‘Racism in medieval England’ may have led to black people dying of bubonic plague

Craig Simpson
Tue, 21 November 2023 

The Black Death is thought to have killed a third of the population of Europe - Art Directors & TRIP/Alamy

Racism in medieval England may have contributed to black people dying of bubonic plague, academics have suggested.

Researchers employing “black feminist archaeology” have studied remains in 14th-century plague cemeteries in London.

The study has claimed that black people may have succumbed to the plague in disproportionate numbers compared to whites because of “structural racism” in medieval England.

It concludes that critical race theory, an academic field devoted to examining how Western institutional power upholds racism, should be used by archaeologists in future.

Research conducted by Dr Rebecca Redfern, of the Museum of London, also suggests that “misogynoir”, prejudice against black women, created a particular risk of death by plague.

The study suggests that the findings show “structural racism’s devastating effects” at work in 14th-century England, when the plague bacteria yersinia pestis caused mass death.

Dr Redfern studied 145 sets of human remains interred in plague cemeteries when the Black Death swept through London and killed about 35,000 people. Of those buried, 49 succumbed to plague and 96 to other causes.

By measuring skull features, Dr Redfern and her colleagues claimed to have established that there were nine people of black African ancestry among the plague dead, and eight among the others.

‘Black population suffered disproportionately’

Dr Redfern’s research paper, published in Bioarchaeology International and focusing on “anti-black structural racism”, claims that the purported black population in London suffered disproportionately more deaths during the plague which struck in 1348.

The paper cites studies that show death by plague was more likely for those with underlying nutritional or health problems, perhaps caused by poverty or other stresses, and concludes that the black population of medieval London may have suffered the “health outcomes of structural and anti-black racism”.

The paper models the number of females of African descent in the graves, and concludes that they had health outcomes that were worse still, amid a pestilence that killed a third of the population of Europe.

The paper states: “Intersectionality – the compounded harm of race and gender and misogynoir – may have impacted mortality during medieval pandemic disease.” The recent neologism “misogynoir” is a portmanteau of “misogyny” and the French word for black, “noir”.

The paper makes apologies for the disciplines of its authors and the “double whiteness” and “twinned whiteness of both anthropology and medieval studies”, and states that it has set out to “prioritise the methodologies of black feminist archaeology”.

This theoretical approach to archaeology seeks to focus on race, class, gender, and inequality, including in prehistory.

The paper concludes: “We recommend that intersectionality and critical race theories become integrated” into archaeological studies, with intersectionality being the crossover of various traits such a race and class which could lead to inequality.

Dr Redfern has based her conclusions on research into the non-white population in medieval London, a population that she claims made up 30 per cent of the sample population in the plague burial sites.

Their ancestry is based on forensic studies of their skull features, and comparisons with modern populations their skulls appear similar to, a method which has proved controversial.

Studies of the skull of the Roman-era remains of Beachy Head Lady in East Sussex suggested she was of sub-Saharan African ancestry, before DNA testing revealed she was in fact from Cyprus.

It is understood the Museum of London will not conduct any DNA testing into the plague burial remains.

The diversity of Britain has become a prominent issue, and a number of claims about the racial makeup of past populations have been disputed.
‘Every single Briton comes from a migrant’

A book titled Brilliant Black British History was criticised for its claim that “every single British person comes from a migrant” and that black people built Stonehenge.

Genetic studies have shown that the inhabitants of Britain in the period when Stonehenge was completed, around 2,500 BC, were pale-skinned early farmers whose ancestors had spread from Anatolia.

Vauxhall owner in talks with Chinese rival for European EV battery factory

Howard Mustoe
Tue, 21 November 2023 

A Vauxhall Combo Electric van at Ellesmere Port, the UK's first electric vehicle-only manufacturing plant - Getty Images

Vauxhall owner Stellantis is in talks with a Chinese battery-maker to build a European factory for car cells, in spite of warnings by its chief executive over the threat of Beijing’s dominance in the motor industry.

Stellantis is in negotiations with CATL, the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), over a joint venture to make cheaper power cells, which Carlos Tavares, the Stellantis chief executive, hopes will help lower car prices.

The deal comes months after Mr Tavares warned of an “invasion” of cheap Chinese cars into Europe and predicted a “terrible fight” between domestic manufacturers and Asian rivals.

Up to 30 new EV brands are eyeing up the UK car market, most of them Chinese.

Companies such as BYD and Ora, which already have agreements in place with UK dealers, will be joined by a raft of other car makers including Chery, Dongfeng and Haval.

Mr Tavares said: “CATL is the industry leader in this sector and together with our iconic vehicle brands, we will bring innovative and accessible battery technology to our customers while helping us achieve our carbon net zero ambition.”

The deal would focus on making lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are cheaper to manufacture than the current generation of cells made for Stellantis vehicles, and have a long life and better stability.

Last month Stellantis bought a 21pc stake in a Chinese EV company to benefit from what its chief executive called the “Chinese offensive”.

The European carmaker agreed to invest €1.5bn (£1.3bn) in Hangzhou-headquartered Leapmotor, an eight-year-old EV manufacturer.

Mr Tavares told reporters at the time: “The Chinese offensive is visible everywhere.”

However, he said the Leapmotor deal meant “we can be benefitting from this Chinese offensive, rather than being a victim”.

Chinese carmakers have been ramping up exports to Europe in order to boost sales as the local economy slows.

EVs produced in China are much cheaper than European competitors because they benefit from state subsidies and a rich supply of locally made batteries.

In September, Brussels launched an investigation into Chinese EV imports, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen claiming prices were “kept artificially low by huge state subsidies”.

Stellantis’ big European rival Volkswagen last month said it would deepen cost cuts as demand for its cars falls in China, its biggest market, and Europe.

Robin Zeng, chairman and general manager of CATL, said: “We will remain dedicated to delivering more competitive and sustainable solutions for our partners to promote global energy transition.”

BBC's Gary Lineker endorses video that accuses Israel of ‘textbook genocide’

Dominic Penna
Tue, 21 November 2023 

In this article:
Gary Lineker
English footballer and TV presenter


BBC's Gary Lineker shared a link to academic Raz Segal accusing Israel of 'textbook genocide' - ANDY KELVIN/PA

Gary Lineker has endorsed a video by journalist Owen Jones in which an academic accuses Israel of “genocide” and dismisses comparisons between Hamas and the Nazis.

The Match of the Day presenter shared a tweet by Mr Jones, a columnist with the Guardian, of his interview with Raz Segal, an Israeli-American historian, and added the caption: “Worth 13 minutes of anyone’s time.”

In his conversation with Jones, Prof Segal – an associate professor of the Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University – attacks the Israeli military response to the Oct 7 terror attacks carried out by Hamas.


“I do think that what we’re seeing in front of our eyes is a textbook case of genocide,” he said.

While describing Oct 7 as “horrendous”, Prof Segal downplayed comparisons between Hamas and the Nazis, arguing that the persecution of Jews during the Second World War had a “very different context” from “Palestinians … [living] for decades under Israeli settler colonial rule”.

