Links - 27th June 2026 (3 - Feminism)

Meme - "Increase the gender pay gap"
Luke Tryl @LukeTryl: "Overnight team locked in and ready (To be clear the full team is more gender balanced! This was just who volunteered for this shift)."

Meme - "This is from Casey Anthony's Substack. Maybe it's just me, but that last sentence sounds racist and sexist"
"Casey Anthony @therealcaseyanthony Researcher. Consultant. Advocate. Activist. Author. LGBTQIA+ Ally. - We are the Resistance. We do not bow to mediocre white men."

Singer in Iran arrested after performing on YouTube without a hijab - "Parastoo Ahmadi posted a 27-minute video of her concert performance Wednesday, in which she sang in a sleeveless dress with her hair down accompanied by four male musicians. In the caption, she described it as an "imaginary concert" and invited the audience to "imagine this beautiful homeland" in Iran."
No wonder feminists put on hijabs

Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour - "Evidence from animal studies in rodents shows that testosterone causes aggressive behaviour towards conspecifics. Folk wisdom generalizes and adapts these findings to humans, suggesting that testosterone induces antisocial, egoistic, or even aggressive human behaviours. However, many researchers have questioned this folk hypothesis... Here we show that the sublingual administration of a single dose of testosterone in women causes a substantial increase in fair bargaining behaviour, thereby reducing bargaining conflicts and increasing the efficiency of social interactions. However, subjects who believed that they received testosterone—regardless of whether they actually received it or not—behaved much more unfairly than those who believed that they were treated with placebo. Thus, the folk hypothesis seems to generate a strong negative association between subjects’ beliefs and the fairness of their offers, even though testosterone administration actually causes a substantial increase in the frequency of fair bargaining offers in our experiment."
More evidence that men are fairer than women

Meme - georgia @geka9400: "if your partner is willing to violently choke you (even consensually during sex) they are statistically more likely to murder you."
ash @efflorscence: "thinking about the possibility (worse, inevitability) of an entire generation of women paralysed, impaired, incontinent, & dead from "sex" that you deem isn't "vanilla" or "boring""
"'There is no safe way to do it': the rapid rise and horrifying risks of choking during sex. Now thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40, it can also lead to difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage. How has this extreme practice been normalised?"
TL @toplonging: "source?"
georgia @geka9400: "There's statistics all over Google that verify this, it's not my job to research for you. I was told this in court when my ex (non-consensually) got a felony for strangulation."
isabelle @isabellle: "choking during sex is excluded from the study i assume you're referencing so maybe practice reading comprehension before making false and misleading claims
here's the source
Non-fatal strangulation is an important risk factor for homicide of women"
Covfefe Anon on X - "It's hilarious that "feminism" was this movement that did this kind of thing over and over in every area - making up completely wrong claims, refusing to support them, getting caught and simply never admitting the mistake.  This entire cultural history has basically been forgotten on a conscious level and the only result is no one taking these claims seriously any more.  Of course, it previously *worked* and laws were made based on various extremely stupid feminist claims ("the wage gap"!)"
Malarkey on X - "It's funny watching them repeatedly retreat to weaker and weaker ground over the past 15 years. First they had the wage gap, which sounded bad. Then it was debunked, so they moved to the pink tax, which seemed irrelevant but still got debunked. Now it's fake credit card history."
Scotty P 🎸 on X - "She gets bonus points for Saying The Thing- "It's not my job to research for you." Actually it IS her job, if she's going to make such an incendiary claim. And whatever extent of truth there is to this claim, it's more evidence that these women are actually ATTRACTED to violent men, but don't want to own up to being drawn to men who are dangerous for them."

Meme - Cremieux @cremieuxrecueil: "The gender wage gap is mostly about married men doing one helluva job earning more than everyone else."
"Wage and Salary Income. Employed Men and Women by Marital Status, 2016
Clearly "patriarchy" values married men more than single men, so men benefit from feminism (i.e.dismantling "patriarchy") too

Meme - reeda @_Jaan___: "Men pushing 30 be like this 23 year old is perfect for me"
">Yes, of course you can kill yourself with cigarettes, youre 18
>Yes, of course you can die for ZOG, youre 18
>Of course you can do porn and strip for 50 year old men, youre 18
>You want to be a sugar baby who jerks off a 70 year old with erectile dysfunction? Thats just fine, you go girl! get that bag!
>Enter a consensual relationship with a 25 year old who loves you? WHAT? Are you crazy? Is he a PEDOPHILE? What could he possibly have in common with you???"

Rape is Not (Only) About Power; It’s (Also) About Sex - "  Feminist scholarship has also changed the way rape is explained. Prior to the movement’s rise in the '60s and '70s, rape was considered to be largely about sex. Feminist scholarship proposed instead that rape was about the assertion of male power over women. The event that ushered in this paradigm shift was the publication, in 1975, of Susan Brownmiller’s book Against Our Will, in which Brownmiller sought to reframe rape as a political issue: the embodiment, and enforcement tool, of patriarchal misogyny. “Rape,” Brownmiller wrote, “is not a crime of irrational, impulsive, uncontrollable lust, but is a deliberate, hostile, violent act of degradation and possession on the part of a would-be conqueror, designed to intimidate and inspire fear…” She wanted rape to be eliminated through a socio-political change in the same way that lynching, a once-thriving practice, has been thus eliminated.  At the time, positioning rape as systemic cultural subjugation rather than mere individual violation was in line with the feminist credo that "the personal is political," and served to highlight the profound social implications of rape and the pressing cultural problems of gender inequality and gender aggression.  It did not take long for Brownmiller’s scholarly claim to morph into a galvanizing political battle cry ("rape is about power, not sex"), which would over time calcify into popular dogma, finding frequent, unquestioning expression in the media, becoming a staple of University assault prevention and education efforts and applied liberally to other kinds of sexual misbehavior, such as sexual harassment.  What this notion did well was to promote the causes of social justice and gender equality. What it did poorly was to explain rape...   Viewed dispassionately, the "rape is about power, not sex" claim appears problematic on its face. First, human behavior is multiply determined. Meaningful human events have more than one reason and are shaped by more than a single motive or force. Rape is a human event. It is motivated by more than one thing. Second, to claim that sex—one of our most powerful motives (our species’ existence depends on it, after all)—is somehow absent from an act that routinely involves erection, vaginal penetration, and ejaculation defies reason. Arguing that rape is not about sex is akin to asserting that gun violence is not about guns. Both claims betray an incomplete and politicized view.  Moreover, even if we frame rape as an assertion of patriarchal power, the question remains: asserting power to what end? As some feminist scholars have noted, the origins of the patriarchy itself may quite reasonably be traced to the male motivation to control female sexuality. If rape is a symbol of patriarchal ambition, then it symbolizes a sexual motive.   Current scholarship on rape further undermines the "rape is about power" narrative.  For example, Richard Felson, professor of sociology and criminology at Penn State, and Richard Moran of Mount Holyoke College provided statistics showing that most rape victims are young women. Youth, of course, is strongly linked in the scientific literature to sexual attractiveness. One could counter that young women are targeted because they are vulnerable, naïve, or easier targets. But elderly women, and children make even easier targets, yet they are not raped at the same high rates. Moreover, when cases of robbery (where control and power goals have already been satisfied) end in rape, the victims are mostly young women. “The evidence is substantial and it leads to a simple conclusion: most rapists force victims to have sex because they want sex,” the researchers assert.   In a recent, related study (2014), Felson and his colleague Patrick Cundiff (of Western Michigan University) looked at evidence based on almost 300,000 sexual assaults from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System. They found that “the modal age of victims was 15 years, regardless of the age of the offender, the gender of the offender, or the gender of the victim.” Sexual assault, they conclude, “is as much an offense against young people as it is against women.”  Is American patriarchy at war with young people? Not likely. Youth in this context is, in all likelihood, a proxy for sexual attractiveness. Young people are more often raped because they are more attractive. Sexually.   Rachel Jewkes, a researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, and her colleagues (2010) have looked at some of the motives of rapists. A random sample of men (ages 18–49) from the general population of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were asked anonymously about their rape perpetration practices, motivations, and consequences. “Asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement, and it was often an act of bored men… seeking entertainment. Rape was often also a punishment directed against girlfriends and other women, and alcohol was often part of the context.”  In addition, laboratory research has consistently shown that rapists differ from nonrapists in their patterns of sexual arousal. Rapists show higher erectile response to hearing scenarios of nonconsenting sex. This fact does not exclude the possibility that rapists are responding to the implied violence in the nonconsent scenario, rather than to the sex. However, research has shown that rapists do not differ from nonrapists in response to scenarios of non-sexual violence. For example, in 2012, Canadian researcher Grant Harris and colleagues summarized the research on rapists’ sexual responses thus: “Violence and injury without sexual activity do not usually produce much erectile responding among rapists.”   In other words, rapists have a unique taste for nonconsensual sex, rather than for nonconsensual violence per se."

Pornography and Sexual Aggression: Can Meta-Analysis Find a Link? - "Whether pornography contributes to sexual aggression in real life has been the subject of dozens of studies over multiple decades. Nevertheless, scholars have not come to a consensus about whether effects are real. The current meta-analysis examined experimental, correlational, and population studies of the pornography/sexual aggression link dating back from the 1970s to the current time. Methodological weaknesses were very common in this field of research. Nonetheless, evidence did not suggest that nonviolent pornography was associated with sexual aggression. Evidence was particularly weak for longitudinal studies, suggesting an absence of long-term effects. Violent pornography was weakly correlated with sexual aggression, although the current evidence was unable to distinguish between a selection effect as compared to a socialization effect. Studies that employed more best practices tended to provide less evidence for relationships whereas studies with citation bias, an indication of researcher expectancy effects, tended to have higher effect sizes. Population studies suggested that increased availability of pornography is associated with reduced sexual aggression at the population level. More studies with improved practices and preregistration would be welcome."
There goes another feminist myth

Meme - Woman at "Equality" rally with other women holding sign: "End disproportionate male power and dominance."
Woman in bed with tongue out, rolled eyes and flushed cheeks and hearts in air reading book: "Disproportionate male power and dominance."

