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THE

WORD

Issue #50, Mid November 2020

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Equality Democracy Truth Courage

Happy Birthday to us on our 50th edition

THE PEOPLE’S PAPER

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VACCINE FOUND

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ONE LITTLE PRICK AND IT’S GONE

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Mid November 2020

POLITICS AND EVENTS

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The party’s over. Starmer gambled SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN GROU OVER CORBYN AND THE LEFT LOST

After the initial burst of shock, protest and promises of ‘private talks’ (wink-wink), the suspension of the former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has gone horribly quiet. His ‘sacking’ is no longer a topic of discussion. No significant figure is calling for action by the Corbynsupporting membership. And this includes Corbyn himself. The standard bearer of the Labour left has been sacked and nothing is happening about it. Starmer’s creature, General Secretary David Evans, even claims that members are not allowed to discuss it or send in motions of support for him – an authoritarian trend started by Jennie Formby, Corbyn’s general secretary. Fortunately some CLPs have ignored his arrogant instruction. But the Socialist Campaign Group, led by the arch coward

John McDonnell immediately capitulated and not a single MP disagreed. Momentum was no better, thought it has belatedly announced a campaign calling for Corbyn’s reinstatement. The truth is Starmer gambled and appears to have won. This edition of the Word has articles about what has, and has not happened, and the views of two on how they view the response and difficulties faced by the left in deciding what to do next. The volunteers who freely give their time and effort producing the Word are as divided as everyone else over what’s best to do now. Some resigned immediately, some are staying, all are dismayed and disillusioned. One thing everyone at the Word is agreed on is that Keir Starmer is a disaster of Blair

proportions for the Labour Party. Ignore his protestations and promises simply look at what he does and what he allows to be done. He is of the right and he is ruthlessly eradicating Corbynism. When he says he wants unity, he means he wants to eradicate opposition within the Labour Party, either by expelling critics or by making everyone too fearful to open their mouths. You do not have to take our word for this, simply look around, listen to what members mutter to one another as they look over their shoulders. Having aided and abetted the ridiculous anti-semitism zealots Starmer is now going to reap the whirlwind as anyone and everyone becomes a target of their insanity. No sooner had they toppled Corbyn than they handed Starmer a 72 page list of 11 Labour MPs and party members they accuse of antisemitism. The expectation is that he will treat this list with the same deliberate negligence he directed to the embarrassing Leaked Report that has been languishing in the ‘Forget’ folder since January. Starmer will work to ignore the Zionist’s new hit list, unless wants shot of them, Diane Abbott and Rebecca LongBailey being prime candidates.

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Unless the Zionist crazies are ordered by their boss, the Israeli government, which provide much of their funding, to lay off now that Corbyn is out of the picture and the pro-Palestinian Labour left has been cowed into silence, they can be expected to pursue him for action, so expect ever closer ties with Netanyahu or whoever replaces him if he’s finally banged up.

All susp on the C

t least three petitions calling for Jeremy Corbyn to be reinstated to the Labour Party were launched after Keir Starmer with General Secretary David Evans suspended him from the party. By Saturday, eight days after the sacking, nearly 63,000 had signed the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice for Labour petition, more than 32,000 people had signed a petition linked to the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs statement of support and 1,500 had signed the Labour Left Alliance petition. The SCG is held an online rally on Monday evening with

Left MPs call on disillusioned members to stay and fight

the usual left Labour MP lineup.

If for no other reason it was worth taking part to find out why an astonishing 16 MPs in the SCG failed to sign its softly worded open letter calling for Corbyn to be reinstated. The Word newspaper emailed them all the day the statement was released asking them why they had not put their names to the statement. By Saturday one had replied. Rachael Maskell, (York Central) and shadow minister for Voluntary Sector and Charities, wrote: “As a member of the frontbench, and you will find this with other colleagues too, you cannot sign EDMs, circulars, letters, support amendments to Bills, etc.” Dan

Carden

(Liverpool

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid November 2020

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UP LEFT MPs ‘DO NOT ROCK THE BOAT’ TACTIC COMES UNDER FIRE

Clive Lewis

Rachel Hopkins

Dan Carden

Kim Johnson

Kate Osamor

Olivia Blake

Charlotte Nichols

Rachael Maskell

Navendu Mishra

Sam Tarry

Marsha de Corodova

Andy McDonald

piciously quiet Corbyn front Walton) did not respond to the Word, but he issued a statement about Corbyn saying: “His place is in the Labour Party.” adding that “the grounds for his suspension remain unclear” and “concerns have been raised … that due process was not followed.”

This is in the same softlysoftly vein as the SCG’s open letter which simply calls for Corbyn’s suspension from the PLP and party to be “quickly reversed” without pointing any finger of blame, and urges

disillusioned “members… to stay and fight for his reinstatement” but without suggesting how.

Another left MP who failed to put his name to the letter, Clive Lewis (Norwich South), was reported in Labour List as appearing to agree that Corbyn’s comments were “ill-advised, to put it mildly”. Nadia Whittome’s (Nottingham East) was reported as saying though she was

The others missing from the open letter were Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree); Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam); Marsha de Cordova (shadow Women and Equalities, Battersea); Rachel Hopkins (Luton South); Imran Hussain (Bradford East); Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside); Andy McDonald (shadow Employment Rights, Middlesbrough); Nav Mishra (Stockport); Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North); Kate Osamor (Edmonton); Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton Kemptown) and Sam Tarry (Ilford South) and former campaign manager for Jeremy Corbyn.

saddened by the suspension she “cannot agree” with Corbyn’s statement about the report.

End the witch-hunt against the left. The LLA, which has candidates fighting for seats on the Later she party’s National said she had E xe c u t ive missed the SCG Committee, meeting but said it is “I absolutely “outraged” by LEFT MPS DID support the the suspension NOT SIGN THE spirit” of it, and that STATEMENT OF adding that Corbyn was “He should be “absolutely right” SUPPORT reinstated as soon in his comments as possible” and demands his immediate reinstatement In stark contrast, Labour Left and a public apology from Alliance’ petition is headlined Starmer and his deputy Reinstate Jeremy Corbyn! Angela Rayner who told a TV interviewer that though Corbyn’s statement was Motions “correct” it was inappropriate.

Paula Barker

Lloyd Russell-Moyle

supporting Corbyn are not prohibited says the left

The LLA also calls on the SCG to strongly fight back; for local parties to send in motions of support as they claim the

Imran Hussain

topic is not prohibited as General Secretary David Evans claims, and calls for the radical overhaul of the disciplinary system. Meanwhile, the seven unions who publicly supported Corbyn and were said to be holding private talks with Starmer’s “people” last weekend, have been silent ever since.

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Mid November 2020

POLITICS AND EVENTS

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NO LET UP IN FORCING PALESTINIANS OFF THEIR LAND

Israel breaks its promise WHITES SLAUGHTERED BETWEEN 60 AND 3 to halt illegal demolitions

The number of Palestinians deliberately made homeless by the Israeli authorities has reached a four year high, despite the promise to freeze demolitions because of the pandemic threat to health.

of On the 10th98 in November 18 North Wilmington,frican Carolina, A were Americans nd attacked a hite w murdered bny and e m police vigilantes

Israeli rights group, B’Tselem, reported that 741 Palestinians were made homeless between January and September this year. The final total is expected to be as high or higher than the 1,496 carried out in 2016, as demolitions continued in October, said the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The majority of the demolitions are deemed to be illegal under international law, but they go on year after year without hindrance. Added to this, illegal Israeli squatters destroyed 300 olive trees in the village of Jaba, Bethlehem. The trees are an important source of income, food and oil. The olive tree, a symbol of

peace, is a major resource for Palestinians who plant 10,000 new trees a year in the West Bank. So far Israeli settlers have destroyed about 4,000 trees. The attacks are carried out under the protection of the Israeli military. Nearly 100,000 Palestinians rely on olive farming for survival. Attacks of this nature are widely used by Israelis settlers to force Palestinians off the land. Source: Independent

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WILMINGTON NO The 1898 Wilmin

fter the Civil War, The union commanders appointed a former confederate general as the police chief and confederate soldiers as police officers, who then proceeded to brutally attack the freed black men, women and children. The police were notoriously violent towards the African Americans. By 1868, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a middle class area with a large number of the population being African Americans who had businesses, were freed slaves or servants. Some even owned their own home. (Many of the FREEDMEN had been given their freedom by Abraham Lincoln if they had

fought for him in the civil war). The town had a multi racial government and there were black doctors, teachers, lawyers, magistrates, people on the council and even police officers which was not liked by the white supremacists.

This terrible coup that took so many innocent lives was considered the most successful in American history. There are still racists in the Wilmington Police force

On the 10th of November 1898 the town’s, African Americans were attacked and murdered by white policemen and vigilantes. The figures vary, but it is estimated that between 60 to more than 300 people died. This coup had been planned by white politian’s and white businessmen who wanted Wilmington to be solely white controlled. They didn’t like the idea of black people in positions of power or being able to vote.

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

300 BLACK PEOPLE AND DROVE OUT 2000

ORTH CAROLINA ngton Massacre They considered themselves superior to black people. When black people tried to vote, they were beaten up and voting boxes stuffed in clear site of white policemen. The only black owned newspaper had their premises burnt down, black people’s homes and businesses were burnt down and yet it was the black people that were accused of causing a riot even though they were completely innocent. The coup leaders even tried to persuade the governor to call out the militia because of it. After the coup, black leaders and white supporters were banished from Wilmington. They were forcibly removed at gun point. Soon after, a majority of the African American population left Wilmington, approximately over 2000 people.

Wilmington had now changed to from a multicultural town to a White supremacist town, totally controlled by white people and white law where few black people were now able to vote. This terrible coup that took so many innocent lives was considered the most successful in American history. Even to this day there are still racists in the Wilmington Police force. Now, the black population of Wilmington is approximately 18%, this shows, the coup of 1898 is still effective. Black people in Wilmington are far more likely to be arrested than white people, they are far more likely to stopped and searched than white people at approximately 49%, so virtually half the whole population of Wilmington being arrested, is black.

Mid November 2020

When black people tried to vote, they were beaten up and voting boxes stuffed in clear site of white policemen. The only black owned newspaper had their premises burnt down, black people’s homes and businesses were burnt down and yet it was the black people that were accused of causing a riot even though they completely innocent. The coup leaders even tried to persuade the governor to call out the militia because of it.

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A week in History 10th -17th NOVEMBER

10th November 1975 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 3379, determining that Zionism is a form of racism. 10th November 1989 – Germans begin to tear down the Berlin Wall.

Black people vote

THE

11th November 1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people’s wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations 12th November 1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union. 13th November 1956 – The Supreme Court of the United States declares Alabama laws

requiring segregated buses illegal, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott 14th November 1982 – Lech Wałęsa, the leader of Poland’s outlawed Solidarity movement, is released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border. 15th November 1943 – The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps”. 15th November 2006 – Al Jazeera English launches worldwide. 16th November 1945 – UNESCO is founded 17th November 1973 – Watergate scandal: In Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Richard Nixon tells 400 Associated Press managing editors “I am not a crook.”

