A celebratory combining of revivals!

Last week we heard that Genesis were to reform for a new tour, though it will be mainly Phil Colin's son on drums sadly due to his health and although I will not be going (can't), I'm sure a live album will inevitably be released that will be high on my must get list!

Now it's the turn of Spitting Image. A wonderful satirical show that ran from 1984 to 1996. It had certainly had it's moment and so many celebrities and politicians were defined by their puppets. Boy George hated his (humourless git) whilst Michael Heseltine wanted to buy the Tarzan version of himself.

I have to say in this age of pathetic "wokeness" I dread to think about today's celebs and politicians will react. The moment they have a trans puppet all hell will let loose. Or will they self-censor as is seemingly the way these days. Only Family Guy seems to buck the trend these days.

Insult everybody regardless of sex, race, religion or 57 plus gender identities I say!

Meanwhile here's a music video from that combines genesis with Spitting Image.

Was the Presidents brain missing at the time?

Israel Apartheid Week: The Smear Disguised as a Human Rights Campaign

Cross Post by Paul Shindman

Every spring, the annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” hate-fest hits students on university campuses in North America and Europe. In a bid to dupe impressionable young students into joining the ranks of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, Israel Apartheid Week is a one-sided propaganda event smearing Israel with the purposefully deceptive Israel-Apartheid label.

The blitzkrieg of Israel Apartheid Week activities and slogans accuse Israel of being an “apartheid regime,” exploiting Palestinians, and using “colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing.” However, despite being held on academic campuses, Israel Apartheid Week does not engage in discussion or debate, but instead employs what the Jewish Friends of Labour in the UK labeled “the most extreme end of anti-Israel activism.”

Israel Apartheid Week: The Strategy

Analysis of BDS strategies showed they are “consistent with antisemitic movements historically,” employing tactics that turn the Palestinian cause into a “class struggle.”

“Jews are given the choice of either joining the revolution for “justice” or being condemned,” noted Dr. Alex Joffe of the Begin-Sadat Cnetre for Strategic Studies.

Organizers openly state that Israel Apartheid Week is an integral part of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign to legitimise Israel. Their goal is to shut down any discussion that might support Israel, force academic institutions to cut all contacts with Israel including academic ties, divest themselves from any Israel-related investments and restrict academic freedoms by sanctioning professors or students who question BDS, or express support for the Jewish state.

As mercenaries wearing peace activist’s clothing, Israel Apartheid Week organisers use strong rhetoric and intimidation to create an atmosphere so that students and academics will conclude without question that Israel is like the old South Africa under apartheid rule. Using that analogy, the converts are recruited to support boycotts against Israel, similar to the boycott attempts against the former apartheid South Africa.

In his detailed analysis of BDS, Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs found that naive supporters of the Palestinian cause were attracted to such campaigns “believing them to be mainstream organisations supporting the Palestinians. However, these campaigns are often run by the far-left, Islamist, or other anti-Israel radicals.”

The inflammatory animosity spread by Israel Apartheid Week activists goes beyond Israel and targets Jewish students.

“Frequently during Israeli Apartheid Week and BDS campaigns, Jewish students are singled out, harassed, intimidated and even assaulted, regardless of their feelings on Israel,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at University of California – Santa Cruz. The intense anti-Israel sentiment at her university also triggered a religious backlash where a “staggering 70% of Jewish students experienced anti-Semitism.”

Despite the facts that show Israel is nothing like the former apartheid South Africa, the BDS tactic of repeating the “apartheid” mantra to spread it like a virus has resulted in the media and some diplomats misusing it both knowingly and apparently sometimes unwittingly.

Shooting Down the Myths

An internationally respected voice who shot down the myth of Israeli “apartheid” belongs to Richard Goldstone, the prominent South African judge who later headed a UN inquiry into the 2009-10 war ignited by the Hamas terror group. His final report was seen as rewarding Palestinian terror, condemned by Israel and used as ammunition by BDS and the organisers of Israel Apartheid Week. (Goldstone later expressed regret for the report.)