Domestic violence is not a gendered issue – Why the pervasive sexist bias against men? - "Many of those working within the DV sector, particularly here in Australia, only choose to acknowledge one element of the problem – that part involving male perpetrators and female victims. It is no coincidence that most staff within these government agencies, universities and NGO’s are strongly influenced by, and biased towards, feminist ideology. The feminist position is unequivocal, and it is that domestic violence = men’s violence towards women. Here is an example of that mindset, and here are many others.  This routine failure by feminists to recognise and discuss male victims, female perpetrators and bi-directional violence is no accident or coincidence. It is a deliberate strategy to build their brand, and in so doing demonise the overwhelming majority of men who have never, and would never, hurt or abuse their partner.   As a result, and in order to support the feminist narrative, a great deal of ‘cherry-picking’ and misrepresentation occurs in relation to the statistics provided in DV literature. In addition, the design and implementation of survey instruments is too often tainted with bias... You will note, as you scroll down this page, that there are a multitude of sources of DV statistics, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States. Here in Australia, much less research has been undertaken – particularly in relation to male victimisation. One of the more significant sources is the Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey 2012, which found that one in three victims of domestic abuse were male. The results of overseas studies generally found levels of male and female victimisation that were closer to parity, and in some instances even higher rates of victimisation for men that women.  Unfortunately many journalists display remarkable tunnel-vision when addressing the topic of IPV. Indeed some have suggested that the media is complicit in the same sort of systemic gender bias against males noted earlier amongst those working in the field of DV... Fiona McCormack also ignores male victims and female abusers this item on Australian ABC TV … except in an aside where she implies that anyone who raises the issue of women abusers is only seeking to “excuse” the behaviour of male abusers. This is very much akin to the feminist predilection of labelling anyone who questions various aspects of sexual assault (e.g. false rape allegations) as being “rape apologists” “victim blamers” etc.   Now let’s turn to this article by Charlie Pickering (more about Charlie here). Charlie is concerned that more attention is paid to the issue of random one-punch attacks on men, than on the violence visited nightly on women people in their homes. He goes on to state:   “For a long time, the term domestic violence has softened and normalised what is really going on. A more accurate term is ‘men’s violence against women’. Not ‘violence against women’, because that takes the responsibility for it away from those who need to be made responsible.”   This belief, that by acknowledging male victims and female perpetrators, we are somehow ignoring the validity and the pain of female victims is absurd, yet unfortunately commonplace in public discourse. The fact that there may be somewhat fewer male victims does not, nor should not, make domestic violence a gendered issue... that makes perfect sense … there are no programs for female offenders so let’s pretend they don’t exist. Such circular logic is (almost) unbelievable. And no, there is no corresponding ‘Mens Safety’ page within the DSS web site...   When misleading statistics are repeatedly exposed the feminist reaction is to move the goalposts by expanding the reach of the definition of domestic violence to encompass sexual violence, and less tangible forms of non-physical ‘violence’. This serves to both maximise the perceived magnitude of the problem, as well as support the anti-male narrative.  Naturally those areas where female perpetration is substantial, such as child abuse and elder abuse, are totally ‘out of bounds’. This theme is explored in this separate blog post. The same approach has been taken by feminists to prop up the notion of the existence of a ‘rape culture‘ in western societies."

Large new study finds almost half of Australians who have experienced intimate partner violence are male - "A new study just published in the Medical Journal of Australia surveyed 8503 people aged 16 years or older, of whom 7022 had been in intimate relationships. The prevalence of intimate partner violence in Australia - a national survey, had the aim of estimating the prevalence in Australia of intimate partner violence, each intimate partner violence type, and multitype intimate partner violence, overall and by gender, age group, and sexual orientation.  When it looked at the lifetime experience of any intimate partner violence among the 6934 women and men respondents with intimate partners at any time since age 16 years, it found that 45.5% of people who had experienced violence were male. That’s almost half - much higher than the one in three figure consistently found in the ABS Personal Safety Survey for many years now... Regretfully, the authors adopted the widespread approach found across the domestic violence sector and within government, of excusing women’s intimate partner violence towards men (saying it could have been retaliatory or defensive) and downplaying it (saying it is more likely to be “situational couple violence” than “intimate terrorism”). None of these claims were supported by the actual data of the study, and have been repeatedly debunked in multiple other studies. The authors also downplayed women’s violence towards men by saying it can be less severe than violence inflicted by men. This is certainly true on average, due to men’s average size and strength advantage over women, and had some supportive evidence from the survey data itself. However men made up more than half of the men and women who had experienced being assaulted by a fist or object and close to half of those who had been assaulted with a knife or weapon, so it’s certainly the case that many men experienced severe violence even if less did so on average. It’s also the case that many non-physical forms of intimate partner violence (e.g. withholding access to children) can be more harmful to people over the long term than physical assaults."

The Disaster That Is Australia's Domestic Violence Policy - "Any project or policy – whether public or private sector – depends on the assumptions underlying it to be accurate in order to have any chance of success. Of course, lots of things can still go wrong and often do. But even to make a start, governments and corporations need to know the lie of the land, the essential factuality of the problem they want to address or the outcome they wish to achieve.  Which brings me to Australia’s “National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children”. Much of this program focuses on educating people about gender equality and respectful attitudes. Everyone reading this piece has likely seen its telly or social media adverts. The program’s focus on gender issues is derived from modern feminist “scholarship” (scare quotes are necessary) positing that sexist attitudes are the crucial factor when it comes to domestic abuse.    There’s a problem with this. It isn’t true... When it comes to domestic abuse, both state and federal governments – not to mention ordinary members of the public – have accurate information at their fingertips and have had for some time.   In September 2019, the Australian Institute of Criminology published an evidence review examining 39 quantitative studies of domestic violence over the past decade, entitled simply “Domestic violence offenders, prior offending and reoffending in Australia”. It found a third of offenders had been drinking or were drunk, and alcohol significantly increased the severity of violence. The study also notes violence was concentrated among a relatively small group of repeat offenders, and in more disadvantaged areas, especially remote Aboriginal areas. Perpetrators were more likely to be unemployed, and while recidivism among DV perpetrators was common, it was much, much worse in poor communities. In the Northern Territory in 2016, for example, two per cent of repeat offenders were responsible for 50 per cent of all domestic violence harms. Make sure you grasp the salience of that statistic: we’re talking two per cent of an already small number of repeat offenders.    The AIC’s September 2019 study dealt with domestic abuse in the broadest sense, rather than including its most serious manifestation – intimate partner homicide. This is significant because sometimes, disaggregating homicide from other crime statistics produces a different picture because homicide is always thoroughly investigated. Any study that takes in everything from minor assaults to grievous bodily harm while ignoring homicide is going to depend a fair bit on self-reporting to researchers – or leave a lot out if based solely on recorded convictions – because loads of people of both sexes don’t report minor assaults to the police.   Understandably, this can skew the data. It’s why lawyers and criminologists often treat homicide as the gold standard when it comes to assessing both demographic and geographical characteristics among offenders and their victims. This may provide some (although not all) of the explanation for lack of public engagement with the AIC’s findings since September.    However, the reason the AIC didn’t cover homicide in its 2019 report was simplicity itself: it (and by extension, we) already knew that domestic violence leading to murder or manslaughter shares the same characteristics as less serious forms of domestic violence: chronic recidivism, geographic concentration in poor and indigenous areas, presence of alcohol...   Unfortunately, many feminists no longer adhere to the correspondence theory of truth, in large part because they refuse to commit to the understanding that there are better and worse ways to learn about an objectively knowable world. Hence the endless diatribes about things that don’t matter and often don’t exist (“toxic masculinity” or “rape culture”) while ignoring poverty, alcohol and sometimes, tragically, even race.   In 2013-14 – the most recent year for which we have national data – the overall indigenous homicide rate was 4.9 per 100,000 or five times the non-indigenous rate (0.9 per 100,000). The victimisation rate for indigenous males was 5.6 per 100,000 compared with 1.1 for non-indigenous males. The rate of indigenous female victimisation was 4.2 per 100,000 compared with 0.7 for non-indigenous females in 2013-14. In almost all cases, both victim and perpetrator were indigenous. This points to a vast disparity between Indigenous Australians and everyone else.        Both AIC publications are also relevant to the fact that reported incidents of family violence have increased in the nine years since the national plan was launched. Both sets of findings highlight fundamental flaws in current government policy, which pays little attention to alcohol, mental illness or poverty. Former NSW Liberal minister Pru Goward has said she despairs at the ineffectiveness of current strategies to promote “respectful attitudes”. Jess Hill, in her book See What You Made Me Do, described such policies as “horribly inadequate”. Whatever else, we don’t need another TV ad about gender equality. “Policy wonks” (that is, people like me) have names for this sort of foul-up: we call it the “moralistic fallacy” or “policy-based evidence” or the glorious “Woozle Effect” (after the imaginary creature in Winnie-the-Pooh). All these labels describe forming a view (society has a problem with “toxic masculinity” and “rape culture” and these lead to domestic violence, for example) and then cherry-picking evidence to support the conclusion pre-emptively reached (highlighting the relatively few intimate partner homicides where, say, patriarchal religious values or misogyny were present).   While not as common as the “naturalistic fallacy” – where scientists discover a true thing and then expect politicians to enact laws on the back of it without considering moral implications – the moralistic fallacy is far more serious, because at least in the case of the naturalistic fallacy there’s some actual objective truth underneath all the crud. By contrast, enacting legislation and developing (expensive) national strategies on the basis of an unproven claim is literally the policy equivalent of theology. We may as well start sacrificing captive prisoners-of-war on mountaintops à-la the Aztecs to fix the problem for all the good we’re currently doing to address domestic violence.   Of course, part of the problem is that alcohol, mental health and poverty are all fairly intractable and expensive/tricky to address. If you want to look like you’re doing a good job then you need to appeal to other things"
Wokeness once again results in bad results. Ideology is more important than reducing harm

Men in Spain suffer 94% of workplace fatalities and 85% of serious injuries. Therefore, the International Labour Organization issued a policy brief on "How to better protect women’s health and safety at work" : r/MensRights

Sally Hayden on X - ""Strong men don't need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful" - Michelle Obama. #Trump"
Ironic. She puts men down all the time, including her own husband

Britain is staring into a £3tn debt abyss

Britain is staring into a £3tn debt abyss

"“Britain is bust.” Those were not the words of a politician or a scaremongering economist.

They were uttered in 2012 by Sir Robert Chote, then head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

He warned that unless the government acted by either spending less or taxing more, the national debt risked spiralling out of control.

At the time, Britain’s national debt had recently surpassed £1tn and alarm bells were already ringing.

Today, the country stands on the brink of another symbolic milestone.

Within months, the United Kingdom’s national debt is expected to exceed £3tn for the first time, a threshold that could be crossed as early as September.

For most people, the moment will probably pass unnoticed. Others will dismiss it as a meaningless figure that says little about Britain’s actual ability to service its debts.

Yet after years of economic crises, rising borrowing, higher spending and repeated failures to reduce the debt burden, the consequences are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Changes in market interest rates are blowing up budgets and mere words uttered by politicians can add billions to the nation’s interest bill in a near instant...

Senior economists are raising uncomfortable questions. Chief among them: will the International Monetary Fund (IMF) soon be called back to Britain?