Historian Prof Raz Segal, who said Israel's actions amount to genocide

Stephen Pollard, the editor-at-large of the Jewish Chronicle, accused Lineker of “universe-bending ignorance”, while Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, said: “It is inconceivable any right-minded person would give that video the time of day.”

Lineker has previously called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, backing the pro-Palestinian protesters who marched through London on Armistice Day.

The 62-year-old broadcaster briefly stepped back from hosting Match of the Day in March after comparing language used by Suella Braverman, then home secretary, to “Germany in the 30s”. After he was reinstated by the BBC, Lineker vowed to continue airing his political opinions on social media

Last month, the Guardian was criticised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews after publishing a piece by Prof Segal entitled: “Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust”.

UK

UPDATED

Johnson and Sunak were happy to let people die from Covid, inquiry hears

Jane Kirby and Nina Massey, PA
Mon, 20 November 2023 

Johnson and Sunak were happy to let people die from Covid, inquiry hears
Coronavirus – Thu Oct 22, 2020


Boris Johnson wanted to let Covid “rip” despite the fact people would die, while Rishi Sunak also thought that was “okay”, the public inquiry has heard.

In further revelations from Sir Patrick Vallance’s pandemic diaries, the inquiry heard of the “shambolic” day on October 25 2020, when the country was heading towards a second national lockdown.

The diary entry highlights how the former prime minister wanted to let the virus spread, while his most senior adviser, Dominic Cummings (DC), suggested Mr Sunak, then chancellor, also thought it was “okay” to just let people die.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson during a Covid media briefing (Tolga Akmen/PA)


The extract read: “PM meeting – begins to argue for letting it all rip. Saying yes there will be more casualties but so be it – ‘they have had a good innings’.

“Not persuaded by (Jon) Edmunds, (Neil) Ferguson, (Jeremy) Farrar. PM says ‘the population just has to behave doesn’t it’.

“Heat maps ‘I have the necrotising maps’ so depressing.

“DC says trajectory will leave us in Nov – much as where we were in 1st week of April.

“Chris quite bullish about being able to take the brakes off more in April…

“Goes on about Gulf War Syndrome again… PM getting very frustrated – throwing papers down.

“PM then back on to ‘most people who die have reached their time anyway’.

“DC arguing we need to save lives – it is not democratically possible to follow another route…

The inquiry heard that Rishi Sunak thought it was ‘okay’ to let people die during the pandemic (Henry Nicholls/PA)

“DC argued again (rightly) that a lockdown’s coming and therefore do it sooner rather than later.

“PM concludes, ‘Looks like we are in a really tough spot, a complete shambles.’

“‘I really don’t want to do another national lockdown’.

“PM told that if he wants to go down this route of letting go, ‘you need to tell people – you need to tell them you are going to allow people to die’…

“Conclusion – beef up the tiers – consider a national lockdown – decide by when.

“DC says ‘Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay’.

“This all feels like a complete lack of leadership.”

Asked about the diary entry, Sir Patrick told the inquiry he was recording what must have been “quite a shambolic day”.

However, the following day’s entry shows Johnson had taken a different view and described the Covid death toll as “terrible”.

The inquiry also heard that Sir Patrick wrote that “we have a weak indecisive PM” and described the right-wing press as “culpable” in decision-making on Covid measures.

Asked about the diary entries, Downing Street declined to say whether Mr Sunak thought it would be OK to “just let people die” during the pandemic, saying it would be for the Prime Minister to set out his position during evidence before the Covid Inquiry.

“The Prime Minister is due to give evidence before the inquiry at the time of their choosing. That’s when he’ll set out his position,” Mr Sunak’s official spokesman said.

The spokesman said a number of people will be setting out their views of the period, but “rather than respond to each one in piecemeal, it’s right that it is looked at alongside other evidence”.

Science given undue weight over economics in pandemic decisions, says Sir Patrick Vallance

Gordon Rayner
Mon, 20 November 2023 

Undue weight was given to scientific advice over arguments for protecting the economy during the Covid pandemic, one of the most high-profile supporters of lockdowns has said.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser, said deficiencies in the economic arguments being put forward caused “a real problem in terms of how decisions could be made”.

Sir Patrick, who was among those pushing for what was described as a “go hard, go early” policy on curbing freedoms, also said it was a “mistake” for the Government to use a worst-case scenario projection of 4,000 deaths per day to help justify the second lockdown in autumn 2020.

Along with Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, Sir Patrick was an almost constant presence on the nation’s television screens during the pandemic, flanking Boris Johnson at daily press conferences to update the nation.

Giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry in London, Sir Patrick said he had referred to Sir Chris in his diary as “a delayer” because his colleague was worried about the long-term health risks associated with shutting down the country, whereas Sir Patrick felt there was a clear need for early lockdowns.

He said: “He was definitely of the view that the treatment and the result of that treatment needed to be considered together and pulling the trigger to do things too early could lead to adverse consequences … I didn’t have exactly the same worry. I was more on the side of ‘we need to move on this’.”

Despite his enthusiasm for locking down the country, Sir Patrick said the Treasury had failed to push back hard enough when the Government insisted it was “following the science”.

He said: “The science advice was there for everybody to see. The economic advice wasn’t and it wasn’t obvious what it was based upon and therefore [it] unduly weighted the science advice in the public mind, I think, and created a real problem in terms of how decisions could be made.”

He said he had suggested that an economic advisory group, similar to the scientific advisory group Sage, should be set up and “it had one meeting but it wasn’t pursued”.

In private diary entries he criticised the Treasury, then under Rishi Sunak as chancellor, saying that its internal predictions for the economy were based on: “No evidence, no transparency, pure dogma and wrong throughout.”

‘Mistake’ to show slide detailing worst-case scenario for deaths

Sir Patrick said that when Mr Johnson announced a second national lockdown on Oct 31 2020, he was told to show the public an information slide with a worst-case scenario for deaths, which he insisted was a bad idea.

He said: “The message came back several times that the PM thought that as he had seen the slide it was only right that the public should see it.

“It was agreed that I should show that slide but try to move on to the medium-term projection which was the real thing. I think I made a mistake by agreeing to show it.”

Less than a week later, the Office for Statistics Regulation criticised Sir Patrick for failing to release the data and assumptions behind the worst-case scenario projection of 4,000 deaths per day by December 2020 if no action was taken.

Mr Johnson had been forced into a hasty announcement of the lockdown after plans for it were leaked to the media, and Sir Patrick said the then prime minister spent three to four hours on the phone before that day’s press conference trying to explain his reasoning to Tory MPs and other critics.

He said there was nothing wrong with the 4,000 deaths projection in terms of its scientific validity, but: “I just thought it was not a sensible science slide to show.”

The inquiry was shown another entry from Sir Patrick’s diaries in October 2020 in which he noted that Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s senior adviser, had claimed: “Rishi thinks just let people die and that’s okay.”