However, what the Israel Apartheid Week organisers ignore is that Goldstone helped dismantle apartheid in South Africa and was offended by Palestinians hijacking the term.

“In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid,” Goldstone wrote in the New York Times.

Goldstone pointed out that unlike South Africa, Israeli law does not enshrine the concept of separation and domination of one people over another. “In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.”

He eloquently pointed out how the Palestinian issue was specifically not apartheid:

The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.

South African journalist Rolene Marks astutely observed that “even in the darkest days of Apartheid, NOBODY questioned South Africa’s right to exist as a country, no matter how much the world objected to its racist policies.”

Climate of Fear on Campuses

Contrarily, the BDS goal is not to create a democratic Palestinian state, but instead disassemble Israel. Activists do not call for a two-state solution and BDS has no goal of resolving the conflict.

First held on a Canadian campus in 2005, Israel Apartheid Week was angrily condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who said: “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses.”

…Canadian Jewish students on campuses no longer feel safe or free to express themselves and express their political views on campus. Any time a Canadian student is feeling unsafe on their campus because of a movement, that does cause an issue with me and that is why I have been clear and I will continue to be clear in condemning Israel apartheid week and the BDS movement.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, April 16, 2019

At the peak of vitriol, one Israel Apartheid Week organiser called Canada an apartheid state like Israel. That drew a strong rebuke in the Canadian media that ridiculed the “hypocrites in the “Israeli Apartheid” movement” and that Israel Apartheid Week amounted to a “trendy pretense put on by bigots and marginalised radicals.”

By Bundesarchiv, Bild CC

There is also opposition to BDS and Israel Apartheid Week in the Palestinian sector where peace advocates say it hurts their efforts. Prominent human rights activist Bassem Eid said: “As a Palestinian dedicated to working for peace … I do not believe that the BDS advocates are helping our cause. On the contrary, they are just creating more hatred, enmity, and polarization.”

Judge Goldstone, widely respected in South Africa for his role in helping dismantle apartheid and transition South Africa into a full democracy, speaks with authority when he shoots down the main claim of the BDS movement and the rationale behind Israel Apartheid Week:

“The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony,” Goldstone concludes.

Go to: honestreporting.com for more information on this and other issues surrounding Israel and the Middle East.

Smoke bombs and leather bound penises on display

Now there's a headline I thought neither I or anyone else would write to be honest. Yet here we are examing what happned when a meeting of (mostly) women was held over the threats to expel members for defending women's righrs on the grounds these views are somehow "transphobic"

The Morning Star Reported:

Activists accusing the meeting of transphobia gathered outside the Maxilla Social Club to picket the event, which was called in response to the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights’s demand that members of Woman's Place UK and the LGB Alliance, which it referred to as transphobic hate groups, be expelled from the Labour Party.

The organisations both reject accusations of transphobia. Woman’s Place says it organises to protect women’s sex-based rights and women’s right to organise and discuss issues that affect them.

Protest co-organisers London Bi Pandas said their picket was “a much-needed moment of trans+ solidarity in a landscape of rising violence against trans+ and non-binary people.”

But attendees accused protesters of hurling abusive language in a bid to intimidate them – and condemned the release of “smoke bombs” round the corner from Grenfell Tower.

The community hall is immediately surrounded by tributes and murals to the 72 people who died in the 2017 tower block fire.

Trade unionist and former firefighter Lucy Masoud, who addressed the Labour Women's Declaration Meeting, said that the 300 attendees, mainly women, could smell sulphur from inside.

Justice for Grenfell spokeswoman Moira Samuels, who passed by the meeting, got “a whole lot of abuse” when she challenged protesters over the smoke, Ms Masoud said.

Although the group "apologised" for the smoke bombs and their "insensitivity" the use of smoke bombs is both an illegal and violent act against women peacefully meeting to discuss issue that they see as effecting the. If anything the aggressive behaviour of the trans-activists and their allies proves there are issues to discuss but that's not the only problem.

