Links - 31st October 2025 (1 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Eitan Fischberger on X - "Qatar's Prime Minister just referred to Israel as the "enemy." Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister has stated that "We are all Hamas." What else is there to say?"

Meme - Aviva Klompas @AvivaKlompas: "Have you noticed that the world is more outraged over Israel’s attempt to assassinate terror leaders than over the fact that the same terror group abducted this young man from a music festival and is now starving him to death underground."

International law supports Israel's strikes on terrorists - "When US Navy Seals flew deep into Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden in 2011, the world cheered and President Obama was rightly lauded for defending America, after the worst terror attack on US soil. Few, if any, stopped to ask whether Pakistan had consented, or the strike violated its sovereignty.  Yet when Israel takes out Hamas leaders in Doha, who were responsible for orchestrating the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, those same Western voices rush to castigate Jerusalem. The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding. What was deemed legitimate self-defence by the West for the United States, is suddenly branded “reckless” or “unlawful” when it is the Jewish state... First, it needs to be underscored that the Hamas terrorists that were targeted, were not “political leaders”. They were terror masterminds, involved in the planning, execution and direction of every facet of the war that Hamas launched on October 7, including the ongoing captivity of hostages.  Those responsible for the October 7 attacks, were not confined to Gaza. They were also directing the war, and the refusal to end it, from the luxury of their five-star hotels in Doha.  That made them legitimate military targets under international law, including Article 51 of the UN Charter, which enshrines every state’s inherent right to self-defence against an armed attack. Under the laws of armed conflict, states must also adhere to the principles of distinction, necessity and proportionality. Israel did precisely that.  Distinction requires that military force be directed only against combatants and military objectives. Hamas’s leaders, whether in Gaza or the ones targeted in Doha, are not neutral civilians; they are the architects of terror and the ongoing war. Their luxury suites in Doha functioned not merely as residences, but command centres, making them lawful military targets.  Meanwhile, proportionality prohibits attacks expected to cause excessive civilian harm compared to the concrete military advantage gained. By striking Hamas leaders with precision, Israel removed the masterminds of October 7, while avoiding widespread civilian casualties.   Israel was also left with no alternative. Only early this week, the United States put forward to the most comprehensive proposal to end this war once and for all, and release all the hostages, with President Trump calling on Hamas to accept the plan, cautioning “This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”  Like clockwork, Hamas rejected the deal, refusing to accept any terms that would require them to disarm. It should come therefore as absolutely no surprise that Israel carried out the strike in Doha. Faced with an enemy that refuses to end the war and release the hostages, Israel had no choice but to strike them militarily. But many in the West have rushed to the defence of Doha. Qatar is no Mother Theresa here. They have continued to play the duplicitous role of both pyromaniac and firefighter, trying to fool the world. Under the Hague Convention V of 1907, neutral states must not permit belligerents (or terrorists) to use their territory as a base of operations, but Qatar has done precisely the opposite. For years, Doha has perfected a cynical double game. On the one hand, it hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East and postures as an honest mediator in hostage talks. On the other, it grants sanctuary to Hamas leaders, peddles propaganda through Al Jazeera and allows its territory to be used to plan attacks against Israel and the ongoing captivity of the remaining 48 hostages in the dungeons of Gaza."

Visegrád 24 on X - "In 2021, under the direction of President Macron France bombed a wedding in Mali, killing 19 civilians and several terrorists. Today, President Macron condemns Israel for bombing a house in Doha in a strike which only killed terrorists."

Visegrád 24 on X - "150 Belgian anti-Israel activists have stormed the Israeli-owned defense company OIP Land Systems and destroyed armored vehicles that were about to be sent to the Ukrainian Army.  OIP has provided Ukraine with around 260 armored vehicles since the war started.  The attackers mistakenly believed the equipment at OIP was destined for Israel, not Ukraine, leading to the destruction of vehicles intended for Ukrainian forces and needed to hold back Russian assaults against Ukrainian defenders in the Pokrovsk area of the Donetsk region."

Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 on X - "🚨WATCH THIS NOW.  Van Jones is saying what needs to be said.  Jews are being firebombed in America. And the response from the so-called “progressive” crowd? 👉 “But what about Gaza?”  No one’s attacking Russian-Americans over Ukraine. No one’s attacking Ukrainian-Americans either.  So why the hell is it “understandable” when Jews get assaulted over a war in Israel?  Because Jew-hatred has been laundered through activism.  Jew-hatred has been disguised as social justice.  Hit like and repost. His message must be heard.  @VanJones68 , respect."

Labour MP says he's being 'intimidated by pro-Palestine protesters' who have hurled baked beans at him - and now the community 'is too scared to meet with him' - "Luke Charters, the MP for York Outer, said the activists have 'charged' him with genocide and used 'intimidating methods' to pressure him over the war in Gaza.  He said he has become a target in his home town and over the weekend, protesters with megaphones attempted to block entry to his office, scaring away his constituents.  Mr Charters has also claimed protesters chanting 'Labour, Labour, genocide' threw a can of baked beans at him at York's Pride parade earlier this month. Meanwhile in March, he says he found scratches on his car after being followed by a group of activists following a local Labour conference.  Mr Charters, whose wife Beth is due to give birth next week, described the events as 'serious and unsettling'... Mr Charters's comments on the protests come after a new report revealed that half of MPs feel unsafe because of threats made by the public. Meanwhile, last year a damning dossier disclosed by The Telegraph revealed almost 40 incidents of MPs and councillors being 'intimidated' by pro-Palestine protesters"
More suppression of pro-Palestinian speech! The UK government should be ashamed of the intimidation of peaceful protesters!

Thread by @EFischberger on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This has been one of the wildest weeks of information warfare in the Israel-Hamas-Gaza context I can remember.  The stories below — from just the past few days — each carry lessons, some familiar and some new, that are worth keeping front of mind 🧵
It started off with the pro-Hamas crowd claiming "victory" for abducting four IDF soldiers in Gaza.  The news spread lime wildfire across social media.  Except it never happened.  Lesson: Don't believe ANYTHING spread by the Hamas shills. Wait for evidence
Then we moved on to the coordinated Anti-Journalism campaign run by NGOs to paint Israel as deliberately targeting journalists.  What we uncovered — with a level of proof I’ve never seen before — shows direct collusion between the media and these NGOs. Just yesterday we were reminded that when people lean on so-called “expertise” — rather than the strength of an argument — there’s often nothing there.  Which is why we’re now left staring at the ashes of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
And today we get front-row seats to the collapse of Tony Aguilar’s life as he’s exposed as a massive fraud.  When someone appears out of nowhere with a story “too good to be true” and is instantly paraded on every network and podcast, odds are he’s a psyop"

Hashem on X - "Fact: Several Muslim countries have expelled large numbers of Palestinians, in each case, with no international outcry or accusations of “ethnic cleansing.” A few examples:
🔴 1970–71, Jordan expelled 50,000–70,000 Palestinians —Reason: Terrorism during Black September
🔴 1978, Egypt expelled at least 5,000 Palestinians —Reason: Crackdown on terrorism
🔴 1982–87, Lebanon expelled 35,000–50,000 Palestinians —Reason: Civil war and terrorist militia conflicts
🔴 1991, Kuwait expelled ~300,000 Palestinians —Reason: Retribution for perceived support for Iraq, and related terrorism and civil unrest
🔴 1994–95, Libya expelled 15,000–30,000 Palestinians. —Reason: Political fallout over the Oslo Accords and related terrorist threat
These expulsions, driven largely by Palestinian terrorism and civil unrest, involved brutal force, mass arrests and deportations, and little time for families to gather belongings. Yet, they sparked no global protests, no “Nakba” narratives, and minimal media coverage. Most remain obscure.
Contrast this with the “Nakba”: In 1948, so-called “Palestinians” left Israel expecting to return after an Arab coalition annihilated the Jews. This dramatically differs from the brutal and permanent expulsions by Arab states.  Many Muslim countries have historically — and continue — to treat Palestinians as nothing more than jihadi terrorist pawns against Jews and Israel. They won’t take a single Palestinian in, and many have just silently watched Qatar and the Islamic Republic of Iran turn Gaza and the “West Bank” into vile Islamic terror pits.   Israel, by contrast, faces intense scrutiny for any word of the Trump relocation plan, although its intentions are moral and just: to give Palestinians a chance to build lives related to something other than terrorism.   Effectively, Israel proposes to say “No” to the Islamic world’s historic oppression and barbaric treatment of Palestinians, and give them a chance at living like human beings.  So, questions for those offended by the proposed relocation of Palestinians:
1. Why all the criticism, while expulsions by Muslim countries have historically faced almost no backlash?
2. How do you explain the lack of global attention to the treatment and expulsions of Palestinians by Muslim countries compared to the focus on Israel’s actions?
3. If the goal is to improve the lives of Palestinians, how can you possibly justify keeping them in the Gazan terror pit rather than supporting relocation to safer, more stable environments?
4. How does maintaining the status quo in Gaza, as supported by the world’s biggest sponsors of Palestinian terrorism (Qatar, Iran, etc) have any hope of finally giving Palestinians an opportunity for some dignity?
If you support keeping Palestinians in Gaza, I have no idea how you can honestly also claim to care about Palestinians."