Public debt is currently ticking up at £7,500 per second. That’s an extra £27m every hour or £650m a day as the cost of the financial crisis, lockdown and huge energy subsidies in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continue to mount...

When Sir Tony Blair came to power in 1997, it equated to just under £6,000 for every person – adult and child – in the country.

By the time Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton moved into No 10 in 2010, the debt was almost £16,400 per person.

Now our share of the nation’s tab is £42,000 each. By the end of the decade, it will be closing in on £50,000.

The size of public debt matters. But debt as a share of the economy matters even more because it tells you whether the bill is large relative to a country’s ability to pay.

In the coming years, Britain’s debt burden is projected to rise above 96pc of GDP. The last time debt reached that level was in the early 1960s, when the country was still paying down the enormous borrowing accumulated during the Second World War.

At its peak, wartime debt exceeded twice the size of Britain’s annual economic output, a level not seen since the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

However, as David Miles of the OBR points out, there is a crucial difference. Back then, the debt trajectory was moving downwards. Today, it is heading in the opposite direction...

“It is more likely that military spending will be rising as a share of GDP than falling from its currently relatively low levels.”

As well as increased pressure to spend more on defence, Miles warns that an ageing population will continue to pile pressure on the public finances, with updated projections to be published in July set to show spending on health and welfare will increase substantially in the next 50 years, while public debt heads towards 300pc of GDP.

“In the light of this it would seem ... that fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path in the UK,” Miles warns in his paper. “At some point, the stock of debt will have to deviate from that path.”...

Sir Charlie adds that while much of the increase in UK borrowing costs this year has been driven by the Iran war and predictions of fewer interest rate cuts, domestic concerns have not gone away.

Since the conflict began, borrowing costs have risen by more in the UK than in other countries including the US and Germany.

“I would put that down to an element of concern about the direction of fiscal policy in this country if there’s a change in the Labour leadership,” says Sir Charlie.

Andy Burnham, the Labour leadership frontrunner, is causing fear and anxiety in the market as he measures the curtains in Downing Street. However, the current Chancellor hasn’t exactly been the paragon of fiscal rectitude.

Reeves came into office claiming the Tories had left a £22bn black hole in the public finances. She then shocked businesses – and voters – with the scale of her £40bn tax rises in her first Budget.

But what was more remarkable was her spending increases of around £70bn per year, requiring yet more borrowing justified with a new, looser set of borrowing targets.

Unfortunately she left herself with very little headroom to hit those targets.

When the economy repeatedly underperformed, the Chancellor had to ramp up taxes further to get her plans back on track – spooking investors and risking undermining growth once more.

The result is rising borrowing costs amid growing fears in financial markets that Labour is struggling to keep a lid on debt. The expectation of yet more spending if Burnham becomes prime minister only adds to the upward pressure on market interest rates.

Part of that concern is the Augustinian “Lord, make me chaste but not yet” attitude to balancing the books that successive governments have adopted. Reeves is planning to raise more taxes but many of the measures will not kick in until a year before the next general election – a timeline many see as unrealistic.

“It is difficult to get politicians to take tough decisions for the longer term, particularly if they think they will be penalised at the ballot box,” says Sir Charlie.

As debt continues to ratchet up, economists are thinking the unthinkable: will the UK need an IMF bailout?

Ken Rogoff, a former chief economist at the IMF, believes it is becoming increasingly likely.

Rogoff, now a Harvard professor, fears the US may struggle to pay its bills. He has previously warned that there is a significant probability of the US entering a debt crisis in the next 10 years, which could lead to a deep recession.

However, he adds pointedly, “What might save us is that the UK might run into problems first.

“The UK is definitely in more trouble than the US because there isn’t a growth story in the UK.”

While Rogoff doesn’t believe Britain is “about to fall apart”, the combination of higher debt and “toxic” politics is forming the recipe for a crisis.

He, like many others, looked on through his fingers as Reeves was forced by her own backbenchers into a humiliating about-turn over £5bn of welfare cuts.

“There’s just no stomach to reform things,” says Rogoff.

Investors are now fearful of where a Burnham premiership may take Britain.

The Mayor of Greater Manchester wants more state control of public services and housing. While he has committed to following Reeves’s borrowing rules, he has also declared he does not want to be “in hock” to the bond market.

Those comments alone led to a rise in market borrowing costs.

Even those who have signalled in the past that debt is a free lunch are slowly changing their minds.

Olivier Blanchard, whose economic textbooks are staples in most classrooms, says he’s “worried” about rising primary deficits, which measure how much a country borrows, excluding debt interest.

“I think it may take at least a mini fiscal crisis ... to get some governments to do what they need to do.”

It’s been 25 years since a British government last ran a budget surplus. Through good years and bad since 2001, every prime minister has added to the national debt – sometimes little by little and in other years by piling on vast new borrowing.

Combined with the failure to repair the finances after each crisis, this gives rise to fears Britain is inexorably turning into another Argentina – a once-rich nation that borrowed itself into disaster, with repeated defaults on its debts.

But the South American basket case is not the only example Britain could follow.

Across the North Sea is a nation now considered a model of fiscal probity but which was not so long ago a recession-stricken, debt-ridden warning to the rest of the world.

Sweden suffered such a severe crisis in the 1990s that its politicians still, by and large, stick to rigorous borrowing rules which have cut its debt by half in the past 30 years...

Magnusson says cooperation between the governing and opposition parties on financial packages helped ensure the debt kept falling steadily. Official figures show debt has fallen from around 70pc of GDP three decades ago to the low-30s today...

“We learned our lesson fairly well,” says Magnusson.

Britain’s failure to follow a similar path, even after decades of its own fiscal rules and 16 years on from the establishment of the Office for Budget Responsibility, appears baffling by comparison.

“We realise it is hard to get some kind of political momentum going for a stricter fiscal policy. It is, on the one hand, a bit strange because you have a Labour majority in Parliament. You would expect Labour probably should be able to pull this off because of its big majority,” says Magnusson.

“Maybe one reason why it is hard to fix is that it is just not bad enough. What really set this off in Sweden is that [the crisis and recession] was so much worse.”

This is an ominous message for Britain...

“In a situation like this, the IMF would be called in for technical support,” he says.

The reason is simple: politicians always need a scapegoat.

“If you reach a point where you have to have some form of budget adjustment, you want to blame it on someone, so they would call in [the IMF]. They don’t need the IMF but they would call it [in the same way] McKinsey will often get called in by a company that knows it needs to fire its CEO.”

Sir Charlie, who is one of Britain’s most respected economists, believes a bailout may be inevitable.

“Whether it’s needed is an open question,” he says. “But I think it might well come to that. It is difficult to get politicians to take tough decisions for the longer term, particularly if they think they’re going to be penalised at the ballot box.”

He adds that the idea of the UK needing to call the IMF was unthinkable a few years ago...

What could trigger a crisis?

Rogoff says Russia invading a Nato country could do it, though Sir Charlie believes the trigger is far more likely to be domestic than geopolitical.

He warns: “Markets would be much less forgiving if you had a government with a new leader who says, ‘well, we don’t want to be in hock to the bond market and we’re going to continue to run large deficits’.”

Some investors fear that Labour leadership frontrunner Burnham could embark on an unfunded spending spree if he secures the keys to No 10.

Rogoff has seen this all before.

Back in 1982, he was a fresh-faced junior economist at the IMF in Washington when François Mitterrand, the newly elected French president, launched one of the most ambitious Left-wing economic programmes in modern Europe.

That agenda included widespread nationalisation and wealth redistribution, covering banks as well as major stakes in the steel, chemicals, arms and electronics industries.

The aim was to stimulate growth and employment. Instead, the programme pushed up inflation and caused capital flight, piling enormous pressure on the franc and fuelling further price rises.

“Mitterrand came in [like] Andy Burnham and the markets collapsed,” says Rogoff. “I was at the IMF at the time, I was a junior economist and we were all studying French to try to help them out.”

Eventually, Mitterrand abandoned the experiment in what became known as the “tournant de la rigueur” or “turn to austerity”, implementing deep spending cuts and a more orthodox economic policy.

It was a reminder that electoral mandates do not grant governments immunity from market discipline.

Britain enjoys the luxury of having a central bank that can always print money to save the day. However, even Liz Truss found out the hard way that this does not grant invincibility, after her mini-Budget tested investors’ limits and blew up the market...

“I never worried about this before but for the first time, I’m more worried about advanced countries needing to resort to [unorthodox] policies in order to deal with their debt problems,” he says.

That could mean allowing price rises to try to inflate the debt away. Financial repression is the other option: where private wealth is either encouraged, corralled or taxed in some way to finance government debt.

India, for instance, requires lenders to hold 18pc of their deposits in state bonds or other approved assets. In Europe’s banks, government bonds receive favourable regulatory treatment...

If the IMF were ever called in, it would mark the end of a political career. In an emergency, support would probably come with strict conditions – IMF lending programmes always do.

Sir Charlie recalls a familiar joke: “IMF doesn’t stand for International Monetary Fund but ‘I’m fired’.”"

Links - 27th June 2026 (2 - Migrants: UK)

BritainDecoded on X - "If we stopped making the UK so attractive to migrants guess what - this might actually stop this evilness - 300 migrants bound for UK kidnapped and threatened with kidney removal - BBC News"
Left wingers will just say you should fly them all in so they won't be abused

Lord Hermer: Reform would let migrants drown in Channel - "Lord Hermer has claimed the Tories and Reform UK would “let migrants drown” in the Channel through their plans to ditch human rights laws and deport all illegal arrivals.  The Attorney General said that the only way the Government would end the small boats crisis was through international co-operation to crack down on people smugglers... Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said of the Attorney General’s comments: “It is a disgraceful slur to suggest that those wanting to end illegal small boat immigration are prepared to see migrants drown.  “The fact is that human rights lawyers like Hermer and Starmer are part of the problem – because they think the often tenuous human rights claims of illegal immigrants are more important than protecting our border.  “Let’s not forget, the illegal immigrants are leaving France – a safe country. Small boat crossings are 45 per cent up since the election and 73,000 have crossed under Starmer – more than under any other prime minister. And Hermer has the cheek to suggest this is acceptable. He is out of touch and a danger to our border security. “We need to leave the ECHR so that all illegal immigrants can be deported within a week of arrival. Then the crossings would soon stop. But Hermer and his Labour allies are not willing to do this. So the illegal immigrants will continue to flood in under Labour.”   Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, said: “Richard Hermer used lawfare to hound British troops who had done nothing wrong... He is a traitor to his country. I have no interest in anything he has to say. Reform will secure our border and deport all illegal migrants.” Lord Hermer said he “fundamentally disagreed” with the contention that he was more interested in the human rights of a Channel migrant than the ordinary British taxpayer.  “There is no tension between believing in human rights and having a steely determination to tackle small boats and you can see that in this Government. We’ve come in, and we are starting to be pretty effective in dealing with small boats,” he said... He warned that leaving the ECHR would force the UK to quit its trade agreement with the EU, end data-sharing arrangements that were critical to police, and threaten the Good Friday Agreement."
i.e. He wants the UK to rejoin the European Union. Weird how the EU itself cannot solve the migrant crisis (except for Denmark and other countries that "violate human rights" by not having quasi-open borders)

Migrant, 14, who raped girl allowed to walk free if he takes classes on consent - "The Iranian teenager, 14, avoided youth jail as long as he joins an awareness programme that teaches consent...   There are no official sentencing guidelines for youths convicted of rape.  However other cases of 14-year-old rapists have been given four years in young offenders’ units."