Ruth Serwotka tweeted about one of the protesters manner of dress:

These trans individuals want to be treated as if they are women yet behave in this manner which frankly would be condemned by the vast majority of men. let alone women.

The threat of violence is ever present as this t-shirt illustrates and if you think this is an isolated incident just check out this collection of tweets collated by women's activists: terfisaslur.com

It's no wonder so many women raise concerns about the need for women's sex based rights. Not sure I'd want to be around these individuals either. Their behaviour is unacceptable on so many levels.

I will not be silenced: In defence of Free Speech

Photo: Matt Brown Wikki CC

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”

There were a number of political events planned for this month. Two of which I chose to support on this blog and my other social media which I would support (Free Tibet and International Women's Day) and one which I intended to oppose (Israel Apartheid Week in universities) .

Free Tibet caused no friction but generated little interest as is the problem every year I push the plight of the Tibetan people. The rally outside Downing Street was very small, just a couple of hundred people and not a lefty paper seller in sight. Not a cause for the usual protesters it would seem.

Israel Apartheid Week is about to begin and I've posted here and on FB. Just the usual arguments as expected. This will continue next week and I will intervene as best I can.

When it came to International Women's Day I solicited a couple of articles by women for my blo and Caroline Watson wrote in general about Women's Rights whilst Claudia Clare specifically concentrated on Lesbian Rights as divisions arise over the Trans-demands. A third article was published based on a campaign e-mail from Southall Black Sisters & One law for All about minority women's rights and Sharia Law.

The furore that the article about Lesbian Rights caused a furore on one Facebook forum to which I belong. It's a private group so I will have to ensure that neither it nor it's contributors can be identified by non-members but I was told by one woman who announced she was a lesbian that I should not post articles on these matters as I was not part of that community and latter actually added I was "not allowed", though by whom was never made clear. It certainly wasn't the pages Admin's rules.

The post was attacked as "transphobic" and "bigoted" though when asked which parts were there were no answers forthcoming and one self appointed defender of the cause attacked me as a privileged white male which later morphed into a "bigoted old man". All because I commented in defence of Women's sex based rights.

There were women and on trans-activist wring in agreement but it seems that behind the scenes these individuals were taking screen shots and preparing to have me (and probably others) reported to the Labour Party except they did discover that not being a member that would be pretty pointless.

The viciousness and bile from  the woke folk was appalling. I was accused on being "patronising" and "trying to speak for women". All I did and do here and elsewhere is offer an opinion. Take it or leave it, the readers choice though obviously I do hope to influence where I can otherwise what would be the point.

One humourless harridan in particular shocked me with her Messianic self-righteousness with bile and a dash of misandry. The inability of people to engage and tolerate differing viewpoints was actually spelled out openly by my original critic. She left the group as she couldn't handle the debate.

The woke/trans-activists tendency reflects very much the behaviour of the Corbynistas who accused their opponents of being "red Tories" or Blue Labour and much worse. The announcement by one individual that they had "moved on from second wave feminism" sounded so much like the Trots who broke from the Third International (the Comintern) to form the Fourth International.

Women's meetings have been disrupted and cancelled by this tendency, dissenting speakers, especially feminists "no platformed" and a campaign to expel supporters of Women's Place UK & the LGB Alliance.

The intolerance of the these people whether woke or supporters of the Corbyn tendency is legion. They present not just a danger to the Labour Party but to free speech and democracy.

The need to defend the right to freely speak one's opinion whether others like it or not must be defended. Otherwise next they will silence you.

What are Lesbians to do with the Left?

