Ramzy Alwakeel
@journoramzy
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Deputy editor (news and investigations), @onlinehyphen . Pseudobiographer of Saint Etienne. Tweeting propaganda about social housing and pop music. He/him 🏳️🌈
London
Joined April 2012
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🔎 Freelance journalists! We're looking for news and investigations pitches at
@onlinehyphen
– if you've got a story or an idea on an issue that you reckon would be of interest to British Muslims, please email me on ramzy dot alwakeel at hyphenonline dot com.
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Can practically *hear* the right-wing press trying to manufacture dirt on Mick Lynch. There's little that Fleet Street hates more than working-class people arguing articulately and knowledgeably for fairness and equality – ask
@MarcusRashford
. Recognise it when it comes.
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This story took hours upon hours of data work from the brilliant
@sarah_turnnidge
. It shows pretty conclusively why journalists need to stop relying on press releases from the Met.
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💡 A council that couldn't afford to keep street lamps switched on has spent £5,000 on coronation-themed signs to decorate street lamps.
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Imagine thinking it was a good look to clap and cheer as security guards drag someone out of a conference hall for confronting the chancellor about arms sales. Imagine thinking that "we are not a party of protest" was anything other than an excruciating self-own. Ghoulish.
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I covered Stephen Port’s murders of four gay men in east London in 2014. Today, in the wake of Cressida Dick's departure from the Met, I wrote about what I learned about policing from my point of view as a gay journalist
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Sad to say I've been laid off by openDemocracy, along with several of my incredible colleagues in the UK. It's one dark day of many for British journalism, but I'm immensely proud of everything we achieved together. Here's some of the best. 🧵
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🔴 Suella Braverman's Home Office has stopped feeding the Afghan refugees who are still stuck in hotels.
This should be a national scandal. But the Home Office didn't even send us a comment.
Exclusive by
@adambychawski
👇
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Warning: transphobia.
An important, but very troubling, report from Edinburgh by
@AdamRamsay
on how threats of transphobic violence have made it harder to access rape crisis services – for everyone.
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@MarcusRashford
can't wait for the five-page special in the MoS about how much his cousin's wife's car is worth and how he once visited a town where average house prices were quite high
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'At the same time trans people are appearing in Calvin Klein or Mastercard adverts, trans families are fleeing Florida under threat of having their children removed.'
@felixmooreactor
nails it in this interview w/ legendary Black trans activist Miss Major
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Attitude showing more backbone here than any of the mainstream press have done. Bit embarrassing that it's been left to them to say this - no viral Newsnight pieces to camera about this one.
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Boris Johnson can and should be expected to live in a skip (1/)
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Today's the last day at
@HuffPostUK
for 17 of us. And we're going out on a high – this week we've published some great examples of the stories that we got into this game to do. 1/
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If you listen to the government you could be forgiven for thinking the NHS crisis was caused purely by Covid and strikes.
@adambychawski
saves the day with this essential guide to five things that *actually* caused it.
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Amardeep Singh Dhillon was arrested after being part of a protest that successfully saw off a violent anti-LGBTQ mob.
Both this case and Patsy Stevenson's arrest at the Sarah Everard vigil relied on expanded police powers to limit the right to protest.
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Unexpected discovery today that AstraZeneca's head of AI for respiratory and immunology used to be one of the guys in Tin Tin Out
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Significantly more energy has gone into analysing the Rwanda deal's implications for the Conservative Party than its implications for actual asylum seekers
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Bit ironic to hear a Conservative leader (however inaccurately) complaining that the government is taking money from poor people and giving it to the wealthy. Wait till he finds out about Thatcherism!
#PMQs
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Half today's UK papers splash on the knife attack in France.
Not one of them has picked up our exclusive on the toddler who died and his sister who is seriously ill while waiting for the only "safe, legal" route available to refugees.
I despair.
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Saying there are questions for The S*n at this point is like saying there are questions for a skip fire. It's a frothing homophobic rag that has achieved its exact intentions and anyone who doubts its motivations or lack of integrity must live on the moon.