Pro-Palestinian health workers threaten to sue NHS trust over dress code - "Two doctors and a nurse are threatening to sue a London NHS trust over claims that its uniform discriminates against them because of their pro-Palestinian beliefs. A respiratory consultant has joined forces with a junior doctor and a nurse in a legal challenge to the dress code at the Barts Health Trust, which was imposed earlier this year. Lawyers for Aarash Saleh, a consultant at Whipps Cross Hospital; Sara Ali, a haematology registrar who previously worked at Royal London Hospital; and Ahmad Baker, a senior nurse at Whipps Cross, have claimed in a letter to managers that the policy amounts to indirect discrimination. They have claimed that the dress code prohibits staff from wearing or displaying items that might align with a “particular nation, political party, one side in a conflict or causes that are not directly linked to and supported by the trust or the NHS”... Their lawyers have argued that the policy breaches equality legislation “and fails to meet the standards of fairness and consultation expected of a large public body”. They also argue that the policy is disproportionate because it applies to all staff at all times, regardless of their role or location. The lawyer said that the trust’s consultation prior to implementing the policy was “incomplete”... They are also seeking compensation for “injury to feelings” that the three medical staff claimed to have suffered “and continue to suffer as a result of the policy”."
If you can't broadcast your political opinions at work, that's racist

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: The BBC has officially retracted its story, confirming the video of the IDF firing on Palestinians at an aid site was false. The question remains: If they could verify the truth in 24 hours, why didn’t they wait to verify it before publishing the lie?"

The BBC is still concerned with protecting the reputation of terrorists - "the BBC does not have a general policy of refusing to call terrorists what they are. It rightly describes, for instance, the Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi as a “homegrown terrorist”; it calls survivors of that and the London Bridge attack “terror attack survivors” and calls the 2017 Westminster attack the “Westminster Terror Attack”. But when it comes to Hamas, the BBC censures its own presenters for stating reality."

'Palestine' can't just be 'conjured up': Douglas Murray blasts Carney - "Outspoken British journalist Douglas Murray has a blunt take on Israel’s strikes in Qatar, targeting Hamas’s leadership. “The scandal is not that Israel acted, but that it had to.” In an interview in Montreal with National Post, Murray, the bestselling author of On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization, offered a sharp and unapologetic view on Israel’s decision to target Hamas leaders in Doha. “Why are there terrorist leaders in Qatar?” he asked bluntly. “For years, Hamas commanders have lived openly in Doha — billionaires at the largesse of western taxpayers — ordering attacks on Israel while enjoying immunity. And the world has not only looked away, but protected them. That’s the mobster’s trick: you carry out violence on one hand, then present yourself as a peacemaker on the other. Qatar has played that double game for years, and the world has let them get away with it.”... “Canada is not in a position to create new states in the Middle East,” Murray said. “States are not conjured up by well-meaning western leaders. They must be plausible. And right now, a two-state solution is a fantasy. Hamas killed it on October 7. The idea that Canada could force one into existence is arrogance bordering on absurdity.”... In Murray’s telling, Carney is not merely misjudging foreign policy but risking Canada’s credibility on the world stage. “Who does he think he is?” Murray asked. “It is not Canada’s role to impose a solution in the Middle East. That era ended long ago.” Murray did not shy away from naming what many Jewish Canadians feel but fear to say: that the wave of vandalism and intimidation against synagogues, schools, and Jewish-owned businesses since October 7 is not protest, but domestic terrorism. “I’d be very surprised if the Canadian government would tolerate this level of violence if it were coming from white supremacists,” he said. “But because it’s under the banner of Palestine, it’s treated differently.” The aim of such extremism, he warned, is never limited to Jews. “The obsession with destroying Israel is just the first stage. Anyone who doubts that should listen to what is said openly at Palestinianist conferences in North America: first delegitimize Israel, then delegitimize America, and finally bring down the West.” His litmus test? “Find me one anti-Israel protest in Canada where the crowd proudly waves Canadian flags and sings O Canada at the end. You won’t find it.” Murray’s remarks in Montreal were not comfortable listening. They were not meant to be. He places today’s debates about Israel, the Palestinians, and western tolerance of extremism in the starkest possible terms: a struggle for the survival of civilization against those who would dismantle it from within... the battle is not only in the Middle East, but here at home — in the policies of Ottawa and in the streets of Montreal."

Europe’s Iron Dome plans at risk over anti-Israel backlash

Israeli conductor axed from festival over ‘lack of clarity’ on Gaza stance - "A Belgian music festival has cancelled a performance by an orchestra over a lack of clarity on its conductor’s views on Gaza.  The organisers of Flanders Festival Ghent said they scrapped the event by the Munich Philharmonic because Lahav Shani, an Israeli, had not “unequivocally” distanced himself from his government’s “genocidal” actions in Gaza."
Good luck if you persecute Muslims for not disavowing their governments' sins

Israel withdrew from Gaza once. It got Oct 7 in return - "Historically, this should be seen as the culmination of Israeli despair. The Oslo Accords were the final expression of the Left’s great project for peace, with a framework that would allow for the phased implementation of the two-state solution. They collapsed, however, when the Second Intifada was launched and Palestinian militants placed suicide bombs on buses around the country. The Accords have been frozen ever since.  The Left in Israel has never recovered from that spectacular failure, which had united most of the country in optimism for peace, only to have it dashed on the rocks of reality. It was in response to that disappointment that Ariel Sharon embarked upon a new attempt to win peace from the perspective of the Right.  His strategy was simple: unilateral withdrawal. Whether the Palestinians signed an agreement or not, Israel would pull out of contested territory, give the other side what they wanted, then shelter behind an “iron wall” and leave the Arabs to it. In some ways, this was the inheritance of the philosophy of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the ideological father of the Likud, who advocated secure separation from the Palestinians in an essay of that name. After the painful Gaza pull-out, there was a feeling on the Israeli side that they would finally be granted international legitimacy and support. After all, Israel had voluntarily accepted all demands upon it, regardless of Palestinian weakness, corruption and extremism. Now, Sharon said, if even one rocket is fired from Gaza onto our civilians, there will be zero ambiguity. The world would back us to the hilt.  Indeed, it was only his incapacity due to a stroke in 2006 that prevented his government from implementing the same policy on the West Bank. Looking back at this history in the light of the catastrophe that is upon us today, it is not only unbearably poignant but also revealing of Israeli attitudes.  The young life of the modern Jewish state has been one of idealism continually smashed by contact with a separate history of the Muslim world, which had left it with its own neuroses... Historians have suggested that the blood and soil nationalism of the likes of Adolf Hitler provided a vision of peoplehood to which Islamic societies – previously a network of tribal loyalties ruled by a distant Sultan – could readily relate... Christian anti-Semitism was initially resisted by much of the Muslim world, with the Ottomans generally siding with the Jews during the Dreyfus affair. But with the birth of Zionism in the 19th century and the rabid anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler, which filtered into the Islamic world through connections like the close relationship between the Nazis and Amin al-Husseini, the then-Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.  To this day, affection for the Führer not uncommon in the Muslim world, with Arabic editions of Mein Kampf often found on sale in bookshops. And the idea that the Jews, who for hundreds of years had been associated above all with weakness, often banned from bearing arms or even riding on horseback, could beat back Arab armies and establish a land of their own, was the ultimate insult. This, combined with the religious fanaticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, is what lies at the heart of Palestinian resistance to peace today. It is what led the Arabs of Gaza to respond to Israeli withdrawal by destroying their greenhouses in a frenzy of hatred. It is what led to the rejectionism of Mahmoud Abbas – who literally wrote a book about Holocaust revisionism – and the atrocities of October 7... In truth, the attack on New York also had anti-Semitic motives. During the 2006 trial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, a surviving member of the 9/11 cell, in Hamburg, a fellow Quran student testified that Motassadeq and his accomplices had chosen New York as “the centre of world Jewry”. Speaking in court, Motassadeq’s housemates recalled that he had boasted about a forthcoming “big action”, gushing: “The Jews will burn and in the end we will dance on their graves”... As Ariel Sharon discovered, however much Israel and the West may yearn for peace, it cannot be won with naïveté or wishful thinking, but only determination, resilience, conviction and creativity. Peace through strength. Those weakling and ignorant nations lining up to recognise a state of Palestine must take careful note."

