Floella Benjamin: in future, people will say "meet me by the Windrush Monument". This permanent place of reflection and celebration shows how the history of the Windrush generation and their descendants is now recognised as an important part of British history #WindrushDay
"You called and we came". This poem by Laura Serrant was read at the unveiling of the Windrush Monument, reflecting on the links between the Windrush generation and the history of the NHS, with both 75 anniversaries marked next year @75Windrush lauraserrant.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/you…
The pioneering contribution of the late Sam King honoured today. A Windrush passenger, he co-founded the Windrush Foundation & campaigned for #WindrushDay from marking the 40th anniversary in 1988.
This 2013 picture in Windrush Square (renamed in 1998 for the 50th anniversary)
Bishop Rose @DoverBishop dedicates the Monument to the hope and resilience of the Windrush generation, with a prayer for our compassion to those who arrive as refugees today
"The Windrush Generation came as British citizens", the Duke of Cambridge notes. Many were not strangers to Britain, given the enormous wartime contribution to the RAF. "They volunteered, they did not have to come", he says.
The Royal family are proud to mark #WindrushDay says Prince William. He has learnt too that "history weighs heavily on the present" both in the Caribbean and in Britain too, recognising the wrongs of the Windrush scandal & continued discrimination today
"Today we have witnessed British history being made" says @FloellaBenjamin as Windrush Monument unveiled. The Windrush story is not defined by wrongs that are still to be righted, she says, though they must be, but by pride in the contribution & hope for our future #WindrushDay
Am interview with the late Sam King (2013) about the campaign for #WindrushDay on the 65th anniversary. Government recognised National Windrush Day from 2018, as part of its apology and response to the Windrush scandal opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…
Sam King told me that being at the famous 1950 Lords Test two summers later "felt like the real moment we had arrived in England". He quietly sang Lord Kitchener's Victory Calypso - "Those little pals of mine/Ramadhin and Valentine" - as he recalled the moment in Windrush Square
The Reverend Michael King, his son, spoke last night in the @75Windrush web event about the importance of the 75th anniversary next year as an opportunity to engage across the generations and further increase awareness. Recording available on YouTube.
My @CapX commentary on the past, present and future potential of the Windrush story for understanding the making of the Britain we all call home
Nobody alive did more to extend reach of racial hate in last 12 months
- replatformed those dedicated to hate, big increase in reach (eg Britain First. Patriotic Alternative. Tommy)
- introduced £ incentives that groom escalating hate
Where & how does the metaphor become actual scrutiny and sanctions?
What can existing tools be used to do?
What new bespoke or general interventions can govt/parliament consider this Autumn?
Elon Musk has personally by both his acts & omissions played a consequential role in making racist violence possible that would have been impossible at such pace & scale without his personal decisions as a corp leader. He is a live threat to our national security & cohesion
"The public will have to go in, & the public will have to sort this out themselves, & it'll be very, very brutal. I don't want them here. I don't want them to live here. They came under false pretences" - Douglas Murray widespread violence
"Probably hundreds of thousands... We have a couple of choices. One of them is - and I say this metaphorically *for the time being*, BUT its NOT that metaphorical. One is to stand up and the other is to beg on your knees ... the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage"
Full transcript. Murray foresees public violence at scale & says he would support, metaphorically for now + actually soon if govt doesn't remove. His targets for state/vigilante removal both asylum seekers who cross Channel+ those Muslims who are pro Hamas
This is the radicalised @elonmusk
sharing the deputy leader of the far right extreme Britain First group who has doctored a false headline.
The owner does not seem to attempt even cursory checks on what/who he is posting to share far right content including misinformation on X
I would propose @nickpickles now be called to go to No 10 or by the SoS to give specific assurances about what has been done to curb the plafform owner not CONTINUING to inflame racial tension in Britain by sharing extreme misinformation SEVERAL TIMES now
@nickpickles Of course X has broader responsibilities as all platforms do. That Mr @elonmusk is PERSONALLY a specific danger illuminates broader problem of X's platform policy. X chose to REPLATFORM dangerous racist groups + people that platform had excluded after the Christchurch massacre
Jacob Rees-Mogg pushes back very strongly against Steven Edgington's effort to relegitimise Enoch Powell. Even Edgington eventually concedes the language is incendiary and racist.
His father William Rees-Mogg wrote the Times editorial in April 1968: "an evil speech".
Powel is much more successful on immigration policy than Rees-Mogg says here: the 1971 immigration act ending Commonwealth free movement (and the 1981 act) reflect that. He loses the argument in 1968 about repatriation and the future of race relations. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
One in six people were born abroad: 10 million people in this society.
Almost one in three people in Britain are migrants, and/or the children and grandchildren of migrants. It is a very large minority of the whole population
The suspect/perpetrator was "the son of immigrants from Rwanda" as Professor Goodwin notes. One of the three victims in Southport was the daughter of an immigrant. Two of the six Tory leadership candidates are the son/daughter of migrants from Africa, a third of Indian immigrants
Child murder is shocking. Professor Goodwin is reinforcing an intuitive response that "the Cardiff-born son of immigrants from Rwanda" merits a different kind of response to "the school caretaker in Soham" or to shocking cases of child murder by other people born in Britain.
Bernie Spofforth @Artemisfornow has unprotected tweets
Much more defiant than apologetic about being crucial early disseminator of dangerous misinfo
She is obvs a unreliable witness: has already now given 3 or 4 mutually contradictory accounts of where she sourced the misinfo
She first claimed she believed the information to be "from a reputable news source" - but she posted it before any non-reputable feed masquerading as a news source had posted it. (No reputable news source ever reported the false information, which was legally restricted)
On July 30th, Spofforth named this poster Sean as her source of the fake name. He is not somebody who could be mistaken for a reputable news source. He posted this at 5pm, editing it at 5.01pm. This was clearly another false attribution of where she got the misinformation.