A few facts about Tory MP, Marco Longhi - the new Honorary President of dangerously irresponsible far-right lobbying group, Turning Point UK, which is one of the organisations far-right terrorist Andrew Leak engaged with before petrol-bombing the Dover migrant centre.
Longhi grew up in Rome, the son of an Italian airline worker. He trained as a pilot & later studied at Manchester University, following this by working for a time in civil engineering. He then worked in the oil and gas industry, which included five years in South America.
In 1999, Longhi was elected as a Conservative councillor in Walsall, & became Mayor in 2017 and again in 2018.
He became the first Tory to represent Dudley North at #GE2019, after the incumbent, Ian Austin (independent, formerly Labour), stood down.
Following an interim report on the connections between colonialism & properties in care of the @nationaltrust, Longhi was among the signatories of a letter to The Telegraph from the "Common Sense Group" accusing the National Trust of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma".
On 23 August 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed free-market extremist & Truss-supporter Longhi as the UK's trade envoy to Bolsonaro's Brazil.
In June, Longhi, in a private message directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, about the #Rwanda asylum plan, said, "Archbishop, as you appear to feel so strongly about this, will you give up two of your palaces for illegal migrants and pay for their accommodation?"
On 1st November, two days after the far-right terrorism attack on a migrant centre by Andrew Leak, Longhi supported the use of the grotesque military metaphor of "invasion" used by Braverman to demonise those crossing the channel, & now he's TPUK's Honorary President... 🙋♂️🙋♂️🙋♂️
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There was outrage when in 2020, the Tory Govt conceded a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal would "break international law" in a "specific & limited way".
But what is international law? What is the ICC?
And what were Margaret Thatcher's views on international law?
First, what is 'international law'?
Broadly (it's complicated!) it refers to the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors.
The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). According to Bentham’s classic definition, international law is a collection of rules governing relations between states. This original definition omits individuals and international organizations.
"Improving the quality of life for people of this country is perhaps the most important duty of Government."
John Prescott has died.
In September 2000, John - then Deputy Prime Minister - gave a speech at the @UKLabour Party Conference, introducing Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela died in December 2013. Writing a tribute in the Daily Mirror, John reflected on his death, writing: “In my office at home I have a picture that is my most treasured possession. It’s of me shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand on stage at the @UKLabour conference in 2000."
At the Rivonia Trial, between 1963 & 1964, Mandela gave a dramatic speech from the dock.
John wrote in 2013 “When I read that, I knew that I wanted to enter politics. He was my inspiration. So when he walked free in 1990, we felt as if one of our own comrades had been freed.”
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Allison Pearson posted then deleted disinformation, falsely accused three people of being "Jew haters", lied about where the photo was taken & what they were doing, then lied about what the Police said to her - and then moaned about being a victim! FFS
The Telegraph's divisive shit-stirrer Pearson falsely claimed she was told by the police who came to her home it was over a “non-crime hate incident”. Her lie was then dutifully amplified by every Reform UK MP & billionaire-owned right-wing "news" media, painting her as a victim.
Essex Police said “At no stage... was she informed that the report being investigated was being treated as a non-crime hate incident. To suggest otherwise is wholly inaccurate and misleading.”
Pearson, Farage, Musk, Young, Habib, & many other shit-stirrers who shamelessly try to normalize hateful, divisive, provocative & inflammatory rhetoric, often refer to George Orwell's 1984, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is much closer to the dystopia we inhabit...
Harassment, malicious communications, incitement, & threatening violence are all crimes in the UK, & have been for a long time.
Print & broadcast media, & online social media are simply platforms on which we behave or misbehave: it's not about the medium, it's about the offence.
The UK is signed up to Article 10 of the #ECHR: everyone has the right to free speech, which may only be qualified in limited circumstances, including: national security; public safety; the protection of morals & of the reputation or rights of others.
"Enoch Powell was a hero of the young Nigel, but at this point he could do without any association with the politician who made the notorious Rivers of Blood speech... the accusation of racism follows Farage & his party around like a bad smell." - Allison Pearson
"Farage has tried for years to shrug off the charge that his parties are more than “the BNP in blazers”... although I don’t think Farage is a racist, it’s a problem that racists attach themselves to Reform." - Allison Pearson
“We’re investigating a report which was passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.” - Essex police spokesman
Not a lot of people know that Oxbridge alumni Fiona Bruce, presenter of 'Fake or (paid a) Fortune?', and since January 2019, the @BBC's interrupting Chair of #bbcqt, was born in Singapore.
One of her first episodes as Chair was the one that made Laurence Fox a household name.
In my widely read & reported February 2023 Open Letter to the @BBC about @bbcquestiontime, one of my concerns was about Bruce’s chairing of #bbcqt which I said was "at best, unacceptably poor."