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Mid November 2020

POLITICS AND EVENTS

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WHAT MIGHT MOTIVATE COMRADES TO STAY OR LEAVE AN ABUSIV

t’s more than four days since Keir Starmer raised the bar in the right-wing’s campaign to purge the Labour Party of socialists by suspending Jeremy Corbyn. The angst among my friends over how to best respond is increasing, not calming, despite what some are urging them to do. Many are weighing up whether to resign outright, or at least stop paying their subscriptions. Some are keeping very quiet, hoping not to get caught in the ongoing dragnet. The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs (SCG) continues to call on party members to remain, to “stay and fight”, presumably alongside it’s members. But the reality is the SCG is not fighting; it is not standing up as one in solidarity with Corbyn and repeating the truth he spoke. It is not attacking the lie that underpins all that Starmer and the media are using as their weapons of choice. Rather the SCG encourages members to tip-toe around the issue, remain on the defensive rather than go on the offensive, even exhorting us to apologise for what clearly needs no apology and to “remain calm” and stay stationary on the beach in the face of a tsunami. I’ve seen comrades argue that choosing to remain in the Labour Party as a socialist at this point is akin to remaining in an abusive relationship or being a member of a cult. My PhD explored the process of leaving controlling cults. Several of the key elements can be considered as defining characteristics of the Labour Party though the party is not a total institution. Corbyn as leader was a charismatic figurehead. But, to the left’s detriment, the party’s middle management and regional structures remained dominated by the Blairite right. We all know too well how the Party rule book is arbitrarily abused to suspend, expel and generally silence members. Fearing these repercussions, some do not voice their

Let the toxic Starmer s concerns at all or are extremely careful where they speak up.

We all know too well how the Party rule book is arbitrarily abused to suspend, expel and generally silence members

The leave-taking journey begins when something happens that causes members to become disillusioned. A tipping point for many was when the 2017 general election was lost because Labour rightwingers would rather have a

Tory government than one led by a socialist. The so-called Leaked Report confirmed this. The suspension and threatened expulsion of Corbyn is tipping point. As a result many members stopped attending meetings online or otherwise

and commit less time to Party work or have resigned positions of responsibility. Remaining unhappy with the direction of travel of the Labour Party, while staying in it is not sustainable. Commitment

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

VE ORGANISATION – THE LABOUR PARTY new assault until there comes a point when they can no longer hold their nose “for a greater good”. They have reached their limit and may stop paying their subscriptions. Why don’t they just rip up their membership card and send a scathing email of resignation? For some, it may be they have invested too much to walk away, by abandoning the Party they are relinquishing the entire fabric of their political life. This is the point in the process of exiting that is most closely aligned with staying in an abusive relationship. Many people in such a relationship balk at walking away from everything they have been and known, into what looks to be an abyss. It’s scary. In order to justify not taking this next step, comrades voice several reasons why they (and by extension, the rest of us) have a moral obligation to support socialist MPs.The reality is that there is nothing to support. The Socialist Campaign Group of left MPs are too cowered to do anything. They would not even raise their voices in support of their colleague Chris Williamson. Today they are doing the same - keeping their distance from Corbyn, while ostensibly saying they “support” him. So, the SCG is not willing to take a lead; instead, counselling us to keep our words in check, keep calm and carry on lest we, god forbid, incite a civil war within the party even though many of us feel we are already in a civil war.

ship SINK! becomes increasingly eroded.

If a comrade determines that they are not yet ready to chuck their membership they will tend to deny to themselves the severity of the problems and call on members to Stay and

Fight and “play the long game”. They might propose motions, sign petitions and protest letters - but they don’t confront and they don’t rock the boat. But what inevitably happens is increased outrage at each

Many comrades complain there is nowhere else to go other than the Labour Party. Comrades who say this are akin to someone in an abusive relationship not daring to leave, even risking their or their children’s lives by staying, because they do not have complete assurance of another relationship or supportive environment. But to wait until all the pieces are neatly in place before jumping ship just keeps the toxic ship afloat. Let it sink! By Suzanne Gannon This is heavily reduced click here for full article.

Mid November 2020

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STAY GOLDEN Moneybags was the chief midwife at the birth of Blairism

Peter “I TRY TO UNDERMINE CORBYN EVERY DAY” Mandelson was one of the inventors of New Labour. At the birth of Blairism he was the chief midwife. Another Mandy quote?

He used to be, “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes”. It appears to have taken him many years to discover that tax avoidance was a well-practised art form. As for the gap, the fast-growing gap, between rich and poor, awareness of that seems to be creeping up on him; it has taken a while. But Corbyn had to go. Why? He was too much of a socialist. In three years Corbyn more than doubled the party membership. It possibly reached 564,000. Obtaining accurate and reliable figures is not easy and today, despite widespread anecdotal evidence that people are leaving because of Starmer, Mandy claims membership figures are going up. That is an assertion I find difficult to accept. If true it can only signify, one depressing, thing: that the poison of Blairism is to the liking of a lot of people. Snake Oil anyone? If the 2019 General Election votes of the over

45s were discounted Corbyn would have won in a landslide. Boris won the Old Fart vote and now Starmer is sniffing his way towards it. Excitement? Enthusiasm? Ideals? All, must be extracted, removed, from Starmer’s Labour. He lacks Blair’s shiny teeth. His gang of apparatchiks is devoid of Mandelsons, has no Alistair Campbell or Geoff Mulgan or Michael Barber. The Snake Oil has been watered down. There is only one consistent theme: never, ever, say or do anything against house theft, land theft, life theft, culture theft, history theft. apartheid and genocide. Do that and out you must go. Well, there are some Old Farts that see the need for a bit of revolution. Last weekend was Remembrance Sunday and, like so many Old Farts of WWI, I, too, sat reading my books on socialism while ordering young socialists to go over the top. Brandy and cigars are all I need.

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Mid November 2020

POLITICS AND EVENTS

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The Second Lockdown A ploy to cover up decades of dismantling As we enter a second national lockdown, I encourage people not to get wrapped up in fear, use your own judgement, and above all, remember how our government and their business associates have left us in a position ill-equipped to cope adequately with any additional health emergency. For decades now, vast numbers of hospitals have been closed or downgraded. Half the hospital beds have gone over the last twenty years or so. A huge amount of hospital land has been sold off to property developers. An increasing number of procedures have been rationed, forcing people to go private. NHS admin costs of around 4% of the total budget in the 70’s have risen to over 20% of the budget now (total budget now around £120bn annually). In 2012, the government gave away day-to-day control of our health service to a separate body, the “NHS Commissioning Board”, renamed NHS England in 2013. Many of the culprits of these despicable measures are still in positions of power and they and others are using this virus to push ahead and accelerate their plans to undermine our NHS, to break the patient/doctor relationship (and all that we’ve grown accustomed to). As a result the private sector (which many MPs have links with) are moving in and will make a killing. Unless you want a healthcare system that resembles the corrupt U.S. model, I suggest you fight for our NHS to be re-nationalised, while it’s still there. Support our NHS staff, and oppose those who are running the institution into the ground. Colin Crilly / South London NHS campaigner

Devon NHS cuts defy all logic

ncandescent is a pale description of the anger I feel again right now. A doctor from Exeter University interviewed on BBC Spotlight today pointed out that beds per head are fewer in this area than elsewhere in the country.

For seven years there has been a concerted campaign to prevent the closure of beds in community hospitals (310 since 2016) and also acute beds (325 since 2010). That’s a total of 635 beds which will not be available if there is an increase in Covid-19 cases. 20 community hospitals now closed across Devon. 71% of community hospital beds.

These brutal bureaucrats carrying out the filthy work of successive governments, have ducked and dived and tried to vilify campaigners. We, however are fully vindicated in maintaining opposition to this recklessness.

they might have possessed. I include the self-serving Tory characters who populate the Devon Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee who have consistently rubber stamped their Westminster bosses’ vindictive policies.

Now the NHS here in Devon teeters on the precipice of a disaster because of an expected increase in hospitalisations in the coming weeks. Yet, more cuts are being proposed at Teignmouth and Dartmouth hospitals. Nothing is beyond these odious characters.

What is required, in my view, is the public shaming of the Devon CCG, the Devon Partnership and the hospital trusts that carry out the decisions of these bodies. Increasing the pressure on them to end this madness.

Between £399 million to £432 million in cuts by 2024

is being planned by the so called Devon Partnership, an Integrated Care Service (ICS). Already £557 million in cuts will have been made from 2016 to the end of 2021. Those who have carried out

or supported these cuts and those who are proposing more, deserve the full opprobrium of the public for their utter callousness and the collapse into their fat salaries, in the process losing complete sight of any sliver of conscience

The struggle continues... Dave Clinch / Save Our Hospital Services Devon

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Day 240 and still in the first lockdown Leningrad resisted for 900 days so I can manage 400 March was the month when my children conspired to put me and Mrs Eye into a sort of House Arrest. “The government is not taking this seriously,” said one. “The government is moving too slowly,” said another. The third suggested, “What the government want is for the Coronavirus to work its way through the population, taking out the old and the weak.”

Who will be accountable The new NHS Integrated Care Systems

It was decided that we should remain in our home until either the virus had gone, or there was an effective and available vaccine produced. Ten days later, a most Cavalier

figure of a Prime Minister stood up before TV cameras telling us pretty much what my children suspected. Mrs Eye’s friends were unsympathetic; we were surely over-reacting. Several dead friends later, and many more recovering slowly from what people now refer to as ‘Long Covid,’ the same people are still calling the virus phony and suggesting that more lockdowns aren’t necessary. Coronavirus is merely a biologist’s word for a group of viruses including at least four distinct families of Common Cold. SARS Coronavirus disease 2019 is caused by an animal version of one of these viruses.

l NHS England produced a leaflet in June 2019 titled “Designing integrated care l systems (ICSs) in England” which told us that the first 14 ICSs were confrmed in 2018, l including two areas with health devolution agreements (Greater Manchester and Surrey).

Yet in January 2020 the NHS Confederation, which describes itself as “the authentic voice of NHS leadership”, published a paper titled “Delivering together. Developing effective accountabiity in integrated care systems” in which it stated “there remains considerable uncertainty about the accountability and governance arrangements of these systems”.

M. Collier / Campaigner in Sutton, South London

1. Deaths from Coronavirus have been both under and over represented – double phonyism 2. Deaths from Influenza have fallen sharply – either Coronavirus got them first or some of the deaths were combinations of flu, pneumonia, and possibly the virus too 3. The drop in other deaths is surely one of two things, misdiagnosis or Covid19 getting the susceptible first. Again – phonyism in two forms 4. It is possible that someone dies in hospital with Coronavirus and a doctor certifies he or she died *of* Coronavirus – but this doesn’t make the virus a phony, just the doctor!

In May this year 4 more areas around the country were designated ICSs, bringing the total to 18 - NHS England’s website proclaims “around half of the country’s population is now covered by an ICS” and the NHS Long-Term Plan set the ambition that every part of the country should be an integrated care system by 2021.

Surely the accountability and governance arrangements should have been established BEFORE going ahead with designating anywhere an ICS? There is no place for ‘considerable uncertainty’ regarding accountability and governance in our health and care systems. This apparent lack of clarity is alarming. Why are these systems being foisted ‘at pace’ on our NHS, its frontline staff and its patients, especially in the midst of an ongoing healthcare crisis, with a stressed and increasingly exhausted workforce?

While many deaths attributed to it might have occurred anyway is debatable. Causes of death (so far) for 2020 show numbers for seven other deadly illnesses and diseases have dropped, but by many more than the total number of Coronavirus deaths.

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5. It is also quite probable that many of the deaths at home, in care homes, and elsewhere were as a result of infection with this novel, animal virus, but that the figures have gone into the category of ‘ill-defined illnesses,’ (the seventh most common cause of death in the UK 2020) 6. It’s also possible that deaths have been ignored. So who or what are the phonies now?