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The editors who let Jess Brammar put her head over the parapet again and again for marginalised people before jumping on her bandwagon after she'd made people listen, speak the fuck up for her. The mob isn't going to spare you for being meek so you might as well be decent.
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Great scoop from
@JennaCorderoy
- emails reveal how feted partygate investigator Sue Gray helped shield No.10 from scrutiny over the Grenfell fire in 2019
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.
@Nadine_Writes
keeping up the pressure in today's
@EveningStandard
with this column about her ridiculous treatment by the equalities minister. We're still not going to shut up about this.
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You might have noticed
@openDemocracy
publishing a number of stories about Labour's interests recently: who's sponsoring their conference, donating them staff, giving them freebies.
🧵
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Just so i'm clear on this, people on the right want there to be "free speech" at universities but also think universities are <checks notes> extremist hellscapes whose ideas about equality and protecting the vulnerable are destroying "culture" and must be silenced
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@JolyonMaugham
But why let the facts get in the way of a good opportunity to attack the left, etc
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Six years ago, I campaigned – alongside other local newspaper editors across the country – against Leveson part 2 because I believed the tools to hold the press accountable already existed in UK media law.
It's clear to me that I was wrong.
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Spot on. Claiming that the UK press isn't bigoted is just embarrassing
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🤡 Lee Rowley claimed the govt had built 700,000 social homes since 2010.
Even in isolation, this figure is wildly wrong. And once you take into account demolitions and sales, there's been a net loss of 120,382.
Lee Rowley is the housing minister.
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Jeremy Hunt wants you to think councils can just axe a few consultants to get back in the black.
Councils run most local services. They're on their knees after years of cuts. But no one would vote Tory if Hunt admitted that.
Here's the real story.
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Sad that it's come to this, but it's a total vindication of what
@Nadine_Writes
,
@jessbrammar
& the rest of us have been saying all week: the equalities minister caused a pile-on against Nadine by falsely accusing her of "making up claims".
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Department for Education just casually repeating a baseless conspiracy theory that the existence of trans people is an "ideology" and a "belief" on page 1 of its guidance for schools. The Conservative Party is an extremist organisation.
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Alex at reception just ran upstairs to tell us a cab driver had dropped off two large bags of chocolate for us. This is the anonymous note that came with it. Whoever it was - thank you, and you're very welcome
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Personal/professional news airhorn: got a new job haven't I. Delighted to say I've joined
@onlinehyphen
full time as deputy editor (news and investigations). The team here are fab and I'm really looking forward to what we can build together!
Ramzy Alwakeel
@journoramzy
joins as deputy editor (news and investigations), having previously been head of news at openDemocracy and HuffPost UK. He will work alongside managing editor Kate Guest
@KateHyphenUK
and Dave Stelfox, deputy editor (features).
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Sneaky employment status update in here - I'm joining
@openDemocracy
as head of news in January. Extremely excited about getting to work with Peter & his amazing team! Have a look at the thread for a few examples of the important stories they've broken in 2021
@emilykenway
@adamb
@diana_cariboni
@anitaxviii
@carolinejmolloy
@AdamRamsay
@julianofclapton
@calgacus
@Masters_JamesD
@cthibos
(and soon to be new arrival
@journoramzy
)
A terrific team that has done so much great work in 2021 - and so much more to come in 2022
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💰 Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has called for workers to show 'restraint' when asking for pay rises.
@martinrw
has now discovered that hundreds of BoE staff took home bonuses in excess of £10,000 last year.
So which is it, Andrew?
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Details of just how unprepared Downing Street was for Covid are now surging out of the inquiry.
Two days AFTER lockdown was announced, no one in government seemed to have a grasp of how many people were dying or how many beds were available.
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BRAZEN smugglers tried to sneak PPE into the UK by concealing it in a shipment of cocaine
£1m of cocaine that was hidden in a box of face masks was seized by experienced officers at the Channel Tunnel yesterday.
Criminal networks are trying to exploit the
#coronavirus
outbreak for their own benefit, but Border Force and
@NCA_UK
are working together to stop them.
