1. Here's how fear spreads in British culture. The distinguished novelist Amanda Craig signs the letter condemning the “insidious, misogynistic and authoritarian” #RIPJKRowling campaign along with McEwan, Stoppard and dozens of others, me included. thetimes.co.uk/article/litera…
2. Retribution is instant. Mslexia magazine, which says it champions women's writing, tells her she is dropped as a judge on one of its competitions.
3.What is so sinister about the censorship in publishing is that the latest round of Rowling hate was started by the transparently false allegation that the message of her latest novel Troubled Blood was "never trust a man in a dress".
4. Every honest person who reads the book knows it isn't true. Yet it's easier for cultural bureaucrats to go along with the lie than risk their careers by stating the truth. (If you want chapter and verse, I reviewed the novel here spectator.co.uk/article/j-k-ro…)
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Criticise Sadiq Khan as loudly as you like, he's a politician and needs to be held to account. But when Lee Anderson says Khan he has handed control of London to Islamists, he is parroting the conspiracy theories of the violent and fascistic right. 1/
In May 2022, Payton Gendron murdered 13 people in the US town of Buffalo. His manifesto said that he was inspired by the man who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019 and called for the murder of Sadiq Khan. theguardian.com/us-news/2022/m…
How on earth does a terrorist in the US even know about London's mayor? Well, Donald Trump and other far right influencers have worked hard to put Khan in the firing line. It suits their great replacement theory to pretent that an English social democrat is Lee's Islamist agent
Boris Johnson's legacy still poisons Britain.
His insistence that he was stabbed in the back by Sunak persuaded the Tories to give us Liz Truss and an economic disaster. nickcohen.substack.com/p/boris-johnso…
It's not just personal. By presenting his fall from power as the fault of traitors, Johnson not only absolved himself of blame also allowed his strain of nationalist populism to live to fight another day. Whatever the cost to the British people, Johnson is still in the game.
The dream of a sovereign England floating free from the facts of our history, economy and geography ought to have shattered along with Johnson’s rule.
Boris Johnson did not "get Brexit done". He did what Thersa May thought no British PM would ever do and put a border in the Irish Sea. Lied about it. Then when the lies stopped working proposed breaking the international treaty he had agreed to a mere 2 years before.
Breixt isn't done, it's a running sore. It will be interesting to see if any of the candidates for the Conservative leadership dare tell the truth and propose a way out of the diplomatic crisis.
My fear is that Johnson has so corrupted his party, its leading members must go along with his lies even after he has gone.
The persistence of his mendacity is his true legacy.
1/ My Observer column: The Government is getting away with giving itself unprecedented political power to police online debate. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2/ Its Online Safety bill turns the broadcast regulator Ofcom into a Web enforcer. It might be an admirable idea were the government not rigging the system so that the job of Ofcom chair goes to Paul Dacre. See Jim Waterston’s piece on the fix here theguardian.com/media/2021/aug…
3/ The quaint idea of an ex-Daily Mail editor fighting hate is not the end of it. The bill breaks the principle that regulation should be at arm’s length from politics by giving Nadine Dorries the ability to dictate to Ofcom. Carnegie UK has the details carnegieuktrust.org.uk/blog-posts/sec…
Rosie Duffield appears at Labour Women's rights rally in Brighton to huge applause. Party refused to allow organisers to appear on the official fringe.
"Here we are in 2021 and we have to form a group called Lesbian Labour just to be heard "
Warns Starmer he is taking women in the Labour movement for granted.
"Trump's incitement of the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020 removes my objection to the fascist label. His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary."
I wrote a piece on Trump and the far right in 2017 and the great @RichardEvans36 warned about the dangers of seeing the past in the present google.com/amp/s/amp.theg…