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

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Jeremy Corbyn’s key

interventions and public statements

ABOUT TACKLING ANTISEMITISM

abourLeaks showed emails where Corbyn and John McDonnell made proposals to tackle antisemitism including efficient processes, detailed guidance on antisemitism, and forming a group of Jewish communal bodies and representatives to advise the Party on tackling antisemitism. Corbyn appointed Shami Chakrabarti to hold an independent inquiry with recommendations that were endorsed in EHRC report. June 2016: Chakrabarti report published, welcomed as “hugely significant” by John Mann and as a “strong platform” by then Chair of JLM. In his speech, Corbyn spoke in detail about prevalent anti-Semitic tropes in Labour. Corbyn asked all Labour members not to use Hitler or Nazi comparisons, especially in the context of Israel, and explained that comparing every human rights atrocity to the Holocaust diminishes Hitler’s attempt to obliterate the Jewish people. Conference 2016: Corbyn said “antisemitism is an evil; it led to the worst crimes of 20th

In April 2016 Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted to ensure the party took robust action against any member expressing anti-Jewish sentiments. Corbyn emailed then General Secretary Iain McNicol in April about antisemitic tweets, asking the party to take action century. Every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester in our society again” December 2016: Labour adopted IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism with Corbyn’s support. May 2017: Corbyn launched Labour Party’s Race and Faith Manifesto for the 2017 General Election, which includes endorsing IHRA definition. September 2017: JLM and Shami Chakrabarti wrote a rule change explicitly outlawing antisemitism and all forms of

prejudice within Labour, the first political party in UK to do so. Corbyn and his office backed the rule change which was overwhelmingly passed by Conference. February 2018: #LabourLeaks showed Corbyn wrote to Iain McNicol saying “it is clear that the current processes are far too slow to meet the volume of disciplinary cases” yet “no procedural changes to the Party’s disciplinary processes have been brought forward by Party staff,” relaying concerns raised by JLM, Luciana Berger and other MPs, saying “it is a cause for real concern

that Jewish voices from across the political spectrum of the Labour Party still feel that we do not take antisemitism seriously enough”. March 2018: Corbyn apologised for the hurt caused to the Jewish community. He asked new General Secretary Jennie Formby to make tackling antisemitism her first priority. He published an opinion piece in the Evening Standard about the particular forms antisemitism takes on the left. Meanwhile Formby started to introduce significant improvements to processes. August 2018: Corbyn wrote in The Guardian saying “people who dish out antisemitic poison need to understand: you do not do it in my name. You are not my supporters and have no place in our movement.” September 2018: Corbyn spoke at Conference about the hurt and anxiety caused to many in the Jewish community that summer. Jennie Formby spoke in detail about the

reforms to processes that had been made in her first few months in post. January 2019: Corbyn released a video with Alf Dubs raising awareness about Holocaust denial and revisionism today, antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories and about the consequences of such rhetoric. April 2019: Corbyn published his Passover video message, in which he met a young Jewish Labour member and he spoke about the “utterly disgusting” antisemitic abuse on social media and about antisemitic conspiracies being invoked in Labour meetings July 2019: Corbyn launched “No Place for Antisemitism”, a minisite with educational materials about antisemitism. He proposed a rule change to introduce rapid expulsions in cases of clearcut antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. This was endorsed by the Shadow Cabinet and approved by the NEC, and it was passed at Conference 2019. If his opponents want rid of Corbyn, they’ll have to dream up something different to what they’re currently asserting.

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Mid November 2020

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What we can do to counteract fascism in a democratic manner

Our instincts call for more direct action T

oday there is frustration and growing anger among people who believe in fairness, opportunity and informed discussion of issues, who are now experiencing a populist, authoritarian, seemingly ill-informed government. In my previous article (issue 47) I proposed that the present UK government is subverting democracy using strategies that could be described as fascist – gaining power through democratic election in a “Trojan Horse” manner.

Anyone examining fascist methods and strategies of the past would recognise the following in our present government’s actions; at every step they promote the idea that democratic procedures are inefficient and slow – bypassing them whenever possible, they undermine the validity of legal challenges and rulings, reinforce the centralisation of power and decision-making, have selected a cabinet based on subservience to the PM, promote nationalism and foster a nostalgic pride in a bygone era. Opponents and critics are labelled as enemies, criticism of racist and homophobic statements dismissed as ‘misunderstanding humour’. People in need of assistance are accused of being weak and undeserving. Complex issues are simplified to meaningless repeatable slogans – “Oven Ready”, “Hands Face Space”, all appealing to people who are encouraged to feel confused and insecure. Socialism has been conflated with communism as an enemy, in addition to other enemies that people are told to be wary of – foreigners, migrants, immigrants. BUT most critically of all, this has been supported by a section of the media who over the years actively promoted these views and cultivate sympathetic politicians (such as Gove, Patel, Johnson, Farage). However to suggest that the present government has gained power, in a “Trojan Horse” moment is to turn a blind eye to the drip-feed of the message “socialism =

communism = bad” that has taken place since the end of WWII, when the defeat of fascism was proudly announced, and attention was turned to the defeat of “communism”, particularly by the USA (throughout S America) but also by the UK (British military intervention to overthrow the newly elected government in British Guiana 1953, when it tried to implement so called ‘marxist’ policies). To ensure we can elect a government with more inclusive social policies, we must address the fact that a section of the media stoke the fears and insecurities of a significant proportion of the electorate – encouraging them to

vote for a party that offers simplistic, slogan-oriented solutions. People who are persuaded by the media to reject ‘the left’ and ‘the far left’ because these are ‘extremes’ that can threaten their security. So instead of trying to control the media that foster these ideas, we need to take over the message and repeat over and over again ideas that are CENTRAL to people’s needs. The message must be that in the 21st century, when faced with complex threats and demands, national security, stability and resilience can only be provided through provision of a National Infrastructure of which we can be proud (transport, communications,

healthcare, education, law and order, a living wage for all, energy supply and the environment). The message must be that this is CENTRAL TO N AT I O N A L SECURITY and not a ‘left wing’ idea.

Italian fascist dictator

Benit Mussolioni 1922

to 1945

Anti-Semitism in Hamas Concessions of a Hawkish Observer The constitution of Hamas seems at first reading quite antipathetic to Jews rather than the Israeli state itself. That observation by a Facebook friend led to a robust exchange of ideas on Facebook, where it was suggested that Hamas might be an anti-Semitic organisation – which is absurd in itself as it represents ethnically Semitic people (if there is such a thing) speaking a Semitic language (there is certainly such a thing) against invaders (there are such things) from Europe less than a century ago, who speak a synthetic language evolved from German and a remnant of a

Israeli Arabs

really a second clare s citizens s

language used in religious worship, so are not Semitic by any definition except that of Adolf Schicklgruber.

The most hawkish of the two protagonists conceded thus: Part of the problem may be that we are reading the Hamas Constitution in English rather than Arabic, and that the translation is rather too literal. So I suspect it's not as bizarrely florid as it sounds (too much like a Trump tweet). I've visited Israel only once, but a couple of things struck me forcibly. First, the Israeli Arabs really are second class citizens. Second, the hotel we stayed in was on a kibbutz. The older part had bomb shelters, to protect against artillery from the Golan heights; if I had taken my children to sleep in bomb shelters every night, it

might have changed my attitude.

The whole situation is an appalling mess. There are no good guys and bad guys, just people displaying all the usual human stupidity driven by fear and grievance. I think Likud has doomed Israel. By annexing so much of the west bank it has made a two state solution impossible. Yet in doing do, it has changed the demographics. Israel plus the occupied territories now have a majority Arab and Moslem population. I don't know how many decades of violence and suffering will be involved, but I do not believe that Israel can continue as a Jewish state indefinitely; The numbers just don't stack up. Jewish Israelis are at war, they face real terrorist threats; Arab Israelis and Palestinians are oppressed. I don't see a repeat of

Jewish Israelis are at wa they face r, re terrorist al threats

the South African miracle of a peaceful end to apartheid, because there don’t seem to be any people of the stature of Mandela and Tutu. One thing I expect we will both agree on is that the Western powers bungled the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Some have suggested that it was a deliberate policy to prevent the development of stable sites, and prolong Western dominance; The Sykes Picot agreement was a disaster. You’ll have to look this up and analyse it for yourself. Best wishes.

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There are so many obscure and unknown

Forgotten Bands

There are so many obscure and unknown T

his column is not here to show off the writer’s knowledge of the obscure. If we wanted you to hear about Psapp, Electric Mud Generator, or Hurricane Sunday, we’d call the feature “Bands You Never Heard of but Would Have Loved,” as is surely true. The Chemistry Set are one of those bands – you never heard “Albert Hofmann” but could easily do so on YouTube, and I’d recommend that you do. You might be too young to remember the version of Pink Floyd that included Roger “Syd” Barrett, but that’s the fault only of your mum and dad for not getting on with it more quickly. Genuinely forgotten bands are ones like The Creation (Painter Man, Making Time.) Formed in 1966 from another band named the Mark Four, this bunch of Englishmen had success with avant-garde psychedelia pop-

Formed in 1966 another bfrom an named d the Mark Fou r

rock, and they were very good and extremely listenable, sounding upbeat and quite ‘mod.’ Bassist Tony Cooke, himself a replacement for the original John Dalton, was fired and found himself on his Jack Jones as most of the rest went on. When this kind of thing happens, somebody usually suggests a name change – and Kenny Pickett, the singer Created one – The Creation. ‘Making Time’ had a Top 40 success and ‘Painter Man’ got to number Ten but by a different band, Boney M, whom I will cover another time, I guess. They had a lot more songs but not so much success which was a pity. The lead guitarist Eddie Phillips used a violin bow for solos and breaks, but of course, the music writers always remember Jimmy Page, a session musician who must have been aware of them, doing the same with his Led Zeppelin project, wildly famous and equally famous

for using o t h e r p e o p l e ’s songs and rehashing them, which is a legitimate blues tactic (before somebody throws a TV or a lawsuit at us from an hotel window.) There were more personnel changes, including Ronnie Wood, Kim Gardner (Ashton, Gardner and Dyke) and Mick Avory, and good songs, such as ‘Life is Just Beginning.’ Jack Jones, the drummer, became a cabaret singer. (Not to be confused with Australian Irwin Thomas who performed under the same name, and some American guy too.) Rumour has it that a version of the band still exists, but only two components are still there from the early days, one is Eddie Phillips and the other his violin bow. Look them up will you?

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DEPUTY TRUMP’S

SHERIFF I

t all began three years ago when Charmaine McGuffey was fired from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department by Sheriff Jim Neil. McGuffey claims it happened because she raised concerns about the abuse of force by fellow officers, and discrimination because she's openly gay. Sherrif Neil says he fired her for creating a hostile work environment. “The sheriff and I got into a pretty serious disagreement because he did not hold officers accountable for their use of force and for harassing women, female officers, and female inmates," she said. McGuffey didn't just want to beat Neil in court, she wanted to defeat him at the ballot box and take his job. "A year or so after he fired me I decided I could do a better job than him," she said.