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So I guess the cat's out of the bag. Personal news klaxon - I'm leaving the papers at the end of October to go news edit
@HuffPostUK
. (1/)
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Please can an investigative reporter find out why gen z have started putting spaces before their question marks and exclamation marks like boomers writing the family newsletter on an electric typewriter in 1996??
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🔴 NEW: FOI work by
@openDemocracy
has revealed behind-the-scenes lobbying by housing associations trying to persuade ministers not to cap social rents too low, despite soaring cost of living.
CEOs of London's biggest private social landlords wrote to the govt in July... (1/)
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Today we finally begin publishing a series that has been in production for more than a year.
@Nadine_Writes
has spoken exclusively to dozens of parents whose children have been trafficked by county lines gangs. What she discovered was shocking. (1/n)
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Bravely marked "not for publication", this delightful
@HamandHigh
correspondent is "annoyed" to learn from my column that I am gay. Goes without saying that this sort of degenerate garbage is exactly why we need to "keep shouting about it", as he puts it.
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@MarcusRashford
ok we are doing numbers so here's our latest on how two of the UK's biggest rail firms paid their shareholders a combined £800m last year before telling workers to swallow a huge real-terms pay cut & here's the
@RMTunion
strike fund
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The Labour leader has taken more freebies than every leader since 1997 combined – that's including Blair, who was at the helm a lot longer than Starmer has been. Here he is pictured at the football with the millionaire who gave him the tickets.
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As you'll see from her thread, the amazing news team at
@HuffPostUK
, which I lead, is being laid off as one of a number of changes made by HuffPost's new owner BuzzFeed. Which means I'm, er, looking for work. Hire me!
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Gotta say I really recommend getting made redundant as a confidence booster, I've been properly taken aback by all the ridiculous lovely things people have said. Thanks so much - it's made a sad time much much better
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🔴 Tory donor Simon Blagden stepped down as non-exec director at Fujitsu UK in 2019, a few months before a judge found the firm's Horizon software had been defective & referred Fujitsu to Britain's top prosecutor.
In 2022, the govt gave him a plum job running broadband rollout.
Tory-donating ex-Fujitsu bigwig was rewarded with government job amid scandal | read more ⤵️
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Not everyone at oD is being laid off and I wish all who are left the very best. And I know everyone who is leaving this week will go on to shine just as brightly elsewhere. But that doesn't change how much of a colossal shame this all is. I hope we've made a positive difference.
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.
@Ianblackford_MP
at PMQs forced Boris Johnson to defend cutting nurses' pay by hundreds of pounds in the name of a regressive “health and social care levy”, after we at openDemocracy revealed the true cost to NHS staff yesterday
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So
@openDemocracy
was barred from the National Conservatism Conference - but our reporter
@SAThevoz
blagged his way in anyway using a posh accent and some cufflinks.
What he found was not only extremist but also quite embarrassing.
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🔴 Nearly three quarters of social housing blocks in England that were found to have "life-critical" cladding issues in the wake of Grenfell still haven't been fixed.
It's seven years since Grenfell Tower burned down.
✍️
@anitamureithii
@onlinehyphen
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💥 Beyond proud of everyone on
@openDemocracy
's UK team today.
It's been a tough year and to come out of it with a nomination for news provider of the year – our biggest ever award shortlist – is a giant credit to everyone's brilliance and commitment.
Announced today! Six newsbrands on British Journalism Awards News Provider of the Year 2023 shortlist
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That 'Brexit bonus' again – the UK's Turing Scheme is giving students £22m less than the EU-backed Erasmus programme it replaced 🤦♂️
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Very grateful for the
@TheBristolCable
's excellent weekly newsletter this morning, doubly so after two of their journalists were violently assaulted by the police while covering protests. Would really encourage any past or present Bristolians to support it financially.
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That's not because we have an axe to grind against one party or another – and of course we're still reporting on the Tories.
It's because Labour are likely to form the next government & we believe it's vital that people know who is cosying up to them on the path to the election.