Top NHS doctor suspended over ‘anti-Semitic’ tweets - "An account which appeared to be linked to Dr Ellen Kriesels, a consultant paediatrician and clinical lead for community paediatrics at Whittington Health NHS Trust, described Hamas as “oppressed resistance fighters, not terrorists”.  Statements posted by the account also claimed the reaction to the October 7 attacks on Israel was “always trying to frame the Jews as victims. So ridiculous. So excruciating. So exhausting.”... She was pictured with a placard featuring a flag of Israel – with the six points of the Star of David marked with the words “rape”, “steal”, “cry”, “lie”, “cheat” and “kill”... One post from the account linked to Dr Kriesels read: “Virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy (result of their Zionist upbringing) and they might oppose Zionism, but they are not going to challenge their precious community.  “That just doesn’t feel right to them!”... Anti-Semitism has surged since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7 2023.  A YouGov survey, commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), found that 45 per cent of the British public believes that Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated Jews.  The study suggested that more than one in five Britons (21 per cent) now hold or agree with four or more allegedly anti-Semitic statements. In 2021, the figure was just 11 per cent... In one post, the account compared the plight of Palestinians to Black Lives Matter and Me Too campaigns."
We all know she really meant "Zionists", not "Jew", so there's nothing to see here
Terrorism supporters are right that Palestinians are like Black Lives Matter and Me Too campaigners, but not for the reasons they think

Family of disabled Jewish boy report doctor over antisemitic tweets - "On her X account, Kriesels has claimed that “virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy”, which she attributed to their “Zionist upbringing”, and that “the secular Jews are very much part of all this evil and they certainly have feelings of supremacy”... she said Israel’s military occupation of Gaza was “evidence” that “Jews are slaughtering Palestinians precisely because they are not Jewish”, adding that “world Jewry” was “largely complicit or silent”. She also claimed that members of Hamas should “not have been killed either” during Israel’s offensive following the October 7 atrocity, describing them as “oppressed resistance fighters” and “not terrorists”... In June last year, Kriesels had visited the Jewish boy for an outpatient appointment at his specialist school but was confronted by his mother who had seen that she was wearing a lanyard with a pro-Palestine slogan. An argument ensued and Kriesels was asked to stop the consultation.  The mother filed a complaint to the Whittington Health NHS Trust, although this was resolved when she received reassurances from the hospital. In June last year it reminded all staff it was not acceptable for them to wear “lanyards or badges or to display materials such as posters or leaflets which express or suggest a political standpoint whilst at work”. However, in May this year the family learnt that their son, who has cerebral palsy and a number of other conditions, had not been referred for specialist treatment at University College London Hospitals Trust as part of his transition to adult medical care. The referral, the family was told during their son’s annual medical review, should have been made by Kriesels."
Damn Zionists suppressing pro-Palestinian speech! Clearly there's nothing political about opposing genocide!

Palestine recognition ‘rewards Hamas’, says PM’s former extremism tsar, Lord Walney - "Lord Walney, who served as the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption until February, said the decision marks “a low point for Britain’s international influence”.  The move risks sending a message that “terrorism can be rewarded” and could embolden anti-Semitic behaviour domestically, he warned. More than one in five Britons now hold or agree with anti-Semitic views, a YouGov survey, commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism found last week – almost double the figure in 2021.  The study found 10 per cent of young people have a “favourable view” of Hamas, and 14 per cent of them believe it is wrong to class Hamas as terrorists."

Spain is fantasising about nuking Israel. This derangement has to stop - "Donald Trump’s violation of diplomatic norms has been widely lamented, and not without good cause. But even America’s craziest president has not – so far, at least – fantasised about nuking another liberal democracy.  Not so for Pedro Sánchez, the socialist Spanish prime minister... Aside from the headspinning notion of Spanish nuclear dreams, how astonishing that of all the countries that could top Madrid’s hitlist, the likes of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran were pipped to the post by the Middle East’s only democracy... Imagine the furore if a European leader had directed similar comments at Britain, the United States or France when we fought our controversial wars in Iraq or Libya. Yet the story barely made the news.  Welcome to the social contagion of the Western elites: Israel Derangement Syndrome... Such is the ubiquity of Israel Derangement Syndrome that society no longer turns a hair. We saw it this week when Israel’s chess team was hounded out of a tournament in the Basque Country; when Gary Linker was voted Best Presenter (imagine if his rat emoji had tagged Muslims rather than Jews); and when Spain joined Slovenia, Ireland and the Netherlands in threatening to pull out of Eurovision unless Israel was expelled.  Footnote: on Friday, the chair of Ireland’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, who had spearheaded the Eurovision boycott, was ejected from an LBC interview after she refused to condemn the “grotesque crimes” of Hamas. As Rick Sanchez remarks in Rick and Morty: “Your boos mean nothing. I’ve seen what makes you cheer.” So successful has Israelophobic brainwashing become – blame social media, legacy media, the United Nations, NGOs, universities and the Government – that slamming Israel is a now a populist move. Yet heed the parable of Dr Faustus.  Israel enjoys a booming economy, even during wartime. It has the highest birth rate in the OECD, far above replacement level, and a young society. It understands defence, enjoying its most militarily dominant position since 1967. Its people are resilient and innovative, relying on each other rather than the state, and view themselves as one big family.  This has made it one of the happiest countries on Earth by international rankings, with deaths of despair, addiction and crime exceptionally low. All this flows from its common-sense refusal to jettison its peoplehood while upholding democracy. The catastrophe of Britain and Europe, by contrast, shows the folly of sacrificing our selfhood on the altar of the liberal experiment. If our economy, immigration, defence, birth rate, tax burden, national debt, cultural coherence, happiness and national pride follow their current trajectory, in a decade we will be finished while Israel thrives. Boycott while you can."

Hen Mazzig on X - "What is a paragraph like this doing in the New York Times report about an antisemitic murder committed by a Free Palestine activist? “Most of which have been nonviolent”? Seriously? You're publishing this statement today of all days?"
Samuel Stern on X - "It’s the resurrection of the “mostly peaceful protest” 🙄"

The Mossad: Satirical and Awesome on X - ""Israel kills 500 at Al-ahli hospital"
The media admitted that the claim was false, after the damage had been done.
"14,000 children will die of starvation in 48 hours"
The media admitted that the claim was false, after the damage had been done.
"Israel killed 31 Palestinians while delivering food."
The media admitted that the claim was false, after the damage had been done.
"IDF raped and killed women at al-Shifa hospital"
The media admitted that the claim was false, after the damage had been done.
"Israeli forces targeted medical teams and Arabic speakers at Al-Shifa Hospital."
The media admitted that the claim was false, after the damage had been done.
"BBC releases documentary on children in Gaza"
BBC admits Hamas minister was paid for the documentary, after the damage had been done.
"Israel intentionally targets women and children"
Media admits reporting was inaccurate after data proved this false, after the damage had been done.
If you're not noticing a pattern yet, go get your brain checked."

Links - 30th October 2025 (2 - General Wokeness [including Bluesky])

Meme - Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion: "Even a site filled with bots and Nazis is apparently more appealing than the zombie husk of 2010s Cancel Culture"
Mike Bird @Birdyword: "It's been very nearly a year since the first big burst of Bluesky growth, driven by the brief Brazilian Twitter ban. As a result they're soon going to have negative year-on-year growth in posting, activity has been grinding lower since the inauguration."

Bluesky is backfiring. Mark Cuban says the 'lack of diversity of thought' is actually pushing users back to X | Fortune - "Between November 2024 and this May, Bluesky grew from about 10 million users to 30 million, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Many news influencers—people who regularly post about current events on the platform—lean left politically, according to the analysis.   One such figure was billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris during her presidential run in 2024, although he didn’t give her a penny for her campaign, he said in October. Cuban became a regular Bluesky user, having posted nearly 2,000 times since November 2024. When he first joined the platform, he famously posted: “Hello Less Hateful World.” But Cuban has changed his tune. In a series of posts this week, Cuban argued Bluesky has become too much of an echo chamber, and is sending more users back to X.   “Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist,” Cuban wrote. “We are forcing posts to X.”  The former Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner also said he thinks Bluesky users have “grown ruder and more hateful.”   “Even if you agree with 95% of what a person is saying on a topic, if there is one point that you might call out as being more of a gray area, they will call you a fascist etc.,” said Cuban, whose current net worth is about $8.33 billion, according to Bloomberg... “The lack of diversity of thought here is really hurting usage,” Cuban wrote in a separate Bluesky update including the Washington Post article. “The moderation and block tools on here are so advanced, if you see someone you don’t want to see on here, just block them.  Don’t attack them.”   “There used to be great give and take discussions on politics and news. Not so much any more,” Cuban added. “Doesn’t have to be this way.”"
For once, he's not wrong

Meme - "Disgraceful Patton"
The Daily...: "Tom Homan says he has received so much hate for his positions on immigration that he is unable to live safely with his family."
Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt.bsky.social: "good. i hope it gets so much worse for this rancid pile of polenta"
"So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, 'The good outnumber you, and we always will.'" - Patton Oswalt. LOL