She ran against him to be the Democratic nominee for Hamilton County Sheriff earlier this year. Both were Democrats, but Neil had lost a lot of support within the party after he appeared on stage at a rally with Donald Trump. About this he said: "It was selfish on my part because I didn't take into consideration the other candidates on the Democratic ballot that are going to be running with me because this could not just impact my votes, but it could impact the votes on anyone on the Democratic ballot. I want to apologise for my actions," Neil said. In the Democratic primary held in April, McGuffey beat Neil by a landslide, winning 70 per cent of the vote, perfect revenge after he fired her for what she believes was discrimination. Selected as the Democrat candidate all she had to do was beat

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her Republican opponent Bruce Hoffbauer the polls this week. Hoffbauer faced an uphill climb as a Republican in a heavily Democrat county. He also had trouble overcoming the time in 1990, when he shot and killed Walter Brown, a Black man, in the hallway of an apartment complex. Hoffbauer said Brown had charged at him. He was cleared of wrongdoing. But the city manager later concluded he had used excessive force. "As a gay woman working in law enforcement, I know what it's like to be targeted for who I am," she said in a campaign ad. "I've seen justice and I've seen injustice. And I know we can do better." McGuffey pulled off a fourpoint victory to become the first female commander at the sheriff's office and the first openly gay sheriff in the county's history. "This is the honour of a lifetime, a dream job for me. When I was 14, I was told 'No way, you can ever be a police officer because you're a girl. Because you're a woman. Look where we stand today," she continued. "I'm so proud of everyone who made this happen."

GOING NATIVE S

ix Native Americans were elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday – a record-breaking number of Native Americans elected to Congress.

Democratic Representative Sharice Davids won reelection in Kansas, CBS News projects. She defeated Amanda Adkins, becoming the only Democrat representing Kansas in the House. In Hawaii, Democratic candidate Kaiali'i Kahele defeated his Republican challenger Joe Akana, CBS News projects.

In Oklahoma, CBS News projects both Representative Tom Cole and Represtenative Markwayne Mullin, two Republicans, won reelection.

Democratic Congresswoman Debra Haaland of New Mexico also won reelection. Republican Yvette Herrell also won in New Mexico. According to Indian Country Today, a total of 13 Native American candidates were competing for House seats this year. The six winners have set a record. The group is split evenly by party – three Democrats and three Republicans.

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Where there’s muck there’s money for water companies

£9 BILLION profits handed to shareholders

Coastal bathing waters are as contaminated as 30 years ago

aw sewage was dumped into bathing waters around the UK more than 2,900 times over the past year, affecting beauty spots and some of our most popular beaches. A report published this week by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) records the incidents and highlights the health implications such as cases of gastroenteritis; ear, nose and throat infections; and eye infections. The report expresses concern about public exposure to antibiotic resistant bacteria – one of the world’s biggest emerging health threats. Hugh Tagholm, Chief Executive of Surfers Against Sewage said: “ W a t e r companies consistently put profit before fully protecting the environment.

disposing of sewage, instead You might think these of in the exceptional failures would have circumstances under observable consequences which it is permitted. for the management of the MILLION companies, but Southern “Even worse, some – like Southern Water – are not Water’s CEO received a even notifying the public remuneration package of fines for when they do this so over £1 million in 2019/20 Southern and over £9 billion has people cannot make Water informed decisions about been paid out to its their own health. This feels shareholders – it’s particularly horrifying in a year where obviously not that they don’t have we are all battling the COVID19 money for improvements to pandemic, a virus that is being infrastructure. tracked through sewage works.” Southern Water is not alone, Southern Water has a particularly England’s privatised water firms paid poor record. The SAS report states it £57 billion in dividends since 1991. ‘achieved a pitiful one-star rating for environmental performance There has been no progress at all in 2019, were slammed in improving the quality of our with fines of £126 bathing waters. Bathers are as likely million for serious to fall ill from seawater as they were in failings in its sewage the 1990s. treatment works and deliberately Research by the European Centre misreporting in 2019, for Environment and Human Health and this year pleaded (ECEHH) found that nine per cent of guilty in court to surfers were colonised by bacteria deliberately dumping resistant to antibiotics, compared to poisonous, noxious just three per cent of non-surfers. substances including untreated Water users are at ever increasing risk sewage into rivers and coastal of contracting conditions that recreational hot-spots over five years. become difficult to treat.

£126

rivers and ocean are beings treated open sewlike ers

“This report demonstrates that rivers and oceans are being treated like open sewers as combined sewer overflows are used as a routine method for

Currently the Combined Sewage Overflows mix surface water and sewage. When there is very heavy rainfall, and danger of sewage backing up, the water companies release untreated sewage straight into the sea – Water often without companie s notifying consisten the public. t ly put profit Climate before full change has y protecting already led environm the to increased ent flooding, so unless there are

legal measures to bring it to a halt, pollution of this kind is likely to become ever more common. SAS has produced a map showing safe and unsafe sea water. Click to

check out your nearest beach. SAS urges everyone to support this Bill in its passage through Parliament by emailing their local MP.

Millions of Danish

mink to be killed

enmark, the world's largest producer of mink furs, plans to cull 17 million mink in the country to contain a recently discovered mutated form of coronavirus. The country’s woman Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, said this the decision had been made with a "heavy heart," but it was necessary based on the recommendation of health authorities. "The virus has mutated in mink. The mutated virus has spread to humans," Frederiksen said. Statens Serum Institut, the Danish authority that deals

with infectious diseases, had found five cases of the virus in mink farms and a dozen examples of it in humans, she said. Allowing the virus to spread could potentially limit the effectiveness of future vaccines. "We have a great responsibility towards our own population, but with the mutation that has now been found, we have an even greater responsibility for the rest of the world as well," Frederiksen said. There are between 15 million and 17 million mink in Denmark. Outbreaks of coronavirus at the country's mink

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MAD, BAD AND DEAD. MAGGIE IS OUR AGONY AUNT

ell readers here we are at 50 issues of the revolting Trot shitrag 'THE WORD'. Of course I am contracted to answer your questions until the end of time so it’s 50 down, infinity to go. But of course my Acolytes in the Tory media will probably stitch you up. So enjoy your landmark Peter Loo and comrades,, Fuck You, Fuck You Very Much!!!! I was playing cards with a friend but don’t understand what you do with a trump. Can you help? Joe from the USA Well if it isn’t 'Young Sleepy Joe' from Delaware. I’ve been following your Poker game and it brings to mind the old adage 'In order to win choose your

opponents wisely'. I mean to say, Humpty Trumpty is a bit of an imbecile, he won’t acknowledge a lost game, he will just puff his chest out, claim victory and argue about the rules. If it gets all 'legal' he’s already bought the Judges. In a nutshell, if you can’t clearly win against a corrupt, immoral, racist, misogynist, bright orange sociopath with a weewee fixation then what does that say about you? SHAME!

My little brother has been bullied so much by the big kids he is afraid of coming out to play anymore. Can you say something to help his confidence? Piers from London Not another bloody Corbyn! Christ they breed like rats don’t they! Well I am, by the Infernal Laws of Purgatory, duty bound to answer this question. So I will and I’ve checked the small print in the Satanic Contract. Your answer is “NO”! There is nothing that Jezza can do, he’s buggered. You see the Establishment learns, at Boarding School, that bullying is the

bedrock of our society. The only way to avoid bullying is to bully oneself. It’s why Tories are so single-minded in their campaign of hate against the Working Class and never go against the Whip. Imagine if the Labour Party purged all the snowflakes and principled lefties, they too could be establishment, with a Law Lord as leader..... I stopped using my father’s surname because of the way he was to my Mother. Now I find I am getting just like him. Should I seek help? Ryan from Manchester Yes Ryan, yes you should. Bitch slapping your Mrs will get you sent straight to Hell, at least with the Tabloid press. It’s not like you are like Johnny 'Sauvage' Depp is it? He didn’t have any Police involvement, or Court actions against him and the Sun called him a 'Wife Beater' and they got away with it. Even in Hell no-one likes this sort of thing, it sticks like shit to a blanket. After watching a recent edition of Newsnight I am worried that we have been using anti-Semitic words in our professional careers. Shirley Bassey, Tony Hadley, Neil Young, the Tremeloes and the Stranglers.

“GOLD!!!!” There when I say it, it’s simply a metallic element. But when a spud-faced, boghopping Scouse Trot like Len McCluskey says it, it is of course highly anti-Semitic. I mean I’m not even sure Peter Mandelson is even a Jew, just because his name is a bit Germanic. If he is he’s certainly not a devout one, I imagine the Torah doesn’t look kindly on 'fisting' parties on Mediterranean Yachts and his

nickname of 'Mandy' isn’t just because of his surname. It’s so hard to know if someone is Jewish isn’t it, it’s much harder to spot than Piccaninnies, Muslamic Letterboxes etc. Even that deflated ball-bag of piss Boris has managed to avoid upsetting Jews, but he isn’t a Socialist is he. But anyway to keep it simple, if Madge Hodge says it is, it is.

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Saintly Fur Babies A growing number of pet owners believe that their beloved animals go to heaven, new research has found. After examining the history of pet cemeteries in Newcastle and London over 100 years from 1881, Dr Eric Tourigny said: “Few 19th-century gravestones reference an afterlife, although some may ‘hope’ to see their loved ones again. By the mid-20th century, a greater proportion of animal gravestones suggest owners were awaiting a reunion in the afterlife.” Pastor Takes Piss A US pastor has been detained after allegedly urinating on a fellow passenger during a Delta flight earlier this month. A police report says Daniel Chalmers was arrested at the Detroit Metro Airport after a passenger told police she woke up on the plane around 2.45am to find a man urinating on her. The man reportedly admitted: “I peed on her, I thought I was going to the bathroom.”

its size could be worth about ten thousand quadrillion dollars - more than the entire economy on our planet. Take A Tumble Three men had to be rescued by firefighters after they got stuck in a tumble dryer in Epping on Friday evening. Essex County fire brigade was called to a derelict laundry site in Bower Hill, where they discovered the three young men, all believed to be in their late teens, stuck in the industrial-sized dryer. After they were freed, the three were given pain relief and left in the care of paramedics.

Birmingham Rat Salad A survey of 3,400 callouts by a pest control company has revealed that Birmingham has more rat infestations than anywhere else. Newcastle and Leeds came in second and third places respectively. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, say the researchers, “rats are loving life at the moment” because “they are being left to breed in vacant shops with abandoned bins”. Teen Bowser A sixth-form student has been revealed to be the mastermind behind the hoax story that Woolworths was reopening. On Tuesday, several prominent news outlets, including Mail Online and the Daily Mirror, reported that the chain was returning to high streets based on the word of a typo-strewn Twitter account with fewer than 1,000 followers. The 17year-old from York told The Guardian: “The experiment wasn’t meant to get that big.” Judge For Yourself A New Hampshire woman posed as a prosecutor and then dropped charges against herself, a court has been told. Lisa Landon allegedly used the authority’s electronic system to drop the charges and submit fake documents in three separate criminal cases last year. She faces one charge of false personation and six counts of falsifying physical evidence. Lego Bridging Severn A museum has won a Guinness World

Record after 205,000 Lego bricks were assembled into a bridge 111 feet long. The Ironbridge Gorge Museums teamed up with the Institution of Civil Engineers to construct the huge bridge. A spokesperson for the museum said: “We wanted to attract and inspire children.” McCavity The Dearly Departed Southwark Cathedral has conducted a memorial for a beloved stray cat that wandered into the building in 2008 and lived there for 12 years. The dean of the cathedral produced a live stream of the service of thanksgiving in memory of Doorkins Magnificat, who died last month. Labour Voter A pregnant woman has stopped to cast her vote in the US election on her way to hospital to give birth. The woman was in labour when she asked her husband to pull over so she could fulfil her civic duty. A poll worker at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office in Orlando said: “We are very, very busy, but when