Patrick Vallance's diaries: Eight extracts that lift the lid on No 10's Covid chaos

Blathnaid Corless
Mon, 20 November 2023 

Sir Patrick Vallance, right, gave regular public briefings during the pandemic alongside Boris Johnson and Sir Chris Whitty - Paul Grover for The Telegraph

Boris Johnson was “bamboozled” by the science, an unnamed woman sang The Wheels On The Bus to her child during a virtual Cabinet meeting and Matt Hancock told “untruths”.

Over the course of several hours of testimony at the Covid Inquiry, Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser to the Government, lifted the lid on the chaos and dysfunction inside Downing Street.
A prime minister ‘bamboozled’ by the science

Sir Patrick Vallance said Mr Johnson was “bamboozled” by science in a series of scathing diary entries.

Several extracts from Sir Patrick’s notes, written throughout the pandemic after meetings he and other experts held with the then prime minister to explain the various graphs and statistics, revealed his frustration at Mr Johnson’s incomprehension of the scientific evidence.

He described watching the former prime minister trying to get his head around statistics as “awful” and questioned whether Mr Johnson was “colour blind” because of his apparent inability to read graphs.

In one diary entry from May 4 2020, Sir Patrick wrote:

Another diary entry written by Sir Patrick more than a week later reveals the former prime minister also struggled to retain information for more than one meeting:


Sir Patrick wrote in another entry in June 2020:


In a later entry from September, he recalled how “difficult” it was to explain graphs relating to the virus to Mr Johnson:


Despite his apparent frustration with the former prime minister in his diary entries, Sir Patrick told the inquiry there was not “a unique inability” on the part of Mr Johnson, as many other countries’ scientific advisers were having similar problems explaining concepts to politicians.

Sir Patrick told the inquiry of Mr Johnson: “I think I’m right in saying that the prime minister at the time gave up science when he was 15 and I think he’d be the first to admit it wasn’t his forte and that he did struggle with some of the concepts and that we did need to repeat them often.”
Sunak kept scientists in dark over Eat Out to Help Out

Sir Patrick Vallance directly contradicted Rishi Sunak’s claim to the inquiry that scientists had not expressed concerns over his Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

The measure encouraged people to go to restaurants in August 2020 with the promise of 50 per cent off meals, subsidised by the taxpayer. It was pushed through by Mr Sunak, who was Chancellor at the time.

In a witness statement from Mr Sunak shown to the Covid-19 inquiry , the prime minister said: “I don’t recall any concerns about the scheme being expressed during ministerial discussions, including those attend by the CMO [Whitty] and CSA [Vallance].”

But Sir Patrick said the reason he hadn’t raised concerns was because advisers had been kept in the dark about the scheme.

He told the inquiry: “We didn’t see it before it was announced and I think others in the Cabinet Office also said they didn’t see it before it was formulated as policy. So we weren’t involved in the run up to it.”

Sir Patrick added: “I think it would have been very obvious to anyone that this inevitably would cause an increase in transmission risk, and I think that would have been known by ministers.”

When asked about Mr Sunak’s understanding of the risks, Sir Patrick said: “If he was in the meetings, I can’t recall which meetings he was in. But I’d be very surprised if any minister didn’t understand that these openings carried risk.”

Sir Patrick said Eat Out to Help Out “completely reversed” previous policy of trying to stop people from different households mixing indoors. He said that under Mr Sunak’s scheme the public was effectively saying “we will pay you” to do just that.

Mr Sunak also appeared dismissive of scientific experts, telling a meeting that Covid was about “handling the scientists, not handling the virus”. He was unaware when he said it that Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, was in attendance.

Sir Patrick wrote in a diary entry in early July 2020:

The Wheels On The Bus sung in Cabinet

Sir Patrick referred to Cabinet ministers as “meek as mice” and said a woman singing The Wheels On The Bus to her baby during one Cabinet meeting over Zoom was “symbolic of the shambles” in Government.

In a diary entry on Oct 11 2020, the former chief scientific adviser wrote:

“Cabinet call. Whilst waiting someone clearly not on mute - baby crying and then she starts singing ‘the wheels on the bus’ - somehow symbolic of the shambles.”

At the meeting, Mr Johnson tussled over whether to plunge the country into a new lockdown or stick with tiers. Sir Patrick was clearly agitated at the vacillation.

Sir Patrick noted in his diary:

“PM said on call, ‘The package we have as a baseline is unlikely to get R < 1 [reproduction rate] unless local leaders go further ... Hancock says this is our last shot at avoiding national lockdown...meek as mice from Cabinet ministers.”
Worries that Britain was ‘licked as a species’

Boris Johnson wondered out loud if Britain was “licked as a species” weeks before introducing a second national lockdown.

Sir Patrick Vallance disclosed details of five hours of meetings with the prime minister in late September 2020 at which Mr Johnson also said “We [the UK] are too s***” to avoid a fresh lockdown. The entry also highlights Mr Johnson’s seeming inability to make a decision and stick to it.

In his diary entry of Sept 20, Sir Patrick wrote:

‌Tension between Vallance and Whitty revealed

A “palpable tension” emerged between the Government’s chief scientific adviser and chief medical officer over lockdown policy during the pandemic.

Sir Patrick Vallance privately referred to Sir Chris Whitty as “a delayer” of a national lockdown, as he wanted to impose tough restrictions more quickly than the then chief medical officer, who was worried about the knock-on effects of shutting down the country.

The inquiry was shown an extract from the memoir of Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the Sage group of scientific advisers chaired by Sir Patrick, in which he spoke of a “friction” between the two experts and described a “a palpable tension between Patrick and Chris in the early weeks of 2020, particularly given the apparent absence of political leadership in that period”.

Sir Patrick wrote in his own nightly diary, following a meeting in Feb 2021 attended by Sir Chris:


Asked by Andrew O’Connor KC, counsel for the inquiry, if there was tension between him and the chief medical officer in the early days of the pandemic, Sir Patrick told the inquiry Sir Chris was concerned about “indirect harms” for mental health, loneliness, economic impacts and non-virus deaths, meaning he felt “pulling the trigger to do things too early could lead to adverse consequences”.

Sir Patrick added: “He would bring in views that were broad public health views looking at the consequences of interventions, as well as the direct consequences of the virus, and I think sometimes I would want to push and he might not and sometimes he was right, and sometimes I think we should have gone earlier.”
Hancock tells ‘untruths’

Sir Patrick said Matt Hancock had a habit of saying things “too enthusiastically” and without the evidence to back them up.

He also admitted that the former health secretary said things that were not true while working in No 10 during the pandemic.

Sir Patrick told the inquiry: “I think he had a habit of saying things which he didn’t have a basis for. And he would say them too enthusiastically, too early, without the evidence to back them up, and then have to backtrack from them, days later.

“I don’t know to what extent that was over-enthusiasm versus deliberate. I think a lot of it was over-enthusiasm, but he definitely said things which surprised me because I knew the evidence base wasn’t there.”