Guest Post by Claudia Clare 

It is impossible talk about contemporary lesbian lives without reference to transgender ideology. Lesbians are affected in ways that are both physically intimate and politically public. The ‘Cotton ceiling’: even the term is telling. The ‘glass ceiling’ is the barrier that refuses to break, right? The ‘cotton ceiling,’ refers to our knickers. Well I said it was intimate, didn’t I? Let me explain: some ‘transwomen’ want to be ‘lesbians.’ Sometimes these are male-bodied people – not post operative transsexuals but ‘self identified’ ‘women,’ ‘transwomen’ or even ‘lesbians.’ The hail storm of inverted commas is because these are intact male bodied people with penises – what most people call MEN – trying to pass themselves off as women - or even lesbians - with the aim of having sex with a woman. When we politely explain that, ‘as I lesbian I don’t do penis,’ we are denounced as ‘transphobic,’ which may result in being ejected from a club or bar or whatever the social space may be - perhaps even a shared house if these are the norms of the social group. 

‘Transwomen,’ of a certain kind, use this phrase as a lament, a complaint. In the plainest possible language, it means: ‘I cannot break through the cotton gusset of your knickers.’ Hence ‘cotton ceiling.’ This is the kind of gross banality, coupled with the element of potentially violent sexual threat that lesbians are dealing with daily. It is almost comically absurd but, when you’re the target of one of these aggressive ‘transwomen,’ pressuring you for sex, it certainly isn’t.



This situation is bad for all lesbians but it hits young lesbians hardest. That all too brief moment when lesbians could get out and about, go to clubs, enjoy their new found sexual freedom, is long past. Young lesbians seeking lovers face a very different reality, their most intimate behaviour and feelings are constantly policed - and reported and commented upon, often on social media - by the trans-Stasi and their allies. Little wonder then that so many teenage girls that reject feminine gender-stereotyping and notice a sexual preference for other girls, decide they must be ‘transmen’ and opt for the transition route. If this sounds vaguely familiar to older readers, that’s because it is familiar. It is conversion therapy rebranded. If breast-binding – practised by girls transitioning to boys/men - sounds familiar, that too is because it is – think foot binding or corsets – and breast binding is at least as harmful as the corset was, often more so. 

These may turn out to be insignificant compared to the as yet unknown long term effect of hormones to suppress puberty, and the cross-sex hormones which follow. Even if these young women do not go as far as full double mastectomy and the removal of healthy body tissue, possibly resulting in a life time of hospital visits for one reason or another, they will still have to deal with the effect of a barbaric drug regime, one which is not even properly tested for this kind of use.



The more public aspects of the transactivist attack on lesbians lives has been made visible via Stonewall and the Pride marches of 2019 when it became clear that saying we were, ‘same sex attracted,’ was also ‘transphobic,’ and punishable by exclusion from the march. There has been much coverage of the no-platforming of lesbians for being TERFs, but this is something that affects all women and even some men – it is not specifically lesbian. What is specific to us is the threat of sexualised violence and, interestingly, this does not have a parallel for gay men. ‘Transmen,’ or female to male, (FtM) transsexuals do not aggressively or otherwise approach gay men demanding sex. Analysing this behaviour among ‘transwomen’ is deemed ‘transphobic’ because it requires an honest discussion of biological sex and behaviour, which itself requires the assertion that sex is real not imagined and, again, there is a price to pay for this apparent transgression – now classed as a belief, rather than an inescapable material reality.

Once you decide that biology is not real, that sex does not exist, that a man who feels like a woman can legally call himself a woman - at which point many otherwise protected women’s spaces are then under pressure to accept ‘her,’ even if ‘she’ is male-bodied – all bets are off. What then is a lesbian? If we can no longer agree a legal definition of ‘woman,’ what is a lesbian? And, to open up another immensely important front that should interest the Labour Party, how does this affect lesbian asylum seekers – of which there are an increasing number? Lesbians already find it immensely difficult to prove to the Home Office that they are lesbians precisely because they have been forbidden to be lesbians in their country of origin. They very often have not had relationships with anyone or not long term. What happens if they cannot even be defined as a woman and same sex attracted because government – any government - has allowed itself to be talked out of having any legal definition of woman? 