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something like that happens it just makes our day.” Flash Harry A man who showered pedestrians with banknotes has been arrested on drugs charges. Police say the 29-yearold, named Bo, was “in a trance” as he threw the a large number of notes from his 30th floor apartment in Chongqing, south-western China. He ended up throwing away 200,000 renminbi - approximately £23,000. Bewitched By Biden Witches across the US are casting a spell to stop Donald Trump from winning the election. They began the ‘Blue Wave’ spell under a blue moon, which was visible on Halloween, and will also perform magic tonight, on the eve of the election. Their ritual includes a chant of: “Blue Wave, rise! Blue Wave, wash over the land! Blue Wave, cleanse! Blue Wave, renew!” A “blue wave” is the term given to a Democratic landslide. Asteroid worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 A rare metallic asteroid could hold secrets about Earth's molten core, reports CNN. Scientists believe that Psyche, which is located between Mars and Jupiter, could be the metallic core of a planet that lost its mantle and crust during collisions in the early days of the solar system. They calculate that a piece of iron of

Safety Art A sculpture of a whale’s tail has saved a train that crashed through a barrier in the Netherlands. A transport operator in the city of Rotterdam said the subway train jumped the tracks and barged through a set of buffers. It would have crashed 30 feet to the ground below had it not landed atop one of two whale tail sculptures next to the tracks. Fetch Fido A family dog in China went on a 62 mile quest to be reunited with her owners after escaping the temporary care she had been left in. After the golden retriever, Ping An, arrived home, her owners said: “Ping An, you have worked hard. You just stay home from now on. [We] would never send you away.” Top Gear Dick Top Gear host Paddy McGuinness has broken the record for the world’s

fastest electric ice cream van at the Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire. His ice cream truck, dubbed Mr Nippy, reached a top speed of 80.04 miles per hour beat the previous record of 73.921 mile per hour, which was set in March by Edd China. Peices Of Shite A man’s parrot has saved him from a fire that broke out in his house in Brisbane, Australia. “Eric - my parrot - he started to yell so I woke up and I smelled a bit of smoke,” said Anton Nguyen. "I grabbed Eric, opened the door and looked to the back of the house and saw some flames.” The pair managed to leave the house safely. Fangs For The Mammary A man who is passionate about body modifications has spent around £400 to have tusks added to his teeth. Orc, who has also tattooed about 80% of his body, says: “I am trying to be myself, these are just my ideas, my inspirations coming from the heart.” Asked about reactions to his appearance, he said: “My mum doesn't like it, my dad tolerates it and my friends find it weird.” Planet Of Sound Astronomers say they have discovered what may be the most inhospitable planet ever. On the Earth-sized planet it rains rocks, the seas are lava and there are winds of more than 3,000 mph. One side of K2141b has temperatures of 3,000 degrees centigrade but they sink to below minus 200 centigrade on the other. It is around 200 light years away from Earth.

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Hope and Good News Latin America A wave of indigenous peoples supporting the Luis Arce-David Choquehuanca presidential ticket defeated the main right-wing candidate, Carlos Mesa by 20 points, restoring democracy to Bolivia, and despite the fact that the right-wing forces were backed by the US and the Organisation of American States (OAS). Just days later around 80 per cent of Chilean voters decided by referendum to re-found their nation with a new constitution. These momentous events represent twin victories for Latin American independence, the rejection of radical neoliberalism, a desire for socio-economic reform, and the insistence on selfdetermination from the bottomup. Courtesy of Pressenza Japan/ South Korea: There is good news from the world's third largest economy, Japan and South Korea, its 12th, committing to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The announcements came a month after China vowed to decarbonise by 2060. Prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, said: “We need to change our thinking to the view that taking assertive measures against climate change will lead to changes in industrial structure and the economy that will bring about growth.” Two days later, South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, pledged to

HSI to use 'green' trains

London and the Channel Tunnel, which takes passengers travelling on Eurostar to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. The line is also used by train operator South-eastern High Speed. “As we recover from the Covid crisis, environmental challenges will move further up the political and public agenda, and HS1 can provide a lasting solution to sustainable travel,” said HSI chief executive Dyan Crowther. United Kingdom: People in the UK are becoming more liberal about welfare and immigration, according the latest British Social Attitudes survey, published this week.

end his country’s reliance on fossil fuels with a Green New Deal. Like Japan, South Korea is one of the most fossil-fuel reliant economies in the world. United Nations: Truces between nations have more chance of succeeding if women are involved in peace talks. That is according to research by UN Women and the Council on Foreign Relations, which found that armistices were 64 per cent less likely to fail when women had a seat at the table. Women, however, are often excluded from formal peace processes: between 1992 and 2019, they accounted for, on average, just

13 per cent of negotiations, 6 per cent of mediators and 6 per cent of signatories in major peace processes. “Continued failure to include women in peace processes ignores their demonstrated contributions and overlooks a potential strategy to respond more effectively to security threats around the world,” the Council on Foreign Relations concluded. United Kingdom: HS1 is to become the first train line in the UK to run exclusively on renewables. The rail operator also pledged to be carbon neutral within a decade. The multi-million pound rail links

The National Centre for Social Research (NCSR) which carries out the annual survey, found the proportion of people who think benefits are too high fell from 59 per cent in 2015 to 35 per cent today. The proportion of people who

think immigration undermines Britain’s cultural life, meanwhile, halved from 40 per cent to 19 per cent. “Our research reveals a major shift towards viewing immigration as both culturally enriching and good for the economy,” said Gillian Prior of the NCSR. “With UK about to gain control of immigration between it and the EU, it would seem voters may approve of quite liberal application of that control.” India: Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has turned an indoor sports centre into a 100 bed COVID-19 treatment centre, complete with triage, isolation rooms, oxygenated beds and a pharmacy, all operating under prevention control measures. Dispatches Autumn 2020.

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Women who made a Difference I

ntroducing Hedy Epstein, born Hedy Wachenheimer on 15th. October 1924, to a Jewish family in Freiberg, Germany. She fled Nazi persecution in 1939 via Kindertransport to England.

become a suspect just be walking . And then I walk down with my white skin I am privileged and no one questions me. Her comments resonate today with on-going racial tensions in the US.

* All but two of her family were killed at Auschwitz!

Alison Weir, a campaigner herself, said of Hedy Epstein, then justice for Palestinians eventually comes, history will show that Hedy helped bring it about.

Whilst working in a munitions factory in England Hedy joined a group of German Jewish refugees who hoped to re-introduce democracy to their homeland. This was she says the foundation of my political education. After the war she worked with the Allied occupying forces in Germany, during which she worked on the trials for war crimes of German doctors that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg.

human rights, Hedy spoke out against the war in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia, and overly restrictive US immigration policies.

In 1948 she moved to the United States and was an activist for affordable housing, pro-choice movement and the anti-war movement.

Reports of the Israel Defence Force's military support of the Phalangist militia after their reported atrocities in 1982 caused Hedy to have a different perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

During the 1980s, Hedy worked as a paralegal for a law firm that represented individuals in employment discrimination cases. As an advocate for equality and

In 2001 she founded the St. Louis Chapter of Women in Black, an anti-war group. Then in 2003 she travelled to the West Bank to work with the International

Solidarity Movement (ISM). † Despite her age, now 80, she was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport on a visit in 2004 and suffered the indignity of a strip and cavity search! There had been rioting and looting in Ferguson, Missouri in response to the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown in August 2014 by a police officer. Hedy this indomitable fighter for human rights, then 90, attended a peaceful protest after

the Governor called out the National Guard and surrounding police forces to quell the riots with the use of tear gas and rubber bullets. She stated She herself was arrested as the protesters called on the Governor to de-escalate the response to the riots. She argued the young man and his friend were stopped as they were walking down the street without the officer knowing they had committed any offence. Of this she said there are certain stereotypes with male African Americans ... who immediately

She also wrote this about her: Hedy stood up for the underdog, opposed abuse of power, and worked valiantly and consistently for a kinder, more just world. And in so doing she inspired multitudes. She was brave, funny, intelligent, and committed. For her, never again meant Never Again. * The Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children. † ISM is dedicated to the use of nonviolent protests and methods only against the Israeli military in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Remembrance I

n recent years the two most over-quoted phrases when it comes to Remembrance Sunday are ‘Lest We Forget’ and ‘We Will Remember Them’. The former has become weaponised almost. The latter has lost much of one meaning and ALL of the other.

Yet it was written in September 1914, just a few short weeks into the war, when the army was still the army and not the civilians in uniform it would soon become; and the casualty lists were columns in the newspapers and not entire pages.

Those words ‘We Will Remember Them’ are lifted from ‘For The Fallen’ a poem by Laurence Binyon. The work itself is about the need to not dwell mawkishly on the memory of the dead, but to carry on with the work of the living. Even the verse this line closes, carries the caveat suggesting we recall them ‘at the going down of the sun and in the morning’, ie in moments of quiet reflection, rather than allow their memory to dominate our collective memory forevermore.

Today, for me at least, they are more about the symbolism than the reality. We don’t remember ‘them’, we remember ‘it’, and we remember ‘it’ through the prism of propaganda which further distorts our ability to actually ‘remember’ at all. There are two main narratives attached to Remembrance as a concept - the Nationalist and the Liberal. The Nationalist narrative, with its ‘They Died For Our Freedom’

British soldiers blinded in a gas attack line will not be challenged or questioned and refers to anyone committing these sins as a ‘traitor’. In short, it blindly and unquestioningly follows the flag down exactly the same path as those who fought and died a century ago. The Liberal narrative casting the Tommies as poor, helpless victims of

circumstance just ditches the Rupert Brooke for Wilfred Owen and in so doing removes any choice, or sentient thought, from an entire generation of young men. Far from being keeping a promise to ‘remember them’, both have, in their own ways, forgotten.

Surely the best way to ‘remember them’ is to carry on the fight for that ‘Land Fit For Heroes’ they were promised and which was never delivered. Only then will we truly honour the dead. Joe Solo

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Proof found that up to half of big-game hunters were the fairer sex

Ancient women were not just spear carriers but spear throwers! A

woman buried along with spear heads and other hunting tools 9,000 years ago has been discovered in Peru’s Andes Mountains. She is believed to be the oldest known female big-game hunter found in the Americas. The discovery has led academics to conclude that, among ancient Americans, nearly as many women as men hunted big game — challenging long held opinions. Recent hunter-gatherer societies all demonstrate males do the hunting. But among mobile groups in the Americas thousands of years ago, up to half of big-game hunters were women, archaeologist Randall Haas of the University of California reports in Science Advances.

Previously, researchers regarded sharpened stones and other hunting items found in ancient women’s graves, as domestic cutting or scraping tools. The dominance of male hunters in modern hunter-gatherer populations has given ancient men the spear point and ancient women the short end of the stick. Archaeologist Ashley Smallwood of the University of Louisville, Kentucky, said: “It is time to stop thinking of [ancient] female largegame hunters as outliers.” Gender roles in modern hunter-gatherer groups can’t be assumed to apply to those that lived long ago, she added. While much remains unknown about gender roles in ancient hunter-gatherer groups, Haas’ view began to take shape in 2018.

His team investigating a highaltitude site in southern Peru called Wilamaya Patjxa, unearthed five burial pits containing six bodies. One pit held a 17 to 19-year-old woman who had been buried with a set of big-game stone hunting tools. They included four spear points, that would have been attached to shafts and likely hurled at prey using hand-held spear-throwers. Other stone implements, and a pigment chunk, buried with her, were probably used to cut apart game, extract bone marrow or scrape hides and perform detailed hide work and the tanning of hides. Sediment used to fill the pit contained bone fragments from various large animals, such as Andean deer and wild relatives of the alpaca known as vicuña.

