Lefty gay Jewish tube driver, RMT union rep, music lover, occasional web dev. Supporter of Palestine, trans rights, trans ppl. TERFs get blocked. He/him
#blm
Racist: why don't you go to Gaza then, see how they treat you as a gay man?
Me: I went with my partner several times including a few weeks after Cast Lead finished, & was welcomed as a brother. Here's a pic of one passport stamp to show I visited
Racist: that's a lie and a fake
Time to remind everyone that the BBC deliberately reversed the order of footage during the miners strike in 1984, to make it look like the miners had attacked the police, when it was the police who attacked the miners. The BBC faking things to serve the establishment isn't new.
6 years ago, the IDF murdered journalist Yaser Murtaja. Then they smeared him as a terrorist.
I met him in Gaza in 2009, and he was brilliant. His photography was fantastic.
We stayed in touch and became really good friends, often messaging or calling 3 times a day
Something we haven't really understood: Israel deliberately destroyed every place that stored information about the population - land ownership, contracts, births, medical records. No one in Gaza can now prove anything about themselves. This is "wiping Gaza off the map"
I've lived through Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Miliband and Corbyn. Whether you liked them or not, they used their time to show the public that they had concrete plans. I don't think I've ever seen an opposition this silent, this weak and this invisible.
Tube driver here, and I'm concerned about the number of people put into shitty positions by their employers and government, and I'm not blaming it on those who travel at all.
Its ok, the twitter character limit has been raised. You don't have to use shorthand like "lost their lives" - you can say "were killed by a right-wing ideology that rips up regulation, cuts costs regardless of safety, and doesn't give a damn about black and Asian people"
@neville_snaps
@Locati0ns
As a Circle Line driver I'll let you into a secret. Just west of King's Cross, the train passes through a distortion in the space-time continuum which causes you to be sent back into the past by around 15 minutes.
Look at the state of this. I'm boiling with rage here. She was one of theirs! And they chose to use this bland, distant headline, "tributes paid". We get it, The Guardian, you hate us. Well, we *loved* her. The article barely mentions her work for them.
Israel murdered him because he was documenting the "great march of return". He had a clearly visible "PRESS" vest on. They shot him in the stomach, which is an awful, slow, painful way to die. He died in hospital
Everyone loved him. He had such a beautiful, kind personality. His words were brilliant, his photography was brilliant. He was driven by the need to get evidence of Israel's crimes in Gaza, and he did that by becoming a photographer.
He had a LOT of evidence
Yaser took this picture two weeks before he died, and with the photo he posted this:
I hope the day that I can take this image when I am in the sky instead of on the ground will come!
My name is Yaser Murtaja
I am 30 years old
I live in Gaza City
I have never travelled!
I miss him so much even after six years. He was such a beautiful man; his strength, love & determination to be free really represented everyone I spoke to in Gaza.
He loved Gaza and Palestine. All he wanted was freedom for he, his wife and his child, and all the people in Gaza
He believed that Gaza would be free one day. He told me "I want to be able to breathe". Israel's destroyed so much of Gaza in 2024. 2 million people desperately want to breathe.
If Israel hadn't killed him, Yaser would've been on the front line, documenting Israel's crimes
This organisation is so efficient! Ashworth lost his job on Friday, and by Tuesday he had completed the application process, had 2 interviews (as is normal for a role at this level), waited for the organisation's leadership to make a decision, and accepted their job offer!
Some personal news.
@LabourTogether
was so integral to our victory last week. LT will continue to generate bold ideas to transform Britain for the better and help win a second term.
I’m so honoured and excited to now be part of this amazing team.
Yaser my friend, I miss you so much. You had so much strength & love and I really, really miss you
Israel took you away because they love killing journalists
Losing you left a deep wound in the hearts of your family, your children & everyone who had the privilege to know you
Remember 6 months ago we were like "come on Starmer, fight for UBI!" then 3 months ago we were like "come on Keir, campaign for an eviction ban!"
And now we're like "come on Labour, put out a press release saying you support the legal right of unions to represent their members"
When a left-wing friend stood for election in my union, he had massive support. His opponent had none. On the day of the election, the right-wing branch said there’s an allegation of corruption against him. No details were given, but “we must suspend the election for a month”.