When Labour Party members and leadership candidates queued up to sign up to the Trans Pledge, they betrayed some of the most vulnerable members of society. They did so, mainly because far too many senior party members have allowed themselves to wallow in the luxury of ignorance for far too long. They need to toughen up, educate themselves and get back to work.


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For the pictures: photo credits Mike Bettney
Lesbian Strength March, Leeds, September 7th 2019. Organised because so many lesbians were ejected from local pride marches in other cities and because Stonewall announced that trans-refusnik lesbians would be unwelcome on the London march.


Anyone reading this who knows young women unsure about or regretting ftm transition can contact Charlie Evens @charlie_sci or Transgender Trend – detransitioning page.

https://www.transgendertrend.com/detransition/

A real page turner! The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewel

Over the last four months or so I've ploughed through near on twenty different crime and mystery thrillers. Some like all three books by CJ Tudor and The July Girls from Phoebe Locke were excellent and gripping. Others were good but there were a couple that disappointed however nothing prepares one for the story that unfolds in this tome from Lisa Jewel.

It's not often I get angry when reading (or watching) fiction but as the tale develops in this mystery one does want to intervene against the obvious injustice. It's no wonder that this book has been in the best seller charts for a while now.

The premise as outlined on the cover is that the police find three bodies in a virtually empty house which have began to decay having been dead for several days. Yet upstairs in a cot lay a young baby well fed and cared for. But who had been looking after her?

This appears to be a triple suicide. But where have the other children gone?

Libby receives a letter on her 25th birthday from solicitors stating she has just inherited a house. And not just any old building. This is a prime property in Chelsea worth millions.

A text is sent saying the "Baby is now 25".

What does this all mean?

Meanwhile Lucy and her children are living an itinerant life style in France. The actors in this gripping page turner are about to be introduced in a tale that is told gong back and forth in time.

You will be shocked. It certainly raised my blood pressure and the story will certainly get under your skin. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Support Campaign about marriage law and rights of minority women

Southall Black Sisters (SBS), with support from the One Law For All campaign, recently intervened in the Court of Appeal case of Akhter v Khan to outline our concerns about the current law on marriage and its serious implications for black and minority (BME) women and their rights. The Court of Appeal judgment (14 February 2020) ruled that women who are unable to register their marriage in accordance with the law cannot on the break-up of their marriage seek to ‘void’ it, which means that they are not entitled to any financial remedies. This outcome has profoundly discriminatory consequences for minority women.

In light of this judgement, SBS and One Law for All have now written to the Law Commission as it is currently conducting a review of the law on marriage. We want to ensure that this issue is given proper consideration. You can find out more about the scope of the review here.

Our letter to the Law Commission follows a previous letter from SBS to the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, dated 6th August 2018, setting out our concerns on Sharia law and civil divorce to which we received no response. You can read both letters here and here.

You can also read more about the One Law for All campaign here and on our website.

How can you support our campaign?

We welcome support for this campaign from members of the public.

Please contact the Law Commission directly, using the contents of our letters above: weddings@lawcommission.gov.uk. 

The Law Commission will be inviting views from stakeholders and members of the public. If you wish to participate, please respond to their consultation paper when it is announced. We will update our website when the consultation paper is made available. 

You can find out more about the Law Commission’s review here.

• Please also write to your local MP, using this template. You can find out who your local MP is and their contact details, using this website: https://www.writetothem.com/

• Please write to the relevant Parliamentary Select Committees: including the Women and Equalities Committee: womeqcom@parliament.uk, the Joint Committee on Human Rights on this matter via: jchr@parliament.ukand the Justice Committee: justicecom@parliament.uk, to express your support for a reform of the marriage laws.

• Please promote this campaign on social media, using #OneLawforAll #EqualityNotDiscrimination.

Please feel free to share any correspondence with us directly, by contacting janaya@southallblacksisters.co.uk or Maryam Namazie onelawforall@gmail.com