsidies for BECCS would be throwing more good money after bad and undermine the UK’s climate goals.
As the New Civil Engineerpointed out, Joffe’s comments are also highly significant in relation to the future of Drax and biomass’ inclusion in the UK’s climate plans. It wrote:
The government has so far closely followed the CCC in its recommendations for using GGRs [greenhouse gas removals] for reaching net zero so any shift in position from the CCC could be a precursor to a shift in policy from the government.
Drax response
In a comment to the publication, Drax asserted that:
Both the CCC and the UN’s IPCC state that BECCS has a critical role to play in addressing the climate crisis by permanently removing CO2 from the atmosphere whilst generating renewable electricity – no other technology can do both.
Both the CCC and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have considered the involvement of BECCS in various potential climate pathways. But, as Joffe’s comments show, these positions are not static and they can respond to emerging evidence on the sustainability of biomass and its carbon-removing potential.
Drax also characterised its biomass as “sustainable”, stating that it “meets the stringent criteria set by the UK government and EU”. But this criteria doesn’t prevent the “leveling of rooted trees for wood pellet production”, as CNN has pointed out. The company also stated that:
Independent research for the Coalition of Negative Emissions [sic] shows there is enough sustainable biomass globally to remove 2Gt of CO2 each year by 2030.
It should be noted that the Coalition for Negative Emissions, which Drax referred to in its statement, is made up of organisations from the energy, aviation and farming sectors, among others. Drax is itself a member of the coalition. Launched in 2020, it is dedicated to “developing pioneering projects that can remove carbon dioxide (CO2) and other pollutants from the atmosphere”.
Climate action or legal action
The UK government is currently facing legal action over its net zero strategy. Both ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth filed claims against it on 12 January. The government’s reliance on speculative technologies that may not deliver emissions cuts far enough or fast enough are central to those claims.
Campaigners argue that BECCS very much falls into this category. Stashwick asserts that it:
will not deliver negative emissions and in fact risks increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations within timeframes relevant for climate action under the Paris Agreement. Government climate plans reliant on this technology should be treated as high-risk for people and planet.
Moreover, she says that:
The UK Government’s reliance on biomass electricity wastes billpayer-funded subsidies on a false climate solution. Just like fossil fuels, burning trees in power stations exacerbates climate change, threatens wildlife, and emits dangerous air pollution.
Joffe’s comments suggests that such warnings are finally hitting home in the UK’s key climate change advisory body.
Activists are gathering across the country this Saturday to fight back against the Tory’s draconian Policing Bill. Kill The Bill protesters are set to turn out in force. As extensivelyreported by The Canary, the legislation expands stop and search powers and criminalise the livelihoods of GRT people among other things. And human rights charity Liberty has called the bill an “assault on basic civil liberties”:
Location announcement for London march, Saturday 15th January
No Borders Manchester tweeted a list of locations where you can join the fight against this authoritarian new law:
COME JOIN US AT 1PM ON SATURDAY 15TH (THIS SATURDAY!) IN ST. PETER’S SQUARE. WE’LL BE THERE WITH KILL THE BILL MANC, READY TO PROTEST THESE HARMFUL BILLS.
There will also be demonstrations against the bill in the Midlands:
12pm in Coventry at Broadgate
12pm at the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham
12pm at Hanley Bus Station in Stoke-on-Trent
The Shrewsbury demo starts at 9am at Quarry Park.
Southwest
Bristol on College Green at 1pm
Bath at Bath Abbey at 12pm
Cornwall at George Eustice’s Office in Camborne from 2pm
Exeter from 12pm at Bedford Square
and the Plymouth demo will start at Charles Cross Police Station from 12pm
Wales
Cardiff’s St John Batchelor Statue from 1pm
Newtown from outside Santander on the High Street at 12pm
MAP IS LIVE for #KilltheBill National Day of Action, 15 Jan!
Meanwhile, please keep calling/emailing the Lords to show them why it's so important not to let the govt get away with this shameless power grab!https://t.co/H4HN8dD0o9https://t.co/dTCqk22eXr
Additionally, the main London Kill the Bill demo will start at Lincoln’s Inn Fields from 12pm.
