I’m so delighted by this news. It won't be perfect, but it marks an important cultural shift and sends a clear signal about what is and isn't safe for children. Conservatives in opposition are making a real difference, and children across the UK will be safer because of it.
This is a blatant lie.
It exposes how little Labour understand or care about this issue.
The Equality Duty on public services is not the part of the Equality Act which protects pregnant women from being sacked.
Protection against discrimination - whether you are pregnant, or disabled, or a black woman, or a white man - is totally separate. Those protections would remain.
What the Equality Duty does is force our public services to obsess over diversity and prioritise that over their core purpose.
It is the reason our prisons have been stopped from isolating Islamic terrorists.
It is the reason our police services have mandated dangerous unconscious bias training and are being told to treat ethnic minorities differently.
It is causing the public real harm.
It has to go.
Liz Kendall should apologise for spouting such sloppy lies.
As with the Southport massacre, the murder of Henry Nowak will have ramifications far beyond the immediate events. For the race-obsessed British state, the bill is landing. My latest piece (no paywall). ⬇️ https://t.co/gDfIm30Hxe
Here's my @Telegraph column, 'Zack Polanski wants a Jew register. What could be more sinister than that?'
https://t.co/l1z6YW44ez
I’ll say one thing for Zack Polanski: he knows a winning strategy when he sees one. When he became leader of the Greens last September, he spotted straight away that the secret to boosting the party’s poll ratings – and thus electoral success – was straightforward. Dump the green stuff and focus on Gaza.
There was a ready-made group of voters for whom Gaza is the only issue that really matters, waiting to be courted by any party which turned itself into the anti-Israel train. That group fell into the Greens’ arms when Polanski arrived on the scene.
He has been masterly in his care of them, not least in his skilful elision of being anti-Israel with being Jewish himself. It provides a much-used “get out of jail free card” when the Greens’ professed anti-Zionism slips into accusations of barely disguised anti-Semitism.
But even by Polanski’s standards, his demand that any dual British-Israeli citizen who has fought for Israel against Hamas in Gaza has their name listed on a database – a list, in other words, of bad Jews – is breathtakingly blatant.
The Green leader has signed an open letter sent to Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, which calls on the Government to act in the name of “public safety and justice” to “track the movements of Brits who have served in the IDF” and “subject them to secondary screening where necessary at ports of entry”. Britons, that is, who just happen to be Jews.
Israel has national service, and all Israeli citizens (with the exception – which is deeply controversial in Israel – of some religious groups) are conscripted to the IDF at 18. Many have been called up as reservists when they are older.
Polanski is thus calling for a large proportion of British-Israeli dual citizens to be listed on a database. “Nobody wants to live next to a potential war criminal,” the letter organised by campaign group Declassified UK states. Presumably then, Polanski wishes to refuse entry to or deport any British-Israeli who has served in the IDF.
You will notice one obvious element to this demand. There are wars on every continent. There are accusations of war crimes in all those conflicts. But Polanski has said not a word about British dual citizens – or even those of sole UK nationality – who have fought in any of those wars, either ongoing or historic.
I wait, for example, for Polanski to demand a list of dual-nationality Britons who fought in one of the most brutal post-1945 conflicts, the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence. The nine-month conflict led to the death of up to three million Bengalis and the displacement of 10 million refugees into India.
This is not merely historic. War crime investigations are still going on. But no Israelis were involved (let’s be honest: no Jews). So Polanski is silent – not least because many new Green voters are drawn from those communities.
By signing the letter, Polanski doesn’t only demand that Britons who have fought in Gaza be put on a database. He goes far beyond that. The letter calls says “travellers with Israeli travel documents or arriving from an origin of Tel Aviv airport” should be subject to “potential secondary screenings at ports of entry”. For Polanski then, any Israeli should be marked out for special screening.
As for the allegation of genocide against Israel, it is, at the very least, hotly contested. But there is a well-founded allegation of genocide against the Chinese in its treatment of the Uyghurs. Does Polanski demand that any Chinese national arriving in the UK is deemed a suspected war criminal? Of course he doesn’t.