A pit containing the remains of a 25 to 30-year-old man included two spear points, which indicated he had had also hunted large animals. To better understand the extent of ancient female hunting, Haas’ group reviewed evidence from 429 excavated people buried at 107 sites throughout the Americas. The locations ranged from 6,000 to 12,500 years ago. Among individuals of known gender buried with big-game hunting tools, 11 were women from 10 sites and 16 were men from 15 sites. Researchers estimate that on

average, women accounted for 30 to 50 per cent of ancient American big-game hunters. But questions remain how often women took part in big-game hunts, cautions archaeologist Patricia Lambert of Utah State University. The tools found with the Wilamaya Patjxa woman do “suggest she hunted and processed large game animals,” she agreed. Haas’ new findings coincide with recent evidence that women warriors existed around 5,000 years ago in California, 1,500 years ago in Mongolia, and 1,000 years ago among Vikings.

Vaccine news gives Stock Market a healthy boost

Cold war over coronavirus jabs T

he western media has hailed an announcement by drug company Pfizer that its coronavirus vaccine is 90 per cent effective in preventing coronavirus – while ignoring Sputnik V vaccine developed two months ago by the Russians. Pfizer released only sparse details from its clinical trial of only 94 volunteers while Sputnik V is currently being tested on 40,000

volunteers. If the Pfizer results hold up, that level of protection would put it on par with highly effective childhood vaccines for diseases such as measles.

-80°C storage for new vaccines

No serious safety concerns have been observed, the company said, exactly the same claim Russia makes for Sputnik V which was reviewed in the Lancet medial journal two months ago and given the all clear. An effective vaccine – alongside better treatments –

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is seen as the best way of getting out of the restrictions that have been imposed on all our lives.

There are around a dozen vaccines being testing. Pfizer has used an experimental approach that involves injecting part of the virus’s genetic code to train the immune system to make both antibodies and another part of the i m m u n e system called T-cells to fight the coronavirus.

Vaccine develope two mont d h by the Ru s ago ssian ignored s

Just like Sputnik V the Pfizer vaccine requires two doses taken three weeks apart. The large fly in the Pfizer vaccine is that it has to be stored in ultra-cold medical freezers at minus 80°C, nearly twice as cold as winter at the South Pole.

There are also unanswered questions about how long immunity lasts and the effectiveness in different age groups. Pfizer and its collaborators say they should be ready to take the vaccine to regulators in about a week and they hope to have it approved by the US Food and Drug administration by the end of

the month. The UK has ordered 40 million doses, enough for 20 million people. The news saw stock markets surge, with the FTSE 100 jumping by 5.5% – adding £82bn to the value of its shares and resulting in its best trading day since March. Paul Knaggs Labour Heartlands

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OPERATION MOONSHOT LIVERPOOL 1

Operation Moonshot, the government’s ambitious plan to deploy exciting new technologies to test the entire population for coronavirus infection, launches in Liverpool Friday. Yet, even as the army arrives and testing sites are set up, questions are being asked about the accuracy of the tests and

the information people will be given about their results.

Boris Johnson has placed his faith in millions of cheap, reliable tests that provide results in minutes as a route out of future lockdowns caused by a resurgence of coronavirus.

DORSET EYE 7

Responding to the Bank of England announcing another £150bn of quantitative easing ahead of the Chancellor’s statement this afternoon, Fran Boait, executive director of Positive Money said: “The Bank of England’s decision to buy up another £150bn of government bonds ahead of the Chancellor’s statement is a welcome sign of further monetary-fiscal coordination. Our central bank is willing to help finance government spending to help us get through this crisis, and that should be embraced. Sadly the Chancellor seems to be spreading irresponsible myths that there are hard constraints on public spending, even when interest rates on government debt are negative and inflation

remains well below target. “Monetary policy alone isn’t enough. The fact negative interest rates are even being considered should be a warning sign that the Chancellor needs to pull his weight and spend more. The Treasury must take advantage of the increased headroom afforded by the Bank of England’s bond purchases to boost spending to fund public services, protect incomes and kick-start a green recovery. “If the government is unwilling to spend more, the Bank of England should make it even easier for them. Rather than taking interest rates negative, the Bank of England could credit the government’s ‘Ways and Means’ overdraft with funds for the Treasury to spend.”

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JUST A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

The bloody fields of Flanders T his week, while the nation’s attention is focussed on Remembrance Day, we of course target our thoughts on the horrific slaughter that took place on battlefields barely 100 miles from the British mainland from 1914 to 1918.

What is not generally known about this part of the continent Flanders or the Low Countries – present day northern France and Belgium, is in this part of Europe for close on 700 years, British blood and the blood of our ‘enemies’ has been liberally expended by our rulers for it seems, little or no gain except their personal wealth and vanity. (Excepting the Second World War, the fight against fascism, as again our fathers and grandfathers fought over the same generations old battlefields). The list is long and bloody. The Plantagenet king, Edward the Third at Crecy in 1346 and Henry the Fifth at Agincourt in 1415, the Tudor Mary losing Calais in 1558, Cromwell’s expeditionary force to the continent in 1658, the bloodbath of

British regiments at Steenkirke in 1692, Marlborough’s great battles in the early 1700’s and the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and the two world wars with their industrialised killing fields all took place in the green fields of Flanders and the Low Countries. The roll call of places to For 700 y die for ‘King and British blo ears, country’, from Crecy, o Agincourt, Calais, the the blood d and o Battle of the Dunes, ‘enemies f our ’ Steenekirke, been libe has Oudenarde, Waterloo, expended rally by our Ypres, and Dunkirk, is rulers dominated by this flat, non-descript region of north western Europe which ‘will be forever England’.

RETURN TO THE STATUS QUO

Is Starmer the UK’s Sleepy Joe? S

leepy Joe Biden now looks likely to became the next President of the USA .

according to the rules laid down by the military/industrial/ Big Pharma nexus of evil.

Trump is being disposed of, either legally or illegally, the choice is yours.

Trump has been too overt with his corruption, nepotism and sel profiteering. He’s let the mask drop and his open display of support for white supremacist neo-nazis has caused chaos and disruption across America. And chaos and disruption is bad for business.

What is certain is that the powers that be, the ‘Elite’, the Establishment, will no longer tolerate someone who they consider does not play the game

Corruption, nepotism, selfprofiteering is acceptable, even racism can be tolerated, but not if affects profits.

Johnson has also revealed the true face of the British establishment, the corruption, the nepotism, the self-profiteering that is at its core and fanned the flames of racism. British society is on a knife edge but instead of being primarily concerned with capitalist profits, the British Establishment is more concerned with keeping its population under control, keeping its power and influence at the expense of us, the general public. So Johnson must go.

So Trump must go.

Who to replace him?

So, what now for the UK?

Someone trustworthy to return

Britain to the status quo, so by the Few can prosper at the expense of the Many.

Step forward….Sir Kier Starmer. Julie Speed and Paul Simpson

Who might they have in mind? Someone safe for the somnambulist public to exercise their democratic rights and vote for. A man (of course) of their choosing. Someone dull, uncharismatic and obedient…

‘Someone dull, uncharismatic and obedient’ ‘Corruption, nepotism, selfprofiteering is acceptable, even racism can be tolerated, but not if affects profits’

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Are Tories Human?

e wanted to bring to your attention a little piece that we found on the 'Conservative Home' page, that was written by Iain Duncan Smith after his visit to Auschwitz in 2009. After reading it, we must say that we find it both confusing and just a little chilling too. We wonder if anyone agrees?

destitute due to his beloved DWP sanctioning them for the very slightest of reasons. Smith then goes on - 'It was when we walked into Auschwitz 1 through the gate with its infamous statement, Arbeit Macht Frei, that I realised how little I really knew about this place of cruelty and death; like everyone else, of course I knew of it, but I found I really knew little of any substance about it.'

http://www.conservativehome.co m/platform/2009/05/iain-duncansmith-mp-reflections-on-a-visit-toauschwitz-amid-political-crises-backhome.html

It would seem then that despite his visit to this place of 'Cruelty and Death', he STILL knows very little about what those words actually meant and represented.

In his account, Smith mentions many things that seem to fly in the face of his actions today, typically, that they contradict his own policies and make him appear to be almost Human.

Or perhaps he has just forgotten?

'The figures speak for themselves', he says... 'Approximately 1.3 million people died in Auschwitz. The majority died in the gas chambers, but many thousands died in the work details, sick and malnourished.' A strangely familiar statement to the 100,000+ sick and hungry that have now perished due to his own welfare reforms and his resurrected 'Aktion T4' program, or to the many thousands that are finding themselves homeless and

He makes another reference to a wall where prisoners were routinely shot by the Nazis for the slightest of reasons, a strange parallel to the aforementioned sanctioning and consequences thereof that jobseekers now face when they turn up One minute late for an interview, or are perhaps too ill to even attend. Sanctions that can often mean the difference between life and death to many that are forced to suffer them. Then of course there is his mention of the infamous, 'Angel of Death', Dr Mengele, who divided the prisoners up into groups that could work, or could not work as they arrived at the camp. A

bizarre parody of the Work Capability Assessment that the sick and the disabled are facing right now under his own ruthless and inhuman policies. Smith somewhat bizarrely mentions how he found the Nazis ability to turn genocide into a cold and systematic factory process, alarming, and yet the cold and systematic way that Atos, and now, Maximus are dealing with people in a similar manner, seems to have no effect upon him whatsoever. He says that he finds it odd that after so much inhumanity and ruthlessness, the camp commandant himself appeared like a normal and calm family man, like a 'grocery clerk', who came home after work to play with his children. Perhaps there is a little parallel to himself there then, given the lives that he ruins every day and the kind of work that he does for the government? Duncan Smith finally ends his account with a memory of a Rabbi singing a song and how it allowed him to focus upon just 'One' life that had been destroyed by the Nazis, and how in that single thought, how impossible it was to comprehend the death of a Million. 'The sadness of Auschwitz is that those who planned and built their death factory could never see that.', he adds, and yet that very same

sentiment and lack of ability to focus upon just the One, seems to apply just as well to himself and to the Conservative party as a whole, as they continue oblivious to destroy our country and its essential services with little or no remorse at all.

Chilling indeed. One could almost believe that this was written by a mad man... Vote of No Confidence in the UK Conservatives

Ten Things Jeremy Corbyn Achieved 1. In 2013, Jeremy Corbyn was awarded the Gandhi International Peace Award for his “consistent efforts over a 30-year parliamentary career to uphold the Gandhian values of social justice and non-violence”. 2. He has been honoured by the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative for his “ongoing support for a number of nongovernment organisations and civil causes”. 3. In 2017 the American magazine Foreign Policy named Corbyn in its Top 100 Global Thinkers list, “for inspiring a new generation to re-engage in politics”.

4. In December 2017 he was one of three recipients awarded the Seán MacBride Peace Prize “for his sustained and powerful political work for disarmament and peace”. 5. Served on the National Executive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and was arrested in 1984 for protesting outside South Africa House. 6. He has always voted with his conscience rather than being dictated to by the party whip, defying the whip more than 500 times. 7. Spoke out in 1983 on a “no socialism without gay liberation” platform and continued to campaign for

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lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights throughout his life. 8. Worked on behalf of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, who were eventually found to be have been wrongly convicted of IRA bombings in England in the mid-1970s. 9. Chaired the Stop the War coalition, speaking out against the Iraq war. 10. Corbyn has won the Parliamentary “Beard of the Year Award” a record six times, as well as being named as the Beard Liberation Front‘s Beard of the Year, having previously described his beard as “a form of dissent” against New Labour. On winning the Beard Liberation Front’s Beard of the Year award in 2002 he said: “I started wearing a beard when I was 19 and living in Jamaica; they called me Mr Beardman.” Unity News

Mid November 2020

POLITICS AND EVENTS

Questions

thewordmedia.org

Spooktacular

What do you know about the “Whitehouse Squatter” WARRNING OFFENCIVE FACTS THROUGHOUT blood coming out of her 12. When did Trump ban whatever.” foreign nationals from entering the US? Trump on foreign 13. What sort of wall did nationals Trump state he was going to build along the Mexican 11. Which Country did he border? say should “Pick up the tab 14. Since the Trump for its own liberation”? administration what

21. Which country produces the Donald Trump toilet roll? 22. Who has the most American Twitter followers Trump or Barack Obama

days, suspended entry to the from visiting the country for 90

4. “A sexual predator”

predominantly Muslim countries 17. Trump has had three political

3. Anything

nationals from seven

inhuman".