@JUNlPER
In Britain we say the biggest pastime is "making up a situation that never happened and becoming furious about it". We are the masters of it. Our anti-trans people are talking about trans women washing their penises in open in bathrooms
Really vile, racist stickers have started appearing on tube trains. I'll QT them below so you don't get forced to see them. If you see anything like this, please DM me - I need a pic if you can, and please look for a "car number" (usually above the window at the end of each car)
Next time anyone wheels out a survey saying how much Jewish people feel under threat from Corbyn or Labour, remember this. This is a survey that I was just asked to do. This is what gets commissioned to get those headlines. The whole thing was full of loaded stuff like this.
@HarrietSergeant
@airduster400
@iainmartin1
I mean you said she was talking about this at 9am, and 2 hours later she's still sitting at the table? In all that time you didn't help her work out an alternative route? You're a terrible guardian.
I am once again begging people to understand what a "scab" is and isn't. So much heat generated online has made people really believe that customers of a service can be "scabs" if they use that service during a strike. That's not what a scab is.
They also claimed that a "camera error" had somehow meant that when a policeman beat a picket unconscious - hitting him so hard his baton broke - it was not filmed
Alastair Campbell instantly sheds the nice guy image he's spent years cultivating and ominously implies that Dr David Kelly was killed for what he said
The BBC has definitely got worse - there are no consequences now and it's more brazen. But it's just a continuation of a long tradition of the BBC creating a story that suits the establishment even when the verifiable facts prove the opposite.
I don't give a damn about Mick Lynch's opinions about Ukraine when it comes to my job. The RMT is nothing to do with the war and it can't influence either side in any way. We are going on strike on the mainline and on the tube this week and we deserve your solidarity.
The BBC news editor said the day after that there had been "a marginal imbalance" in coverage.
The Assistant Director General said that the coverage "might not have been wholly impartial".
And if there's a crisis, a confident opposition party will talk about their ideas even if it meant the Tories stole them. Corbyn and McDonnell came up with the plan for furlough during Covid; who cares if the Tories stole it? It meant people could feed their kids.
@Nadeem221
Cameras on these trains are not great tbh; plus you'd have to know when it was done. And we all know that the BTP will investigate a driver allegedly chanting "free free" but would never spend time watching CCTV to find the person who did this
People have the right to block whoever they want. The left isn't blocking Jews for being Jews. But the smear machine has now decided that if you block trolls & a number of them happen to be Jewish, you're antisemitic. I'm a Jewish man who feels really unsafe cos of these smears.
As tube drivers, we will not drive these trains until the racism has been cleaned off, but it can be hard to spot stickers. Please let me know anything you see so I can speak to my RMT colleagues and get these things removed.
@HarrietSergeant
@airduster400
@iainmartin1
This very real 17 year old is a refugee, right? How is she even able to get a job then? Haven't you just told everyone that she's working illegally? Maybe the tube strike is a good thing for her, it's prevented her from being locked up.
Bethnal Green. None of us have gardens. Lots of people therefore in the park. Mostly keeping their distance.
Police van comes, flashing lights. Aggressively accost people and tell them to leave. They focus on the young black men playing basketball.
Who could’ve predicted this?
Police and immigration officers being given the power to stop people they suspect of having the virus.
What's the betting that when we get the figures, 70% of the people stopped will have been black or Asian?
I've always said the left should work harder at building coalitions, and all the "this you?" stuff just amplifies small but meaningless differences. Please stop doing it.
Starmer's new policy: all energy companies to be told to use more contrasting colours on their websites so people with poor eyesight can check how much their bill has gone up. Labour will pay the web design costs, to unlock British growth.
Well none of us saw this coming did we. Leadership candidates will accept it, and then left-wing Jews like me who stood against the smear campaign will be expelled. It will happen silently, cos there's now no benefit in screeching about Stalinism in the mainstream media.
Today we release our
#TenPledges
, identifying 10 key points we believe Labour needs to sign up to in order to begin healing its relationship with the Jewish community.
We would expect candidates for Labour Leader or Deputy Leader to publicly & unequivocally endorse these in full
It's a *nice act of solidarity* if you refuse to use a service during a strike. But it's not bad if you don't refuse. You're not scabbing if you go into a brewdog, if you get on a tube, or if you post a letter. We gotta go back to remembering what a real scab is.
