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Sunder Katwala Profile picture
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Nov 5, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Boris Johnson is launching his campaign exclusively by recycling a line from a column of his 10 years ago, about Brown/Darling having a 50p top rate.
10th anniversary tribute to his own joke
Boris Johnson, November 2009, Tel column

"The 50p tax is not far, in its political motive, from Stalin's assault on the kulaks"

telegraph.co.uk/politics/0/sho…
This also illustrates an issue with partisan attack politics. If have already accused Darling and Gordon Brown of Stalinist genocidal motives, don't have anywhere further to go against Corbyn and McDonnell.

Kulak death toll (Wikipedia)
Irony is that a 50p top rate would be universally approved of by the Cons key target voters, Labour Leavers
google.co.uk/amp/s/www.mirr…
The Kulaks reference is probably quite obscure for a lot of people. The "finger pointing" is about the death of at least 700,000 and perhaps up to six million people.

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More from @sundersays

Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 8
If Lord Sumption wants to be historically accurate, and not to efface history, then he should make sure the Telegraph correct this misleading claim. Edward Colston was the Deputy Governor of the Royal Africa Company, a very major role.
The company structure of the Royal African Company. King James II played an active role as Governor but this became an honorific position for William of Orange after 1688 for the period when Colston was Deputy Governor
brh.org.uk/site/articles/…
This was the more pro-Colston of two draft plaques, in the debate about replacing the plaque left unresolved in the years before 2020. This draft supported by the Society of Merchant Venturers, the main 'defenders' of the Colston legacy in the debate
Read 13 tweets
Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 8
Listening to the FA Cup third round on @bbc5live Quite a good group of Saturday 3pm games
Worth tuning in now for the last 20 minutes ...
Still 25 minutes to go. Cambridge, 16th in league one, are one-up at Newcastle in what has been the sort of cup tie that works very we on the radio
Read 9 tweets
Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 8
I think there are some strong arguments against how Colston's statue was removed (as well as reasons why a jury may choose not to convict those who did it). One thing that this did not do is 'efface the memory' of history: most people have obvs now heard much more about it since.
There are so many distinct, pretty unique aspects of the Colston in Bristol debate (which was not well known outside Bristol). I personally think this is by far the strongest general point against removing statues in this way. The 'erasing history' intuition doesn't stack up.
This has been a message from the Campaign for Centrist Compromise on Statues.
- Remove Colston legally
- Keep *almost* all the others (99%+)
- Retain and Reinterpret (and argue over how)
- Above all, focus much more on who to recognise, not who to remove.
Read 5 tweets
Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 7
Jack Dromey MP made his final House of Commons contribution yesterday afternoon in Westminster Hall. He spoke about the importance of the principle of refugee protection, and the need to deliver a welcoming Afghan resettlement scheme in practice. RIP hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-0…
Jack Dromey's views of both immigration and anti-racism were very much influenced by his Irish identity & how that shaped his belief in mutual solidarity and empathy of the Irish with post-war Commonwealth Black & Asian migrants and later minority groups
Read 5 tweets
Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 7
Swindon of the Southern League enjoyed a big FA Cup upset win against Man City in their first ever meeting (1910). But a 1-1 draw in 1930 led to a 10-1 defeat in the replay. And they lost 7-0 in 1953 too.
Swindon's 4th round (quarter-final) win over Man City in 1910 got them to the first of their two FA Cup semi-finals, losing to Newcastle who beat Barnsley in the final. Swindon got to the semi-final again in 1912, but lost to Barnsley who won the FA Cup.
The 1910 FA Cup run led to Barnsley and Swindon being invited to Paris to promote football to the French by playing for the Dubonnet Cup at the Parc des Princes. (The organisers had wanted to repeat the FA Cup final, but Newcastle could not make it). Swindon won the Dubonnet Cup
Read 5 tweets
Sunder Katwala Profile picture
Jan 6
Its interesting that the Prime Minister sees it as in his interests to engage in this argument about the jury verdict. His apparent argument seems confused in several respects.
- Nobody can change now what Colston/Royal Africa Company did from 1680-1692
- Erecting the statue *174 years after his death* was obviously an effort THEN to rewrite history of Colston & Bristol retrospectively
- So too the debates over its wording & its removal in last 20 years
Johnson's argument was a bit more fence-sitting than the headline.

"I think if people democratically want to remove a statue or whatever, that's fine. But in general we should preserve our cultural, artistic, historical legacy"
Read 15 tweets

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