Asked if that meant Mr Hancock had said things that were untrue, Sir Patrick replied: “Yes.”

In another diary entry after a meeting which included talk about Long Covid in Sept 2020, Sir Patrick wrote that Matt Hancock had “explained things well for once”.
Rule of Six and schools rows

Sage, the Government’s Covid science advisory body, wanted to exempt children from the “Rule of Six” - but the idea was pushed back by ministers.

In a diary entry from Oct 15 2020, Sir Patrick wrote:

“Sage pushing for ‘Can’t we exempt children from rule of 6’. We said no, not unless CO (Cabinet Office) want to revisit.”

The rule, which limited the number of people who could gather in one place, was criticised at the time by the Children’s Commissioner who said it effectively kept large households in lockdown.

Scotland and Wales included an exemption for children under 12, but the Government in Westminster refused to implement a similar exemption in England until April 2021.

The Telegraph previously revealed in messages from its Lockdown Files that the Government knew there was no “robust rationale” for including children in the rule, but backed the policy regardless.

In a separate diary entry from Sir Patrick, he said Boris Johnson insisted all pupils needed to “get back to school” in August 2020, saying he would “no longer take this Covid excuse stuff”.

Sir Patrick wrote on Aug 6 2020:

‌

Second lockdown graph ‘a mistake’

Sir Patrick Vallance told the Covid inquiry it was “a mistake” to present a graph to the public showing that up to 4,000 people a day could die in the second Covid wave.

Modelling from a range of universities leaked to the press on Friday Oct 30 2020 which included a “reasonable worst case scenario” from Public Health England of several thousand daily deaths.

This document was taken directly into No 10 and shown to the Prime Minister, Sir Patrick told the inquiry, who admitted he was “rather blindsided” by the emergence of the graph, which had been meant only for the SPI-M sub-committee of Sage.

Sir Patrick said at the time to Mr Johnson that he should not take much notice of this particular projection and should instead focus on the six-week medium term projections, which are far more likely and “pretty grim”.

A decision was made overnight to go back into lockdown which necessitated an emergency press conference on Saturday Oct 31 2020.

Sir Patrick thought the graph should not be shown to the public via a press conference and instead wanted to focus the messaging around lockdown on Sir Simon Stevens, then CEO of the NHS, warning of collapse of the health service.

“The message came back several times that as he had seen this slide, it was only right that the public saw it and that we had to show it,” the inquiry heard.

“In the end we agreed that we would show the slide.”

He added that Mr Johnson’s thought process “carries some legitimacy” and said the data was valid and correct.

“I just didn’t think this was a sensible thing to show at a press conference,” Sir Patrick said. “These are complicated things to explain and it wasn’t really the issue. The issue is what is going to happen in the next six weeks, not what the theoretical unmitigated scenario looks like over the next several months.

“So, I think I made a mistake to agree to show it and I think, in retrospect, I should have phoned Simon Case and said I’m being put under a lot of pressure to do something I don’t want to do.

“But I didn’t have any worries about the scientific legitimacy, I just thought it was not a sensible slide to show.”

‘Following the science’ became millstone around our neck, says Whitty

Gordon Rayner
Tue, 21 November 2023 

Sir Chris Whitty said the Government's reliance on taking expert advice was a hinderance - PA

Boris Johnson’s insistence that the Government was “following the science” during the pandemic became a millstone around the necks of his advisers, the Chief Medical Officer has said.

Prof Sir Chris Whitty told the Covid Inquiry he was initially glad that the then prime minister was committed to taking expert advice on board, but later came to see it as a burden.

During an entire day in the witness box, Sir Chris also said more people died from other illnesses than Covid-19 throughout the pandemic and denied claims of tensions between him and Sir Patrick Vallance, the former chief scientific adviser.

Sir Chris and Sir Patrick were Mr Johnson’s two most senior scientific advisers during the global crisis, and became household names as they flanked the prime minister at daily press conferences.




Sir Chris, who will continue giving evidence for a second day on Wednesday, said that when ministers first told the public they were following the science, both he and Sir Patrick “thought, ‘well, this was a good thing, the Government is recognising that science is important.’

“Very soon we realised it was a millstone round our necks and it didn’t help the Government either.”

On Monday, Sir Patrick had said that the phrase was unhelpful as there was no such thing as “the science” and it suggested that there was a single agreed position from scientists, rather than a range of opinions that were constantly evolving as more information became available.

More people died from other illnesses

Sir Chris said it would have been “wrong” for the whole medical profession to focus on Covid-19 in early 2020 and that even at its height more people died of other causes.

Asked about discussions before the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a pandemic, he said that by February that year the “great majority” of his work was around the new virus and “we were moving increasingly far away from a probability this could go back to nothing.”

However, he added that that point was still “a long way” from the WHO declaring a pandemic on March 11 2020 or having evidence of transmission within the UK.

Sir Chris argued that it is “important to recognise that it would have been wrong to swing the whole of the medical profession over to this” in February 2020.

“Even at the height of the pandemic, more people died of causes not Covid than died of Covid,” he said. “Every one of those deaths is tragic on both of those sides.”
Sage discussed downsides of lockdown

Sir Chris said Sage had discussed the downsides of lockdown, and that he had personally warned that restricting liberties would hit the poorest and most isolated in society hardest.

He said: “I did have a stronger concern, I would say than some, that the biggest impacts of everything we did – and I was confident we were going to have to do them to be clear – but when we started, the disadvantages of all the actions, not just for lockdown, but other actions before that, for example, what was initially called cocooning and then shielding as an example, and stopping schooling as another.

“The biggest impacts of those would be areas of deprivation and those in difficulties and those living alone and so on.”

Asked if he warned of the danger that if the country “went too soon, too rapidly, there would be other perhaps indirect but other significant consequences”, he said he did not deviate from the advice of Sage.

Cheltenham had no ‘material effect’

One of the biggest controversies at the start of the pandemic was the Government’s decision to allow major sporting events, including the four-day Cheltenham Festival, to go ahead.

Cheltenham began on March 10, 2020 and on March 11 Liverpool hosted a Champions League match against Atletico Madrid. The first lockdown was announced on March 23.

Sir Chris said the decision not to cancel mass gatherings was “technically correct”.

He said he was “taking ownership” of the advice given at the time by the Sage group of expert advisers, who told the Government that the risks of outdoor events was relatively low.

He said: “The problem was not the gatherings themselves, which I don’t think there is good evidence that they had a material effect directly, but the impression it gives of normality at a time when you are trying to signal anything but normality.”

He said it risked sending a message that “the Government couldn’t be that worried” about the threat of Covid-19 if it was allowing big sporting events to go ahead, so the decision was “in a sense technically correct and logically incoherent to the general public”.

No war with Sir Patrick

Sir Chris was asked about a description by his Sage colleague Sir Jeremy Farrar of “palpable tension” between him and Sir Patrick over lockdown policy.