Order that banned foreign

Maples, had been "cruel and

Trump signed an Executive

her, such as his affair with

12. Friday, January 27, 2017

2. That Trump's treatment of

the country for 120 days.

11. Iraq

1. Miss USA

other refugees from coming into 18. Discrimination. Trump

Answers 6-10 all true

from 2011-2012, Democratic affiliations. He was Independent 15. New York 14. 80% 13. “A beautiful Wall” indefinitely, and prohibited any

so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.” 9. I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters.” 10. “You could see blood coming out of her eyes,

16. In what year did Trump seek the Reform Party's presidential nomination? 17. How many political affiliations has Trump had? 18. Why did the Justice Department sue The Trump Management Inc? 19. How many times has Trump been sued? 20. How much did Trump and his investors spend on the Taj Mahal Casino resort that embarrassingly went bust in October 2016?

5. Since the 70s more than 20

6. “My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.” 7. “You Know, it doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” 8. “My twitter has become

Trump Business and Politics

from pre 1987 to 2009,

True or False Did trump say:

The Word

country of all Syrian refugees

1. What beauty pageant did Trump own from 1996 to 2015? 2. Ivana Trump was granted an uncontested divorce in 1990, on what grounds? 3. Talking about women Trump said, “When you’re a star they let you do….” what? 4. What did Kim Campbell, Canada's first female Prime Minister, label Donald Trump as being? 5. How many women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct?

percentage has admittance of refugees into the US been cut by? 15. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, one of the 4 US Congress women who Trump said should “go home” was born where?

women have accused him of

Trump and Women

Andrea Faulkner

sexual misconduct.

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Just for fun

Answers

THE

16. 2000

22. Roughly 1 out of 5 adult 21. China 20. $1.2 billion. contractors, and banks. partners, employees, 3,000 times by his business 19. He has been sued more than to people of a certain race.

Donald’s 79.7M. 117M followers compared to Twitter users with more than followed by 26% of U.S. adult president Barack Obama is Twitter account, the former US users. In contrast to Donald’s

Management Inc would not rent represents 19% of adult Twitter Republican at present.

follow Donald Trump, which Twitter users in the United States

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Vegan recipes

Pasta Paradise

This pasta dish is an absolutely delicious, nutritious and filling meal that is incredibly easy to make. Get ready for a taste sensation! Cooking with Chris Williamson

Ingredients 2 red onions 4 garlic cloves 2 red peppers tomatoes 100g sun-dried ach 40g baby spin 50g capers 2 courgettes ck olives 100g pitted bla the oil from 8 tbsp oil â€“ use matoes if the sun-dried to wise you can, other use olive oil matoes 500g cherry to 400g passata l fusilli 320g wholemea l leaves 30g fresh basi pepper Salt and black Method Peel and chop the onions Peel and finely slice the garlic Deseed the peppers and slice them into thin strips Slice the sun-dried tomatoes Finely chop the spinach Chop the courgettes into bitesized chunks

Cut all the tomatoes and olives in half Then put all the vegetables youâ€™ve just prepared, along with the capers, into a lasagne dish and season with salt and pepper. Then stir in the oil and passata

making sure all the vegetables are covered. Then cover the dish with foil and put it in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. Then take the dish out of the oven, give everything a good stir and return it to the oven for another 15 minutes.

During this last 15 minutes use a large saucepan to cook the pasta as you like it. I prefer al dente, but some people like the pasta a little softer. When the pasta is cooked to your satisfaction, drain it and put it back into the saucepan. Take the

lasagne dish out of the oven, stir in the basil leaves then pour the contents into the saucepan and then give everything a good stir. Your taste sensation is now ready to serve and enjoy. bon appĂŠtit

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SUDOKU

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MATH PUZZLES

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Even if Biden is confirmed President, this is not really a 'win' for the Democrats

t the time-of-writing, Democratic candidate Joe Biden seems to have the Presidency effectively sewn up after some serious scares during the 2020 Election. The landslide some pollsters predicted has not happened, but Biden has, in recent hours, 'flipped' Georgia, where he is now about 900 votes ahead. This means that, even in the unlikely event that his imbecilic Republican rival, Donald Trump, flips Nevada late on, Biden's Electoral College victory is pretty much assured; Georgia has 16 EC votes, Nevada only 6. Elements of this Election have defied conventional wisdom. Biden won more votes than any candidate in the history of the US Presidency. This is probably due to a growing population and efforts to make voting easier (especially by mail), but even so, it is surprising a candidate so lacking in charisma, and with failing faculties, mobilised unprecedented support. Similarly though, Trump's vote total has gone up a long way since four years ago. He finished below 63

battlegrounds, the Democrats barely made a dent.

million against Hillary Clinton in 2016, but this year he is close to could still reach - 70 million. That is some 4 million higher than Barack Obama managed when winning the 2012 Election against Mitt Romney. This has bizarre implications. The Democrats' love of 'safe', middleground centrism follows the idea that a left-wing leader will mobilise right-wing voters to vote against him/her, whereas a centrist one tends to placate them, and may even 'poach' a few of them to the

Democrat side. But here, Donald Trump has received more votes in defeat than any other losing candidate in history, and indeed more than most winning candidates in history. Biden, very much on the right wing of the Democratic Party, seems as repellent to Red-cap voters as any leftist such as Bernie Sanders or Ilhan Omar. "Alas, for theory." But narrow margins make no difference in winner-take-all Elections like Presidential ones. It

might have been a scare, but Biden seems to have won, and in a nonmajoritarian system, that is all that matters. However, Election nights in the USA are not just about the Presidency, and nor is Government in the USA in general. There were also polls for election to the House of Representatives (the very approximate equivalent of the House of Commons in the UK), and to the Senate (the American evenmore-approximate equivalent of the House of Lords). And in these

The Democrats already had control of the lower house but could have turned a small majority into a comfortable one. Instead, they somehow lost five seats, and while they still have a majority, the Whips are going to have a busy couple of years keeping the Congressmen in line. Worse, in the Senate, where the Republicans have a long-running majority, the Democrats managed to take only one seat. Even with cooperation from Third Parties who hold a couple of Senate seats, the Democrats cannot form a majority there. And knowing the blinkered, fanatical stubbornness of Mitch McConnell, the Republicans' majority leader in the Senate, nothing Biden gets through the lower house will be allowed to pass any further. In short, Biden is likely to prove that great rarity â€“ a first-term 'lame duck' President. Democrats call that 'victory'? By Martin Odoni

Fake promises and fudged figures of this failed minister

Only resignation will solve the Matt Hancock problem M

att Hancock, the Health Secretary making everyone sick, strikes me as a cross between a little boy who pulls the legs off spiders while grinning odiously, and the slimy management type that gives you the shivers as you queue for the water cooler in the office When not making up figures off the top of his head, he fudges figures that are already in the public domain; best of all, he denies those figures are correct. At the 2019 General Election he promised an astounding 5,000 extra GPs, and 50,000 extra nurses. Mucky Matt was transparently pulling those figures out of his un-mentionables. And, well, he didn't disappoint, did he? During the campaign, the nowShadow Minister for Work & Pensions,

Jonathan Reynolds, interviewed his own GP, who said he wants to work for a public National Health Service, while rightly and courageously calling out the failed promises of the previous Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. What followed was the familiar lack of trust we all have, all of us with logical thinking minds anyway. As the good doctor pointed out, GPs have declined in number, and recent figures on nurses are not for new nurses but for retired nurses who came back purely out of public spirit, to help former colleagues fight the deadliest health crisis in living memory. Thousands of retired doctors and nurses returned to duty, in some cases, fatally, because of their compassion for victims and colleagues. I doff my hat and wish them all a pay increase.

They, like their already active colleagues, are the very best of us. They are warriors on this filthy, Coronavirus-addled battlefield. Warriors, but led by a general who hides in the Mess Hall miles behind the front line, clueless as to how the battle is developing, yet still dishing out blind orders; or more specifically, dishing out failing contracts to his mates. We see no signs that Hancock's test-track-and-isolate project is anywhere near up to speed.

major incident plan. How many more ambulance services nationally will be stretched to seam-tearing levels before an integrated strategy is implemented?

now larger than Yellow Pages, so Occam's Razor comes into play; "The most straightforward possible answer is usually the right one." Resign Matthew. Just resign!

We see no real progress preparing the network of Nightingale Hospitals. Where are the staff for these hospitals coming from? Without them the hospitals will remain empty. What, will Hancock do about the North West Ambulance service which was so over-worked, it activated a

Perhaps we should also ask why now is never the right time to talk about nurse pay rises while we are at it? So, back to the question, "How do you solve a problem like Matt Hancock?" Elementary. His catalogue of failures and brazen half-truths is

A final positive footnote. NHS workers, all of you, from the very top consultant to the humble chap with a permanent beaming friendly smile while he cleans up our mess. And everyone in-between; Thank you, so very much! By Erin Wilson

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Wales Manager charged with assaulting his partner

Ryan Giggs in trouble with the law R

yan Giggs has been arrested by Greater Manchester Police, and charged with assaulting his girlfriend. His representatives have made a statement insisting that he denies all allegations of assault, and that he is co-operating fully with the police. The police said they were called to reports of a disturbance at an address in Worsley, Salford, just after 10:00pm GMT on the

night of Sunday 1st of November. They further stated that a woman in her 30s, "sustained minor injuries but did not require any treatment." 46 year-old Giggs, who won 64 caps for Wales over an International career of some 16 years, was due to announce his squad on Tuesday 3rd of November for three upcoming games – against the Republic of Ireland, the United States of America, and Finland. But the

Football Association of Wales were forced to cancel the press conference at short notice when news of the arrest reached them. The FAW have announced that Giggs will now not be involved in the N o v e m b e r Internationals, but will temporarily step aside, with assistant coach Robert Page filling in for him.

Maradona in poor health D

iego Maradona, the outstanding player of the 1986 World Cup, has has to undergo emergency surgery for a subdural hematoma – a blood clot on the brain. The 60 yearold Argentina legend had to be admitted to a clinic in Buenos Aires on Monday 2nd November, suffering from anaemia and dehydration. While Maradona was under observation, the clot in his head was discovered and he was hurriedly taken into surgery. The operation took place the following day, and went

without a hitch. The surgeon said that Maradona, “coped well with the surgery,” and that everything was, “under control.” Maradona, who these days is coach of Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata in the Argentinian top flight, was the undisputed best player in the world throughout the 1980s, establishing himself as a superstar with Barcelona in the early-to-mid-1980s, and then at Napoli from 1984 to 1991, where he won the Italian Championship twice. However, he was also one of the most controversial players of the age, with a penchant for

diving, dalliances with drug abuse – especially cocaine - and frequently terrible unprofessional behaviour towards some of the clubs that recruited him. On one occasion, so exhausted was he with press intrusion in his life, Maradona actually fired an airrifle at a group of journalists to ward them off. Since retirement from playing in 1997, Maradona has had a number of health issues, including spells of severe obesity, a stomach bleed caused by a hernia, alcoholrelated illness, and a bout of hepatitis.