Opinion | Bluesky’s decline stems from never hearing from other side - The Washington Post - "A recent Pew Research Center analysis found that many news influencers have Bluesky accounts (I’m one of them) but that, like me, two-thirds post irregularly. By contrast, more than 80 percent still post to X on most days. Engagement on Bluesky appears to have peaked in mid-November. It’s now down about 50 percent, and the decline shows no sign of leveling out... Nor is this process likely to be halted by organizing your pals and exhorting people to be better, or getting progressive writers to post to Bluesky before X. Yes, seeding platforms early with a small group of influential individuals can help it grow, as other users flock to be around them. But when that movement is organized by liberal groups, it’s most likely to appeal to folks who are very interested in progressive politics — which is to say, the other people who have already moved to Bluesky. You can’t blame them for trying, I suppose. But wait, actually, I can. Because even if this works, moving progressives off X into Bluesky’s beautiful blue bubble isn’t a great idea for the movement. This effort isn’t just a doomed attempt to re-create the old Twitter. It’s likely to sap already-waning progressive influence and make the movement itself less politically effective... For roughly a decade, Twitter hosted what is lightheartedly called the “national conversation” on issues of the day, particularly social justice and public health. Twitter never had that many users, compared with Instagram or Facebook. But it had a big group of influential users — politicians, policymakers, journalists and academics, all of whom were engaged in a 24/7 conversation about politics and current events. That was a boon to progressives, who wielded outsize influence on the platform because they were early adopters who outnumbered the conservatives. They were also better organized and better networked, and had the sympathy of Twitter’s professional-class employees, who proved increasingly susceptible to liberals’ demands for tighter moderation policies on things such as using male pronouns to refer to a transgender woman. Moderation suppressed conservative users and stories that hurt the left — most notoriously, the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which Twitter throttled as “disinformation” in the run-up to the 2020 election. Of course, progressive Twitter mobs also policed the discourse themselves, securing high-profile firings that made many people afraid to cross them. Thus, that national conversation ended up skewed toward liberal views, creating the illusion that their ideas were more popular than they actually were. That’s a major reason that institutions went all-in on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and why the 2020 Democratic primary field moved so far to the left that Kamala Harris was still struggling to backtrack four years later. All that changed when Musk bought Twitter. It’s not surprising that progressives want to return to the good old days. But it’s not working, and I’m skeptical it ever will. The people who have migrated to Bluesky tend to be those who feel the most visceral disgust for Musk and Trump, plus a smattering of those who are merely curious and another smattering who are tired of the AI slop and unregenerate racism that increasingly pollutes their X feeds. Because the Musk and Trump haters are the largest and most passionate group, the result is something of an echo chamber where it’s hard to get positive engagement unless you’re saying things progressives want to hear — and where the negative engagement on things they don’t want to hear can be intense. That’s true even for content that isn’t obviously political: Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who studies AI, recently announced that he’ll be limiting his Bluesky posting because AI discussions on the platform are too “fraught.” All this is pretty off-putting for folks who aren’t already rather progressive, and that creates a threefold problem for the ones who dream of getting the old band back together. Most obviously, it makes it hard for the platform to build a large enough userbase for the company to become financially self-sustaining, or for liberals to amass the influence they wielded on old Twitter. There, they accumulated power by shaping the contours of a conversation that included a lot of non-progressives. On Bluesky, they’re mostly talking among themselves. One can say the same about Truth Social, of course, but that’s not an example the left should be eager to emulate. Segregating yourself in a political silo amplifies any political movement’s worst tendencies, giving free rein to your most toxic adherents and cutting you off from vital feedback about, say, your unpopular tariff policies. Something similar has happened on Bluesky. The nasty fringe has become even nastier: A Bluesky technical adviser recently felt the need to clarify that “The ‘let’s tell anyone we don’t like to kill themselves’ crowd are not welcome here” because left-wing trolls kept urging people who disagreed with them to commit suicide. And without the leavening influence of their opponents, Bluesky discourse appears even more censorious and doctrinaire than what progressives were saying on old Twitter. When you never hear from the other side, it’s pretty easy to talk yourself into a political dead end. That might be enough for the political dead-enders. But it’s a terrible mistake for any political movement that actually hopes to rack up some durable victories."

Meme - Bluesky Libs: "Mark Cuban's Bluesky honeymoon is drawing to a close. Wonder when he'll realize - it's the not the platform, but the people. This is who they are, and always will be."
Mark Cuban @mcuban.bsky.social: "The replies on here may not be as racist as Twitter, but they damn sure are hateful.
Talk Al: FU, Al sucks go away
Talk Business: Go away
Talk Healthcare: Crickets.
Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist. We are forcing posts to X"

Colin Wright on X - "I checked in on BlueSky to see how people there are reacting to the release of the Israeli hostages, and it’s the eeriest thing. It’s not trending. There’s no mention of it on the “Explore” tab. I started scrolling the feed and went through hundreds of posts without seeing a single one that mentioned it. Instead, it’s all posts about Mamdani, John Oliver’s new episode criticizing Bari Weiss and Jamie Reed, the “No Kings” protest apparently happening this weekend, Taylor Swift, the Epstein Files, complaints about anti-vaxxers, and snarky takes insisting that Antifa doesn’t exist. That's it. It’s honestly blowing my mind how ideologically airtight that bubble is. If someone primarily gets their news by scrolling BlueSky, there’s a good chance they don’t even know that Trump negotiated a deal for the hostages and that they were released today. And what’s even more mind blowing is that this echo chamber is entirely self-imposed. They weren’t banned from X. They left voluntarily, specifically to avoid encountering news or perspectives that might challenge their narrative."

Meme - "Just a brown girl in the U.K right now sat in the train station watching people walk by, wondering who's racist who isn't"
Eva Vlaardingerbroek @EvaVlaar: "Us white girls sit at train stations wondering if we're going to be pushed in front of a train or stabbed in the throat.   But yeah, poor you."

Lukas (computer) 🔺 on X - "The entire left wing rhetorical strategy is just pretending they don't know things and praying people are too scared of being mean to explain them
"What do you mean he looks like a thug? He looks totally normal to me, there was no way to predict he would've stabbed her"
"What do you mean he's gay? He's dating a trans-woman. He's attracted to femininity. Is Trump gay for dating a woman too??"
It's just this one move, over and over and over The whole system breaks down as soon as people start responding honestly. These aren't difficult questions, literally everyone in the world knows the answers"

Meme - Mario: "Hey MAGA, define "leftist" for me. What exactly makes someone a leftist? Be specific. I'm listening."
Reddit Lies: "I fell for this trap a few years ago. Turns out literally every leftist has defined leftism differently and no matter how many you've talked to, they'll just claim "erm actually leftists believe Y, not just X" "
Millennial Woes @MillennialWoes: "It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to. understand things, thus making discourse impossible."

Dr Strangetweet or How I Learned to Love the RT on X - "Half of social media is Leftists not understanding things and the other half is Leftists not remembering history."
Joe M on X - "Don't forget the third half where they lie about everything and the fourth half where they are experts about literally everything. 🤣"
Left wingers go on about media literacy and dog whistles but are unable and/or unwilling to understand inconvenient truths

Meme - Ben Scallan 🇮🇪 @Ben_Scallan: "Note: there's not one prominent Leftist anywhere in the West doing what Charlie Kirk did, i.e. issuing an open debate challenge to all comers and saying "Here's my view, I invite you to try and prove me wrong". None of them are willing to subject their views to that scrutiny."
Melissa Chen @MsMelChen: "It’s because the left enjoyed cultural and institutional hegemony over the last decade. By refusing to debate, it helped to enthrone their ideological superiority.   Remember they had full control of the institutional stack. We are talking an end-to-end self-credentialing and consensus manufacturing loop.   It’s why Ibram X. Kendi refused to debate Coleman Hughes despite a significant sum of charity money on the table.   Any liberal who engaged with the other side (such as Bill Maher) was constantly pilloried for not observing ideological purity.   It was a way to gatekeep and ensure they could continue to masquerade completely mainstream views as “fringe.” It was successful.   Until Elon bought X and Substack challenged the corporate media"
"There is more diversity of thought on the political Right than on the political Left. Although they pride themselves on open-mindedness: liberal thinking actually coalesces around a very narrow set of opinion, whereas the Right diverges widely."
"FIGURE 2. Extracted attitude network. (a) A visual representation of the extracted attitude network revealing distribution of forty attitudes into two clusters. Note: Dark Blue Strong Disagreement: Pale Blue Moderate Disagreement; Grey = Neutral; Orange = Moderate Agreement; Red = Strong Agreement. (b) Two attitude clusters depicting latent Democrat (blue) and Republican (red) belief-systems."

Thread by @phl43 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "My guess is that it's a result of 2 factors:
1) people on the left are more intolerant, they demand greater ideological uniformity and punish deviation more severely
2) people on the left are higher-information on average, hence more likely to detect ideological deviation
I don't think it's really new, but the difference has probably increased in recent years, because social media have made 1 worse and educational polarization has made 2 worse. When I claim that left-wing people are more intolerant on average, they often get mad, but even putting aside that we have a ton of data showing that, as a right-winger who spends a lot of time in left-wing circles I'd say that you have to live in a parallel universe to deny it."

Meme - StarmerOut @ForeverScept: "Sadiq Khan would have been run out of any other country for saying this about their native population as a foreigner.  If I don't belong in my own capital city, then I should be under no obligation to pay taxation for it."
"White families just don't represent real Londoners say Khan's staff guidelines. Mayor forced to withdraw advice on which photos will best promote his brand after critics label it racist and divisive"

Man Utd warn fans they risk arrest over ‘Chelsea rent boys’ chant - "Fans have been told the word “rent boy” – a term for a male sex worker – has been considered a hate crime by the Football Association and the Crown Prosecution Service, and that those chanting it could be thrown out of the stadium, be subject of banning orders or face criminal charges... “Thus, the chant ‘Chelsea rent boy’ is effectively a homophobic insult that implies male Chelsea players and fans sell sex to other men.”"

