Alex Benady

Business, media and marketing journalist, editor of award-winning b2b web site and copywriter. Pen for hire.

[Rafi Mauro-Benady @RafiMauro1]

🚨 I am going to be leading @myldn's good news campaign. With what seems like endless negative press about the capital, it's time positive news was reported from all four corners. Get in touch if you have, or know of, any upbeat/heroic/positive stories. [email protected]

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

It was Britain and Brexit that knifed Gibraltar in the back. Without a deal Gibraltar would be f***ed. Most Gibraltarians are pleased and relieved

[Benonwine @benonwine]

This Gibraltar Giveaway is a knife in the backs of the People of Gibraltar who have been loyal and faithful British subjects.

Shameful but that’s Labour all over isn’t it!

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@Phuck_yo_bih @vocalcry @sanggr3al dk w8 9 a w9a8o ofthea9 9 , -

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@Judge_USA I got a bit over excited and have taken the liberty of filling in mine early. Feels like the end of 14 years of Nazi occupation. My personal hit list. 1 Rees Mogg. 2 Braverman. 3 Jenkyns.

[The Judge @Judge_USA]

Of course Johnny Mercer is on my Tory Wipeout Card...
Bonus will be that Felicity Mercer will also loose her taxpayer fundrd job.
#ToryWipeout2024 #FelicityMinge
RT if you download the wipeout card 👍

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@pursleynile People despise the Tories because they have shown themselves to be cruel, incompetent extremists. There are no marks for effort.

[Jason Pedlow 💙 @JasonPedlow]

Give the NY Times credit, they've nailed conservative Britain.

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

Yuck I feel dirty and soiled and ashamed. I completely agree with David Cameron.

[David Cameron @David_Cameron]

Extremist settlers, by targeting and killing Palestinian civilians, are undermining security and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel must take stronger action to stop settler violence and hold the perpetrators accountable.

We are banning those responsible for settler violence from entering the UK to make sure our country cannot be a home for people who commit these intimidating acts.

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@thebeatles or @RollingStones? Must be 50 years since both had singles out at the same time. But imho Beatles' Now and Then is an aimless dirge while Stones, Sounds of Heaven is a masterpiece as good as anything they've ever done. Or is it just me?

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

Clever analysis of Hamas' outrageous attack on Israel shows that Israel may have blundered into Hamas' trap with its military response https://t.co/dJtJQJUbmc…

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

The last 13 years would suggest they are antonymous, Sir Mogg?

[Mark Kieran - Democracy Activist @MarkKieranUK]

WARNING: THREAD CONTAINS GRAPHIC LANGUAGE

🧵 What a morally vacuous, embarrassingly incompetent monster Suella Braverman is.

Having worked at the Home Office deciding asylum applications, I know the 1951 Refugee Convention's terms are far clearer than her pernicious propaganda would suggest.

She says many asylum seekers base their claims on “feeling” discriminated against in their home countries. But the scope of the Convention is limited to people who believe they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” for some specific reasons. Those reasons are race, nationality, religion, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Mere feelings of discrimination would not meet that rigorous test, and any application made on those grounds would (rightly) be fast-tracked for refusal.

She suggests that persecution, by definition, must involve a threat to life. Not true. Persecution often DOES involve a threat to life, but other things can qualify as persecution (arbitrary detention, unjustified confiscation of assets, withdrawal of state protection from crime). Braverman knows this, but the boneheads whose votes she is soliciting do not, so hey, why not spin the line?

In my time at the Home Office, I refused many asylum applications which, on the evidence presented, clearly did not meet the test of a well-founded fear of persecution on Convention grounds. The majority of those applications were made by people (mostly young men) who appeared to be seeking better economic futures for themselves and their families. That's completely understandable, and I never blamed them for trying, but it's not grounds for asylum, so neither did I feel any guilt in refusing them…that's not the purpose of the asylum system.

But I did grant asylum to a number of people who had clearly faced unimaginable horror in their own countries before escaping to the UK, where they felt safe and where they believed they would be able to live the rest of their lives in peace.

There was the Sikh activist who had a kettle of boiling water poured over him during a police interrogation. There was the woman from a minority Muslim sect who, when her husband died, and her neighbours started throwing stones through her windows at night, sought the protection of the local police only to be publicly ridiculed and then gang-raped by six officers in front of her three young children. There were the young Tamil men forced to inhale the fumes of burnt chilli powder by Sri Lankan police. Others hung upside-down and beaten for days until they confessed to crimes they played no part in. And many, many more with genuine, provable experiences just as gruesome.

Nearly thirty years on, I can still recall the faces of those people as they recounted their experiences to me during interviews and the tears in the eyes of the interpreters as they translated words no one should ever have to hear.

Since my days in the Home Office, I can’t recall a single Home Secretary who hasn’t had to wrestle one way or another with the asylum system. But neither can I recall one who has approached the task with as little humanity in their heart as Braverman. Truly, she is in a league of her own.

I simply don’t believe the majority of people in this country support the cruel policies that Braverman embraces so enthusiastically. As I listen to her today, my sincerest hope is that when Open Britain and our partners finally deliver a functional democracy in this country, monsters like her will never again be able to game their way into high office and abuse the power they find there.

This is our fight.

If you've read this far, please consider giving this a retweet and following me, @OpenBritainHQ and @StopTheRot_UK so you can be part of this positive change. Thank you.

[Carla Denyer @carla_denyer]

Sunak's #NetZero u-turn speech is chillingly Orwellian

He stands at a lectern that says "Long-term decisions for a brighter future" to abandon what limited long-term thinking the Govt had, in favour of short-term efforts to chase votes from climate doubters at the next election.

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@InternetH0F Eye Eye Eye will always love you oo oo oo

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

Saw this graffiti on the tube. No one else found it funny so I sniggered alone.

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

Police have found no evidence of illegal behaviour by @thehuwedwards. The media lynch mobs are getting lynchier. They a) have commercial reasons to damage the BBC, b) have ideological motives c) know that creating hysterical news stories sells papers. Shameful shameful shameful.

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@RafiMauro1 Me too.

[Rafi Mauro-Benady @RafiMauro1]

London housing activist @KwajoHousing turns down MBE and says crisis 'shouldn't have existed' https://t.co/bU1sVzuJeg

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

pp

[Alex Benady @alexbenady]

@MimiJ9