The Home Office treats travellers who do us no harm with extreme cruelty and viciousness, yet leaves the door wide open to Covid-19.
My column asks WTAF is going on at our borders.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
"A week into lockdown, there were 895 people in detention and none in quarantine."
I just can't get over how perverse and self-destructive this country is becoming.
Reading some comments below the line, I'm reminded that it's often the most sheltered people who say the cruellest things. People who can't imagine what refugees might be fleeing from. A failure of moral imagination often seems to be associated with comfort and security.
Political imprisonment, torture, threats of death, threats to your children: do these things mean nothing? Are they just abstractions that can be waved away? You can see, reading certain comments, how some comfortable people could be capable of committing almost any iniquity.
This is how fascism took root in Europe a century ago. It is generalised not by ranting meatheads in jackboots, but by "respectable" people in slippers.

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More from @GeorgeMonbiot

12 May
My column this week is about how crime is thriving under this government of "law and order", as a result of catastrophic institutional collapse.
If you are ripped off by a conman, don't expect justice.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It's the same across the board: the bodies supposed to protect us from crime have been cut to the bone by 11 years of austerity and simply can't function any more.
It's party time for conmen, rip-off employers and landlords, river polluters, waste dumpers and profiteers.
It's got so bad that I can't help beginning to wonder - could this be a cynical strategy?
You talk big on crime, but let it proliferate, driving frightened, insecure people into your arms.
Crime and insecurity favour rightwing demagogues.
Read 6 tweets
11 May
When I ask myself what trajectory this country is on, the most likely answer seems to be Orbán’s Hungary. How much in this thread sounds familiar?
1. The ruling class, wallowing in corruption, enjoys total impunity. Meanwhile, peaceful protest and other freedoms are criminalised.
2. No political scandal is a sacking offence.
3. A complicit media so distorts the reporting of government action that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish truth from lies.
4. Apparently endless rule is sustained by voter suppression and gerrymandering.
5. Politics proceeds by means of the grand gesture. Billions are spent on major infrastructure, while basic services are allowed to wither and die.
6. Public agencies are repurposed to direct money into the hands of chums.
Read 7 tweets
7 May
Remember when the Labour Party's travails were all Jeremy Corbyn's fault?
Remember when Labour needed to become "sensible" and "moderate" and to turn to the right to be electable?
Remember when Starmer was the knight in shining armour who would rescue Labour from the terrible error of standing for something?
Read 9 tweets
5 May
A few weeks ago, I tried to contact a Trading Standards Office on behalf of an elderly person who had been ripped off by a conman. No, you can’t do it any more: you have to go through the Citizens Advice Bureau(!). So I filed my complaint with them. Here’s what happened.
Thread/
It was as clear a case as there could be. I had discovered enough about the conman to put the fear of God into him, and he confessed to how he operates, and told me who his partners are. He works with an agency that specialises in preying on elderly, confused people.
He instantly repaid the money. But my interest was in ensuring that he can't do it again. Otherwise, he will continue to prey on other elderly people, who don’t happen to know an investigative journalist.
Read 9 tweets
4 May
This moonlighting is profoundly wrong - a direct conflict of interest.
BBC journalists are taking money from the plutocrats and corporations they should be holding to account.
Channel 4 doesn't allow it. Why does the BBC?
theguardian.com/media/2021/may…
It's like the revolving door in politics. Even if you haven't yet accepted money from the people you're interviewing, one day you might. That's bound, subconsciously, to affect your judgement.
This money destroys journalists' integrity.
I would never take it. Nor should they.
The first duty of a journalist is to hold power to account.
It's bad enough that most of the media is owned by billionaires, and the BBC is beholden to the government.
But when its journalists take money from powerful people and companies, that completes the loss of integrity.
Read 6 tweets
3 May
Why do we allow people to own second homes in the United Kingdom, when so many have none?
Why is a 500% council tax not levied on them, to make them less affordable?
It could have something to do with the fact that so many politicians and senior figures in the media own one.
Second home ownership is destroying communities throughout the coastal and scenic parts of the UK. Anyone can see it. Except those who have one.
While the government refuses to act, we should keep making the case that owning a second home is unethical, and urge those who have one to sell or rent it to people who need a place to live.
Read 5 tweets

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