So anyone who disagrees with the current government is an "extremist" now? Or at the very least, "anti-Semitic"? Including Wiley, King of Grime and Welsh singer Charlotte Church? Who and whatever next?
"Mob rule" is what ministers call the protest of just a few hundred people outside Parliament, quite rightly demonstrating against the horrific carnage in Gaza perpetrated by Israel's Netanyahu government. Yes, a government propped up by real extremists - anti-Palestinian racists and self-confessed fascists. And of course, supported by the extremists in Westminster!
In fact, in the face of all this, one wonders how words can retain any meaning at all!? Yes even that ill-conceived word "Islamophobia"; a transgression which well-known racist and Tory idiot, Lee Anderson is accused of. For the journalists, the content has given way to the form... they keep asking if his Tory mates will admit that he's guilty of it...
But then again,"anti-Semitism" took on a new meaning some time back already, after Labour's successful witch-hunt against "socialism" (albeit light pink, rather than red) in the party, personified apparently, by Jeremy Corbyn. Now this term, very conveniently in the light of this horrific war waged by Netanyahu, includes all criticisms of Israel and the quasi-fascist, ultra-nationalist policy of Zionism. Starmer and Sunak join hands and proudly say "we are all Zionists now"...
Yes, while parliament points a finger at some racists and some regimes, but not others... So the Russian dissident Navalny who just died in a Siberian prison, is honoured, since he serves their anti-Russian policy. They don't mention Navalny's anti-Muslim racism, or, was it "Islamophobia"?
Compare this to the dishonour of Julian Assange, who dared to whistle-blow over the Iraq war cover-up, and has been imprisoned (de facto) for 11 years by "British Justice". He may soon be deported for further incarceration to the "Land of the Free"! Indeed, the truth must be buried at all costs and lies spread in its place...
...Alan Bates knows it all too well
What else is it other than lies (and lies about lies!) which are now further delaying repayments to the sacked, falsely convicted and/or imprisoned sub-postmasters like Alan Bates?
In fact the dishonest sackings and investigations haven't stopped and go right to the top of this institution. Odd complaints against not one, but two Post Office CEOs - the former boss Staunton and now the current boss Read - only help delay the authorised financial redress even further.
One can only assume there is method in this madness. And that Staunton is right to accuse Kemi Badenoch of lying and not the other way round, since for sure, the government, after contesting the amounts claimed anyway, is not even paying the fraction it promised... Indeed, Staunton claims he was told to delay payments - which would already amount to over £1bn, so as not to embarrass the Treasury ahead of the election.
It's worse than dishonest too, for Michael Gove to have pledged to stop no fault evictions (in the context of the worst housing crisis ever) and then delay bringing the law into effect... Of course, it turns out that many of the Tory MPs sitting on their hands over this are landlords themselves...
So no wonder chaos descended on Parliament when the parties had to debate resolutions for a Gaza cease-fire last week (never mind that these are toothless!). And now these Parliamentary pro-Netanyahu XL-bullies dare to claim that they are "intimidated" by possible threats to their persons?! The Speaker has even used this "threat" as his excuse for the grand cock-up: he was "protecting MPs from terrorists"!
Some direct action would not go amiss
Ahead of next week's budget, a desperate Sunak boasts that he is going to "cut taxes"... When everyone (except what's left of the Tory electorate) knows what an appalling state the NHS is in; that schools are falling down; that poverty is biting those on inadequate welfare top-ups... And that raising tax would be the only way to (at least) put a sticking plaster over the deprivation capitalism inevitably brings with it - and which is made 100X worse by the government's anti-working class policies!
These politicians are very lucky they aren't faced with the truckloads of manure, herds of pigs and sheep on their doorsteps and roadblocks miles-long, made up of tractors - not to mention burning barricades - which face their European counterparts. Yes, as angry EU farmers demonstrate violently against policies which threaten their livelihoods.
It would be nice to see Westminster politicians getting the same treatment... But in this case, it would have to be a workers' mobilisation against the appalling anti-social policies and xenophobic, "patriotic", pro-war policies of Sunak's government - duplicated, in anticipation, by Starmer. Because it's the working class which is the real target of the curtailment of political free speech, of the right to protest and moreover, of the right to strike. And the working class is the only force which can fully reinstate them - and go further: end all these reactionary policies, for good.