He said: “Well Sir Jeremy, who is a good friend and colleague, had a book to sell and that made it more exciting, I’m told.”

Sir Patrick said Sir Chris had been more cautious about imposing restrictions on the public than he was, but Sir Chris said: “My own view is that actually the differences were very small. And the main one … was that I saw as part of my role within Sage … to reflect some of the very significant problems for, particularly areas of deprivation.”

Sir Chris dismissed Sir Patrick’s description of him in his private diary as “a delayer”, saying he had only reflected the overall opinion of Sage at the time in trying to balance the risk of going too early with restrictions and going too late.

We relied on foreign experts

Sir Chris was asked if England had consulted overseas experts about the response and experience of the pandemic, but said that the country was “absolutely dependent” on information from abroad at the start of the pandemic.

He explained that he spoke with officials from the WHO, including the director general, and his counterparts in other countries as the pandemic progressed.

“We did and we were absolutely dependent on that,” he said.
Pandemic plan was out of date

Sir Chris has admitted that a government strategy document published on March 3, 2020, was “out of date” when it was published.

“Once you are in an exponential curve you get out of date remarkably quickly,” he said.

Asked by Mr Keith about the plan and whether it was outdated at the time of publication Sir Chris agreed but claimed much of the advice was still useful. He denied hopes of containment were “lost weeks before” and that around the time the strategy was published was “close to the point where you had to abandon it”.

“The problem with this document is essentially there is nothing wrong with the document, it’s just too late,” he said. “If it had been published when it was first conceived it would be much more in date. This is one of the problems of trying to develop these kind of documents on the hoof during an exponential rise. That’s just a reality”.

Sir Chris added that he would “stand behind the publication” and “some document is better than no document”.

Ministers ‘not electrified’ by warnings

Sir Chris said there was an “opportunity where we could probably have moved up a gear or two across Government” in early February 2020 if the system had been “electrified” by the information it already had on Covid-19.

He said if MI5 had warned that 100,000 people could die in a terrorist attack, the chance the system would have carried on as it did would have been “quite small”.

He told the inquiry “the system is surprisingly bad, in my view, at responding to threats of this kind which are not in the national security system”.

Asked why no one “appears to have been electrified by the information that there was a massive threat”, Sir Chris added: “I mean, I think, in a sense that is my point, is the system is surprisingly bad at, in my view, responding to threats of this kind which are not in the traditional national security system ... I think it is largely to do with the way that the national security apparatus interprets its role.”

Sir Chris also claimed that those in government did not understand the concept of exponential growth prior to the pandemic.

“I think that one of the things that, however, we really did not find easy to get across, and I found this surprisingly, surprising, given that so many people in both politics and in the official system are trained in economics, is the extraordinary power of exponential growth to get you from small numbers to large numbers very quickly, people just don’t get that intrinsically.”

Under questioning from Mr Keith about claims of “oscillation and chaos” in government decision-making during the pandemic, Sir Chris said: “That’s correct but I think it’s a matter of record that many other nations had similar problems.”

He described Mr Johnson as having a “quite distinct style”, adding: “I think the way Mr Johnson took decisions was unique to him.”

Mr Keith replied: “If I may – that’s a euphemism if ever I’ve heard one.”

UK
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY

Angela Rayner poses for British Vogue in an outfit worth £3,570

AND SHE WEARS IT WELL

the clothes are not her own and were just borrowed for the Vogue feature.


Dominic Penna
Tue, 21 November 2023 

Angela Rayner said: 'I didn’t go to Eton. People don’t expect me to be in the room. I’ve always had to earn my place' -

 TOBY COULSON/See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 21 November

Angela Rayner has told Vogue magazine she has “earnt her place” in Westminster as she wore an outfit worth £3,570.

The deputy Labour leader claimed she has been subject to classism throughout her time as an MP and that some Tory politicians cannot empathise with the problems facing less wealthy voters.

She posed in a photoshoot for the fashion magazine wearing a £1,995 oversized coat and £880 pink shirt, both from the independent label Emilia Wickstead, paired with Jimmy Choo calf leather shoes worth £695.

A source close to the frontbencher confirmed the clothes are not her own and were just borrowed for the Vogue feature.

Angela Rayner said: 'I get compliments but a huge amount of abuse' - TOBY COULSON/See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 21 November

Ms Rayner recalled a row last year with Dominic Raab, during his time as deputy prime minister, in which he made a dig at her attendance at the Glyndebourne opera festival, calling it “champagne socialism”.

“It frustrates me – it’s not just what [Raab] thinks of me, but people like me,” she said. “How can you be in the second-highest position and think that way about half the electorate? How can you understand the challenges they face?

“I didn’t go to Eton. People don’t expect me to be in the room. I’ve always had to earn my place.”

Noting she had been called “thick as mince” on social media and compared to Vicky Pollard – a caricature of a “chav” in the comedy series Little Britain – Ms Rayner added: “My team dread it when I’ve been on television or PMQs.

“I get compliments but a huge amount of abuse. It’s become part of the job.”

Ms Rayner also insisted her working relationship with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, had improved over the years after a number of reported disagreements between the pair, including his alleged attempts to demote her during 2021 only for her to end up with a promotion.

“I think we complement each other because we’re very different,” she said. “If I was just ‘yes, everything you say is wonderful’, you wouldn’t get feedback. Same with him to me.

“Our leadership has evolved, like any team when you’re thrown together. Whatever the office politics is like... We understand each other now.”

See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday Nov 21.

British Vogue December 2023

‘Breakthrough battery’ from Sweden may cut dependency on China

Northvolt says new lithium-free sodium-ion battery is cheaper, more sustainable and doesn’t rely on scarce raw materials

Alex Lawson

GUARDIAN

Tue 21 Nov 2023

Europe’s energy and electric vehicle industries could reduce their dependency on scarce raw materials from China after the launch of a “breakthrough” sodium-ion battery, according to its Swedish developer.

Northvolt, Europe’s only large homegrown electric battery maker, has said it has made a lower cost, more sustainable battery designed to store electricity which does not use lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt.

Britain and Europe’s electric battery industry is reliant on raw materials, or completed batteries, sourced from China and other Asian nations.

Northvolt said its new battery, which has an energy density of more than 160 watt-hours per kilogram, has been designed for electricity storage plants but could in future be used in electric vehicles, such as two wheeled scooters.

“Using sodium-ion technology is not new but we think this is the first product ever completely free from critical raw materials. It is a fundamental breakthrough,” said Patrik Andreasson, Northvolt’s vice-president of strategy and sustainability. “This provides an option that is not dependent on certain parts of the world, including China.”

Asked if Northvolt would open operations in the UK, Andreasson said: “We have our hands full. We have a clear path of where we are going.”

The prototype battery has been developed at the company’s labs in Västerås, Sweden, and will be shown to customers next year. The company has not decided where the battery will be manufactured in larger quantities.