Why we’re taking part
Some of those taking part explained their reasons for doing so. Gypsy Roma and Traveller community member Anne Marie:
Under the bill, our vehicles, which are often our only homes, could be confiscated and destroyed, whilst parents could be imprisoned and their children taken into care
Disabled People Against Cuts activist Andy Greene:
All of disabled people’s rights and freedoms were gained by us going out and protesting to demand them. All the harm and damage done to disabled people by government policies over the last ten years since austerity was imposed, would have continued unchecked without our community being able to come out onto the streets and tell its own story. These changes will affect disabled people’s right to protest and make us slide back to a state of disability apartheid, that we fought so hard to break down.
The coordinator of the Muslim LGBT Network, Ejel Khan:
As a person of colour and a Muslim I have been stopped and searched on several occasions and the authorities need no reasonable justification now to continue to racially profile individuals such as myself. If the bill is passed racial divisions in society will become more entrenched than they currently are. This is state-sanctioned apartheid, which positively discriminates against minority ethnic communities.
Marvina Newton of Black Lives Matter Leeds and United for Black Lives:
Protest has done so much for people who look like me. If it wasn’t for protesters such as Paul Stephenson, who was once considered disruptive, Black people in this country wouldn’t be able to ride on a bus in some cities or even buy a drink in a bar. This bill seeks to silence our fight against injustice while persecuting me for wanting an equitable society.
NHS worker and campaigner Karen Reissmann:
As a health worker, I think it is essential that we have the right to protest without fear. Too much is at risk. How can being annoying or a nuisance compare to millions of operations and medical appointments cancelled and 100,000 unfilled NHS vacancies.
Stand up for your rights
The proposed law is currently at the report stage, with some calling this weekend’s demonstrations the “last legal protests”:
Kill the Bill actions on Saturday have been branded 'the last legal protest'. The bill, which threatens our right to protest, is now in the report stage before its third reading in the House of Lords, after which it could enter the final stages before Royal Assent.>>
And in the meantime, it’s a good idea to support those Kill the Bill activists currently in prison. As The Canaryreported on 11 January, 10 people are currently in jail for the demonstration in Bristol in March 2021. On 9 January supporters held a solidarity demonstration for the eight held at HMP Portland in Dorset.
One activist told The Canary:
Noise demonstrations like this are extremely important. We do this to remind those who have been imprisoned that they are not alone, and that the struggle continues on their behalf outside of the prison walls. People are not forgotten as soon as they are behind bars. They are bearing the consequences of the repressive laws that we are fighting against, and they remain a central part of our movement.
So whether it is prison solidarity, turning out for the protests this weekend, or both, its time to get involved with the fightback against Priti Patel’s authoritarian Policing Bill.
(@AlexMays90) January 19, 2022
(@ArgyleLoz) January 17, 2022
(@SMarwickYes) January 16, 2022
(@GaryLineker) January 16, 2022
@pixel8foto pic.twitter.com/FqjeyF4iKN
https://t.co/dUVw3UdWpw pic.twitter.com/ct8GerRiqU
𝒞𝒶𝓇𝒾𝒶𝒹 𝒩𝒾𝒸 
UK's ex-Leader of the Opposition @jeremycorbyn addresses media bias & @BBCNews accuracy at #killthebill demonstration outside London parliament.#PolicingBill #BorisJohnson pic.twitter.com/RFfG291eo2
(@PaulineWooding) January 15, 2022
Stay safe
Mask up 
Resist police surveillance! pic.twitter.com/tIAz6ZJvfF
@XR_Godalming@XR_FFC@FarnhamXr https://t.co/aAyWIPSimO
(@KazzMcLeod) January 12, 2022
(@uk_domain_names) January 12, 2022
Private hospitals to be given £1bn windfall without having to do a single operation
pic.twitter.com/ol2Rpzu2eE
pic.twitter.com/CVzHx4Swry
DID
NicNak
Lincoln Inn Fields
12 midday 
Join us & @nobordersmcr to resist the #PolicingBill and #BordersBill in the streets.
Access, legal rights, donation details & more in below tweets.
The people have the power!#KillTheBill#StopNABB pic.twitter.com/W3CWvHbPes
.jpg){kind=link}
