Mick Hartley

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  • The Gaza focus

    raine, the Congo, Sudan, Myanmar – I mean nothing, nothing like that whatsoever.”

    In particular, the situation in Sudan troubled her.

    “I went to Chad [the neighbouring country] and I had interviews with people from Darfur. I briefed the Security Council, and I was so clear, I told the Security Council, ‘My role is to identify risk factors for genocide and I’m here telling you that every single risk factor for genocide exists in Sudan’. I gave them very granular details of who was killing who in Sudan. And I told them, ‘Security Council, you have to act, because one day you’ll be held accountable for not acting on Sudan’. I then went to Geneva, and I briefed the Human Rights Council in great detail.”

    I asked her whether there was any action. “Nobody, nobody”….

    It became clear that there was what she described as “media prioritisation”.

    “They would ask about Gaza every day, and I would say ‘ok, people are dying in other places too…I was issuing statements about Myanmar, South Sudan, the Sahel, the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], places where risk factors for genocide clearly existed, people dying in different parts of the world. And really, I didn’t get a single journalist in the daily press briefing saying she’s been speaking, you know, about South Sudan, or about DRC. It was, ‘why will she not say that there is a genocide in Gaza?’”

    Wairimu-Nderitu looks at me.

    “You know, South Sudan is actually on the verge of a genocide right now? In terms of Sudan, it is already being perpetrated, in South Sudan they are very close.”

    But no one cares unless Israel's involved.

    Alice Nderitu previously – I was hounded out.

    “I was hounded, day in, day out. Bullied, hounded, with protection from nobody.”

    These are the words of Alice Nderitu, the UN’s former Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. In a shocking article, she details the appalling treatment she endured at the hands of the United Nations—months of relentless pressure to label Israel’s actions against Hamas as “genocide.”

    She even received death threats for refusing to comply: “They started sending me threats on my phone. And then they even started threatening me on the U.N. e-mail.”

    One such e-mail read: “Filthy Zionist rat, you will burn in hell forever for supporting the rape and torture and murder of little kids by your bestial masters.”

    Nderitu exposes the UN’s blatant bias against Israel: “It’s instructive that this never happened for any other war. Not for Ukraine, not for Sudan, not for D.R.C., not for Myanmar. The focus was always Israel.”

  • Glasto

    Exciting updates on Glastonbury:

    Glastonbury bosses have declared Kneecap is “welcome” at the festival despite calls for the Irish republican rap group to be banned.

    Emily Eavis, the festival’s organiser, said: “Everyone is welcome here,” in response to Sir Keir Starmer calling for the trio to be deplatformed.

    Liam O’Hanna, one of the three Kneecap members, appeared in court this month accused of displaying a flag in support of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig in November last year.

    He also allegedly shouted: “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah,”…

    Also:

    A Palestine Action activist is set to appear as a speaker at Glastonbury Festival.

    Francesca Nadin, who described herself as a former “political prisoner” and contributes to the Revolutionary Communist Party website, is listed as a speaker at the festival.

    Is there a chance that there'll be mass chants?…"Free Palestine"; "From the river to the sea"; "Globalise the intifada"; "Zios not welcome here". I believe there is.

    Remember the Nova festival? Israel, October 2023? Brutality on an almost unimaginable scale…slaughter, rape, abduction. And here we are, at another music festival, celebrating the perpetrators…

  • Sir Humphrey in Edinburgh

    ess to review their statutory guidance. That consultation ends next Monday, they’ll move to finalise that and once that’s finalised we’ll be able to take a further series of actions.”

    Undaunted by this flannel, Thomson pressed on. “What actions,” she asked, “have you taken beyond talking about taking action?”

    To which, and again I am afraid I am compelled to quote at length, Griffin replied: “Well, so I think, so specific actions I can’t give you that right now but the work that’s involved in the group and the work that the teams that are represented on the group is to prepare the ground so that when we have an understanding of what the consultation results will be by way of the new guidance we are ready.”

    It is, after all, very important not to act too hastily when there is instead the opportunity to talk about talks about taking action. In the fullness of time, of course.

    At this point everyone quietly agreed it was time to give up. The point of Yes, Minister is that it is a satire, not a manual….

    The Scottish civil service has expanded by 70% since 2013, while the police and fire service workforces are being reduced.

  • What love is

    le=”font-size: 11pt”>Despite a conspicuous lack of interest from the general public, he continues to be acclaimed – not least by the BBC:

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  • At the UN Human Rights Council

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  • The BMA and Cass

    As well as the BMA's obsession with Gaza, there's its obsession with gender. Yes, the two do seem to go together. From the Times:

    The British Medical Association has failed to produce a promised “critique” of the Cass Review, amid a bitter internal row over its “abysmal” handling of gender policy.

    The doctors’ union prompted anger by announcing last year that it would lobby against Baroness Cass’s report into gender services for children without consulting its members.