Bob Vylan represent the worst of Britain - "There was much gnashing of teeth by the liberal establishment over the Tommy Robinson march. John Simpson, the BBC’s veteran reporter, spoke of his horror that “extremists and rich American ignoramuses” wanted to take “calm, peaceable, tolerant, rational, stable, essentially moderate” Britain away from him.  But when extremism comes from the Left, there seems to be silence. And perhaps it is that silence that has led to some people marching.  If we want to talk about extremists who represent the worst of Britain, yes, there is the convict Tommy Robinson, so beloved by the global far-Right, but there is also the punk rap duo Bob Vylan, whose violent chants from stages around the world shame our nation. The band’s frontman, Pascal Robinson-Foster, became famous overnight for his condemnation Zionists and cry of “Death, death to the IDF” from the Glastonbury stage, repeated by a rapturous crowd, which was aired on BBC iPlayer. By the time the BBC had taken it down and apologised, the chant “Death, death to the IDF” became a new global demand for the death of Israelis, echoing from Somerset in England to Melbourne in Australia, where it was subsequently repeated in anti-Israel demonstrations.  Although UK police are still investigating him over the Glastonbury incident, Robinson-Foster went one step further at a gig in Amsterdam’s Paradiso venue on Saturday night.  First, he gleefully rejoiced in the horrendous murder of American Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at a university event in Utah, grinning: ‘I want to dedicate this next one to an absolute piece of s--- of a human being.’  Miming a gun being shot, he added: “The pronouns was/were. Because if you talk s--- you will get banged. Rest in peace Charlie Kirk, you piece of s---.”  During the performance, he also allegedly urged attacks on Zionists. “F--- the Zionists,” he screamed. “Go find them in the streets.” And once again, he led the chant, “Death, death to the IDF.” Throughout it all, a rapturous crowd roared their approval of his screams of violence. That is the most chilling thing of all. His inflammatory comments came in a city which nearly a year ago some Dutch Muslims attacked Israeli football fans over two days of violence which they called going on a “Jew hunt.”... liberal leader Rob Jetten said that this was not freedom of speech which should mean people can “disagree with each other” without violence.  The murder of Charlie Kirk and the joy some on the Left have taken in it is a sign that something is deeply wrong in our society"

Far-leftists' motte-and-bailey arguments : r/EnoughCommieSpam - "I've been thinking about this lately, as a recovering insufferable terminally online arguer.  Leftists will say things like "my political views are literally that I don't want poor people to starve to death" or "just be a fucking decent human being" which sounds good. I'd go as far as to wager most people agree with those views.  But then when they go further into it, it's some hyper-specific offshoot of Marxist theory and they think anybody who doesn't agree with that exact niche politic is human trash.  It's really gotten on my nerves lately because it's so transparently disingenuous; I don't know if they know they're doing it and intentionally being manipulative or if they're so sucked into the cult that it doesn't feel like a fallacy to them."
"You need to bring up "Ends justify the means" vs "Means justify the end" with them. Most of them are the former, so you have to start asking them questions such as, "How many people are you, personally, willing to kill/enslave/imprison" to see *imput leftist goal here* happen?" and then do your best to explain to them that it will happen, and we know that because it's happened before."
"As New Left Notes (the SDS pamphlet) once said, "the issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution."  All of Marxist realpolitik is based on the idea that good faith and even objectivity are bourgeoise concepts; spooks based on the false premise that two sides are morally equivalent. Lenin introduced the concept of partiinost, whereby all ideas and even artwork should be evaluated partly in terms of who those concepts benefited. That is, a "fact" which seemed to benefit the cause of capitalism could not be a fact at all; and concepts or claims or even falsehoods that made communism look good were, in fact, a higher form of truth. This mindset led to Lysenkoism.  These people don't seem to be good faith, because they are not good faith. They believe they have a moral obligation to say whatever will advance their cause."

The Web of Radical Groups Backing ICE Riots, Hamas, and Iran - "Promoting revolution never goes out of business, and lately, business is booming.  Activists in the revolutionary ecosystem that organize street mayhem are veering sharply from anti-deportation actions to pro-Iran ones. They may have to swap in flags of the Islamic Republic for the Mexican ones they’ve been waving in Los Angeles, or the Hamas ones they waved earlier, but so be it.  Unless, that is, the ceasefire that President Donald Trump announced late Monday sticks. In that case, the organizations in the ecosystem will move on to the next crisis, manufactured or not, that offers an opportunity to tear down society.  Who are these organizations lining up behind Iran’s theocracy? Some are committed to the anti-Israel cause, sort of a raison d’être for the Tehran regime at this point. But many others are secular, Marxist organizations that just want the destruction of the West in general.   The Party for Socialism and Liberation; the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition; Black Lives Matter groups, especially the LA and Grassroots branches, the most radical BLM groups now; Code Pink: Women for Peace; Students for Justice in Palestine, the most active of the activist organizations in last year’s campus encampments; the Palestinian Youth Movement; Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Al-Awda: The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition; etc., have all sharply swung to defend Iran. This is only rank opportunism. Last week, these same groups were protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Los Angeles and other cities, where they brandished Mexican flags while carrying out violent attacks, to the point that Trump had to federalize the California National Guard and send in Marines.  Prior to that, these same groups were busy organizing pro-Hamas riots on U.S. streets and campuses. And before that, they were part of the tightly knit network that supported the BLM riots that rocked our streets in 2020 after George Floyd’s death, and before that, Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown’s death, and every year in between.  And, of course, before that, they were involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, protests against former President George W. Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the 1999 anti-globalization Seattle riots. In fact, some of these organizations are fiscally sponsored or funded by remnants of the Nicaragua Network, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s efforts to keep Central America free of malign Cuban and Soviet influence.  That’s close to half a century ago, folks...   In the West, Samidoun’s “leadership has declared solidarity with a variety of far-left causes worldwide, including militant Black and Native American activism in the United States,” according to Influence Watch...   Samidoun itself is fiscally sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice, which Mary Mobley and I called “the very embodiment of the ecosystem” in a Heritage Foundation paper last year.  AFGJ is the funnel through which funders such as the Tides Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Arca Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, and the Brightwater Fund—all of which also fund BLM—send money to radical activists and fund BLM.  Also a fiscal sponsor of BLM’s Movement for Black Lives, AFGJ “is so Marxist that it started out life in the 1980s in Managua under the rule of the Sandinistas, calling itself the Nicaragua Network back then,” we wrote.  AFGJ’s leaders wrote, “The Sandinistas always told the Nicaragua Network, ‘What you can do to most help us is to change your own government.’ We took that instruction to heart.”  This goes a long way to explain why groups hop from one cause to the next—this month Gaza, next ICE raids, next Iran. As the late David Horowitz used to say, in the 1960s, the slogan was, “The issue is never the issue; the issue is the revolution.”"
The left wing agenda is all connected

Bernie on X - "I see the humane slaughter of meat is being raised again. So to remind you.  In 2014, the Tory government decided that compulsory labelling of halal and kosher meat “was not the best approach.”    Because they didn’t want to start a massive cultural and animal welfare war. Much better just to allow it without you knowing.  This means suppliers can legally hide how meat is slaughtered.   So they do. Whilst calling it ‘higher welfare’" The harms of halal slaughter - "Britain’s relationship with its animals is a peculiar one, forged over centuries of stubborn practicality and mutual understanding. We’re the nation that gave the world the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in 1824, the first organisation of its kind, born from a mix of Enlightenment ideas and a very British feeling of having a soft spot for the underdog, or undercows and underhorses in this case. We’re a nation renowned for anthropomorphising animals, seeing our own folly and struggle reflected in them, in everything from Beatrix Potter’s rabbits in waistcoats to Orwell’s pigs plotting revolution. Our countryside is covered with farmers who name their lambs before sending them off to slaughter, as highlighted in the most recent season of Clarkson’s Farm. This is done not out of mere sentimentality but rather as a quiet pact, that although their slaughter is inevitable, by no means should their suffering be, too.    In the UK, laws require that animals must be stunned before slaughter, a change which was legislated in the twentieth century amid animal welfare concerns, in an attempt to make such a death as painless and free from suffering as it could be. An exception is made, however, for religious slaughter, in the case of dhabihah and shechita, its Jewish equivalent, making an allowance for slaughter without stunning if it’s for a particular faith community.   These kinds of religious slaughter are not carried out in small numbers, however. Awal Fuseini, a senior figure at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, told Farmers Weekly in 2024 that 72 per cent of the sheep slaughtered in England and Wales are done according to halal standards, in addition to over 50 per cent of goats slaughtered and a growing number of cattle and poultry, despite Muslims representing a disproportionately low 6.5 per cent of the population.   As a result, a significant proportion of the meat from these animals enters the hospitality supply chain, where there is no requirement to notify consumers in restaurants or takeaways if the meat is halal... 80 per cent of Indian restaurants are actually Bangladeshi-owned, a nation where Islam is the state religion, and as a result would only buy and cook halal meat anyway.   Science doesn’t soothe the conscience, either. Studies have suggested that animals are conscious for a period of time after their throats are cut during halal slaughter, and it is very likely that they are suffering intensely during this time. A 2004 report by the Farm Animal Welfare Council, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, highlights that sheep are conscious for between 5-7 seconds after the cut, 3-5 seconds for goats, 22-40 seconds for adult cattle, and anywhere between 10-120 seconds for calves, with this time variance being due to anatomical differences in the animals’ bodies. Comparatively, when cattle are stunned with captive-bolt pistols, studies have shown that there is zero brain response activity afterwards.    The UK’s Halal Monitoring Committee, a regulatory body which certifies much of Britain’s halal meat, insists that such slaughter is “swift and humane” when done right, but even then it is a flimsy peg to hang one’s hat on. I have had friends who have worked in abattoirs. The reality of them — high-speed lines, human error, the sheer volume of animals — means precision is not and can not always be guaranteed. A nick instead of a clean slice, a dull blade, a lack of concentration and those 5-7 seconds can stretch into something grimmer. I paint a dark picture, but this is the reality of such meat production in the UK.   Earlier this March, we saw the horrors of a halal abattoir unfold in the media as secret camera footage showed severe mistreatment of sheep by the workers there. The animals were tortured, being slammed onto the concrete floors while recordings of wolf howls were played, terrifying them. In several cases, the animals’ throats were inadequately cut, allowing them to run around for several minutes while they bled out. Some sheep were visibly still conscious as workers began to cut their legs off, while workers laughed and mocked the sheep who were struggling after the botched slaughters. There is nothing about this that is compatible with life in this country."
Weird. We're told that rights are not like cake - more for one does not mean less for another

Marxist female mountain climbers

Every now and then, I see the following meme circulated:

">8 Marxist female mountain climbers who wanted to prove women were just as good at mountain climbing as men.
>Picked the easiest peak.
>Refused any help from men along the route.
>When asked over the radio by A MAN *yuck* how they were doing, gave evasive answers "we're fine!", even though one of them was sick and dying.
>Get disoriented in the snow and all 8 women end up freezing to death.
>All male search party comes and retrieves their bodies."