Storing electricity in batteries on an industrial scale is seen as crucial to decarbonising national electricity grids. Battery projects store energy from wind and solar panels which can be used when the wind drops or sun is not shining.

MPs have long voiced concerns over the dependence on China’s scarce resources for critical minerals amid deteriorating Anglo-Sino relations and a carmaking industry swiftly switching towards electric vehicles. Battery makers have looked to diversify their supply chains and use alternative technologies in an attempt to combat this.

Britain and its neighbours hope to develop homegrown electric battery industries with varying success. Britishvolt, which had hoped to build a £3.8bn gigafactory in northern England, collapsed earlier this year, but the sector was given a boost by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata’s decision to build a £4bn specialist factory in the UK.

Andreasson said: “When you think about energy security, it’s inconceivable to think about operating without leaders. The impact of creating jobs it can bring cannot be underestimated. You need to have local or regional champions.”

Northvolt produced its first lithium ion battery cell at a plant in northern Sweden in late 2021.

Andreasson said that the energy density of the new battery was lower than most lithium equivalents but it would aim to build that up in the new product, while keeping costs low.

Northvolt said the battery, which is based on a high-sodium Prussian white cathode and hard carbon anode, is safer than alternatives at high temperatures. As a result, the company is targeting markets such as the Middle East, India and Africa.

Northvolt, which counts Volkswagen as an investor and Volvo and BMW among its customers, has been tipped to float on the stock market but has no immediate plans to do so.

UK
Reasonable for protesters to call Iain Duncan Smith ‘Tory scum’, court rules


Andrew Popplewell
Daniel Boffey Chief reporter
Updated Tue, 21 November 2023

Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Two protesters were “reasonable” in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum” outside the Conservative party conference, the high court has ruled, in a rejection of an attempt to overturn their acquittal.

Lord Justice Popplewell and Justice Fordham said no fault in law was made by a senior district judge last November in finding Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent.

In response to a request for a judicial review from the director of public prosecutions, the high court found that Judge Goldspring, who is also described as a chief magistrate, had made the important finding that “the use of Tory scum was to highlight the policies” of Duncan Smith, and that this was relevant to the “reasonableness of the conduct” in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.


There was nothing to undermine Goldspring’s conclusion that criminalising the words “Tory scum” would be a disproportionate interference in the two protesters’ rights, the high court ruled.

Tom Wainwright, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers representing Wood and Haslam, said the judgment represented an important defence of the right to freedom of expression.

He said: “Just the idea that someone can be convicted for saying this is bizarre in the first place. The director of public prosecutions was trying to put the burden on the defendants to show that they hadn’t crossed the line – the crucial question of when free speech crosses the line into something that is criminal.

“What this judgment confirms is that it is not for the defence to show that, but it is for the state to show that there is a good reason to restrict free speech and that a conviction is the only way that could be done.”

Wood and Haslam were outside the Midland hotel in Manchester, where the Conservative party annual conference was taking place in October 2021, when Duncan Smith, a former welfare secretary, emerged to walk to the Mercure hotel for a conference about Brexit. He was accompanied by his wife, Betsy Duncan Smith, and her friend Primrose Yorke.

As Duncan Smith crossed the road, an individual ran up behind him and placed a traffic cone on his head. The former Tory leader removed the traffic cone, called the protesters “pathetic” and continued on his way.

Haslam and Wood had followed Duncan Smith from a short distance. They separately called him “Tory scum”. Wood added: “F**k off out of Manchester.”

Wood defended her comments on the grounds that her job working with homeless people in her local community meant she felt very strongly about the impact that Conservative party policies were having on people’s lives.

Haslam’s comments were made in a speech in which he cited child poverty homelessness, and a lack of action over the climate emergency as reasons “why people hate you, why people call you scum”. He added: “It doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from what you have done to ordinary people’s lives … shame on you, Tory scum.”

Neither of the protesters had been aware of or encouraged the act of putting a traffic cone on Duncan Smith’s head.

Their comments came after Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had been recorded at her party’s conference describing the Conservatives as “homophobic, racist, misogynistic … scum”.

The high court ruled that the defence needed to set out the facts for a “reasonable conduct defence” in relation to the freedom of expression and assembly rights in the European convention on human rights, but that it had been up to the prosecution to demonstrate the proportionality of an interference with those rights, which it had not done.

UK

Jeremy Hunt confirms pay boost for nearly 3 million workers as living wage rises to more than £11 an hour (13.78 US Dollars)

IT'S A MINIMUM WAGE UNDER $15 PER HR

Kate Devlin
Tue, 21 November 2023 

Jeremy Hunt confirms pay boost for nearly 3million workers as living wage rises to more than £11 an hour
In this article:

The national living wage is to increase to more than £11 an hour from next April, Jeremy Hunt has announced.

The chancellor said move would “end low pay in this country” as he said nearly three million workers would receive an hourly wage of £11.44, as he prepares to unveil the autumn statement on Wednesday.

The move will benefit nearly three million of the lowest paid.

The government had set a target for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median hourly pay by October next year.

Announcing last month that he wanted the rate rise to “at least” £11 an hour, Mr Hunt said he wanted to “complete another great Conservative reform, the national living wage.”

The rate is currently £10.42 for workers aged over 23, but the new figure will apply to 21 and 22-year-olds for the first time.

The National minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will also increase by £1.11 to £8.60 per hour, the government has said.

Apprentices will have their minimum hourly rates boosted. An 18-year-old in an industry like construction will see their pay increase by more than 20%, from £5.28 to £6.40 an hour.

Mr Hunt hailed the rise and said it would “end low pay in this country, delivering on our manifesto promise”.

Further measures will be set out by Mr Hunt in the autumn statement.

Nye Cominetti, principal economist of the Resolution Foundation, said: “The more than £1 an hour increase in the National Living Wage next year is huge – the third biggest rise ever in both cash and real terms. At least 1.7 million workers across Britain will benefit from this latest rise, and many more will see their wages boosted indirectly. “

She added: “The minimum wage is one of Britain’s greatest ever policy triumphs – playing a key role in reducing low pay to a record low, and benefitting women and younger workers in particular. But it can’t be the only tool we use to improve people’s working lives. We now need to build on its success to drive up wider working conditions for low earners in terms of job security and access to holiday and sick pay.”

Heather Rogers, leading media and defamation lawyer who acted for Deborah Lipstadt against David Irving – obituary

Telegraph Obituaries
Mon, 20 November 2023 

Heather Rogers, KC: Deborah Lipstadt praised her 'uncanny ability to put her hands on the precise document at precisely the right time' - Alamy

Heather Rogers, KC, who has died from a pulmonary embolism aged 64, was one of the most talented media and defamation lawyers of her generation and appeared in a string of high profile cases, most memorably as junior defence counsel to Richard Rampton (her longtime friend and mentor) in the Lipstadt/Irving libel trial in 2000.