@roxy_hassan
That is a beautiful thing to say. The reason I posted it is cos I know how many brothers and sisters are being targeted in the UK, and I wanted to show them, and the Palestinian people (who won't see this, but you know what I mean) know that there is solidarity everywhere ❤️
This was one rep in one workplace in one branch in one union. But the entire labour movement, and the Labour Party, is filled with this stuff - the right knows how to work around the rules and knows which rules to break.
They demand that the left adheres to every single rule.
@rachaelwrd
Labour told us it absolutely did not want our votes.
Labour dropped all its pledges
Starmer's policies are to the right of the Tories in the 2010s
We've got lots of reasons to be unhappy, and perhaps it would be better if you asked about it instead of saying it is "alienating"
I didn't rate JC as leader at first. Disappointed. Nothing changing. But then the 'coup' happened. For him to have the strength to stand up to this level of attack by people who ran the party for 20 years - it's deeply impressive.
@alexnunns
#JC4PM
From "The Candidate" by
@alexnunns
@jeremycorbyn
is in this for us, not for himself.
This is the kind of thing he's had to stomach: June 2016, coup MP's try to 'break'
#myPM
.
@MattGarrahan
What's so special about journalists that a card saying that that's your job would be worth more than anyone else's licences, passes or identity cards? I've got a train driver's licence and I wouldn't expect that to be suitable. Journalists aren't some higher form of being
After 6 years, I really think it's time for remain voters to understand that loads of left wing people supported *a* case for leaving the EU, but absolutely hated *this* Brexit. It's not dishonest, it's not wrong. It's how you live as a political person in the real world
@tenilleclarke1
It's really cool to see someone responding to feedback and adding more context, I wish more people could accept gentle positive feedback with your kind of response (I'm looking at you, almost every man I've ever met)
I said yesterday that if you want people to stay and fight, come up with a plan that calls for more than just “keep paying subs”.
Show us how you are gonna help make the fundamental changes necessary. Or at least show us that you know that a plan needs to be constructed.
While Braverman & Co try convincing us that those supporting Palestinians are all spreading hate they have been inspiring prejudice themselves. These messages have been found in my local neighbourhood over the last couple of days. One in a school & the others on the central line.
The RMT is suspending strikes on Network Rail, but you can guarantee that Network Rail isn't gonna suspend getting rid of jobs and reducing safety procedures.
This is a guy who used to endlessly attack Corbyn and just completely fabricate accusations of antisemitism. And look how he reacts when a black person explains the racism that has lost Labour their vote
If you see anyone saying that tube drivers shouldn't go on strike during the invasion of Ukraine, please ask them if they're also asking management to pause the attacks on our pensions etc that have caused the strike. I'm sure they'll definitely have done so.
Disgusted by this kind of shit being spouted by people in my union. I'm a gay man, and the fact that the RMT went in hard defending LGBT people when it wasn't fashionable was why I became a member. But people like this are happy to throw marginalised people to the wolves.
Marxists: we want a society where everyone is treated as being of equal worth and has an equal say
Neo-Nazis: we want to kill and expel everyone who isn’t straight, white and Christian
Social democrats: these are the same
If anyone in the Labour party shows the slightest sympathy towards Marxism, they should be slung out the party straight away, the same way we would with neo Nazis. They are both two sides of the same coin.
Don’t read the comments. All you need to know is, 35 years of relentless anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim headlines and stories have done what they were supposed to do, and done it very well.
It is against international law to make someone stateless, and now an innocent child has died as a result of a British woman being stripped of her citizenship. This is callous and inhumane
The media apparently has no impact on how people think or vote, but when you ask people about Corbyn they just happen to come out with the exact same lines that every part of the media has relentlessly been pushing for 4 years every single day.
Labour vote felt much softer.
Corbyn a much a bigger problem than in 2017. Then he barely seemed known.
The vitriol for JC now v strong from working class voters, mainly fuelled by Facebook ads. Repeated mentions of links to the IRA/terrorism, which have been circulated online
The right has no wider goal than “keep control”, so it can spend its time doing this. The left spends its time doing stuff & so doesn’t get as involved with the rules.
