Monique Morris

Made in Paris, brought up in Africa, living in England, passionate about making a difference for children. Views are my own.

[Inger Ashing @SaveCEO_Intl]

Today I joined leaders from over 20 major aid groups in Gaza to call on world leaders to intervene following the first UN genocide conclusion. The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. https://t.co/kyJIBBGeeM

[Pape Léon XIV @Pontifex_fr]

J'exprime ma proximité profonde au peuple palestinien à Gaza, qui continue à vivre dans la peur et à survivre dans des conditions inacceptables, contraint par la force de quitter – une fois de plus – ses terres.
Devant le Seigneur Tout-Puissant, qui a commandé « Tu ne tueras point », et devant toute l'histoire humaine, chaque personne a toujours une dignité inviolable, à respecter et à préserver.
Je renouvelle mon appel au cessez-le-feu, à la libération des otages, à une solution diplomatique négociée, au respect intégral du droit international humanitaire.
J'invite tout le monde à se joindre à ma prière fervente, afin qu'une aube de paix et de justice se lève bientôt.

[Save the Children UK @savechildrenuk]

Leaders of aid groups have called on world leaders to intervene following the UN’s genocide conclusion.

This is our joint statement:

“As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.

What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide. With this finding, the Commission joins a growing number of human rights organisations and leaders globally, and within Israel.

The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. As humanitarian leaders,  we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake.

Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City – home to nearly one million people – we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable.

About 65,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble that has replaced Gaza’s once lively streets.

Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced - most of them multiple times - into increasingly shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life.

More than half a million people are starving. Famine has been declared and is spreading. The cumulative impact of hunger and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.

Throughout Gaza, entire cities have been razed to the ground, along with their life-sustaining public infrastructure, such as hospitals and water treatment plants. Agricultural land has been systemically destroyed.

If the facts and numbers aren’t enough, we have harrowing story upon harrowing story.

Since the Israeli military tightened its siege six months ago, blocking food, fuel, and medicine, we witnessed children and families waste away from starvation as famine took hold. Our colleagues too have been impacted.

Many of us have been into Gaza. We have met countless Palestinians who have lost limbs as a result of Israel’s bombardment. We have personally met children so traumatized by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep. Some cannot speak. Others have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven.

We have met families who eat animal food to survive and boil leaves as a meal for their children.

Yet world leaders fail to act. Facts are ignored. Testimony is cast aside. And more people are killed as a direct consequence.

Our organisations, together with Palestinian civil society groups, the UN, and Israeli human rights organisations, can only do so much. We have tirelessly tried to defend the rights of the people of Gaza and sustain humanitarian assistance, but we are being obstructed every step of the way.

We have been denied access, and the militarization of the aid system has proved deadly. Thousands of people have been shot at while trying to reach the handful of sites where food is distributed under armed guard.

Governments must act to prevent the evisceration of life in the Gaza Strip, and to end the violence and occupation. All parties must disavow violence against civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law and pursue peace.

States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.

The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security. If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing. Failing the people of Gaza, failing the hostages, and failing our own collective moral imperative.”

Signed by:

Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International
Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer, Action For Humanity
Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of American Friends Service Committee
Sean Carroll, President and CEO of Anera
Reintje Van Haeringen, Executive Director CARE International
Jonas Nøddekær, Secretary General of DanChurchAid
Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
Manuel Patrouillard, Managing Director, Humanity & Inclusion - Handicap International
Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
Waseem Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Relief Worldwide
Joseph Belliveau, Executive Director of MedGlobal
Joel Weiler, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde France
Nicolás Dotta, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde Spain
Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières International
Kenneth Kim, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee US
Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director
Simon Panek, CEO, People in Need
Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International
Donatella Vergara, President of Terre des Hommes Italy
Rob Williams, CEO of War Child Alliance

[Save the Children UK @savechildrenuk]

The Government of Israel is starving children and their families in Gaza by design.

Even a day without enough food can have an effect on a child's body.

And after two weeks, their body starts to deteriorate quickly – their heart, liver and kidneys start to weaken, and their body is more at risk of infection.

Their body starts to eat its own muscles to stay alive.

After more than three weeks, the effects become catastrophic.

They become vulnerable to common illnesses that could now kill them; their eyes get lesions leading to loss of sight; their muscles waste away; their hair starts to fall out; they find it very hard to move and their organs are shutting down.

But what is most abhorrent is that this is all avoidable.

We are witnessing an engineered, predicted and manmade famine.

Sign our petition to demand Keir Starmer takes urgent action for children: https://t.co/5jWYyqPrxD

#WorldFoodDay

[Dr. Bendor Grosvenor 🇺🇦 @arthistorynews]

I think one of the biggest challenges of our time is understanding scale; that the outrageous actions of a few, fed to us with such immediacy by our phones, don’t represent the many. Otherwise we’re just going to butterfly effect ourselves into oblivion.

[AJ+ français @ajplusfrancais]

Le nom de leur rapport est clair : “Le gouvernement Netanyahu met en œuvre un plan visant à nettoyer ethniquement Gaza des Palestiniens. Les États-Unis sont complices. Le monde doit y mettre un terme.”

[Edwy Plenel @edwyplenel]

Ce que l'écrasement de #Gaza dit de la violence du monde : Didier Fassin, professeur au Collège de France @cdf1530, est l'invité de "L'échappée" sur @Mediapart.
En accès libre👉https://t.co/0UuQCNc45l

[SavetheChildren News @SaveUKNews]

🚨Statement on the killing of brothers, Khaled and Aseed, two children supported through Save the Children's programme in Gaza

https://t.co/vxGUD5QlAC

[Save the Children UK @savechildrenuk]

A deadly landslide in Sudan’s #Darfur region has left families in Tarasin cut off in one of the most remote areas.

Our teams reached survivors by donkey with food, water and medical care.

#Sudan is the world’s forgotten crisis — children need urgent support.

https://t.co/b7OG6G54X2

[LBC @LBC]

‘Why are the most rich and powerful people on the planet telling us our free speech is under threat?’

James O’Brien wants answers, because it’s ‘the same people’ who wanted Brexit.

[LBC @LBC]

’Social media is selling ringside seats for a carnival of hatred… let’s not fall for it.’

After an ‘angry summer’ of immigration debate, @AndrewMarr9 warns against being ‘fooled’ by online discourse.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Our hearts are also wounded by the more than fifty people who died and the one hundred or so still missing following the shipwreck of a boat carrying migrants that capsized off the Atlantic coast of Mauritania. This deadly tragedy is repeated every day all over the world. Let us pray that the Lord will teach us, as individuals and societies, fully to put into practice his words: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Mt 25:35).

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

"Asylum seekers are not particularly likely to go to four or five star hotels. The life of an asylum seeker is not a happy one, but nonetheless, Rylan is repeating that."

Why Rylan's This Morning rant about migrant hotels is so troubling

https://t.co/tF3qlOSs0v

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

I don't believe in anyone losing work or an income due to their opinions (unless they cross the legal threshold), but we need to have a open and frank discussion why Gary Lineker was hounded for having an actual opinion, and used his own personal platform for it, whereas Rylan is making multiple factually incorrect statements, spouting right wing lies, on a national TV programme and he remains intact?? Can we discuss this in an adult and kindly manner please?

[Monique Morris @mycmorris]

@implausibleblog @maitlis @Rylan Rylan, have you visited one of these places? Shame on you for stirring resentment. The issue is real but do your research.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Left: Rylan, "If I arrive on a boat in Calais, I get taken to a four star hotel"

Right: Newsnight show what one of these four star hotels looks like once it has been adapted to house four asylum seekers in a single room with two bunkbeds and a tacky divider

Dear @Rylan some of your concern is perfectly normal and valid, and with 70,000 spaces in asylum accommodation oversubscribed because the Conservatives cut funding to assessing asylum seeker claims resulting in setting up hotels to house asylum seekers, awarding some contracts well over £1 billion to hotel owners, some of who have also been donors to the Conservative party, the whole thing stinks

But what's worse is that you've repeated some mistruths and false statements about asylum seekers in your rant, and while I don't blame you for having expressed those views as Keir-island-of-strangers-Starmer, instead of challenging and correcting these falsehoods, has decided to become a pound shop Reform-like populist with his divisive rhetoric, who could blame you for being so misinformed?

I encourage you to seek better information, better explanations, and perhaps if it really bothers you, to use your huge reach and platform to petition our government to do better eg ending homelessness

Remember how at the start of covid we managed to end homelessness within a few days? Not only is it possible but it's simply a question of government policy (in fairness to Labour they are doing quite a lot, just not enough and not at the speed they could be doing it)

But, and I say this politely. Reform UK are not your friends. By wanting to take us out of the European Convention of Human Rights and repeal the Human Rights Act, they're taking away the very institutions that helped shape gay rights in our country and allowed you not only to flourish, but simply have the right to live your life however you wish - the moment those protections and rights are lost, society suffers

There's nothing worse than getting angry and upset at incorrect things e.g. the four star hotel trope often levied by the far right

Instead, become better informed, so you can get angry and upset at the actual things that are wrong with the system, and help campaign to change them

[Liberal Democrats @LibDems]

The BBC need to get better at challenging Farage's lies.

[Monique Morris @mycmorris]

‘Most Israelis live in denial’ about Gaza - Israeli columnist https://t.co/3GryxU9r6m via @c4ciaran

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

Today I argued for raising inheritance tax, a tax on a hand out, unearned wealth, in exchange for cuts in income tax-a tax on work. This has riled up lots of people on here. But I think it’s essential to make capitalism function. Watch my argument in full. https://t.co/oqhJlHgg12

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

Lots of people accusing me of being communist. No- it's a liberal argument. On this I'll defer to John Stuart Mill, who wrote this in 1848 and would be dismissed as a "commie wanker" today:

"The principle of inheritance… is chiefly grounded on the duty of parents to provide for their children. But that duty has certain limits; and when these are exceeded, the right ceases. Beyond a certain point, to permit the transmission of enormous fortunes is nothing less than to establish a monopoly of wealth, and is wholly opposed to the spirit of a free and equal society.”

I'm being intentionally provocative when I propose a 100% rate. But I certainly think the rate should be much higher than it is today. It has been before in British history (go back to the 1920s) and in other societies- see Japan, S Korea.