Will Solfiac on X - "So funny that Plaid Cymru is all about protecting Welsh from the English but if you raise the fact that Welsh is under threat from (far more alien) international immigrants you get suspended from the party. The next couple of decades are going to be a big reckoning for Celtic nationalism as they approach the immigration levels of England, and realise that their fantasy nationalism of anti England, pro the rest of the world is no longer tenable."

Migrant on disability benefits is allowed to stay in retirement home with his younger wife and twins until housing association finds new place for them to live...after saying eviction would breach HIS human rights - "A migrant father-of-nine has been allowed to remain in a retirement home with his young family until he is found more suitable accommodation after claiming eviction would breach his human rights.  Shahidul Haque, 59, has spent over a year fighting attempts to remove him from the one-bedroom property, where he lives with his 28-year-old wife and twin daughters.  He insisted he would battle eviction unless larger accommodation was found, arguing that forcing his family out would violate his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights... He moved into the retirement flat at David Smith Court in Reading in July 2024, paying £110.70 a week.  But just months later, on December 20, his wife Jakia Sultana Monni and their twin daughters joined him from Bangladesh - despite the accommodation being designated for over-55s and intended for single occupancy. Mr Haque maintains he did not realise the specialist housing rules prevented him from bringing his family to live with him, claiming his limited English meant the tenancy agreement was not properly understood."

Nearly 1.5 million migrants on benefits - "Nearly 1.5 million migrants received Universal Credit last year, according to figures.  They accounted for nearly one in six – 15.6 per cent – of the total 9.6 million people who received Universal Credit at some point during the 12 months to December 2025.  It is the first time that the Department for Work and Pensions has provided such analysis, which was obtained under freedom of information rules by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC)."

Nearly 1.5 million migrants on benefits : r/uknews - "So for context thats almost 15% of migrants are on Universal Credit.  While british nationals only 10%.  This does not include many other benefits, like child care, disability payments, housing benefits..."

UK joins Europe pledge to make it easier to deport migrants in bid to curb illegal crossings : r/gbnews - "It’s almost as if we can only solve the issue of small boats and asylum seekers entering the country irregularly by cooperation with our EU neighbours.  How much easier would it be if we were still EU members?"
"How much easier would it be if we were still EU members?  You mean like Ireland who's immigration problem is completely out of hand?"
"Why would it?  This is about the ECHR, which we are still a part of. Discussed in the Council of Europe that we are still a part of. Europe hasn’t solved their migration problems which is why they are discussing it now."

UK joins Europe pledge to make it easier to deport migrants in bid to curb illegal crossings : r/gbnews - "Isn’t this a racist far right policy then? That’s what they’ve been saying for years, until they need votes"
"Exactly. I remember when the BNP were pointing out the issue with uncontrolled mass migration back in the early 2000s and all the virtue signalling Lefty politicians and their brain-dead supporters just screamed that it was racist.  Roll on 20 years and suddenly Lefty politicians start mentioning the issues with mass, uncontrolled migration that has had a profoundly negative affect on British citizens lives. It's only the brain-dead lefty supporters that haven't caught up yet!!"

The SNP says Scotland has ‘too few’ migrants. Luckily, I’ve got the perfect solution - "The SNP thinks Scotland’s got a problem. Obviously not with its tax system, or its schools, or its hospitals. And certainly not with its government. No, the problem with Scotland is this. It doesn’t have enough immigrants.  That, at least, is the view of Mairi McAllan, the SNP’s minister for housing. Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, she complained that “too few” migrants are coming to Scotland. And, according to her, this is bad news, because immigration is “good and necessary” for “our economy, for our hospitality sector, health and social care”. Lots more migrants, therefore, are urgently required.  Well, Ms McAllan, fret no more. Because the solution to this crisis is conveniently close at hand.  Just ask your friends down in England. Why, they’ve got boatloads of new immigrants arriving every single day. And I feel sure that they’d be only too happy to let you have some. In fact, if you ask nicely, they might even let you have the whole lot... Admittedly, the migrants themselves might take a little persuading. In 2022, sources told The Telegraph that Afghan refugees housed in south-east England had “refused moves to Scotland and Wales” because those two nations “are too cold and don’t speak English”. But perhaps this was just an unfortunate misunderstanding, rather than a comment on the SNP’s education record. Of course, some Scots may try to argue that their country already has a rapidly growing population of immigrants. They may even cite reports stating that Glasgow is home to more asylum seekers than any other city in Britain.  Still, now that their political superiors have explained that immigration is still too low, I’m sure they’ll be satisfied. As it happens, the Scottish elections are little more than a week away. Which will give Scottish voters the perfect opportunity to show the SNP how grateful they are."

Reform: We’ll put migrant detention centres in Green council areas - "  Reform UK has pledged to build new detention centres for illegal migrants in areas that vote Green if it wins the next general election.  Nigel Farage’s party said it would “prioritise” sending migrants where there are Green councils or MPs because Zack Polanski’s party supports “open borders”... Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, has now disclosed that none of the new centres would be built in areas that elect Reform councillors or MPs.  “Even though illegal migrants will not be allowed to leave the sites, we are committing to not placing these detention sites in areas with a Reform MP or where Reform controls the council,” he told The Telegraph.  “Given the Green Party advocates for open borders and for an infinite number of undocumented men to come here, we will prioritise Green constituencies and Green-controlled councils to locate these detention centres.  “This is the fairest approach to ensuring democratic consent for all aspects of our mass deportation programme.” Reform has said it will deport all illegal migrants – including those who have arrived on small boats and claimed asylum – under a plan called Operation Restoring Justice.  Mr Yusuf said the party would achieve that aim by passing a new law to ensure that the building of detention centres could not be obstructed by legal challenges.  The legislation, to be called the Mass Deportation Detention Act, would list specific council areas and constituencies where detention centres would be built... Reform’s new Act would compel the home secretary to build detention centres in Green areas, circumventing procurement and planning rules. Because the decisions would be based on primary legislation passed by Parliament, there would be little scope for critics to bring judicial reviews.  Reform has also pledged to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, which could otherwise be used to challenge the planned new law... A Green Party spokesman said: “Reform keep making unserious announcements to try to distract voters from the fact they want to privatise our NHS.”...
"Voters must ask themselves a simple question: Do they wish to live in a country with secure borders, all illegals deported, where law and order is upheld and where work pays? In that case, they should vote Reform.  Or do they want to run the risk of an open borders communist dystopia, overrun by class A drugs like heroin. The Greens would happily oblige.""

Joe Rich on X - "This is extraordinary stuff from @BBCNews - thanks to @AlexArmstrong for the edit."
Andy on X - "Obviously this stuff has been ignored for so long because it is highly damaging to the left/liberal narrative about immigration.. So the question is, now that the dam is bursting - how will they integrate this reality into their worldview?   Are people infact NOT all the same?  is diversity perhaps NOT a strength?  are asylum seekers perhaps NOT fleeing persecution?  are some people NOT capable of being civilised?  And most importantly - should these millions of men perhaps NOT be here?"

GB News on X - "‘We’re importing a rape culture!’ Businessman Adam Brooks furiously reacts to a 14-year-old asylum seeker who raped a British teenage girl avoiding jail time and only being punished with ‘consent lessons’."
Connie Shaw on X - "It is insane to think about how much the term 'rape culture' was thrown around when I was at school in reference to occasional sexist remarks made by male students. Now we have migrants literally using their culture to justify sexual assaults and rape, the same people who considered remarks to be 'rape culture' are silent. It's a perfect example of the danger of watering down language, as well as authoritarian ideology causing extreme cognitive dissonance."
Rape culture hysteria wasn't primarily about preventing rape, but pushing the left wing agenda
Time to report more white British boys to PREVENT and keep screening Adolescence as if it were a documentary

That gang rape in Brighton confirms it – Britain is broken - spiked - "They’re laughing at us. That’s what I thought when I saw that rictus, gap-toothed smirk on the face of one of the illegal immigrants who’d just been found guilty in a most abominable case of rape. There he was leaving court, having been convicted of assisting in the savage sexual assault of a woman on a public beach, and he was grinning. If I had to translate his leer, I’d say he was saying that our women, our courts and our country don’t count for shit. ‘You’re worthless’ was the subtext of his diabolical sneer.  His name is Karin Al-Danasurt. He is 20 years old and from Egypt. He was found guilty yesterday at Hove Crown Court in the south of England for his part in what the prosecution described as a ‘cynical, predatory and callous attack’ on a young woman in Brighton in October last year. Al-Danasurt filmed the misogynistic atrocity. Two other men – Abdulla Ahmadi and Ibrahim Alshafe – did the raping. Ahmadi is from Iran, Alshafe is from Egypt... the barbarism in Brighton raises searing questions not only about the moral depravity of three men but also about the moral corrosion of Britain itself. About our broken borders, our feeble institutions, and our bloated, egotistical activist class that welcomes with open arms every unvetted man who arrives on our shores, and damns as ‘racist filth’ any member of the lower orders who dares to ask questions. We know the names and deeds of those three pieces of shit – when will we know the names and deeds of those who assisted their arrival into Britain?... The men were here primarily because our elites long ago sacrificed Britain’s sovereign integrity at the altar of the globalist delusion that nations are little more than glorified hotels for the wretched of the Earth. All three came on small boats. Ahmadi and Alshafe met on a small boat. They sailed unimpeded to England in June 2025. Four months later, they were gang-raping one of our citizens on a beach.  The case of gurning Karin Al-Danasurt is even more outrageous. The prosecution says he was convicted of murder in Egypt before sailing to the UK, though his defence barrister disputes this. If it’s true, then let it be a eulogy for the post-sovereign hellscape our useless, snivelling elites have erected on what was once a proud, independent nation – that our state became so derelict in its fundamental duties that it permitted the arrival of a foreign murderer, put him up in a hotel, fed him and gave him an allowance that he later used to get a bus to the city in order to take part in the rape of a ‘dirty bitch’. No wonder he’s laughing at us – we have made ourselves despicable... It was courtesy of Britain’s withered sovereignty and the faux-virtuous posturing of our fractured institutions that those men were able to rape a Briton. The activist class provides moral cover to these illegal arrivals, falsely calling them ‘refugees’. And the state gives them financial cover, dishing out the means for them to stay and virtually never asking them to leave. That heinous crime was carried out under a cover fashioned by the establishment itself."