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Google and YouTube gave Labour figures an estimated £10,000 in gifts shortly before the party U-turned on a tax policy that could have raised the government £3bn.
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If you read the UK press, you've probably seen a lot of guff about the Allison Bailey case against
@stonewalluk
.
If you want to really understand what happened. and what it means, read this essential analysis from
@DisabledJess
on
@openDemocracy
⬇️
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McDonald's is suing for losses. Puma has cut ties with the Israel Football Association. Starbucks says profits have been hit. The UK wants to ban public bodies from engaging in boycotts and divestment altogether.
Is BDS working?
✍️ by
@nandi_naira
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Powerful stuff from Stonewall's co-founder Lisa Power, who fought against Section 28 and says she recognises the same moral panic in today's transphobic backlash from the media and politicians.
We founded Stonewall amid a moral panic. History is repeating itself
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Drink* every time a journalist asks questions based on the incorrect assumption that protests and strikes are not supposed to cause any disruption
*scream
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🔴 The Chevening scholarship is one of the few routes for Afghan students to study in the UK.
The foreign office has quietly suspended applications and won't tell us – or the alumni network – why.
Scoop from
@aminiarchives
now leading
@onlinehyphen
👇
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Jess is the best editor I've ever worked for (sorry folks, you were all great too) and this is the biggest loss. She is brilliant, principled, articulate, kind and fierce and wherever she goes next is extremely lucky to have her. (1/n)
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Don't tweet about gigs generally but honestly the crowd for
@SELFESTEEM___
were so deafening it felt like my ears were distorting & it was 100% deserved. Album of the year, incredible performer, incredible backing band/singers. Nonsensically good
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In keeping with the general theme of sabotaging my own career this week, I've written an opinion piece about why it's so important we don't let police press officers dictate to journalists what a criminal looks like.
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Anyone who hasn't had to come out to their family and deal with the consequences should really stfu about what they think parents have a "right" to know.
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Spot on from
@AyoCaesar
-
@AngelaRayner
did nothing wrong in lobbing the word "scum" across the Commons, except perhaps when she apologised for it.
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I know this isn't the point, but as a small, independent media outlet, it's pretty frustrating to hear the BBC crediting a large national newspaper (the i) for breaking the Boris/Covid inquiry story that
@RubyJLL
, in fact, broke for
@openDemocracy
yesterday.
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This also means I'm looking for work! If you're after an award-winning editor who has helped local, national and international newsrooms punch above their weight for more than a decade, hit me up here or send an old-fashioned electronic mail to ramzyalwakeel at gmail dot com.
Sad to say I've been laid off by openDemocracy, along with several of my incredible colleagues in the UK. It's one dark day of many for British journalism, but I'm immensely proud of everything we achieved together. Here's some of the best. 🧵
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It's 2022 and journalists are still asking cisgender people bad faith questions about what rights trans people should have. Are you not embarrassed
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We fundraised to cover every day of the Covid inquiry, and my brilliant colleague
@RubyJLL
became a national expert on the jaw-dropping everyday of it all. But what made our coverage different was our focus on the grieving families at the heart of it all.
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🔴 NEW from
@RubyJLL
: bereaved families will have to go through Tory-linked PR firms to have their voices heard at the official Covid inquiry, which finally begins gathering evidence this year.
🔴
@CovidJusticeUK
: "Conflict of interest is obvious."
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Special shout-out to the reader who threatened to call the police if I didn't remove a story about her conviction for racially abusing a police officer, and referred to me in the process as "the weirdly named one".
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The vaccine is great but is there a website where we can sign up for it not being November any more
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Latest in "Covid is the great leveller":
🔴
@AstonUniversity
researchers found govt Covid support schemes helped enrich senior execs & shareholders while small businesses buckled under debt;
🔴 Firms that took govt support have worst pay inequality.
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"Over the last 25 years, Johnson has been putting racist, xenophobic poison out there. Look at his articles. Look at the things he’s done and said.” A powerful, deeply troubling read from
@Nadine_Writes
on why Black Brits are considering leaving the UK
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If you read one oD story this week, make it this.
