Today is #VEDay and Europe celebrates the defeat of the Nazi regime.
We owe an eternal debt to those who fought against the evils of fascism and racism and secured our freedom from tyranny.
Here are the stories of some of those you might like to think about:
I want to tell you a story about an old man, with a silly name and ridiculous hair, who was born in New York, became a media personality and then a right wing politician. 🧵
He told a lot of lies. So many lies. That many lies that he doesn't actually recognise the truth anymore and nor do many of his supporters. Needless to say he's had multiple failed marriages having had numerous affairs.
His handling of the pandemic meant a lot more people died than should have done. He's not very healthy so ended up in hospital when he caught covid and only then did he seem to realise how serious it was.
Today an early release scheme has begun which will see some offenders released from UK prisons after 40% of their sentence rather than 50%. This policy is in reaction to the current prison population almost surpassing the current prison capacity. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
This regretful step is necessary because prison capacity hasn't been increased to meet the UK's requirements. This is a good piece from 2023 explaining how and why the Conservative government failed to deliver the required prison places amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/s…
Why am I tweeting about this? Two reasons, it's good to understand why it's happening so those responsible can be held accountable and we can avoid the same mistakes - the new Prisons minister @JamesTCobbler has only been in the job a matter of weeks; he's certainly not to blame but he's responsible for ensuring the situation improves and it looks like he plans to do that in part by reducing reoffending bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
As a high profile cat I've suddenly had messages warning me about Haitians eating pet cats in Ohio. This seemed weird so I assumed it was something to do with the Trump campaign; sure enough:
So what's the actual story? There was an incident last month were a woman was arrested for allegedly killing a cat and eating it. Her name is Allexis Telia Ferrell. There's no evidence she's Haitian, just that she's from Canton in Ohio and is a registered voter kptv.com/2024/08/21/wom…
So how has that horrible incident resulted in people tweeting me saying that Haitians are eating house pets? The short answer is that right wing accounts are falsely telling people that. These pieces have good details on the specific accounts
Farage has written this knowing that his party is a gift to Labour at this election because it's splitting the right wing vote and will very likely hand Starmer an even larger majority than he could have hoped for
Farage knows that after the election fingers from the right will be pointed at him asking why he helped Labour so gladly given he'll have little to show for it (I'd guess no more than 5 seats and possibly just 1).
Obviously his dream is to take over the Conservative Party but they have their own right-wing opportunists who are already plotting how to claim the leadership and they'll make sure to keep him out
“You just want to hate all black women because she’s there” - nobody should have trouble describing this sentence as overtly racist and condemning whoever uttered it.
You might be surprised therefore to hear what government minister Mel Stride said when he was asked about it this morning:
Stride doesn't think that sentence, which is clearly about race, is about race. You might ask yourself if he's gone mad? Close, he's delivering a line given to him by the Conservative Party