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In Stroud Green:

Not, I'm guessing, a Banksy.

ist presented the venture in a video, with images cutting from huge pleasure yachts to migrants foundering in water. “Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med,” the accompanying captions say. “It’s a French Navy vessel we converted into a lifeboat because the EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from ‘non-Europeans’ .” The video ends with the slogan: “All Black Lives Matter.”

Claire Faggianelli, of the collective responsible for transforming the boat, said Banksy had emailed to congratulate them on the rescues.

Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at LUISS University, Rome, said he thought Banksy’s initiative would push people from Italy’s non-ideological centre towards the anti-immigrant League of Matteo Salvini. “A rich Englishman is using a foreign boat to deposit migrants in Italy. It seems perfectly calculated to deepen the gulf between rich progressives and those who suffer the consequences of their policies.”

A reader of the Giornale di Sicilia said: “It would be much better if he managed to take all the immigrants directly to England, a very civilised country with much better employment prospects.”

It's almost beyond parody: the "“All Black Lives Matter” slogan, the vegan diet and "flat hierarchy", the ship named after an obscure 19th century French anarchist, and the man himself, with a smug proclamation of his status as the uniquely moral artist – "Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med". 

As a Times commenter says: "Oh no Banksy, looks like you’ve started believing your own hype mate, classic mistake . . You do graffiti not politics remember !"

I wonder why he didn't go for helping migrants crossing the English Channel. Not as dramatic or indeed as sunny as the Med, but the problem's basically the same, if on a smaller scale. And it's closer to home. Perhaps he knew what the reaction would be here….

An official video released by the Turkish Ministry of Communication:

The term "Islamofascism" was developed as a description of the likes of ISIS – ie extreme authoritarian Islam. Islam, you might say, with a touch of fascism. Not, in retrospect, a particularly accurate term. This is different. This really is Islamic fascism: or, to be more precise, Turkish fascism. Fascism with a touch of Islam.

Some helpful analysis from MEMRI:

On August 24, 2020, in honor of the 949th anniversary on August 26 of the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, Turkey’s Ministry of Communication released a music video titled the "Red Apple March." Seeking to present the modern Turkish military as the heir to the militaries of Turkish states stretching back 1,000 years, including the Ottoman empire and the Seljuks, the clip cuts between images of the Turkish military, including special forces, tanks, fighter jets, attack helicopters, rockets, naval vessels, and images of men in Ottoman and Seljuk military garb. The video also shows the Turkish drillships Fatih and Oruç Reis, which have recently been drilling and searching for natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

One section of the video features Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan walking past a row of soldiers cut with an actor portraying an Ottoman sultan doing the same. As an Ottoman military band plays outside, the actor, along with others portraying Sultan Alparslan, who led the Seljuk army to victory at the Battle of Manzikert, Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, and a child soldier from the Battle of Gallipoli, enter the Hagia Sophia Mosque and pray as audio of President Erdoğan reciting the opening verses of Surah Al-Fath ("Conquest") plays in the background. The video shows Islamic structures including the Kaaba in Mecca, and closes showing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The music features the zurna, a wind instrument central in the traditional Ottoman military band, giving the music a distinctly "Ottoman" sound. The lyrics mix religious and nationalistic imagery and refer to the Kızıl Elma ("Red Apple"), a concept from Turkish mythology that has sometimes has been used to refer to world domination and at other times has referred to a particular military goal by a Turkish state and, once that goal has been achieved, some other goal becomes the "Red Apple," making it ever-elusive. Upon the release of the video, Communications Minister Fahrettin Altun tweeted: "For us, the Red Apple is a great and powerful Turkey. It is the blessed march of our nation, which has written legends from Manzikert to July 15, [2016, i.e., the attempted coup in Turkey]. The Red Apple is the great sycamore tree in the shade of which many oppressed cool themselves. It is what all people from Gibraltar to the Hijaz, from the Balkans to Asia, await wishfully."

At the Markfield skatepark, South Tottenham:

style=”font-size: 11pt”>Think feminism – or gay rights – made advances here that can't be reversed? Think again.

Why then is there all this denial of biology, a deep disgust at women’s bodies? Why are gender-critical feminists subject to violent threats? Why is being a woman now seen as being somehow privileged when every marker of equality (domestic violence, access to childcare, rape convictions, the pay gap) is showing we, as a sex class, are less privileged than ever?

Progressive misogyny, you see, doesn’t recognise women as a class at all; a class whose employment rights need protection. […]

You can say the word ‘-intersectionality’ as much as you like but, if you do, then defend Raquel Rosario Sánchez, the 29-year-old doing a PhD at Bristol on men paying for sex, who has been bullied for two years because she attends Woman’s Place meetings. Disciplinary hearings were closed down when balaclava-wearing trans activists appeared. Students yelled verbal attacks at ‘Terfs’, chanting: ‘SCUM! SCUM! SCUM!’