    The British Medical Association (BMA) then set up its own “task and finish group” to evaluate the methodology used by Cass, a paediatrician, and write a critique which they said would be completed by January.

    But, oh dear, it's still not appeared.

    More than 1,000 BMA members have signed a letter demanding that it “abandons this pointless exercise”.

    Senior doctors have warned that the BMA, which represents about 190,000 doctors, is “no longer a democratic organisation” and has made itself “irrelevant”.

    They noted that the BMA leadership had consistently failed to select motions relating to the Cass Review at annual conferences, including this week in Liverpool, meaning gender-critical members were silenced. Other topics, such as the Israel-Gaza conflict, were prioritised for debate.

    Clearly a much more important topic for a UK doctor's union.

    Dr Louise Irvine, a GP and member of the BMA, said it was absurd that the union felt it had the relevant expertise to critique the Cass Review — which took four years and reviewed data from 113,000 children.

    She said: “The idea that the BMA — which is not set up to do these kind of reviews — could do this by Christmas was always a joke. Then it was going to be the new year, then spring, then summer, then it was going to be before the [annual meeting], now it’s not. It’s a terrible waste of BMA members’ money.”…

    In July last year, the BMA announced it would lobby against the implementation of Cass’s report after a secretive vote at a meeting of its UK council. Irvine said: “There has been terrible secrecy all the way along. It reflects a deeper malaise within the BMA. It is no longer a democratic organisation. It is too easily taken over by ideologues and interest groups."

  • The Six Seasons

    ow distributed across three countries and two continents: The Hunters in the Snow, The Gloomy Day, and The Return of the Herd at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; The Harvest at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and The Haymaking at Lobkowicz Palace, Prague Castle. The sixth painting, however, has long been lost.

    In ‘The Six Seasons’, Allchurch re-imagines the missing painting as ‘The Six Seasons – Late Spring (after Bruegel), “reuniting” it with its companion pieces.

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Winter_(after_Bruegel)

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Early_Spring_(after_Bruegel)

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Late_Spring_(after_Bruegel)

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Early_Summer_(after_Bruegel)

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Late_Summer_(after_Bruegel)

    The_Six_Seasons_-_Autumn_(after_Bruegel) (1)
    [Images © Emily Allchurch]

    Click to enlarge.

  • Everyday cancellation in publishing

    ho mutilated the bodies, of vulnerable people in their care, especially children. But lesser culprits will not escape blame, and high on the list will be publishers who, contrary to their normal editorial judgment, censored or even cancelled brave authors critical of the cult. Authors who asserted scientific truth in the teeth of fashionable ideology. Authors who stood up for real women, or stood up to the bullies who sought to intimidate them. I know many publishers, and I hear multiple stories of relentless pressure from junior colleagues, and of abject capitulation to it. But anecdotes demand proper substantiation, and this splendid document provides it in spades…."

    Added:

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  • Islamophobia concerns

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  • The British Medical Association and Israel

    tyle=”padding-left: 40px”>The bigger problem with this juvenile politicking is that it comes at a time when the NHS faces huge challenges, due to staff shortages, financial pressures and the increasing demands of an ageing population. These are issues people really want to hear about from doctors. It would be welcome if medics stayed focused on the day job, which is to look after their patients.

    The same advice goes for the doctors’ union: its core job is to represent its members on pay and working conditions. International politics is not part of the remit. The witless campaigning of a hard core of BMA activists obsessed with taking a public stance on Gaza runs the risk of alienating the wider public, and for little discernible gain or purpose. The BMA needs to get its house in order.

    They could make a start by dealing with accusations of antisemitism in the BMA's leadership:

    The British Medical Association has been accused of a cover-up after terminating an antisemitism complaint about its president despite an external review’s finding of a case to answer.

    Mary McCarthy, a leading GP, was accused of creating a “hostile environment” for Jewish doctors by using her account on X to share provocative posts focusing on the conflict in Gaza.

    The Times understands that the BMA appointed an external lawyer to carry out an independent review of the complaint made by Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS).

    It concluded that McCarthy had a case to answer for a potential breach of the BMA’s code. The review found that she had a duty to be representative of the BMA’s membership but had posted one view of the conflict in the Middle East.

    Alex Hearn, from LAAS, who made the complaint, was told four months ago that a resolution panel would be set up. However, he was then informed that according to the BMA’s articles and bylaws, only its own members and staff could make complaints. As a result, his complaint would not proceed any further, the BMA said.

    What a surprise.

    Hearn said that the BMA had dragged its feet since the findings of the external review and “now, at the very last moment, has orchestrated a shameful cover-up to stop the case going ahead”.

    He went on: “The BMA’s leadership should hang their heads in shame. Their refusal to investigate concerns of anti-Jewish racism at the very top of their organisation suggests that there is indeed a systemic problem. What message does this send to Jewish doctors and, ultimately, to Jewish patients?”

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