Afghan asylum seeker is arrested for 'harassing schoolgirls' after migrants were moved into £500,000 home in leafy Surrey village without telling residents - "officials placed the Afghan male nearby in a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) without risk assessments having been carried out.   Parents, who were also said to have been targeted by the suspect, have accused the Labour Government of putting children in harm's way by secretly moving asylum seekers into their peaceful village perched on the banks of the Thames."
Wolf 🐺 on X - "I’ve always said we’ll get real change when Lib Dem voters meet diversity for the first time and become blood and soil nationalists. It’s obviously a tragedy wherever things like this happen but if it’s going to happen I’d rather it be in the backyards of those who voted for it."

Small boat migrant guilty of knife attack at Israeli embassy - "A man who tried to climb into the Israeli embassy in London carrying two knives has been found guilty of preparing a terror-related knife attack.  Abdullah Albadri, 34, had only arrived in the UK in a small boat from France 16 days before the attempted attack on 28 April 2025. It was the second time he had entered the UK illegally by small boat in four years.  He was arrested trying to scale the railings of the heavily-guarded embassy, and asked the armed diplomatic protection officers who detained him, "Why are you stopping me from making crimes?"  That morning he had messaged his mother: "I chose the path of martyrdom." On Friday, a jury at the Old Bailey in London, which deliberated for nearly 14 hours, found him guilty by a majority verdict of preparation of terrorist acts and possession of two bladed articles."
Small boat migrant guilty of knife attack at Israeli embassy : r/uknews - "16 days is bonkers.  Imagine you in that situation.  You've just fled war. You have travelled half way across the world. You land in your new country.  Imagine how long it would take you to get settled in and adjust. You'd have to buy a new sim card, reroute your mail. Register for benefits. For the doctor and dentist.  There's like 100 things you'd have to do before you even considered going an stabbing someone 🤣  Unless... you only came here to stab people in which case it'd be one of the first things you would do..."

Visegrád 24 on X - "A major protest against Israel is taking place in London right now"
Claire Lehmann on X - "Immigrants rallying for blood & soil ethno-nationalism. Do they not get the contradiction?"

‘This is not the country I moved to’: the British Indians showing support for Nigel Farage - "“When I started working in metropolitan areas, like London or Birmingham or places where there’s lots of immigrant populations. I slowly started seeing how things have changed in Britain,” she said. “This was not the Britain I moved into. It looks more like regressing back to how things were in India.”... Prakash said it was ironic that the party faced accusations of racism after she said Reform activists in Harrow were subjected to abuse online, prompting some to stop using social media. This week Farage criticised Elon Musk, the owner of X, saying Reform UK candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds were being subjected to “utterly appalling abuse”.  Prakash said she tended to ignore the abuse she faced. “The amount of brainwashing each one has undergone to have this hatred towards one particular party,” she said."
Rather than update their beliefs, left wingers just mock the Indians as ignorant

GB News on X - "Greggs scraps front-of-store food and drink fridges amid nationwide shoplifting surge"
Æthelstan on X - "Societies without borders are not borderless; rather the borders migrate inwards.  They morph into vans of pale-faced men operating AI-powered facial scanners in city centres. Knife arches. Speed bumps. Concrete block obstacles courses.  The frictionless Schengen-esque freedom of movement that existed within England becomes moth-eaten one checkpoint at a time.  You may build a prison for yourself to live in, or you may construct borders at the borders - but borders you shall have. You must choose."

Legal advisers help migrants pose as gay to get asylum, undercover BBC investigation finds - "A shadow industry of law firms and advisers is charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay in order to stay in the UK, the BBC has found.  In the first part of a major undercover investigation, we reveal how migrants whose visas are due to run out are being given fake cover stories and instructed in how to obtain fabricated evidence, including supporting letters, photographs and medical reports.  They then apply for asylum claiming to be gay and in fear for their lives if they return to Pakistan or Bangladesh...
One immigration adviser boasted that she had spent more than 17 years helping bring fake claims and said she could arrange for someone to pretend they'd had a gay sexual relationship with a client
Our undercover reporter was even told he could bring his wife over from Pakistan once he had got asylum in the UK and she could then make a fake claim pretending to be a lesbian
A lawyer linked to another firm told an undercover reporter he had helped people pretend to be gay or atheists to successfully obtain asylum. He offered to help with a fake claim for a fee of £1,500 and said it would cost a further £2,000-£3,000 to create evidence...
Some have travelled from as far as South Wales, Birmingham and Oxford to attend a meeting organised by Worcester LGBT, which describes itself as a support group for gay and lesbian asylum seekers... the men spilling out from the centre's doors onto the pavement outside readily admit to our undercover reporter that all is not as it seems.  "Most of the people here are not gays," one man called Fahar says.  Another, who gives the name Zeeshan, goes further.  "Nobody is a gay here. Not even 1% are gay. Not even 0.01% are gay."... When he told her that he wasn't gay, she told him: "Listen to me. There is nobody who is real. There is only one way out in order to live here now and that is the very method everyone is adopting."... Tanisa, who said she had spent more than 17 years helping bring fake claims, explained that photographs taken of our reporter at LGBT events and the tickets he would buy for them would serve as evidence as part of his application.  "I will give you a letter from someone along with which we will take a few photographs and that person will write that they have engaged in physical sex with you," she added.  Tanisa's service came at a price - £2,500 - with a warning that the cost would go up in the unlikely event that our reporter's claim was refused by the Home Office and it went to appeal through the courts.  A successful application would be worth the work involved, she explained.  "You can live here and work and you are also eligible to claim benefits."... Tanisa is not a regulated immigration adviser and as a result it is illegal for her to offer immigration advice... When the reporter said he had a wife in Pakistan, Abbasi was quick to suggest a cover story to explain this, by saying that things were "more open" in the UK than Pakistan and that he now had a male partner... Ejel Khan, the British-born founder of the Muslim LGBT Network, based in Luton, said: "It's a vast problem.  "People offer to pay me money to give them letters of recommendation from my organisation but I never take it. All my work is voluntary."  He said some had even told him "I'm not gay but I want to stay in this country"... Home Office statistics show that Pakistani nationals make up a disproportionate number of the claims made on the grounds of sexuality... he told us three of his friends had been successful in getting asylum by also lying about their sexuality.  "They even got married in Pakistan and brought their wives here and now they have children," he said... Labour MP Jo White... called on the Home Office to stop issuing study visas to people from Pakistan, as it did last month for people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan over what it said was widespread visa abuse."
Time to condemn the BBC as far right for inciting hatred against gay asylum seekers

Pete Wishart on X - "By the 2030s Scotland will be in population decline with a smaller working age cohort unable to support an increasingly elderly society. Starmer has just announced an immigration policy that is counter to the Scottish interest. And he just does not care."
Roman Helmet Guy on X - "During the Black Death, Scotland suffered a population decline of 30-50% percent. This was tragic, because at the time, Scottish elites didn't have the means to replace that lost population with Somalians. As a result, wages for the average peasant sadly tripled."

Britain's broken institutions created the monster of Rupert Lowe - "The blame for this dangerous moment does not rest solely with the populist agitators who exploit grievance for political gain. It rests with the establishment – the mainstream media and the politicians – who have failed us all over the past decade.   I blame the Metropolitan Police, who rejected my repeated calls to take action against the man who called for jihad from the heart of London during the weekly anti-Semitic protests. I blame the BBC and its leadership, who ignored my pleas to investigate their Arabic platforms for their association with and whitewashing of terrorism. A leaked internal memo by independent adviser Michael Prescott recently revealed that BBC Arabic had to make corrections or clarifications on 215 stories over two years – more than two pieces of information each week found to be biased, inaccurate, or misleading.  Even more disturbingly, the same report found that a BBC Arabic contributor who once declared that Jews should be burned “as Hitler did” appeared on air 244 times. Another freelancer who called Jews “devils” was featured 522 times. This is not journalism. This is extremist advocacy, funded by the British licence-fee payer and broadcast into our homes without our consent.  I blame the politicians who ignored my warnings about British churches being purchased by extremists on a mission to erase the physical symbols of Britain’s Christian heritage.  I blame the politicians who received and acknowledged my reports warning them that the Home Office continues to grant asylum to terrorists and terrorism supporters, and did nothing.  I blame Keir Starmer and his Government, who welcomed Egyptian extremist Alaa Abd el-Fattah to Britain after the Tories had granted him a passport. When Sir Keir expressed being “delighted” by Abd el-Fattah’s arrival, he was allegedly unaware of the man’s social media history posts calling for Zionists and police to be killed, expressing anti-white racism, and glorifying violence. The cross-party campaign for such a person, as the Board of Deputies of British Jews noted, “demonstrate[s] a broken system with an astonishing lack of due diligence by the authorities”... I blame the academics and universities who allowed their campuses to turn into grounds for nurturing and promoting hateful ideologies. The evidence of this failure is now international: the United Arab Emirates has taken the sovereign decision to stop sending its students to British universities due to concerns about “the infiltration of a dark force into educational institutions in Britain”.  As I revealed before any official confirmation or media reports, the UAE had previously discussed its concerns with the British Government, which “did not respond to the UAE’s concerns about protecting its students from extremist thought”. London dismissed a key ally’s warnings about an ideology that promotes hatred of Jews and vilifies Muslims who seek peace.  Radicalisation follows a perfectly simple equation. It happens when a people develop a sense of grievance, when they – whether right or wrong – feel under attack and helpless. This is precisely how millions of Britons have been feeling for too long. They see a policing system that allows Islamist marches to restrict Jews from freely attending their places of worship on Saturdays. They see their national broadcaster platforming extremists. They see their Government unable or unwilling to deport those who openly express hatred for everything Britain stands for, while suggesting that those who proudly wave the flag of England are extremists and racists."

Post-Apartheid South Africa

This is proof that Apartheid is responsible for all of South Africa's problems, and that blaming South Africa's failures on DEI is racist, because the black people appointed to replace white people were qualified:

Thread by @arctotherium42 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

Thread with excerpts from "South Africa's Brave New World." The white establishment gave up gracefully, despite having the military power to fight. The author himself fought apartheid and doesn't regret it, despite his findings. 