Recently, I pointed out that very little of this was true and was challenged "Prove it, faggot."

In my experience, people who aggressively ask for proof never acknowledge that they are wrong when proven to be wrong (someone who just claimed that I was deluded when I said that open borders, racial quotas and sterilising children are pushed by Democrats in the US, doubled down when I presented tons of evidence for this and waved his hands and claimed none of what I said supported the claim and continued to double down even after I quoted his nonsense and directly juxtaposed it with the evidence I had presented that provided it was nonsense), but hey, it's material for another blog post (naturally, the person who called me a faggot claimed I didn't prove it after I presented all of the below).

Let us dig into the meme. So what this meme is misrepresenting is a 1974 attempt to cross the Lenin Peak

The team of 8: Elvira Shatayeva, Nina Vasilyeva, Valentina Fateyeva, Ilsinar Mukhamedova, Tatyana Sardashove, Galina Perekhodyuk, Lyudmila Manzharova, and Irina Lyubimtseva was indeed all female and from the Soviet Union, but this doesn't necessarily mean they were "Marxist" (anymore than 8 Communists today who happened to come from the US could be called "Capitalist").

The women were experienced climbers and 3-4 of the 8 had climbed Lenin Peak in the past, so this definitely wasn't a group of women who didn't know what they were doing. One potential team member had even been dropped because the others thought she wasn't good enough.

One page does claim, quoting Pavel Rezvoy, "a Ukrainian geologist who was in the area about the time the women died", that "The idea of the expedition was to prove that women could do this without the help of men." I found this reported (but without sources) by wiredforadventure too. The leader did promote all-women climbing and the team wanted to be the first women's team to do it.

Rezvoy does note that Lenin Peak was "an ultimate task", so this was definitely not "the easiest peak". SummitPost does call it "one of the easiest mountains over 7000m", but considering that the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, is 8,849m high, over 7,000m is still no mean feat. Peakbagger.com lists 106 mountains whose peaks are 7,200m or more, and Lenin Peak is 7,134 m. Explorersweb says that "the mountain’s reputation as the easiest 7,000m peak is misleading because of its high altitude, unpredictable weather, and avalanche risk". They were also going to be the first team (gender aside) to traverse the peak, which presumably would've added to the difficulty level.

There is no evidence that they refused help from men along the route. They did not have any problems from July 30 to August 4, when the storm was forecast. On August 4 Richard Alan North met the Soviet women, but did not offer help.

They did not give evasive answers or claimed they were fine when asked over the radio how they were doing. On August 5th they said visibility was bad and they were having trouble making out the descent, on August 6th they reported conditions had worsened and later that one of them was sick. Vitaly Abalakov told them to descend and they did (i.e. they followed a man's instructions). They reported on August 7th that one of them had died and two of them were sick. So they reported their situation over the radio at least 4 times.

The climbers did not "get disoriented in the snow" but huddled together in their tents during the worst storm in 25 years and then froze to death trying to descend (I did not find any reports that this was due to disorientation). 7 bodies were found and 1 seems to have fallen off a ridge, so we can only confirm that 7 froze to death. Maybe you can say the one who fell off a ridge got disoriented, but mountain climbing is perilous and disorientation is not the only possible cause of that.

Their bodies were not retrieved by an all male search party; the phrasing indicates that the first group looking for them took their bodies off the mountain. In reality, their bodies were discovered by a group of Japanese and American climbers (there is no gender breakdown given), but a few days later, the expedition leader's husband and two others (who were also men) buried them in temporary snowgraves.

Notably, the women's team were not the only ones who died climbing the mountain at the time. Jon Gary Ullin, three Estonians and Eva Isenschmid died too.

So in conclusion, let us enumerate the claims of the meme and whether there is evidence each was true:

1) They were 8 women: True
2) They were Marxist: Not True
3) They wanted to prove women were just as good at mountain climbing as men: Possibly
4) They picked the easiest peak: Not True
5) They refused any help from men along the route: Not True
6) They refused to report that they were having problems when asked over the radio: Not True
7) They got disoriented in the snow: Not True
8) All 8 froze to death: Close enough
9) An all-male search party came and retrieved their bodies: Not really

So we can see, truly, that the majority of this meme is not true.

Links - 30th October 2025 (1 - Migrants: UK)

Almost half of Scotland’s foreign prisoners come from just three countries - "Just over four in 10 of the total were from just three countries – Albania (94), Poland (92) and Vietnam (81). Mr Kerr compared the figures with passport data from the 2022 Scottish census and warned that imprisonment rates for nationals from four countries were so high as to be “absurd”. More than a quarter (26.3 per cent) of Eritreans living in Scotland are estimated to be in prison, he alleged, and more than one in five (21.9 per cent) Somalians. Almost one in six Albanians (15.8 per cent) and Vietnamese (15.2 per cent) people living in Scotland are estimated to be imprisoned, according to his comparison of census and SPS data. The analysis found no other foreign national group had an imprisonment rate of more than 2 per cent... “Something has clearly gone wrong when some nationalities are committing crime and going to prison at such an extremely high rate. It undermines the SNP narrative that all immigration is good for Scotland, when it clearly is not. “The cost is twofold. First, the extra crime caused by these foreign nationals comes at a significant cost. And secondly, the taxpayer has to foot the bill for keeping every one of these 653 foreign nationals in prison for months or years. This farce is costing our country dearly.”"
Clearly this is due to racism and xenophobia

Afghan asylum seekers ‘go home on holiday’ - "Afghans who have been relocated to Britain to protect them from the Taliban have returned to their home country on holiday, it has been claimed. The Government has spent billions on a scheme to protect the asylum seekers from persecution in their home country after they supported British troops deployed there. The alleged excursions back to Afghanistan have led to claims that the threat they face has been exaggerated. A former interpreter, who served with British forces in Afghanistan before starting a new life in the UK, claimed that the Afghanistan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) had been exploited by Afghans. The allegations were made after a data breach involving the details of over 18,000 soldiers and some of their family members involved in Afghanistan was revealed in July, when a super-injunction was lifted. The former interpreter, who requested anonymity, pointed to examples of alleged exploitation including fake Taliban letters, staged “torture” videos and false claims of Taliban attacks against asylum seekers and their relatives. He claimed that some Afghans coming to the UK had already been granted asylum in other safe countries such as Denmark or Belgium, while others who were relocated only spent one or two days as interpreters with British forces. He told Sky News: “The only threat is unemployment. We have witnessed ... interpreters from various units, from SF [special forces] units... there are hundreds of them going in [to the UK], coming back. “It made me disappointed because [British] people believed there was a high threat to the interpreters.” The source also said that applicants were pushing to bring in large, extended families, including spouses and children, nieces and nephews, and second wives... the former interpreter claimed that applicants were falsely saying their children were under the age of 18, despite being in their 20s. The source claimed that examples of false evidence to strengthen an application included borrowing a neighbour’s gun and shooting a car to pretend the Taliban had done it, and videos of a man’s “wife” being beaten by the Taliban, only for it to be an unrelated video from the internet. A different source alleged that the production of falsified threatening letters from the Taliban had led to thriving businesses in the country. He said it could cost between $1,000 (£740) and $1,500 (£1,110) to order a fake letter... Afghan migrants staying in Home Office hotels told The Telegraph that many are planning to visit Afghanistan using a route that leaves no trace on their passports"

Disputed or debunked claims about migration and crime in the UK : r/unitedkingdom - "For some reason, the left view British working class culture as either ridiculous or shameful while viewing immigrant culture as somehow profound or joyful. Likewise, white working class people wanting to live among people who share common roots is wicked and racist while immigrants doing the same thing are preserving their shared heritage."

Disputed or debunked claims about migration and crime in the UK : r/unitedkingdom - "The problem with figures like that is while they may be true on the surface they miss the wider point. You can probably say that 0.01% of brits are sex offenders, but that 0.1% of Afghans are, so they're 10x more likely. (made up figures to illustrate the point) But you're still tarring the other 99.9% with that brush."
"Isn’t the point that these Afghan men are only here at the discretion of the British government and by extension the good will of the country? Demographics don’t matter when the population are controlled by the government. The issue is still the same, that the government are willingly introducing a population which categorically commits sex crimes at a much higher rate than the indigenous population."