In her book Denying the Holocaust (1993), the American historian Deborah Lipstadt had called the English author David Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial”. Choosing to represent himself at the High Court trial after suing Lipstadt and her publishers Penguin for libel, Irving got himself into several spectacular tangles, once inadvertently addressing the judge, Sir Charles Gray, as “Mein Fuhrer” during his closing submissions, prompting gasps of disbelief from the rest of the courtroom.

Gray’s devastating judgment against Irving was based on Heather Rogers’s synthesis of the historical evidence and was widely considered a tour de force, destroying Irving’s credibility as a historian of the Third Reich and leaving him with a £2 million bill for costs.

David Irving ducking eggs as he arrives at the High Court to hear the verdict in his libel case - MARTYN HAYHOW


In her subsequent account of the case, History on Trial (2005), which was later made into the film Denial (written by David Hare), Deborah Lipstadt paid tribute to Rogers’s “down-to-earth, no-nonsense quality”; her “calm but determined manner and evident empathy”; and her “uncanny ability to put her hands on the precise document at precisely the right time”.

The film’s focus could never be Rogers’s painstaking and vitally important analysis of the documents but the outcome of the case (and indeed of all her cases) was always far more important to her than any credit she might or might not receive.

Heather Rogers was born on June 3 1959 in Wolverhampton, where her father George worked as a carpenter and her mother Olga (nee Ingram) as a secretary. After Wolverhampton Girls’ High School she read Law at the London School of Economics, graduating with a First.

Inspired to become a barrister by watching TV courtroom dramas and determined “to fight for truth and justice”, she later came top of her year in her Bar exams with what was said to be the highest ever mark.

Called to the Bar in 1983, she was taken on as a tenant at Dr Johnson’s Buildings, where she had been Geoffrey Robertson’s first pupil, before moving in 1985 to 10 South Square, the set now known as 5RB. There would be several more moves between leading media sets in the years to come.

In 2000 she was one of the founders of Matrix Chambers, where she stayed until she joined Doughty Street Chambers in 2009, then 1 Brick Court (Richard Rampton’s set) in 2015, and when that set folded in 2019 she returned to Doughty Street, where she remained.

Heather Rogers as a junior, when she was 'the skilful pen behind many a libel silk’s sword', according to George Carman's son and biographer Dominic - Matrix Chambers

A specialist in libel defence work, Rogers cut her teeth as a young barrister working as an in-house lawyer on Robert Maxwell’s London Daily News. Her pre-publication advice was considered second to none.

In 1988 she apologised to the Queen on behalf of the Sun newspaper for publishing a leaked royal family photograph of Princess Beatrice and agreed that it would pay £100,000 to four charities chosen by the Queen in settlement of the case.

She was junior counsel to notable QCs such as George Carman – whose son and biographer Dominic Carman later described her as “the skilful pen behind many a libel silk’s sword” – and Charles Gray, who led her in the case of Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers (1993), in which the House of Lords ruled that governmental bodies can not sue for libel as they should be open to uninhibited public criticism.

Gray also led Heather Rogers in Esther Rantzen v Mirror Group (1994), in which they succeeded in getting the damages awarded reduced from £250,000 to £110,000, and in Elton John v Mirror Group (1997), in which the Court of Appeal said it was legitimate to draw juries’ attention to standard tariff awards in personal injuries cases as a means of limiting the size of libel awards.

Led by Carman defending Mohammed Al Fayed against Neil Hamilton, it was Heather Rogers who devised the famous characterisation of Hamilton as being “on the make and on the take”.

Christine and Neil Hamilton, the former MP for Tatton, arriving at the High Court to hear Mohammed Al Fayed finish his evidence, 2000 - Rob Bodman

Obeying the Bar’s cab rank rule, she occasionally acted for libel plaintiffs, appearing as junior counsel to Richard Rampton for George Galloway in his successful action against the Telegraph in 2006 over reports that had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein. And she was led by John Kelsey-Fry for Roman Polanski in his successful case against Condé Nast over an article in Vanity Fair claiming he had tried to seduce a Scandinavian model on his way to Sharon Tate’s funeral by claiming he could make her “another Sharon Tate”.

In 2003 Heather Rogers again found herself in the media spotlight as counsel to the journalist Andrew Gilligan at the Hutton Inquiry, set up to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq who committed suicide after being named as Gilligan’s source for his BBC Today programme report that the government had “sexed up” the dossier into Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.

After taking Silk in 2006, Rogers defended the Sunday Times over allegations that the cyclist Lance Armstrong had cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs, an unusual case in which damages were paid to the plaintiff but later returned after he confessed his guilt.

In 2010 she was the co-architect of Lord Lester’s draft Defamation Bill, which was hailed by the government as “the most significant driver of reform” and which greatly informed the subsequent Defamation Act (2013).

More recently she had acted for the nephews of Sir Frederick Barclay over allegations that they had planted listening devices to spy on him and his daughter at the Ritz hotel, and for the Media Lawyers’ Association in Serafin v Malkiewicz, the Supreme Court case which confirmed the reduced burden on journalists advancing a “public interest” defence to publication, as introduced by the Defamation Act.

She had been due to represent the Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and the drag artist Crystal (Colin Seymour) in their libel action against the actor and political activist Laurence Fox over his tweets calling them “paedophiles” and his counterclaims against them for describing him as a “racist”.

Heather Rogers’s clarity of expression and ability to make the right point at the right time made her highly effective when speaking on her feet, when she was apt to kick off her shoes beneath the table, out of sight of the judge.

Ferociously clever but also notably warm, kind, generous and unpretentious, she enjoyed the arts, literature, theatre and music, but, always loyal to her working class roots, preferred Greggs to Pret a Manger and was as happy listening to cheesy pop as she was to anything classical.

She is survived by her wife, Julie Edwards, the film and television producer whom she married four years ago after more than 20 years together, and by her younger brother Paul and nephew Jason.

Heather Rogers, born June 3 1959, died October 18 2023

Trump's holy crusade: Christian evangelicals flock to his version of a "final solution"

Heather Digby Parton

SALON
Mon, November 20, 2023 

Donald Trump Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Iowa caucuses are right around the corner and even Donald Trump has deigned to appear in the state recently despite his obvious belief that it's beneath him to have to compete for the nomination he, and everyone else, knows is already his. But he does enjoy his rallies. So he's clearly decided that it's time to gather the flock just to make sure they all know what's expected of them.

Here's a sample of what he's talking about on the campaign trail these days:

Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post reported from this weekend's rally:

Children wandered around in shirts and hats with the letters “FJB,” an abbreviation for an obscene jab at President Biden that other merchandise spelled out: “F—- Biden.” During his speech inside a high school gym in Fort Dodge, former president Trump called one GOP rival a “son of a b——,” referred to another as “birdbrain” and had the crowd shrieking with laughter at his comments on Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who he called “pencil neck” before asking, “How does he hold up that fat, ugly face?”