Immediate capital flight amid massive corruption from the ANC. Chief ambition of much of the new elite: opening casinos, assumed to be a license to print money. Shades of US states doing the same for tax revenue.

Assassination was a common tool for the ANC elite both in exile and again in power. The author believes the ANC was involved in the assassination of Hani, a left-wing ANC leader, due to his threat to Mbeki. 

Arms sales as font of corruption. South Africa did not need and could not even use (due to lack of white pilots and operators thanks to affirmative action) advanced military equipment, but the procurers could grease their palms. 

The ANC's leading brains, Communists all, did not understand the concept of shareholder equity or the need for a trade deal with the EU. 

Mandela as King Lear, with enormous moral authority but too old to actually resist his more hardline race-communist underlings, who spoke with this voice. Shades of Biden. Not sure if the author is too kind to Mandela; I suspect wishful thinking. 

ANC immediately purged the Civil Service of whites. A bunch of departments immediately collapsed and state capacity never recovered, but, hey, there were a bunch of well-paid jobs for blacks, so who can say what's really more important. 

The ANC, being overwhelmingly actual Communists who'd planned on aligning with the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, were totally unprepared for the actual international situation they faced and couldn't adjust, keeping up a constant anti-Western drumbeat. 

Liberals, who'd seen apartheid overthrown due to a split in the National Party, prayed for the same in the ANC. It didn't happen. 

The ANC inherited one of the world's technically-best water systems (and by far the best in Africa), and immediately began running it into the ground by not paying for maintenance. 

Affirmative action basically reinstated apartheid-era job reservations, but with the races. However, white people could actually do the jobs, their black replacements couldn't. This crippled the state and many large businesses, which desperately shed employees to escape mandates. 

Mandela's retirement speech blamed foreign NGOs, America, and opposition parties for South Africa's problems. The author (wishfully, IMO) thinks he was reading from someone else's script. 

The Rand crashed at the end of apartheid. Seeing this (correctly) as a signal that markets didn't believe blacks could rule, Mbeki resorted to manipulating it, which eventually caused a fiscal crisis requiring 21% interest rates and economic crash to get out of. 

The Goldstone commission was supposed to investigate all groups, but never touched the violent actions of the ANC. 

The ANC failed to deliver on any of its promises after the first term. This did not stop it from easily winning reelection. I love multiethnic democracy. 

White ANC ministers (also Communists) saw the Land Bank as a tool to help the rural poor, their black replacements saw it as a tool for self-enrichment and drove it into the ground. 

Black elites believed they were omnicompetent because of how easily the drifted from high post to high post, not realizing they were beneficiaries of massive affirmative action. 

Every ANC failures was attributed to apartheid saboteurs running everything. 

AIDS devastated South Africa, while the ANC promoted traditional African medicine over (working) white medicine. 

The intersection between AIDS and rape: South Africa has the world's worst rape problem, which has much higher HIV transmission than most heterosexual sex. This includes babies (as sex with a virgin is believed to cure AIDS). The ANC outright refused Western medical aid. 

With cheap AIDS medication offered below market rates on offer, the ANC... refused, and continued to blame AIDS on poverty. 

Author attributes the response to a racial inferiority complex. Straight AIDS is basically a black phenomenon and SA has extraordinarily high rates of rape (50% of all criminal cases), which made Mbeki feel uncomfortable. 

Mbeki refused to take responsibility for changing black people's sexual behavior, instead blaming AIDS on Western colonialism (while Western countries lined up to try to give him medicine). 

Mbeki/ANC backed Mugabe to the hilt as he destroyed Zimbabwe (including genocide, famine, and millions of refugees), seeing the Zimbabwe regime as kindred spirits. 

Constitutional court sided with the ANC as a matter of course. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission covered up ANC crimes and greatly exaggerated those of its apartheid and Zulu opponents, with zero attempt to actually ascertain the truth. 

Other countries loved the ANC and Mandela, but the ANC purged their civil service corps and as such had no trained diplomatic personnel, leading to constant disasters in Africa and the Commonwealth. 

Mbeki tried to use South Africa's armed forces, formerly the 10th strongest in the world, as peacekeepers around Africa, but the armed forces were crippled by Affirmative Action (purging whites) and "general-heaviness" (using it as a jobs program). 

During the Cold War, the ANC could enthusiastically support the Soviets and still be beloved of Western liberals. They didn't realize how quickly they could alienate them over Zimbabwe. 

BEE was/is a well-known catastrophe. Companies forced to sell a certain fraction to black owners, leading to massive divestment from South Africa. 

Africa owners/CEOs relied on still-white middle management. 

Mining was SA's only really competitive international industry, which did not spare it from BEE mandates (51% black ownership, leading to immediate divestment) and expropriation threats. 

ANC mismanagement was covered up by the China-driven commodity supercycle, which tripled prices for SA's biggest export (minerals), allowing for private sector growth despite everything. 

Despite this, the ANC made miners get licenses from a bureaucracy that was very bad at granting them, crippling the expansion of the industry and tanking investment. ANC elites also demanded huge cuts for themselves. 

The new BEE goons are like American robber barons, except they're totally incompetent rentiers rather than competitive and innovative entrepreneurs. 

Companies were desperate and scraping the bottom of the barrel for legally mandated black talent, which did not exist. Sounds like here. 

BEE destroyed the rail network to the point the miners asked to run it themselves, and also destroyed SA's nascent high tech industry, devastated agriculture, and wrecked manufacturing, leading to deindustrialization. 

Crime got much worse under the ANC, and the police become incompetent, corrupt torturers. The prisons were much more loosely and inhumanely run than under apartheid. 

Like the US and Canada, SA has extremely strong affirmative action for medical school. This has basically destroyed its once world-leading (famously: first heart transplant) medical sector. Practitioners needed to prove they were "correcting equities" to practice. 

The collapse of the medical sector meant lots of easily-preventable dead babies, far more than under apartheid. 

South Africa had the world's cheapest electricity and a robust grid at the fall of apartheid. ANC took advantage of this to not do maintenance and loot Eskom, leading to power shortages and blackouts. 

BEE drove skilled white employees out of Eskom, with the usual consequences. Exacerbated by Eskom demanding BEE in suppliers too, meaning low quality and expensive coal. 

South Africa's rail network was also run down and looted by its new black managers (this gets monotonous after a while). Half of drivers had fake licenses. Exporters deserted the unmaintained rail network. 

Shocking no one, the sanitation system was also run down and looted, meaning garbage everywhere. 

Whites are treated as tax cattle, blacks as aristocrats by the education system. Whites are groomed for entrepreneurship, blacks for no-show jobs based on taxing them. 

Indians provided crucial financial backing for the ANC during apartheid. This did not save them from getting thrown under the bus for blacks. 

Mbeki tried to eliminate his chief rival, Zuma, by means of a fake rape accusation. Seems familiar. Did not work.  

ANC renamed a bunch of towns founded by whites after literally fictional black towns, inventing history from whole cloth. 

Apartheid provided health, order, and growth. The ANC failed at all three. 

The apartheid government also controlled the borders; the ANC opened them to millions of African immigrants and refugees. This with unemployment at 50%. 

Apartheid supporters were 100% correct about the consequences of majority rule, opponents were wrong . The author, despite meticulously documenting ongoing collapse in South Africa, still doesn't regret fighting apartheid, which I view as intolerably shortsighted and cowardly.  

Links - 27th June 2026 (1 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Jerusalem of Iron 🇮🇱 עם ישראל חי on X - "Richard Greene: "In conversations I've had with young people about their deep hatred of Israel here in Europe I've come up with some startling conclusions.
1. There seems to be a strong consensus that Israel should NOT have attacked back after the October 7 attacks on them. There are two reasons for this:
a) No matter what, children do not deserve to die and if ANY response would kill innocent children, then it is immoral.
b) That attacking back only perpetuates a potentially endless cycle of war.
2. When I ask the obvious follow-up question, "Well, what SHOULD Israel/Netanyahu have done?" the overwhelming, and immediate, answers have been, "I don't know but, definitely, not what they did!"
3. Most do not know that Hamas continued, virtually every day, to attack Israel AFTER October 7, and fired over 30,000 rockets into CIVILIAN areas of Israel. And when they were informed the answer was, "It doesn't matter".
4. The concept of self-defense and fighting to stop FUTURE attacks seems to be impossible for them to grasp. They reflexively default to "Retaliation", and that retaliation by a stronger army is someone inherently unfair, especially if it kills innocent children.
5. The extremely limited pre-frontal cortex operations continue. When informed of the horrific, barbaric actions of Hamas, and even their extremist goals to destroy Israel, and Jews, the almost unanimous and instant response is "Not all Palestinians are Hamas". Or, "The children Israel is killing are not Hamas".
6. The valid statement that what Israel did was NOT a "Genocide" is seen as incredibly technical, semantic, legal and insensitive. And almost useless against the emotional and incessantly repeated claims to the contrary. And, yes, innocent children were killed by Israel so it must, to them, be something as horrible as "genocide", or perhaps even worse.
7. Reminding people about the horrific actions against Muslims, or Christians, in the streets of Iran, in Yemen, in Somalia and so many other places is useless. It truly seems that the funny phrase, "No Jews, No News" is actually a thing. And double standards seem to be an inexorable part of that.
8. There is virtually zero understanding about the dangerous, extremist agenda of Islamists and Jihadists. In fact, at a tennis tournament I spoke with someone who actually works at The UN in Geneva and asked her whether it was true that people in Europe are increasingly uncomfortable with the growing influence, and terrorism from Muslims. She scolded me for even suggesting that any group can be generalized and said, boldly, that there are far more incidents of Right Wing Terrorism in Europe than from Muslims. The facts are that Islamic violent acts account for 41% and Right Wing only 5% in Europe. (Shocking, I know, that someone from The UN could be so clueless : )
Botton line: Attempting to even plant seeds of a different perspective with young "Free Palestine"/"Israel is Evil" believers is about as effective as trying to reason with hard-core MAGA Trump supporters. It's a cult and the virtue signaling and protests . . . and seeing those on social media - over and over and over again - has reinforced all of the above positions, no matter how inane or insane, to a very high degree.
So, what to do?
1. Educate about the stated goals of Islamism and Jihadism Virtually no one understands that a SIGNIFICANT percentage of those following Islamic teachings dream of and work towards a "Global Caliphate" where EVERYONE is Muslim. And virtually no one knows that the destruction of Israel, and the killing of all "infidels" is the stated goal of many Islamic groups, especially the "Twelver Shia" sect which is headquartered in Iran.
2. Go on offense The Woke Left and Woke Right and most young people around the world are happy to go on offense against Israel . . . and do it with almost every sentence. It's even become cool to say vicious things about an entire country.
So, it is absolutely fair to no longer agree to be the punching bag for the world.
Here are some suggestions . . .
*"Why do you support Genocide?" Hamas and Hezbollah are actually committed, in writing, to the actual genocide of the Jewish people. *"Why do you support Gender Apartheid against women? You know that virtually every one of Israel's enemies - both entire countries and, of course, Hamas and Hezbollah, treat women VERY differently than men. Second, or even third class citizens or, as some Islamist Clerics say, like "cows".
*Why don't you support Free Speech?
*Why don't you support LGBTQ Rights?
*Why don't you support Democracy?
*Why don't you support Abortion Rights? (And did you know that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where women CAN get abortions legally . . . and that they even provide free abortions to Palestinian women who go there from Gaza?)
*Why is it so important to you that The Muslim Messiah, "The Mahdi" return to Earth to save the Muslim people? (Please do some research on Twelver Shia Islam. THIS is the motivation for Iran to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, The Houthies and other proxies to destroy Israel. Not kidding.
*Why didn't you protest against 40,000 INNOCENT Iranian protesters who were shot - point blank - in the streets of Iran FOR protesting? Do you hate young Iranian men and women?""
"White" people are not allowed to defend themselves
Relentlessly criticising Israel while refusing to say what they should have done is proof of their bias - like a teacher who always marks a student wrong while refusing to reveal what the right answer is

