In case you're wondering where 'One Britain One Nation Day' has come from:
It's not a government campaign. It's run by a guy called Kash Singh. He trademarked it in 2005, when he was a policeman.
It's sprung to attention because the Department for Education tweeted this today.
Various Twitter commentators positioned it as "Boris Johnson's" strategy, and claimed it was organised by the "Union Unit".
It is not Boris Johnson's strategy, and the overall idea has been around since 2005, so obviously not created by the (2019/20 founded) Union Unit.
It's actually popularised by Philip Davies MP and Esther McVey MP (who are married).
Philip has known Kash Singh for many years (Philip is MP for Shipley; Kash is a former West Yorkshire policeman, and lived in nearby Keighley)
This year, Esther McVey brought it up at Prime Minister's Questions, asking if Boris Johnson would support Kash Singh and OBON.
Yesterday, Philip Davies followed that up, asking Gavin Williamson if he'd endorse it and thank Kash Singh.
He did so, as you can see in this video.
Obviously, Boris Johnson had already given it a nod at PMQs, so Gavin Williamson would have to also support it when asked.
Gavin is Education Minister, which is why, a day later, the Dept for Education twitter account would put out this (now heavily ratiod) tweet.
Summary:
- Not a govt campaign
- Been round 15 years, run local to Esther McVey & Philip Davies constituencies for at least the last few
- This year they've successfully nudged their friend Kash & 'OBON' onto Boris & the DfE
Expect jokes on Friday & it to become an annual topic
As an add-on, a few have noted OBON had an all party parliamentary group. It *seems* that was fairly short-lived, though I guess could be reborn.
@andreajenkyns (another West Yorks MP) launched it with Kash in 2018, but it had already gone from the register of APPGs by Sep 2019
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I went to take a look at the 'Palestine' protest in London today.
I guess I've seen more than 100 demos of one sort or another in London.
Most banners at this one were from either Socialist Worker, or 'Friends of Al Aqsa', which was formed by the optician @Ismailadampatel.
I asked various people what the Socialist Worker/Palestine connection was and even some people carrying 'Socialist Worker' branded signs did not to know. The Socialist Party had various recruitment gazebos at the start of the route too, so I asked there.
It felt slightly odd that they were using a demonstration against military action in Palestine so explicitly to try and recruit new members.
The man on the stand said the link was 'anti imperialism', and they recruit there as people are open to anti-capitalist movements.
We decided to walk 'The Queue' today, but the wrong way: from the finish to the start.
Here is a short thread of photos, from the gates in front of Parliament Square back to the park in Bermondsey where people collect their wristbands to join the queue...
The exit is actually an odd spot - people leave, get asked if they're ok by Samaritans (a nice idea), and have to either force through the crowds of Whitehall, or wait to cross to the relative quiet of the square.
Here's the final outdoor bit of the queue - where people go through security, under the windows of Parliament, after they've looped through Victoria Towers Garden.
On the value of proof reading, and unintended consequences:
There is an NFT project called Azuki. A month ago it would cost you around 34eth to buy one, which at the time was about $100k. Even at the current lows of the crypto market, they were selling at 25eth a few days ago...
As the crypto market has hit a rough patch, one of the team decided to write an article to talk about ups and downs, and that the way out of a crisis is to keep building.
Obviously, they didn't get it proof read too widely.
The blog post revealed - which the writer seemed to think fine - that the team had been involved in several 'rugs' (projects where other people had invested cash, and the team had just abandoned the project, pulling the rug on it).
The BBC has now run a day-long anti vaccination campaign. Possibly the most-viewed coordinated anti vaccination campaign in the world so far.
It centred around Novak Djokovic.
Here is a short thread on how it worked.
They got an 'exclusive interview' with Novak Djokovic, the #1 ranked men's tennis player, and the only man in the top 100 who has not taken a covid vaccine.
Everyone who pays attention to tennis knows his stance, but he quickly falls out of the news outside of major tournaments.
Then they filled their flagship morning news program - which they believe sets the news agenda for the day - with ads for their interview, running snippets from it continuously.
Other outlets copied the story, and it has trended all day on Twitter as a result.