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Bobby Charlton severely ill One of English football's greatest heroes diagnosed with dementia After last week's sad news of the death of Norbert 'Nobby' Stiles, there have now been more unhappy developments for England's only ever World Cup winning football team from 1966. Sir Bobby Charlton, a survivor of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, and probably England's biggest star and most effective playmaker throughout the 1960s, has been diagnosed with dementia at the age of 83. One of the all-time greatest heroes of the English game, Charlton was not only a World Champion at International level, but also a European Champion at club level with Manchester United in 1968. The diagnosis continues an unsettling pattern of former members of that England squad developing the condition in late life. Charlton's brother Jack, who died earlier this year, Stiles, Martin Peters, who died last year, and Ray Wilson, who died a year before that, were all diagnosed with dementia. A serious public conversation has therefore been opened about the long-term dangers posed to footballers' health from

repeated heading of the football. A study by Glasgow University in 2019 concluded that former professional footballers are well over three times more likely to die of dementia than people of the same age range across the general population. The study was initiated after the death of former West Bromwich Albion striker - and Charlton's former England team-mate - Jeffrey Astle, at the age of 59. Astle had played as a traditional English 'target man' centre-forward, and so had to make a lot of headers through his career. This led to suspicions that his death might have been caused by repeated head trauma. The study compared deaths of 7,676 former footballers to 23,000 deaths from the wider populace. The Football Association ultimately rejected the findings as 'flawed', but the news of Charlton's terrible illness has renewed these concerns. Charlton's surviving brother, Tommy, has revealed that "[Sir Bobby]

has bad days and good days. He was almost in tears when we were talking, I'm afraid I was as well.â€? Current Manchester United star, Marcus Rashford, has sent a public message to Charlton; "Stay strong, we love you."

The Footb Associatioall rejected t n findings ahe 'flawed',s but the ne w Charlton' s of illness ren s these con ewed cerns

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Champion

Diogo Jota Reds annihil Diogo J o t a , continuing his prolific start to life at Liverpool since joining from Wo l v e r h a m p t o n Wanderers, struck a devastating hat-trick, as the Reds swept Atalanta aside in their own Bergamo backyard. It was expected to be Liverpool's toughest match of the Champions' League group stage, but instead they registered their most decisive victory yet, and their best performance in all competitions this season. Jota opened the scoring on 16 minutes, having burst into the penalty area and shrugged off an attempt by an Atalanta defender to pull him back. Bearing down on the goalkeeper, Jota lofted the ball over him into the opposite corner â€“ a goal reminiscent of Kenny Dalglish's winner in the 1978 Champions' Cup final. Jota then added a second on 33 minutes, with some fine control of a bouncing ball in the penalty area before halfvolleying inside the near post for a 2-0 half-time lead. Liverpool then exploded to three goals on the break in ten minutes to start the second half. Mohammed

despite cr e numerou ating s ings in th openes half, som econd eho never felt w it li United wo ke u score aga ld in

Salah struck a lovely curler for 30, before sending a glorious through-ball for Sadio Mane to add a fourth, and then Jota completed his hat-trick, from another wonder through-ball, this time by Mane, to complete a 5-0 rout. Liverpool have maximum points at the halfway stage of Group D and are almost out of reach of the other three teams. Less impressive, but still decisive, was Manchester City's 30 win over Olympiakos in Group C. Ferran Torres, who is proving to be quite an ace in City's European pack, struck early to take control of the match, after a crafty exchange of passes with 'that man' Kevin de Bruyne. But from there, despite playing nicely in patches, City seemed to struggle for consistent fluency. They dominated possession for much of the first half, but chances dried up. Then, as the second half got under way, City started getting careless with the ball, and one apparent brain-freeze pass from Phil Foden to John Stones inside his own penalty area nearly allowed Olympiakos in for a shock equaliser. However, Mathieu Valbuena made a blancmange of his finish, and it swerved wide. With Olympiakos making more openings in short order, Pep Guardiola decided his players needed a gee-up. Therefore, with 20 minutes left, he took off the Riyad Mahrez and

put on Gabriel Jesus, returning from a six-week injury lay-off. With ten minutes left, Jesus fired home a relieving second goal, powerfully finding the roof of the Olympiakos net from a narrow angle. Joao Cancelo, also off the bench, curled in an accomplished third in stoppage time. The win means that Manchester City are also on maximum points halfway through the group stage. The other half of Manchester had one of those abysmal nights they often have in Turkey. United went down to an embarrassing 2-1 defeat by Group H minnows Istanbul Basaksehir. Led by former Chelsea veteran, 35 year-old Demba Ba, Istanbul cruelly exposed basic flaws in the Manchester United defence twice in the first half, then held off a United rally for a famous victory. The opening goal was one United defenders will want to forget. With all United defenders upfield to attack an early corner, Ba was unmarked in the centre circle, ten yards ahead of United's back man, but still short of the halfway line. When the Istanbul defence cleared the ball downfield, Ba had the ball and nearly half the pitch ahead to himself. Ba headed for the United penalty area, and as keeper Dean Henderson came out to confront him, he coolly curled the ball around him into the corner of the net, for his club's first ever Champions' League goal. Then, late in the half, United lost possession in their own defensive third, and with Luke Shaw wrongly positioned, the ball reached Edin Visca wide open in the box to put it away. United rallied just before half-time through an Anthony Martial header. But, despite creating numerous openings in the second half, somehow it never

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POLITICS AND EVENTS

Mid November 2020

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ns' League Jot-Shot! hits first Liverpool hat-trick as ate Atalanta felt like United would score again, and sure enough, they fell to yet another defeat in an early season littered with them. United have six points at the halfway stage of the Group, two ahead of Paris St. Germain and RB Leipzig. It was a stroll in the park for Chelsea in Group E against Stade Rennais, as they made it 7 points from three matches. Although Chelsea had a couple of big refereeing decisions in their favour to help them along, in truth, they were always in total command, and value for their 3-0 win. Timo Werner did the key damage in the first half, firing home a pair of penalties, both conceded by Rennes' left-back Dalbert EstevĂŁo, on loan from Inter Milan. The first, a foul on Werner, was a nail-on, but the second, a handball shortly before the interval, was harsh, awarded only when the referee consulted the pitch-side monitor. To compound Dalbert's frustration, he received a second yellow card for the handball. The whole incident left Rennes' manager, Julian Stephan, almost dumbfounded. Tammy Abraham completed the scoring early in the second half; his third consecutive scoring appearance in the Champions' League as a starter. The win means Chelsea top the group ahead of Sevilla on goal difference, while Stade Rennais, on a single point, look all-but-eliminated. Other notable scores around Europe included Juventus' emphatic 4-1 win in Hungary against Ferencvaros in Group G. With Cristiano Ronaldo back in the team after a Covid-19 scare, the Turin giants looked a different side to the one that feebly capitulated at home to Barcelona the previous week. In Group A, defending Champions Bayern Munich made

another imposing statement in Austria, as they buried FC Salzburg 6-2. Nine points from nine for Bayern, who are looking unstoppable. And Bayern's old rivals Borussia Moenchengladbach rolled back the years to their 1970's heyday, as they also put six in the net on the road, with a crushing 6-0 win at an unsuspecting Shakhtar Donetsk. Alassane Plea scored a hat-trick, and with 5 points, Borussia now top Group B ahead of Shakhtar, Real Madrid and Inter. Borussia Dortmund rounded off German joy in Group F with a dominant 30 win in Belgium against Club Brugge. Norwegian striker Erling Haaland struck a brace, and now has 26 goals in just 28 competitive games since moving to Dortmund in January. He also became the quickest player to score 14 goals in the Champions' League, all in just 11 games for Borussia and RB Salzburg. One statistic of interest demonstrates that the bad old days of the 80s and 90s in European football of dour, defensive caution are clearly long past; the third stage of the group round saw 62 goals in just 16 matches - a new record. Here is the round-up;

L. Moscow Salzburg

Group A 1-1 A. Madrid 2-6 B. Munich

Group B Shakhtar D. 0-6 M.gladbach Real Madrid 3-2 Milan Group C FC Porto 3-0 Marseille Man. City 3-0 Olympiakos Group D Atalanta 0-5 Liverpool Midtjylland 1-2 Ajax

The Reds

swept Ata aside in t lanta own Berg heir a backyardmo . Group E Chelsea Sevilla

3-0 3-2

Zenit Brugge

Group F 1-1 Lazio 0-3 Dortmund

Rennais Krasnodar

Group G Barcelona 2-1 D. Kyiv Ferencvaros 1-4 Juventus Group H Basaksehir 2-1 Man.United RB Leipzig 2-1 PSG

FOOTBALL RE SU LTS

Premier League Sunday 1st November Aston Villa Newcastle United Manchester United Tottenham Hotspur Monday 2nd November Fulham Leeds United Friday 6th November Brighton & Hove Southampton Saturday 7th November Everton Crystal Palace Chelsea West Ham United

3-4 2-1 0-1 2-1

Southampton Everton Arsenal Brighton & Hove

2-0 1-4

West Bromwich Albion Leicester City

0-0 2-0

Burnley Newcastle United

1-3 4-1 4-1 1-0

Manchester United Leeds United Sheffield United Fulham

SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP: Kilmarnock Aberdeen Ross County St. Johnstone St. Mirren

0-1 2-0 1-1 1-0 0-0

Rangers Hibernian Livingston Kilmarnock Dundee United

EUROPA LEAGUE: (Grp B) Arsenal (Grp D) Benfica (Grp G) Leicester City (Grp H) Celtic (Grp J) Ludogorets Raz

4-1 3-3 4-0 1-4 0-1

Molde Rangers Sporting Braga Sparta Prague Tottenham Hotspur

FA WOMEN'S SUPER LEAGUE: Tottenham Hotspur Women 1-1 Manchester City Women 8-1

Reading Women Bristol City Women

Sp u r

st li g in r o c s e im -t ll a 's b s star third on the clu

Harry Kane enters the 200 club

arry Kane had a particularly good reason to enjoy Thursday, as Tottenham Hotspur won comfortably against Ludogorets Razgrad in Bulgaria. His opener after just 13 minutes of the Europa League

Covid-19 pandemic left him

in difficult p the of having osition to to follow prepare his dream without a ny funding

match was his 200th senior goal as a Spurs player. He is now only behind legends of the great 1960's Tottenham sides, Jimmy Greaves (266) and Bobby Campbell (208), in the club's alltime scoring lists. Barring

injuries, Kane should be considered odds-on to surpass both players. Spurs' other goals were provided by Lucas Moura and Giovani Lo Celso, with Ludogorets' sole response coming from Claudiu Keseru.

Dave is trying to overcome the hurdles to training David King has been the British 110m hurdles champion for the past four years, but he does not get any funding from British Athletics, so has to fund his training himself. To

qualify for the Olympics, he needs to be among the top three athletes in

the country and achieve a qualifying time. He had been funding his training in the past through his winnings at competitions, and through a regular job at the chicken restaurant Nando's on Plymouth High Street.

But then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the Olympics were postponed until next year, and David had to return home. It has left him in the difficult position of having to prepare to follow his dream without any funding.

The money he had saved up allowed him to give up his job and go to an elite athletes training camp in Phoenix, Arizona in the USA, with the aim of making the Tokyo Olympics this year.

Please help Dave if you can at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-dave-toachieve-his-olympic-dream and follow him on twitter; @DaveKing_