This kind of intimidation stops women from speaking and teaching on our campuses. Rebecca Solnit, a writer I admire, wrote an excruciatingly vanilla essay on why San Francisco is cool and why cis women should not fear trans women. We don’t. We fear what we have always feared: male violence, in whatever cosplay it chooses. We fear losing our incomes. We fear that womanhood is such a scary place that some young women will be medicated out of it.

Why all this now? Perhaps because the left, having lost its big battles, is keen on some expulsions and re-education. The Labour party would rather be pure than in power. It’s deeply peculiar.

Gay men I know are rightly worried about the homophobia inherent in some trans activism. Wouldn’t you rather have a daughter than a gay son? Look at Turkey or Iran if you dare. We now have Stonewall supporting the right for trans women to bust the skulls of natal women playing rugby.

We stand back and watch this insanity. How is this progress?

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Nzonzi, 40-year-old businessman and sapeur for 10 years, in Kinshasa © Tariq Zaidi

Michele, 48-year-old mechanic and sapeur for 33 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Perreira, 37-year-old computer consultant and sapeur for 28 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Celestin, 48-year-old technician and sapeur for 25 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

ly Shia constituency, which put a sheen of legitimacy on top of its terror, drug/gun running, money laundering, and corruption. Somewhere along the path to expansion, Hezbollah became a victim of its own success at accumulating power. It metastasized into the ultimate parasite, so fat on the blood it has sucked out of its host it can barely act, while the body politic it has drained is likewise paralyzed into immobility.

But just because Hezbollah won’t allow real government reform doesn’t mean the stasis and dysfunction it has created can be maintained.

And Nasrallah may not be the only person in Lebanon pondering the “good old days.” As filmmaker David Lewis, whose documentary on Hezbollah aired on PBS’s Frontline, said in a phone interview: “I’ve heard from a Lebanese friend, a former militia fighter, that some of the old-style militias from the civil war are beginning to form again. Which is scary. He said ‘It feels like it did before the civil war. Tribes, sects, are arming themselves again, because the state couldn’t protect them.’”

The Beirut explosion has just exposed what was already obvious: Lebanon is now a failed state. 

dded that the transgender community “disproportionately suffers from violence, discrimination, harassment, and exclusion” leading to suicide and mental and bodily harm.

“From her own words, I take Rowling’s position to be that the sex one is assigned at birth is the primary and determinative factor of one’s gender, regardless of one’s gender identity — a position that I categorically reject,” she wrote.

Ms Kennedy jumping on the trans bandwagon here, with a nauseating display of virtue signalling. One’s gender identity??

Rowling's dignified response:

“RFKHR has stated that there is no conflict between the current radical trans rights movement and the rights of women.

“The thousands of women who’ve got in touch with me disagree, and, like me, believe this clash of rights can only be resolved if more nuance is permitted in the debate.

“In solidarity with those who have contacted me but who are struggling to make their voices heard, and because of the very serious conflict of views between myself and RFKHR, I feel I have no option but to return the Ripple of Hope Award bestowed upon me last year.

“I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience.”

It's noteworthy that, as far as I can see, every single comment on the Times report – of which there are currently nearly 600 – is entirely and enthusiastically on Rowling's side here.

Meanwhile the trans activist charity Mermaids have taken the opportunity, in a particularly vile and sanctimonious screed, to accuse Rowling of causing children's suicide attempts:

Today, J.K.Rowling re-stated her position on transgender lives. We have previously reached out to her both publicly and privately, offering a calm conversation around the issues she has raised and today, we sent a further email to her team, renewing that offer. We are yet to receive a response.

As part of that email, we have disclosed something we hoped never to say. We say it now with permission from those involved. Without giving personal detail, without betraying confidences, we must represent the seriousness of the situation. We are aware through our work with families that there have been cases of self-harm and even attempted suicide following J.K.Rowling’s statements and the public response on social media and in the press. Surely this must cause us all to pause and question the way young trans lives are being debated in public…

They have no shame. Really.

More on this at B & W.

© William Michell

© Thomas Griffiths

The Portrait of Britain exhibition will launch on 1 September, displaying the 100 winning images throughout the month in rail stations and shopping centres, on high streets and bus shelter screens across the UK. 

The 200 shortlisted images will be published in Portrait of Britain Vol. 3, from Hoxton Mini Press.

an style=”font-size: 11pt”>Calum Semple, professor in child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Edinburgh, who is the senior author of the study, said: “The deaths that we did observe were children with what we would describe as profound co-morbidities — not a touch of asthma, not cystic fibrosis.”

These children’s underlying illnesses would have been considered as “life-limiting”, he said. “We did not have any deaths in otherwise healthy school-aged children.”