G 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

No matter how many times I hear her, her voice still leaves me speechless. She had one of the most extraordinary singing voices in music history.

Over the weekend I have been taking ever deeper dives into Sir David Bell's “Independent” Review into Antisemitism in Schools and Colleges. There is zero doubt in my mind that this sloppy, misleading, and inaccurate report is contribution to a systemic, legal, and institutional dismantling of any support for Palestine, or any education and discussion about Palestinian history and existence within the UK education system. A 🧵

#RollingStones 1982年ヨーロピアンツアーのラストコンサートのリーズ公演のオープニングのこのラフな感じがカッコ良いんですよ。 チャーリーなんて全然準備も出来てないけど、実にリラックスした感じで、でも良い感じのグルーヴ作り出してるし。 これ以降89年からは完全にスタイル変わるんですね。 それにしてもチャーリーのスネアの音凄い！

RIP Donal Lunny. I was lucky to have met him a few times and to see him play live. I took this video in the @RTEArena studio on 29 Nov 2018. A great man.

Very important. The National Education Union effectively rejects the key recommendations of the new Independent Antisemitism Review, rejecting the IHRA Definition and suggesting current approaches create a hierarchy of racism. Directly says the report "will not tackle antisemitism." This review looks like yet another Labour Together Project disgrace - the long tail of McSweeney-Starmerism - that will likely inflame rather than reduce tensions in schools. Exasperating, infuriating stuff. Imagine telling teachers - teachers! In it for the kids! - that they can't talk about or show opposition Israel's genocide against Palestinian children. Here's what NEU's Daniel Kebede says: "However, recommending the IHRA definition for schools risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism. It is the wrong approach. The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity. A young person’s opposition to the Gaza genocide and scrutiny of the Israeli government are not, in themselves, antisemitic. Young people must have the space to understand and discuss world events. Schools must enable young people to confront difficult issues openly and develop empathy, not drive teachers into silence or leave pupils afraid to express their views. Recommending the IHRA definition risks tightening the chilling grip already stifling classroom discussion of the Gaza genocide. Schools need practical support to confront antisemitism, not a contested framework that risks shutting down legitimate discussion. The very real risk is that children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups. “This report will not tackle antisemitism. It wrongly calls into question the professionalism of teachers. The existing rules on impartiality in the classroom are very clear and teachers take that responsibility very seriously. For three years, teachers have been responding to concerned pupils’ questions about this conflict. These classroom discussions are familiar territory, not uncharted ground. In that time there have been vanishingly few examples of the Teacher Regulation Agency holding up a complaint of lack of impartiality in the classroom. "The NEU welcomes a strengthened focus on antisemitism in the statutory safeguarding guidance and we would encourage the Department for Education to go a step further by strengthening the guidance on all forms of racism. We are concerned that addressing antisemitism without an equally clear commitment to tackling all forms of racism risks creating a hierarchy of racism. No form of racism should be minimised, and no pupil or member of staff should receive less protection. Similarly, the NEU welcomes training for staff on recognising and challenging antisemitism, but we would like to see this in the context of wider antiracism training. The lack of training and time for staff development is a real barrier and almost two thirds of teachers (65 per cent) report that they have not received any antiracism training of any kind within the past year."

I need to see: The sample size. The schools visited in which areas. The definition of antisemitism used. The questions asked. Examples of responses. The breakdown of respondents by faith/ethnicity. Then I will pass judgement.

BREAKING: A landmark government report is set to reveal the vast scale of antisemitism in English schools and colleges, Sky News can exclusively reveal. The report, written by former schools inspector Sir David Bell, will on Wednesday set out 27 recommendations to create change.