Ben Mitchell

No Maccabi Tel Aviv fans allowed at Aston Villa for Europa League tie Aston Villa confirm no away fans will be permitted to attend the Europa League match at Villa Park against Maccabi Tel Aviv in November.

Disgraceful decision.

No Maccabi Tel Aviv fans allowed at Villa match - www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

How about the police do their job and arrest the troublemakers/anti-Semites?

Two weeks after Heaton Park and we're already in "yeah but antisemitism is actually declining" territory.

The UAE is an authoritarian autocracy, a petro-state with no income tax for citizens, to bribe them for the lack of democratic voice or free speech

It is 85% migrant, a segregated society with a ban on integration in principle and practice, few rights, equal opportunities, nor voice for incomers

All these people really want is to pay no taxes and be treated with floor scraping deference. Everything else is just bullshit in pursuit of that goal.

Aka, the Left is reaping what it's sowed over the past decade. Cancel culture harms everyone eventually.

The Left's ugly free-speech fetish

"If this is how the Left rediscovers free speech as a universal principle, it’s been an expensive lesson, but a necessary one."

Everything that David Baddiel wrote in his brilliant book Jews Don't Count has never been more true.

As a Jew, I've come to view middle class lefties with more suspicion than any other group. The amount of ignorant claptrap and stereotypical comments about Jews that I've listened to over the years, is astonishing. From the mouths of the over-educated.

It's not easy being Jewish. Antisemitism comes from all directions: the far left, the far right, the Islamists, but it's the attacks from the 'respectable' middle class that grate the most. The liberals. The progressives. The 'moderates.' Who stand firm with every minority bar one.

The 7 October attacks changed what it means to be Jewish in Britain The war in Gaza has exposed a level of anti-Semitism I didn’t realise was there

"I hear again and again that the Israelis – the Jews – had it coming. Knowing allusions to Jewish influence, Jewish power. Stereotypes of Jewish cruelty."

Written before today's attack on a Manchester synagogue. It's the kind of piece I never thought I'd write.

www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.

Shock horror.

You can't be too careful, is what he's thinking.
Who knows what's on it? Or where the hell you bought it? Cats just crack me up. Mine never fails to make me laugh.

If Farage takes over as PM & the NHS inevitably collapses, he'll have a ready audience prepared to believe that lefty doctors, statisticians & academics are lying about the crisis in order to undermine his glorious regime. He's rolling the pitch.

Populism always makes things worse for people - the economy, social cohesion, culture, all wither under its weight. It's a prerequisite for dictators to undermine the authority of the institutions like academia, science & the courts, that track this decline & communicate it to the public.

I don't think he's a coward, he knows exactly what he's doing & is doing it for a reason. It's straight from the denialist playbook, creating a "controversy" where there is consensus. Tobacco, climate change, vaccines & evolution were given the same treatment.

bsky.app/profile/padr...

Women took Thalidomide from 1957 until 1961, when it was taken off the market. Paracetamol has been in safe use for over 70 years.

It's a perfect example of how populists undermine trust in institutions: it's a bullshit false equivalence, but only an expert would be able to rebut it live on air.

I think the key problem here is a continuing assumption, in traditional media, that when the White House speaks on a major topic, this is a big news story.

That model can't cope with a president with no regard for truth, who's in constant broadcast mode, & who veers around from one day to another.

Jimmy Kimmel calls out 'anti-American' threats to free speech in tearful TV return The comedian returned from a brief suspension after comments he made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Why is this the main story on the BBC website? It shouldn't even be on its front page. Kimmel is a comedian that very few people in Britain would ever have heard of. In fact, just stop with the daily coverage of America full stop. To hell with them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The dawn of the post-literate society And the end of civilisation

My magnum opus - a unified field theory of why the post-literate society spells disaster for civilisation as we know it

jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

Wonderful piece on James's favourite topic. Deserves to be widely read (or condensed into a 30 secs video).

Let's be honest. Very very few people on the Left or Right actually believe in genuine free speech. That goes for the public too. Most people say they do but in reality they'll happily censor opinions/people they dislike.

The article of course also said as clearly as it can be said: “Kirk’s killing is abhorrent and must be condemned on its own terms – as Democrats, in their masses, are doing.”

Kirk was not a unifying figure seeking to heal a divided America. He claimed “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them”. He called a Bible passage calling on homosexuals to be executed “God’s perfect law”. He said passing the Civil Rights Act was “a huge mistake”. When Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in his home by a hammer-wielding assailant, Kirk joked about it and suggested his followers should pay the attacker’s bail.

Wrote this on Charlie Kirk last week, and I stand by it.

Full article: inews.co.uk/opinion/char...

Not every person at the Robinson march was a racist; immigration levels are far too high and have been for 20 years.

But sometimes you need to stop pissing around and tell it how it is. They don't all have 'legitimate' concerns. Some people really are just racist.

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off Anti-racism norms are good and should be socially enforced

It's time to tell the racists to fuck off (FREE TO READ!)

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/this-is-en...

And this point is so so true, particularly when it comes to Starmer. His judgement is often appalling.

This age of extreme nihilism threatens us all Charlie Kirk gunman appears to have roots in foetid online communities where users can’t cope with their atomised lives

www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...