My colleagues
@_LouFerreira
and
@SoitaKW
spent months digging through financial filings for details of $1.3m handed to groups opposing abortion and LGBTQ rights by the charitable arms of big business.
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Labour now going out to bat for the Tories' anti-protest laws. Remember these laws were dreamed up by oil-funded think tank Policy Exchange (h/t
@adambychawski
) to target climate activists and had to be steamrollered through when parliament rejected them.
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@sarah_turnnidge
also thanks to
@StatistaCharts
for producing these really clear graphics to visualise Sarah's research!
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Is... there a reason that
@pitchfork
reviewed every Slow Club record but literally have not mentioned
@SELFESTEEM___
once anywhere on their website in three years despite Prioritise Pleasure being very obviously an absurdly good album?
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Corporate interests have always tried to cosy up to political parties, especially those tipped for government. But there has been an undeniable acceleration under Starmer.
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Then there's the matter of the sponsors of the fringe events at Labour's annual conference.
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The war of attrition between Hackney Council and the Christmas trees that were dumped in the street has entered its second month
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We've also been tracking the impact of Britain's clampdown on protest, both legislatively and culturally. My colleague
@nandi_naira
broke this astonishing story about counter-terror cops questioning a teenager on whether he'd marched for Palestine.
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Excited to say I'm working with
@onlinehyphen
for a few weeks as a commissioning editor ahead of the UK election. You can contact me on ramzy dot alwakeel at hyphenonline dot com!
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🔴 The daughter of Makram Ali, who was murdered in a terror attack in Finsbury Park, says the government is 'fuelling the fire' of right-wing extremism and inciting hatred that could threaten more lives.
Full report by
@anitamureithii
👇
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The unstoppable
@adambychawski
broke story after story about the government's treatment of asylum seekers, including revelations about children dying while waiting in camps for what Britain cruelly refers to as "safe routes".
1
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We reported obsessively on the housing crisis at the heart of Britain's dysfunction, revealing that thousands die every year while waiting for a council house, and shedding light on the soft power exerted by developers and property lobbyists.
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The fantastic
@anitamureithii
has been following the cases of jailed climate activists for months. She put together this deep dive into the government's rebranding of protest as extremism and what it means for us all.
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Suella Braverman had no evidence for her claim that asylum seekers 'pretend to be gay' to 'game' the system, the Home Office has been forced to admit.
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Andrew Bailey really just said don't fight for a pay rise because other people don't belong to unions and can't fight for a pay rise
#r4today
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Three trans people have quit The Guardian in recent months in a deepening transphobia row. The latest to do so has told
@HuffPostUK
a column published in the paper today was 'the straw that broke the camel's back'
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Anyone who cares about free speech needs to watch this video.
If you want to know more about the pending threats to free expression in the UK, you can read about them here: and here:
🚨 On Monday, award-winning documentarian
@richfelgate
was arrested while filming a
@JustStop_Oil
protest.
📰 The arrest comes as the UK government's new secrecy legislation could threaten journalists.
Watch our interview with
@richfelgate
👇
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Kemi Badenoch isn't the only one who's used parliamentary privilege to get away with chatting rubbish. We challenged BEIS to back up Jacob Rees-Mogg's claims in the House about fracking protesters... and they couldn't
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Remember when Britain was meant to have the best pandemic preparedness in the world? When 20,000 deaths was considered a best-case scenario? If you're wondering wtf happened, read this by
@leonie_chaofong
. (Spoiler alert, government doesn't come off well.)
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And for as long as they (and other) corporate interests are attempting to slide into the DMs of politicians who should be representing all our best interests, we'll be watching them. 🔎
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Because those people, and those they represent, will want something in return – perhaps not now, but if and when Labour are in power.
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It's official: your religious beliefs don't give you the legal right to treat trans people with disrespect. Write-up of an important employment tribunal here from
@_LouFerreira
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Can everyone stop asking Sarah Vine what she thinks about things please (3/3)
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