Maarten Boudry on X - "Political scientist Sven Biscop, a former colleague at @UGent , is an intelligent and erudite scholar who consistently offers nuanced analyses of geopolitics. He demonstrates that once again in this interview for @demorgen .   That he nevertheless resorts to such nonsensical non sequiturs when answering the question about whether Israel has committed “genocide” in Gaza has, in my view, only one plausible explanation: the social cost of giving an honest answer has become too high.  First, the displacement of a population does not constitute “genocide” under the UN Genocide Convention. Biscop knows this. Both legally and morally, forcibly relocating a group is fundamentally different from systematically exterminating it. Had the Nazis simply deported the Jews to Madagascar — a plan they once considered — instead of liquidating them on an industrial scale in killing squads and gas chambers, that would clearly not have constituted genocide.  What about the charge of “ethnic cleansing” then — a weaker accusation than genocide, but still a grave crime? That too is demonstrably false in this context. Roughly 20% of Israel’s population within its internationally recognized borders consists of Palestinians (Arab Muslims). They enjoy civil rights, and there is no concrete plan to expel them from Israel. There are extremists in the Knesset and in Netanyahu’s cabinet who might wish otherwise, but their views have not translated into policy. Even in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians continue to live there. Many of them were allowed to return following the ceasefire. In what sense, then, does this amount to “ethnic cleansing”?   In the West Bank, you can at least have a reasonable discussion about whether the violence of extremist settlers (and the tacit support or indifference from Israeli government officials) amounts to "ethnic cleansing".   But "genocide"? One by one, I see intelligent colleagues — some even specialists in the Holocaust — endorsing the claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. I will not repeat here why I consider that accusation both obscene and absurd; I have addressed it at length in @Quillette  (note that no Dutch or Flemish newspaper was willing to publish that piece — perhaps because they realize it would provoke a storm of controversy):  https://maartenboudry.substack.com/p/they-dont-be lieve-it-either   Most striking is that some of them appear only half convinced themselves, as evidenced by the non sequiturs they advance. Why is that? Simple: everyone knows what happens today if you refuse to pay lip service to this claim — social ostracism, waves of hostility, calls for dismissal. The rector of Sven Biscop’s university has even stated that anyone questioning the genocide in Gaza crosses a “red line” that should not be crossed.   In such a stifling and intimidating environment, serious debate becomes nearly impossible."
Academic freedom only exists so Marxist academics can push the left wing agenda

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib | Facebook - "Endless aid money for Gaza? In countless Washington conversations about Gaza’s reconstruction, one thing has become unmistakably clear: attitudes and institutional thinking have barely shifted since the horror of October 7 and the devastation that followed. Too many policymakers and aid veterans still frame Gaza’s future as a matter of restoring large aid flows — a technocratic problem of resource allocation — rather than confronting the deeper failure of the NGO, charity, aid, and development industries that entrenched Hamas’s rule for two decades and helped set the conditions for October 7. It is astonishing that many of the same personalities who profited from “developing” Gaza now expect to return as architects of its recovery. At a recent think‑tank event, I met one such figure — someone who oversaw vast reconstruction contracts and whose negligence enabled Hamas to divert enormous quantities of materials into its tunnel network. This individual casually remarked that “aid should be restored to pre‑war levels, and that should be enough,” revealing a mindset concerned only with reviving their personal fiefdom, not rebuilding Gaza. Under Hamas, every NGO operating in Gaza had to register first with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and then with Hamas in Gaza. Hamas demanded board lists, funders, staff names, and full financial transparency — and assigned an internal security officer to monitor each organization. International NGOs complied with these requirements, even as those same NGOs refused similar requests from the Israeli military after the ceasefire. Compliance with Hamas became the price of doing business. Meanwhile, the sheer volume of aid flowing into Gaza allowed Hamas to survive financial sanctions and maintain multiple revenue streams — from the PA, the UN, Qatar, Iran, local taxation, and the group’s own foreign donors. Add to this the sprawling ecosystem of international NGOs, and the outcome was predictable: no sustainable development, no equitable distribution of aid, no functioning institutions, and no pathway to peace. Instead, aid became a welfare system that trapped Gazans while enriching an industrial complex of NGOs, consultants, Hamas operatives, and a compromised civil society incapable of resisting Hamas’s diversion of billions toward tunnels, weapons, and preparations for October 7 — all in violation of humanitarian neutrality. Gaza’s reconstruction cannot rely on the same apparatuses, personnel, systems, or approaches that failed so catastrophically. Repeating them will simply allow Hamas to reconstitute itself and ensure that radicalization persists, while Gaza remains stuck without transformation, cultural renewal, economic revival, strategic reinvention, or a viable future in the region."

Maarten Boudry on X - "You know what’s striking? Almost no one even bothers anymore to address the substance of the accusation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Every time I post about this, the reactions fall into two categories:
➡️“This is semantic hair-splitting and nitpicking. Who cares what you call it? Why are you so obsessed with that word?”  So 𝘐’𝘮 obsessed with the word? For over two years, everyone and their dog has been forced to ritually utter the g-word: newspapers, politicians, academics, NGOs. No other denunciation of Israel’s war would satisfy the activists. And now, all of a sudden, it’s “just semantics”? We’re talking about the “crime of crimes” here, a separate category of evil coined after the greatest atrocity of the modern era. This attitude reveals an astonishing flippancy that we would never tolerate in any other context (“The West committed genocide in Mosul and Raqqa!” / “Churchill committed genocide in Dresden!”).
 ➡️ “Here’s a list of organizations that say it is a genocide. Checkmate.”  This is pure argument from authority — and a weak one at that. NGOs are unelected, self-appointed cliques increasingly infected by ideology, not scientific bodies with rigorous quality standards. Besides, that near-unanimity is precisely my point: every NGO and academic department has been pressured for more than two years to publish its own sham report concluding “genocide,” regurgitating the same laundry list of fabricated or distorted quotes supposedly proving “intent,” and copying each other’s shoddy arguments. It’s the worst kind of citation ring.
But something has shifted. The remarkable unwillingness of these people to actually defend their case betrays its weakness (https://maartenboudry.substack.com/p/they-dont-be lieve-it-either ). Deep down, they realize this whole thing is nonsense from start to finish.  When the dust settles, this canard will go down in history as one of the greatest lies of our time. No other form of “fake news” has enjoyed such enthusiastic support from cultural and academic elites. Many colleagues and friends have deeply disappointed me here, because they either failed to speak out against this lie or caved under pressure and uttered the g-word themselves (I won’t mention names — there are too many anyway).  I hesitated to use the term at first, but I think Steven Pinker (@sapinker ) is right: this is the modern version of the “blood libel,” the medieval fable that Jews used the blood of Christian children in the preparation of matzah for Passover."

CG Idit Shamir 🇨🇦🇮🇱 on X - "🇨🇦 - In a display of moral clarity one has come to expect from the finest academies, Professor Ardi Imseis of Queen’s University informed the Canadian Parliament that Hamas, a group officially recognized as a terrorist entity by Canada itself, is merely a “non-state armed group” engaged in “resistance” against an “occupying force,” striking only “legitimate military objectives.”  Since 2005, no Israeli troops or civilians remained in Gaza until after the October 7, 2023 massacre.   Burning babies alive in their cribs, gang-raping women at a peace festival, and machine-gunning families in their homes on October 7th must, one supposes, count as the very apex of legitimate resistance in the refined atmosphere of Queen’s Law.  How bracing to witness such intellectual honesty."

EDITORIAL: Forget Gaza, Mr. Carney. Worry about our streets | Toronto Sun - "It has become shockingly apparent that this country has become institutionally antisemitic. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it’s commonplace for Jewish businesses, retail stores and institutions to be attacked and shot up. Rarely is anyone held to account.  Pro-Hamas mobs routinely take over our streets. Only occasionally does any one of our cowardly leaders — our mayors, our MPs, our prime minister — raise their head above the flak to denounce it. When they do, it’s lip service. Nothing changes.  This week, the group Montreal4Palestine took to the streets of that city, displaying effigies of Israeli and U.S. politicians, as well as Jews, being hanged alongside a Canadian flag... these events occurred in Canada. In 2026. In broad daylight and in front of numerous witnesses. Yet, what are Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand fretting about?  Not Jews living peaceable lives in Canada. No, they’re irate over the treatment of Canadian activists who set out in a flotilla to insert themselves into the Gaza war."
We're still told that left wingers don't hate their countries. Time to obsess over how the January 6th protesters erected a scaffold for Mike Pence. You're only allowed to threaten the left's enemies, which is good, and if you criticise that you hate freedom of speech

Meme - "Exactly. This is about Jew-hating, not care for the dead.
Israel/Gaza. Saudi/Houthis
Total people killed ~37,000 (just as of 2021) ~377,000
Dead civilians ~16,000 (just as of 2018) ~85,000
People displaced ~2M maximum  (just as of 2020) ~4M minimum
Canada sold weapons to side with the upper hand Yes, Yes
Value of Canadian military exports in 2023 ~$31M ~$905M
Jews can be blamed Yes, No
Widespread protests Yes, No"
"I'm reading 100,000 children starved to deaths in the Saudi/Houthi war. I think your dead civilian number are on the low side."
From "