If Jews aren’t involved, neither Polanski nor any of his fellow Greens could give a damn. Polanski may be Jewish, but his party’s strategy could hardly be clearer.
@BluemarkC@MartinKnight_ Lived off merton high street and primary school 100 yards from the A24 and remember Derby day was like a carnival with all the hired buses and coaches passing by
South Wales Police has instructed officers to log comments they feel are beyond "legitimate" criticism of Islam.
This is, exactly as I warned, a blasphemy law through the back door.
Nobody voted for this.
My letter to the Chief Constable👇🏾
Antisemitism is becoming frighteningly endemic in our universities. This week I met with two students who have experienced it first hand and it is worth dwelling on their stories because they are shocking.
Bradley Smart is an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. After visiting Israel, fellow students said they wanted to kill him. No disciplinary action was taken.
Merit Habib Matta spoke about the casual antisemitism she has encountered at Oxford University. In a lecture she attended, the first sentence was:
“The Zionist occupation of Palestine…”
A classmate said that “The Nazis expansion into Europe was at least the same continent, how could the Jews justify moving to a place so far away?”
These comments were made as statements of fact, without challenge or consequence.
How we respond to this is test of the kind of country we are.
Universities that do not take antisemitism seriously should face serious consequences. There must be real accountability. Without it, we will never stamp this vile hatred out.
Thank you to the @PinskerCentre for arranging and all they are doing.
Every life matters.
One law. One standard. For everyone.
This is about justice, for Henry, for his family and for all our children. They deserve better.
Third-party materials are being used to push ideological agendas in our classrooms. We’ve seen it with books portraying small boats alongside slogans like “everyone welcome here”. We’ve seen children taught that a black person cannot be racist towards a white person.
Teaching children to see the world through labels & tribal identities breeds division.
There is no place for this in our classrooms, & any such materials should be removed.
I just hope this tragic awful case draws the line under the mistakes we’ve been making which have progressively being making us more divided - not less. Things neee to change. I hope Kemi is listened to -
Rather than those who find/stir up division.
@TorstenBell Completely sums everything up - lots of sensible advice from Blair and dismissed by you with the finale being a reverse of the truth - Blair is facing the hard realities of today & at every first hard decision (like welfare reform) u crumble & u think taxing business is positive!
Apart from a few cursory nice words(which I doubt he actually means but is just being polite) about the present gov, this is spot on from Blair. The Labour Party left hate him, so they will see his sensible advice as all the more reason to go headlong in the opposite direction
Yes, I get it, you all hate Tony Blair etc you’ll find loads to disagree with here I’m sure - but the quality of analysis of our problems and what any potential leader ought to be thinking about if they want to solve them puts this essay light years ahead of what any current contender for national leadership has offered. Anyone who wants to be an effective prime minister (including the current one) should read it
"No, I don't subscribe to this 'kindness' - I'll tell the truth instead."
I spoke at the Cambridge Union last night about LGBs, children's safety and women's rights. Full video here:
Keir Starmer’s speech was sad to watch. With so many resets, even his reset button needs a reset.
But I do not take pleasure in watching the Prime Minister flounder. The country needs leadership, not another speech from a man who clearly knows something has gone badly wrong, but still can't explain why.
This is Labour’s real problem. It is not just Starmer - all the pretenders jostling for his job do not have the answers either, because they all believe the same things: more welfare, more state control, more borrowing, more regulation. They are busy arguing over who should drive the car, but the truth is they are all heading in the wrong direction. They have no vision for the future.
What we need is to get Britain working again. That is why I have proposed an alternative King’s Speech with a a clear plan to reward effort, cut the cost of government, secure our borders, rebuild industry and back families who do the right thing.
If Labour are serious about fixing the country they could do all of this tomorrow. Whether they have the bravery or the common sense to do that is a different matter.
Polanski appears to be a pathological fraud:
- Spokesman for the Red Cross? 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲
- Worked at the MoJ? 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲
- Member of Council of Hypnotherapy? 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲
- Spokesman for Make Votes Matter? 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲
- Jedi Mind Tricks for Boob Jobs? 𝗖𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗲