I was First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw 1994-98. While that was a long time ago, I knew personally many of the people at the heart of the current crisis, such as Donald Tusk and Radek Sikorski.
1) The first thing to say about Poland is
https://t.co/0wL7GrwKEq
British journalist Peter Oborne criticises Western media's coverage of Gaza, saying racism is behind its bias and is a "grotesque failure in reporting."
Speaking to Analyst News earlier this year, he said such misreporting was never seen with the Ukraine war because they were "white, blue-eyed people."
It takes a lot to get tens of thousands of people to riot. For it to happen simultaneously across several countries points to a supranational underlying cause, as opposed to local grievance at
https://t.co/92v3oJiTGR
King Charles inherited £650m tax free, gets £354m a year tax free from the tax payer including £132m personal spending money and has an estate worth £22bn that’s never taxed.
Like if he needs a pay cut.
RT if you want the Monarchy gone.
#NotmyKing
.@jeremycorbyn: is the UK going to end the sharing of surveillance info with Israel, the use of RAF Akrotiri to gather that intel & the ability Israel has to make weapons in the UK?
Miliband: the UK has an important intelligence & security relationship with Israel
So thats a no
Of Judges, Juries and Fascism - We still don't have a decision on whether the Scottish judicial review of Palestine Action can proceed. Lord Young is thinking about it. Last Thursday's hearing went about as well as it could go. The UK government produced https://t.co/pcfmTqwGyK
When I was growing up, there were no people sleeping in shop doorways. Zero. We had free universities & cheap clean water. Schools already came with pens, books & playing fields. There was a post office & police station in every town. We had two post deliveries each day /2
This investigation by the Financial Times is staggering in its findings and in its scope and methodological rigor. Some of the findings, backed up by incredible levels of forensic evidence:
1) Israel completed much of its systematic destruction across Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon after Israeli forces took control of already-emptied villages in mid-April, and after the April 17 ceasefire. The ceasefire was used to make these areas completely uninhabitable.
2) The scale of destruction is incredible. Roughly 85,000 housing units damaged or destroyed (likely an undercount); 62 villages and farms inside the "yellow line" occupation zone, covering ~6% of Lebanon and extending ~10km inland, with ~270,000 residents barred from returning. Over 20% of the south's farmland and forest destroyed, ancient olive groves worst hit. All Litani river bridges destroyed; at least 2,500km of water infrastructure gone.
3) This is stated policy and an intentional plan to make an entire area uninhabitable and never allow the population to return. Defence minister Israel Katz explicitly invoked the "Rafah and Beit Hanoun model" and later boasted of destroying "24 Lebanese villages… not house by house, but entire villages."
4) This is without a doubt a war crime. Destruction of property requires immediate military necessity and not speculative ideas that Hezbollah may use a building some day. Not allowing the return amounts to the ethnic cleansing of the area.
The lack of any real consequences for Gaza, meant that Israel felt free to do the same in Lebanon. It is now doing the same in the West Bank. This will stop unless we stop it.
Narratives of Moral Conflict: Karim Khan and Delcy Rodriguez - Social media is not conducive to nuance. In the interest of reach, cut and dried positions are more effective and binary moral judgement expected. This leads to over-simplification of complex https://t.co/xzNywnzMuD
Updated: Extreme Unionism and Res Judicata - Unsurprisingly, today at the Court of Session Lord Young refused to lift his suspension or "sist" of the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. He did however grant us leave to appeal https://t.co/7tSEEuLZhr
The Ditching of Nigel Farage - Nigel Farage is the most consequential British politician of the 21st century. Certainly a more important historic figure than any of the last eight Prime Ministers. Tony Blair is the only realistic rival.
Without https://t.co/SNigXoKQ41