Disputed or debunked claims about migration and crime in the UK : r/unitedkingdom - "Back before the Brexit vote, the left spent a long time debunking the dodgy bus maths - saying we don’t send £315M to Brussels a week, it’s only £200M, or whatever. This gave the numbers a huge amount of extra publicity, and £200M (or whatever) is still a very lot. And so it is with the Afghans are 20 times more likely to commit a sex crime that British people stat. It might be true that there were more Afghans in London than the 2021 figure - but even if there were 2x more Afghans in 2023 than 2021, that would still make them 10 times more likely to commit a sex crime. And then the additional headline would be 2x more Afghans in London in two years. So overall this article is probably working counter to the Guardians editorial goals."
"Isn't that the Motte-&-Bailey argument? Someone makes a highly exaggerated claim. If not challenged the exaggeration remains, if challenged they retreat to the "Motte" & argue the critic is unreasonable for attacking them. If you have a solid argument backed up by data, why would you need to inflate figures at all?"
"Not quite. The issue with the motte and bailey is that the motte argument doesn't support the same point the bailey does. In this case, the points are the same, that afghans commit more sexual assaults. Exaggerated numbers beyond the real ones that demonstrate the same point means you are being unreasonable not for criticising the exaggeration but for acting like the exaggeration being debunked makes the real issue go away. For example, man accused of 10 murders, its proven that he only commited 9, its not someone using a motte and bailey argument for claiming he killed 10 and is therefore a mass murderer and when shown to be wrong, criticising the person who is acting like 9 murders doesn't make him a mass murderer. The standard motte and bailey taking a general one liner statement for your motte and a specific statement for the bailey that people who agree with the motte, don't necessarily agree with. For example, gun crime needs to come down, therefore we must confiscate all guns, you want to criticise the confiscation, well i'm just saying we should reduce gun crime, why would you criticise that. As opposed to i embezzled 100 million quid, you claim i embezzled 200 million, so you are wrong so why are we discussing embezzlement as if i've embezzled 200 million quid? Stop calling me an embezzler."
Ditto with left wing "fact checks" that don't change the broader point, but just quibble about details

Albanian cannabis dealer claimed deportation would destroy his marriage - "A jailed Albanian drug dealer won a stay on his deportation after a court ruled his relationship with his wife would “dwindle away” if he was removed from the UK, it has emerged. Roland Matranxhi was jailed for four and a half years at Manchester Crown Court in 2023 over his involvement in a drug gang’s huge cannabis farm... the upper tribunal ruled that the lower court had made an error in law and that Matranxhi should be deported."

Everything the military has done instead of stopping the boats - "A Cabinet minister has claimed it is not the best use of Army time to cover crises which “other parts of Government” should be handling. Peter Kyle, the Business Secretary, dismissed Donald Trump’s advice to call in the Army to tackle small boat crossings, saying the Armed Forces should be focused on “defending our country”. But the Government has had few qualms in the past relying on the military to cover public services during strike action, beef up security protection and to bolster responses to crises such as flooding, wildfires and the pandemic."

On boats, Labour is being hoisted by its own petard - "It would be funny if it weren’t so wearyingly inevitable. Many of us warned – repeatedly – that Starmer’s approach was destined to fail. Still, I nursed a sliver of hope that this time might be different, that the most basic demand of the British electorate – the ability to enforce a border – might be delivered... We have reached a point where the British state cannot perform its most elementary duty: to control who enters and who stays. This is not simply administrative failure; it is an erosion of sovereignty. Every prime minister who confronts this reality ends the same way: humiliated. The only question is how many more must be sacrificed before one of them finally stands up and does the right thing for the British people?"

Lord Hermer gave free advice to charity helping migrants fight deportation - "The Attorney General provided free legal advice to a charity that helps migrants to fight deportation from Britain. Lord Hermer gave his time pro bono in 2019 to work for Bail for Immigration Detainees (BiD), a charity that is now advising migrants on how to thwart Sir Keir Starmer’s “one in, one out” deal... He has been criticised over alleged conflicts of interest linked to his previous human rights work, including representing Gerry Adams against IRA bomb victims in a High Court case that is due to go to trial next year. BiD is a human rights and legal advisory charity founded in 1999 and is backed by Left-wing foundations and philanthropists... Among the barristers praised by BiD for their help in 2019 was also a lawyer who has represented Hamas and called for “copycat” direct action groups to spring up to replace the banned Palestine Action. Franck Magennis was one of three lawyers who worked on an unsuccessful application to remove Hamas from the Home Office’s list of proscribed organisations. Also on the list was Greg Ó Ceallaigh KC, now a judge who presides over deportation appeals by asylum seekers. In April this year, it was reported that before becoming a judge, he had reposted calls to decriminalise illegal migration to the UK. He also said the Conservative Party should be “dealt with as you would deal with the Nazis”."

Home Office-backed charity seeks to thwart French migrant deal - "BiD, which has received more than £400,000 in Comic Relief donations and which benefits from charitable tax relief, has produced a detailed method that could help migrants to beat the Prime Minister’s flagship policy. The guide includes “template” letters migrants can use and suggestions for how to use legal and human rights arguments to fight deportation."

This is how we rein in activist charities blocking deportations - "under Tony Blair, charities were allowed to be set up just to promote human rights, which is what BiD has as its charitable objective. That allows it to focus on helping “people of a particular ethnic or racial origin”. Despite this obviously allowing for much politicised charities, the Conservatives kept the right of charities to be formed to promote human rights in the Charities Act 2011. Since the initial legislation, there has been a massive growth in the number of charities who involve themselves in political issues. Nowhere is that more obvious than when it comes to immigration. When the Rwanda Bill went to the House of Lords, a coalition of 265 charities criticised the legislation, calling it “a threat to the universality of human rights” and calling on peers to reject the Bill. These charities were recipients of £209m from the Government... This is a well-funded sector, despite the best efforts of charities to depict themselves as underdogs: Detention Action had an income of over £600,000 at one point. Much of this is driven by grants from large foundations, rather than donations from ordinary members of the public. Even judges have become involved in these activist charities. Judge Fiona Beach, who let a knife-wielding drug dealer remain in Britain, was once a director of Asylum Aid and provided immigrants with free legal representation for BiD. Similarly, Judge Melissa Canavan allowed a rapist and also a crack cocaine dealer to stay in Britain. She had previously worked for the Refugee Legal Centre and represented migrants for BiD. All this is a far sight from what the British public associate with charities. This is enabled by our generous human rights laws and overly lax charity legislation. Instead of representing their victims, far too many charities and lawyers seem far more concerned with preventing criminals being removed. If the Government does want to take control of the borders then it will have to confront the charity sector. The easiest way would be to amend the Charities Act so that human rights is no longer sufficient reason for a charity to operate. That would not only help prevent the continued coddling of criminals, but also reduce perceptions of political bias in the charity sector, restoring its reputation after years of public political and legal battles."

The Stark Naked Brief. on X - "This is the director of the "charity" that is helping illegal migrants thwart deportation. Her name is Charlotte Buckley and she has a masters from SOAS, London, no less. What you may know... The Home Office is inexplicably partnered with the charity, Bail for Immigration Detainees (BiD), to provide legal guidance to migrants. So our seemingly incompetent Home Office is in league with the very organisation that's seeking to undermine its own schemes. What you may not know... This charity also happens to be the same one that some of our immigration judges have worked at. Take Judge Melissa Canavan, who in April allowed a Somalian crack dealer to skirt deportation party because he was “naive.” She previously did casework for BiD. Or Judge Fiona Beach, who last month allowed a French criminal to avoid deportation, despite him spending 963 days in prison for weapons offences and Class A drug supply. She too worked for BiD. So we've also got judges ruling on deportation cases have also worked for the same charity. The word cesspit comes to mind..."

Judge who controversially allowed knife-wielding migrant to stay in UK was on pro-asylum charity board - "Fiona Beach declared Christian Quadjovie, 26, was not a threat to the public... Judge Beach, an ex-director at Asylum Aid who represented migrants for free on behalf of the Bail for Immigration Detainees charity. The decision has since been overturned after Government lawyers claimed her judgment was “made against the weight of evidence”. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said Judge Beach’s apparent conflict of interest “undermines confidence” in the courts."

‘Britain can’t deport me’: Calais migrants vow to keep crossing Channel - "Asylum seekers told The Telegraph on Thursday that if deported back to France, they would return to Britain “again and again”. Buoyed by successful challenges from would-be deportees, several migrants said they were confident they could avoid being removed once they crossed the Channel by following legal advice given to them by British charities working in Calais... “The problem is the English dream,” he said. “For migrants, England is the dream. They assume it’s no problem to work there and you get the good life.”... Ali Al-Farars, an oil refinery worker from Basra, Iraq, claimed Britain’s imperial history justified his move to England. Iraq was a League of Nations mandate governed by Britain from 1921 to 1932... “Lawyers have told me that I will be accepted because I have committed no crimes,” he said. “[Care4Calais] told us our rights and what we will face when we get there. “We have many connections, many people and many law options to work on our cases when we are there.” He added: “England colonised my country, now England is responsible for us.”"