This "stay & fight” talk ignores the fact that your entire political life will be taken up just with this stuff
If unions like CWU and RMT melt over something like this, it doesn't give you much confidence that they'll actually fight as hard as they're gonna need to against the shit that's coming
Following the very sad news of the passing of the Queen and out of respect for her service to the country and her family, the union has decided to call off tomorrows planned strike action.
Further information and communications will follow.
Can’t even do the “worst person you know just made a great point” meme here. This is hilarious. Little Guido guy and little Breitbart guy having a… well it’s not a fight is it. It’s not even a tiff.
Using a service while that service is on strike is NOT scabbing. If you take a tube train today you aren't in any way undermining the strike. You're not offering your labour to an employer.
In a development that will surprise no one at all, the same website that takes down accounts that pretend a politician kills squirrels has left up all the tweets containing the hoax Corbyn post.
@lNDlEGOGO
@broseph_stalin
I'm always in favour of getting extra sources etc, but in almost all cases even the worst allegations against Israel turn out to be true. People said it was antisemitic to accuse Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs, but it was officially admitted.
Breaking | Brown University administration and Gaza encampment students have agreed to clear the encampment; in exchange, the Brown Corporation Board will vote on a divestment measure in October.
@MattBinder
So if people are followed by 2,500 blueticks then they get a bluetick, is that right?
If you're the sort of person whose content attracts that many bluetick then you need to have a long think about the stuff you're posting
The vote was therefore tied - and the branch chair cast their vote against my friend. It took another year to fight for that position. He then absolutely smashed the right - his supporters were so outraged, they came out in even greater numbers to ensure that he was elected.
But ask yourself: if even in the best circumstances (Momentum, hundreds of thousands of new members, brand new organising forms etc) the left couldn’t even organise to force reselections of terrible MPs, how much harder is it gonna be now Labour has a weak right-wing leader
People probably don't realise that Israel has the ability to tap into pretty much every phone in Gaza and every internet connection. They use it like in this tweet - they also use it to blackmail gay people & find out who has cancer etc so they can bribe the family to get treated
The soldiers described how following an Israeli shelling, they are asked to monitor the phone conversations of family members in order to hear the moment in which they tell each other that their loved one has died — that’s how they check who was killed.
I was part of the group that eventually formed Aspire, and the one thing you really noticed when campaigning & canvassing was the sheer number of locals who were genuinely grateful that people like them were standing. They felt listened to. And they - we - have got long memories.
A landslide in the highest turnout of any mayoralty in England and the first independent party victory in 60 years with little money, no website & barely any social media. Racist brain-melt. Maybe active campaigners and an engaged electorate dont need that
Shall we do this again? Ken Loach is not antisemitic. He does not give space for antisemitism. He did not deny the Holocaust. It's identical to Corbyn in that there were NO accusations of antisemitism until it became useful for the right. Google is instructive in showing this.
There's no unofficial strike action. It's called "working to rule", only doing what they're paid to do in their contract. Avanti could maybe sort the "current industrial relations climate" out, but it won't. Perhaps there needs to be more "official industrial action"?
From 14 Aug until further notice, we'll be introducing a reduced timetable.
This is due to the current industrial relations climate, resulting in severe staff shortages through increased sickness, as well as unofficial strike action by ASLEF members.
Let's not pretend these newspaper headlines are anything new. This was supposed to be the front page of The Sun during the miners strike in 1984. The print union refused to print it. But it's what the paper wanted to run with
When a Muslim at work asks another Muslim at work how he's doing, he will mumble "alhamdulilah" - "thank god", a standard response - in reply.
I've seen the word go from a normal volume to a mumble over 20 years
And it's cos of people like this
I’ve got a conspiracy take on why Starmer is being silent about schools opening. I think this is him being determined to show that he’s not gonna let unions influence his thinking. It’s also dismissive of RLB. It undermines the left and unions in Labour at the same time.
@Anna_Soubry
Hi Anna. I agree - when my family was killed in the camps in Poland, they were comforted by the fact that it only happened after vigorous debate about whether Jews were disgusting animals or merely impure.
21/ Will resign if their popularity rating falls below minus-30... We are now in a slander-rich environment and neoliberalism just discovered that slander amplified by social media and TV news wins elections. If you get damaged, you have to cut your losses...
@RNBlake
Not a single word to say to Palestinians in your constituency whose family members have been killed, eh? But let's scold people for protesting against institutions that make huge profits off of defence investments
You're disgusting