Best Of

On Palestine Action, I rarely agree with Owen Jones these days, but I don't find much to disagree with in this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/palestine-action-britain-support-protest-law

The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.

Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.

Not really, no. And I think much of the criticism of Lammy is unfair - he's been fairly unequivocal in condemning what's going on in Gaza. But the government as a whole lacks the moral courage to directly criticise Bibi/Israel - not that it would make any difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/private-eye-cartoon-arrest-ian-hislop-protest

Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.

So the outcome is no charges.
The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.

I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.

Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.

No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.

Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.

PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"

The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?

The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.

Give it a week or two and they will be back to I am a Celebrity or Love Island. How often do we hear Ukraine now, only an odd time in the passing. No woke clowns out protesting about them or the various African countries where bad things are going on , just seems to be some fetish for Palestine.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/private-eye-cartoon-arrest-ian-hislop-protest

Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.

So the outcome is no charges.
The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.

I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.

Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.

No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.

Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.

PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"

The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?

Gaza, Ukraine or both?

Given that the current (whipped-up) priority seems to be where are all these not Britishers flocking from, you’d hope people might be able to work out that many are flocking from conflicts 2000 miles and more away.

Conflicts in the plural you put it. So why one particular conflict in one country the size of Wales that gets all the attention? Notice how there was pretty much no interest in the massacre against the Druze until Israel got involved. Then suddenly it becomes relevant.

I don't think I've accused people on here of antisemitism for criticising Israel and I've been among Israel's staunchest supporters. But if one looks at the pro Palestine protest movement then the antisemitism seems pretty obvious in much of it. Remember the first big demo in London after 7 October happened BEFORE Israel had launched any serious kind of retaliation. And surely anyone who seriously cared about the plight of the Palestinians would be angry at the Soviet Union's decades long stoking of trouble in order to undermine the west, Iran's fanatical desire to destroy Israel and use the Palestinians as pawns and the most proximate immiserater of Palestinians, Hamas. Those who govern Gaza and show no regard for the lives of the people living there at all. Who treat them without dignity or concern because their only interest is their own genocidal fanaticism.

But no, all the blame is put on Israel. Only Israel. Why might this be?

I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.

Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.

If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.


‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.

Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.

The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyl07nekzxo