French police film migrants on their phones – but do nothing to stop them

The Modern Slavery Act was a terrible mistake - "When the Modern Slavery Act was first passed, the number of cases sent to the National Referral Mechanism were in the low thousands per year. But gradually, as Left-wing NGOs and claimant immigration lawyers realised this was an opportunity to keep illegal immigrants in the country, case numbers exploded. In the last six months, there were nearly 11,000 referrals. Three quarters are made by the immigration agencies... Tinkering with the precise definition of Article 8 will do very little. Push it very far, and the courts will declare the definition incompatible with the Convention. Do anything less, and the change will be unhelpful. Foreign criminals and illegal immigrants will continue to appeal using unqualified rights granted by other articles – such as Article 3, freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment – to frustrate their removal. And this is the truth. Any government that hopes to secure the border and deal with the problem of illegal immigration will only succeed with total and uncompromising change. All barriers to deportation must be removed. Every single legal right of appeal needs to go. Anybody who enters our country illegally should never – ever – be allowed to stay in Britain."

Convicted Algerian criminal is allowed to stay in Britain... because he would be mocked in his home country for dressing as a woman - "The 27-year-old, who claims to be transgender, has been jailed for robbery and committed multiple offences including burglary, theft and battery since being granted refugee status in 2013. In arguing against his deportation, the repeat offender, identified only as MS, claimed he would be targeted in Algeria because of his sexuality - described to a court as 'gay, transvestite and/or transgender'. And an asylum judge agreed, upholding his appeal against the Home Office's revocation of his refugee status... 'Between April 2014 and January 2015, [MS] received four convictions for offences including: burglary and theft; attempted burglary with intent to steal; using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause fear or provocation of violence; theft,' the tribunal heard. MS received a warning letter from officials in September 2015, after the decision was taken not to deport him due to Algeria's 'situation'. He received eight further convictions between May 2016 and June 2018 for offences including 'theft; resisting or obstructing a constable; failing to surrender to custody at appointed time and various driving offences'. In August of the same year, he was convicted for offences including theft and 'racially or religiously aggravated fear or provocation of violence in words or writing'. He was again given a warning letter in September 2018 after a decision was made not to pursue deportation, and after further convictions between December 2018 and January 2019 he was given more warning letters. In February 2019, he was issued 'administrative removal papers as an overstayer', following the expiry of his refugee limited leave to remain."

Linking sex attacks to migration is 'dangerous racist diversion' warn 100 women's rights groups : r/unitedkingdom - "'The point these groups are making is that just because a minority group is overrepresented (which may or may not be the case depending on data robustness) doesn't mean they commit a majority of the crimes.'
But no one is arguing that migrants commit a majority of crimes. It's about the representativeness of migrants as perpetrators in crime. It is incredibly important to study overrepresentation in datasets, and to give an example: in the United States, White Americans make up 50% of all racial groups killed by police, however Black Americans make up a disproportionate number (Washington Post). It would be fundamentally wrong to dismiss the deaths of Black Americans by police, by drawing attention to the fact that White Americans make up the majority of deaths by police - the 'overrepresentativeness' is fundamentally important. If you recognise that overrepresentation is important, why do you refer to "...the majority of crimes being committed by Brits"?"
Per capita is only important when it pushes the left wing agenda

Police boss 'silenced by Labour' after statement linking riots to 'mass immigration' - "A Conservative police commissioner says a minister pressured her over a statement she made suggesting “mass uncontrolled immigration” was a factor behind last summer’s riots. The minister, whom the police chief declined to name, reportedly said that the disorder following the Southport attack by Axel Rudakubana had “nothing to do with immigration”. Donna Jones, the police and crime commissioner for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, said the minister called her and asked her to take her statement down. Ms Jones said she believes this shows Labour is “out of touch”. She also warned that further protests will happen unless the Government tightens up immigration."

Migrant crisis: Home Office launches urgent probe into Aspen payment cards after hotel asylum seekers caught gambling with taxpayer cash - ""Asylum seekers" entering Britain are handed "Aspen" cards by the Home Office upon arrival, designed to be used to buy food, clothes or toiletries... some 6,537 asylum seekers have used Aspen cards in "gambling settings" over the last year across the UK. In the highest single week on record, in November 2024, 227 migrants tried to use, or used, the cards to gamble."

Revealed: Egyptian illegal migrant, 42, who raped woman in Hyde Park while living in the Hilton hotel is a convicted Islamic terrorist - "Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, 42, was found guilty in his absence of being part of a bomb-making cell in Egypt and given a seven-year jail sentence on May 5, 2015. He and six other men were said to have manufactured explosives in a safe house flat to carry out 'terrorist' acts such as the bombing of electricity pylons and gas lines. The Daily Mail can reveal that Abouelela, a member of the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement, escaped from Egypt before being convicted. He claimed asylum when he arrived in the UK in April 2023, and was housed in taxpayer-funded hotel accommodation while his application was considered. Abouelela was allowed to wander around freely and even posed for a selfie picture in January last year outside the Imperial War Museum North Museum in Trafford, Greater Manchester. Home Office officials spent 17 months pondering over whether or not to grant his asylum application, despite apparently knowing of his bomb-making conviction, before he raped the vulnerable woman in Hyde Park last November... Abouelela was staying in a four-star Hilton Hotel in Ealing, courtesy of the British taxpayer, when he carried out his attack... Abouelela is believed to have lived for periods in Malaysia and Sudan after he fled from Egypt, and apparently first claimed political asylum when he arrived in Turkey. He was detained for at least 72 days at Ataturk airport in Istanbul after his asylum request was reportedly turned down by Turkish authorities in early 2019. Abouelela desperately battled attempts to extradite him back to Egypt before Turkish authorities apparently relented and allowed him to stay in Turkey. In a video posted online during his detention, he stated in Arabic that he was a member of the Egyptian 'opposition' who had been detained for 72 days. He added: 'I don't know what will happen to me.' But social media posts by Abouelela and his LinkedIn profile suggest he was allowed to remain living happily in Turkey which has expressed staunch support for the Muslim Brotherhood in recent years... Abouelela faces automatic deportation under the UK Borders Act 2007 after serving his sentence for rape as he will have served a sentence of over a year in prison. But astonishingly, he could potentially manage to stay if he launches a successful legal appeal on the grounds that deportation would breach his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or the UK's obligations under the Refugee Convention... The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 and arrived in Britain around 60 years ago, although it remains a collection of loosely associated groups rather than a single entity. David Cameron's Government decided not to ban the movement in 2015, despite individuals 'closely associated' with the group having supported suicide bombing and other attacks in Israel by Hamas. Mr Cameron stated in a written reply to MPs that a Government review had found the movement was 'deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive', and characterised Western societies and liberal Muslims as 'decadent and immoral'. He added that parts of the Brotherhood had 'a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism' and had been 'a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.' Although the Brotherhood had stated its opposition to al Qaida, it had 'never credibly denounced' the terrorist group's use of the work of Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood's most important historic figures, he said."

We’re running out of time to stop post-Covid mass migration from becoming permanent - "My Shadow Home Office colleagues and I have repeatedly argued that the qualifying period should be extended from five years to ten, but that alone is not enough. No new visas should be issued to, no new settlement should be granted to, and settlement should be revoked from, those who have committed a crime, accessed state support, or are unlikely to contribute more than they cost. Those who have no legal way to stay here would then need to leave. That is how immigration works. Implementing these policies in full would save the British taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds. It would relieve pressure on our public services and lay the foundations for an immigration system that genuinely works in the national interest. More than that, it would give effect to the democratic wishes of the British people by reversing a costly disaster that nobody voted for and that most people now acknowledge was a catastrophe. We have proposed these changes repeatedly in Parliament and each time we have been voted down by the Government, who wish to have it both ways. They love criticising the last Government’s record on immigration (and much of what they say is fair), but they refuse to actually undo it."

Matt Goodwin on X - "If you want to know how utterly insane the UK is right now read this: Last year, a man named Shahidul Haque, 55, who is on benefits, claims he is "disabled" because of "obstructive sleep apnoea" and depression, and cannot speak English, was moved into a retirement home in Berkshire. A retirement home. His rent? £110 a week. A few months later, he brought his 28-year-old wife and two children into the retirement home, claiming he did not know he was not allowed to do this because he cannot speak English and read tenancy documents. After the elderly neighbours complained about anti-social behaviour and sought his eviction, Shahidul Haque said he should not be evicted because it would be a breach of his "human rights". His lawyers are using the European Convention on Human Rights to try and prevent his eviction. Our "leaders" are giving foreigners who do not speak English subsidised housing in retirement homes for our elderly because they claim to have "depression". This is insane. This has to stop."

Migrant on disability benefits housed in retirement home with his family vows to use human rights to fight eviction... unless they are found a bigger home - "A Bangladeshi father of nine who receives disability benefits says he will fight against being evicted from a retirement home where he lives with his wife and young twin daughters - unless they are found somewhere bigger... Residents of the retirement complex in Reading, Berkshire, have complained constantly of 'excess noise' and 'anti-social behaviour' from the family, including the children repeatedly pulling the emergency cord and disturbing people living there. Officials at Southern Housing, who own the retirement complex, have told Mr Haque he has breached his contract agreement - and taken him to Reading County Court to claim back the flat. But lawyers for Mr Haque blame the misunderstanding on the fact that the Terms and Conditions of the tenancy agreement were never translated for him into his first language of Sylheti."