Exclusive: Chief heart surgeon at Jewish General Hospital quits province amid rising antisemitism in Montreal - "  The chief of cardiac surgery at the Jewish General Hospital has tendered his resignation and plans to move to Atlanta in September, citing rising antisemitism in Montreal and worsening problems with the province’s health-care system, The Gazette can reveal.  Dr. Emmanuel Moss, who has worked at the Jewish General for the past 10 years, has already informed his patients and his synagogue of his imminent move to the United States. Moss’s departure makes him the second high-profile Montreal Jew — after Concordia University professor Gad Saad — to decide this spring to quit the city amid a sharp increase in documented antisemitic incidents in the past three years."
Time to crack down on the "far right" to keep Jews safe. Montreal needs to do more to combat Islamophobia, because no one is safe until everyone is safe, and the same "white nationalists" going after Jews hate Muslims too

Mor Edge Insight on X - "Remember the European Hospital in Khan Younis last May?  Israel struck a targeted site there, and the world lost its mind.   Palestinians denied any tunnel existed underneath. The UN and European governments rushed to condemn Israel for attacking a “hospital.” Outrage, headlines, accusations of war crimes… the usual script.  Then June came.  The IDF took international media into the very same location and showed them the tunnel… a full Hamas command center, right under the emergency room.   Weapons, rooms, infrastructure. And yes, that’s where they found and confirmed the body of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s top military commander and brother of Yahya Sinwar.  The strike that killed one of the architects of October 7 was surgically precise, and entirely justified.  Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, hospitals and other medical facilities lose their protected status when they are used for military purposes, such as command centers, weapon storage, or troop movements. By deliberately turning the European Hospital into a Hamas base, the terrorists themselves stripped it of any legal protection.  Not a single apology from the UN or the European governments that rushed to condemn Israel. Not one admission they were wrong. They simply moved on to the next round of accusations.  This is the pattern. Hamas hides its terror infrastructure under civilian sites, uses hospitals as shields, and the international community reliably attacks the defender for responding, only to be proven wrong again and again and again when the evidence emerges.  How many times does this have to happen before the world stops falling for it?"

Oxford Union president said Hamas would be ‘lauded as heroes’ - "The Oxford Union president said Hamas would be “lauded as heroes” and claimed that their actions were “proportional”.  Arwa Elrayess also suggested it was “quite rich” for people to “act shocked” by the October 7 atrocities, given the harsh treatment of Palestinians by Israel, according to leaked messages... It is the latest scandal to engulf the union, coming just months after its previous president was ousted following comments he made that appeared to celebrate the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the Right-wing US influencer... Challenged by a fellow student in the group, who said: “I’m amazed that you are essentially describing Hamas’s actions as ‘proportional’”, Ms Elrayess responded: “I am, actually. In fact, some would argue it’s less than proportional.  “Have you seen what Israel has put Palestinians through for decades???”... the Oxford Union’s ball, organised by Ms Elrayess, partnered with the Palestinian Forum in Britain, a British organisation that “seeks to raise the profile of Palestine’s culture, its concerns and its community”.  The group has long been associated with Zaher Birawi, who has been described as a “Hamas operative” and a “serious national security risk” to the UK... Ms Elrayess is Palestinian, and has spoken about how her family had to flee from Gaza to Syria in the 1960s before they were able to return following the Oslo Accords.  The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has praised her for being the “first Palestinian elected president of the Oxford Union in its 202-year history” and for “championing open debate on human rights, justice, and equality”."
Weird. We're told that no one supports terrorists

Oxford student subjected to anti-Semitic smear campaign in Union election - "he travelled to Israel with around two dozen other Oxbridge students as part of a trip organised by the Pinsker Centre think tank. Over nine days, the group met Israelis and Palestinians to better understand the Gaza conflict.  The Telegraph reported on the trip earlier this year after one of the party, Bradley Smart, 21, a Cambridge University student, faced death threats from fellow students upon his return to campus.  In Mr Ashworth’s case, he had deliberately not posted about the trip on social media, but another student was less cautious and posted a picture which showed him in the background.  Upon his return to Oxford, he was told by friends that news of his visit was spreading around the university.  A few days later, the Cherwell student newspaper mentioned his trip in an editorial, in which he was referred to by the nickname “John Minor” – a play on John Major, the former prime minister. At the time, Mr Ashworth was standing to become the secretary of the union, one of its most senior positions and viewed as a stepping stone to the presidency.  Memes and posts about him started to appear on two Facebook groups for union politics called “union memes for power hungry teens” and “union memes for power hungry teens in exile”.  Around 10 posts were made over the course of two weeks on the pages, which have around 600 followers between them.  One of them edited a picture of him onto a screenshot from the website Track AIPAC – a website that tracks Israel lobby spending in US politics – to suggest he was being funded by Israel.  This post received a laughing emoji from Mr Abaraonye, who was forced out of the union last October after it emerged he had shared messages celebrating the death of Kirk. Another post, which depicted Mr Ashworth posing with soldiers in the Israel Defence Forces, said: “Ben Netanyahu Trashworth doesn’t want people to see these photos of him smiling and posing with the genoicidal (sic) Israeli armed forces!”  A comment beneath said: “We have an IOF sympathiser hugging soldiers in Israel whilst Gaza is being bombed to filth and he wants us to vote him in as officer and trust him with a Union position. Shame on you.”  It also accused him of “openly sharing your complicity and support in genocide and occupation”.  Mr Ashworth said: “I quickly found out how widespread anti-Semitic sentiment was in Oxford. Nigh immediately, student members of the Oxford Union began to weaponise my visit to Israel in order to destroy my reputation.  “Though I am not Jewish, Union members deployed anti-Semitic tropes in their attacks on me.” Mr Ashworth had been running for election as part of an electoral pact of fellow students, but was dropped from this amid the barrage of abuse."
You're not allowed to find out for yourself and meet real people. You must accept what terrorist supporters claim, or you're a bad person and funded by the Israel lobby

Recognition of Palestine risks undermining the legal order Australia claims to defend | The Spectator Australia - "The central legal problem is straightforward: what exactly is Australia proposing to recognise?  No coherent answer has yet been provided. Indeed, the intellectual and pragmatic behemoth that is Senator Claire Chandler, showed the active farce of what the Australian Labor Party is recognising through their inability to answer the most basic questions pertaining to this matter. The borders of the proposed state remain undefined. Would the state include Gaza? The so-called West Bank (actually Judea and Samaria)? East Jerusalem? Areas under Israeli security control? Territories presently governed by Hamas? International law traditionally requires some degree of territorial certainty before statehood can be meaningfully recognised.   This is where the Montevideo Convention becomes critically important.  The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States remains the most widely cited articulation of the criteria for statehood under customary international law... These requirements are not mere technicalities. They exist because statehood is among the most consequential statuses in international law. Recognition confers legitimacy, diplomatic standing, treaty capacity, and sovereign protections. If states can simply be recognised absent the Montevideo criteria, statehood ceases to be a legal concept and instead becomes an ideological or political reward; a dangerous precedent.  The difficulties become immediately apparent when the Palestinian situation is examined against the Montevideo framework.  First, there is no clearly defined territory. Gaza along with Judea and Samaria are politically and administratively fragmented. Borders remain disputed. Governance arrangements differ radically between regions. Sovereign authority is contested. Indeed, Palestinian political organisations themselves disagree over territorial claims and constitutional arrangements.  Secondly, the criterion of effective government is deeply problematic.  Gaza has long been controlled by Hamas, an organisation designated as terrorist by Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Hamas and its supporters did not merely engage in armed conflict against Israel on October 7, 2023. It carried out mass murder, hostage-taking, torture, and sexual violence against civilians. Rewarding the broader Palestinian national movement with recognition shortly after such atrocities risks creating a dangerous precedent in international affairs: namely, that political violence can accelerate diplomatic gains.  Judea and Samaria presents different but equally serious problems. The Palestinian Authority does not exercise full sovereign control over the territory it claims. Its powers remain heavily constrained by the (arguably problematic) Oslo Accords, particularly the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (Oslo II). Those agreements explicitly divided administrative and security authority and restricted the Palestinian Authority’s independent sovereign functions, including aspects of foreign relations.  This matters because statehood requires more than symbolic administration. It requires genuine sovereign governmental capacity. Thirdly, the capacity to enter into international relations independently remains legally uncertain. A government whose authority is fractured between rival factions, dependent on external actors, and constrained by prior agreements cannot easily satisfy the Montevideo requirement of independent international capacity...   Article 80 of the United Nations Charter preserved certain rights arising under League of Nations mandates. The British Mandate for Palestine recognised the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land and supported the establishment of a Jewish national home. Whatever one’s political position on modern Israeli policy, it is historically and legally inaccurate to portray Jewish claims to Judea and Samaria as recent colonial inventions. Importantly, this article recognise the Jewish people’s rights to Israel, including Judea and Samaria.  A succinct interjection pertaining to history is warranted here. The Jewish connection to Jerusalem, Hebron, Judea and Samaria predates Islam, Christianity, and indeed most modern nation states... Historical context also matters when discussing Palestinian identity itself. Prior to the rise of the Egyptian Yasser Arafat and the modern Palestine Liberation Organisation, the term ‘Palestinian’ was used as a regional or geographic description rather than a distinct national identity. Indeed, even many contemporary Arabs state that ‘Palestinian’ are not an ethnic group...  Under Arafat and through expert guidance by the Soviet KGB, however, Palestinian identity increasingly transformed into a revolutionary nationalist project rooted in antisemitic ideology broadly, and centred largely upon opposition to Israel and Zionism (which is simply that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel and have the right to self-determination). Critics argue that aspects of this movement incorporated explicitly antisemitic rhetoric...   Modern international discourse frequently ignores the Jewish indigenous connection. Yet instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognise the significance of ancestral and historical ties to land. International law cannot selectively invoke indigeneity for some groups while dismissing it for Jews. This would in fact be an example of the very definition of antisemitism... the author has been twice assaulted by ‘pro-Palestinian’ thugs in Brisbane, denied service in a business in front of staff for being ‘visibly Jewish’, and was removed from their very successful academic role at one university after speaking out against the October 7 atrocities (specifically those of pertaining to sexual violence)... unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood should reasonably be interpreted by Australians as rewarding the worst types of terror imaginable.  The rule of law depends upon consistency. International law loses legitimacy if legal standards are selectively abandoned for political convenience, especially if they are perpetually targeting Jews, just as the UN currently does...   A durable peace between Israelis and ‘Palestinians’ will almost certainly require compromise, negotiation, and eventual coexistence. But genuine peace cannot emerge from diplomatic gestures that ignore unresolved questions of sovereignty, governance, terrorism and legality. Not to mention, us Jews have tried all of this before, in good faith."
The clearest and simplest explanation of why anti-Zionism (which is not just criticism of Israel) is anti-Semitism is that it denies Jews the self determination that it so aggressively asserts for Arabs (and other non-"white" "minorities")