He brought the house down while mocking Biden, at one point baselessly suggesting Biden is using drugs and can’t get offstage “by the time whatever it is he’s taken wears off.” ... And outside the packed venue, vulgar slogans about Biden and Vice President Harris were splashed across T-shirts: “Biden Loves Minors.” “Joe and the Ho Gotta Go!” One referred to Biden and Harris performing sexual acts.

Yes, they're all just letting their freak flags fly, no holds barred. Not that this is entirely new. Republican gatherings like CPAC going back decades used to feature racist and misogynist merchandise, and there were many speakers who made crude comments about their Democratic rivals. But it is unprecedented for the candidate himself to wallow around in the gutter with them.

He's also been posting more Nazi-esque statements on his social media platform. This weekend he seemed to be proposing a "final solution" for his enemies:

Meanwhile, in another town in Iowa, Trump skipped out on what would have been required attendance in Iowa GOP presidential primaries in the past: A meeting with Christians to talk about the issues that are important to them. This one was called the Family Leader's Thanksgiving Family Forum. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy were there to go through the motions and pretend that they might have a chance to win. (A recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll found 43% of likely Republican voters choose Trump compared with 16% each for Haley and DeSantis.) The forum convener, Bob Vander Plaats, was once considered an Iowa kingmaker but he's broken with Trump and it doesn't appear that he has the juice to bring anyone else over the line. He opened the forum by beseeching the candidates to "raise the bar" — and by comparison to Trump, they managed to do that.

Mostly, they talked about their faith and abortion with both Ramaswamy and DeSantis discussing their wives' miscarriages and Nikki Haley making news by saying that she would happily sign a 6-week abortion ban. (She issued her standard disclaimer that she doesn't think that's possible on a federal basis right now, as if that somehow qualifies as a moderate position.) It was all pretty standard Republican evangelical pandering.

But it's quite clear from the polling that most conservative evangelical Christians like the libertine, gutter-snipe Donald Trump even more than the rest of the Republican Party. They are the strongest pillar of his following. So attempting to pry them loose with appeals to decency is a waste of breath. There have been billions of pixels spent trying to figure out why they like him, and I suppose there are many reasons. But recent polling by the Public Religion Research Institute found that one-third of white evangelicals favor political violence so Trump's insurrection obviously holds major appeal to a lot of them. And no doubt they love his commentary about barring people who "don't like our religion" from entering the country:

“I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants. If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you don’t like our religion (which a lot of them don’t), if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in.”

And, as we know, Trump has lately taken to vowing to demolish, expel, drive out, cast out, and evict all the people they don't like from America as well. Apparently, it's all music to their ears.

Trump's recently been getting some big endorsements from important office holders and there's one in particular who represents conservative evangelicals in an extremely powerful position. That would be the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, whose affiliation with the most extreme forms of Christian Nationalism is only now coming into focus. According to NPR, Johnson is a leading member of the far-right New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement, which seeks to dissolve the separation between church and state by “any means necessary.” Johnson has spent his entire career as a lawyer and an elected official in service of that goal.

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, took a look at his litigation history to see what it says about how he applies these beliefs to the constitution and you won't be surprised to learn that his legal principles are entirely inconsistent. In fact, the only thing consistent about his position is the idea that America is meant to be a Christian theocracy.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

For Christians like Johnson, Trump is just a blunt instrument to be used to advance his cause which he believes must be attained by any means necessary. Whatever else he represents is of no consequence.

It's actually a little different for the MAGA rank and file. The Post's Knowles spoke with some of them at Trump's Iowa rally:

“Joe’s gotta go,” said Lori Carpenter, 59, as she left the Fort Dodge event.“And the ho shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” The “ho” was Harris, she clarified, before offering another nickname for Harris that was even more vulgar. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said of Trump’s insults and crudeness.

Her relative, 71-year-old Marsha Crouthamel, agreed. "It doesn’t bother me either because his policies are strong,” she echoed, adding that Trump got a lot of laughs and added, “Sometimes you just gotta excite people a little bit.”

“We’re Christians, and we can look past that,” Carpenter said. “We see the good that he did our country when he was in.”

To these Trump-loving evangelicals, being a Christian means never having to say you're sorry. And that's one thing they definitely have in common with their Dear Leader Donald Trump.

Donald Trump dreams of an American Fourth Reich — and he's not kidding

Chauncey DeVega

SALON
Mon, November 20, 2023 

Donald Trump Alon Skuy/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s hate sermons are becoming even more intense and combustible. As he comes ever closer to openly quoting Adolf Hitler and the other 20th-century fascists, his behavior is clearly intentional and strategic.

Trump publicly admires and praises tyrants and demagogues and views them as role models. If he returns to power in 2025, he intends to create an American Fourth Reich. Consider Trump's speeches, interviews and social media posts over the last few weeks.

At a rally in Hialeah, Florida, last Wednesday, Trump painted a picture of a hellish (predominantly white) America overrun by serial killers and other human monsters from foreign (and predominantly nonwhite) countries, insisting that only he could save (white) America from the death and contamination caused by Democrats and “the left.”

“Anybody ever hear of Hannibal Lecter?” Trump asked the crowd. “He was a nice fellow. But that’s what’s coming into our country right now.”

The Atlantic’s John Hendrickson continues from there:

The leader of the Republican Party — and quite likely the 2024 GOP nominee — was on an extended rant about mental institutions, prisons, and, to use his phrase, “empty insane asylums.” Speaking to thousands of die-hard supporters at a rally in South Florida, Trump lamented that, under President Joe Biden, the United States has become “the dumping ground of the world.” That he had casually praised one of the most infamous psychopathic serial killers in cinema history was but an aside, brushed over and forgotten.

This was a dystopian, at times gothic speech. It droned on for nearly 90 minutes. Trump attacked the “liars and leeches” who have been “sucking the life and blood” out of the country. Those unnamed people were similar to, yet different from, the “rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishment” of Washington, D.C. — a place Trump famously despises, and to which he nonetheless longs to return.

Over the past seven or so years, I have watched many of Trump’s speeches. This was one of the most frightening and most disturbing I have seen. It was fascinating in much the same way as witnessing the aftermath of a horrible car accident or watching a horror movie.

Although many among the news media, pundit class and other professional politics-watchers avoid saying this, Trump’s dark charisma can be highly compelling. I'm convinced they feel its allure as well, even if they publicly deny it.

On Friday, in an interview with Univision, Trump threatened to use the Department of Justice to put his political enemies in prison: “They have done something that allows the next party … if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” Trump also defended his regime’s cruel family separation policy (and by implication concentration camp system) that targeted millions of brown and Black migrants and refugees.

These white supremacist plans are part of a larger project to revoke birthright citizenship, invoke the Alien Enemies Act to imprison or deport (or worse) the Trump regime’s perceived enemies, and using the law more generally as a weapon to crush dissent and resistance.

Last weekend, on Veterans Day, Trump escalated his Nazi-style threats by declaring that his political enemies to be "vermin" or human poison to be purged from the system. That came at a MAGA rally in New Hampshire and also in a post on his Truth Social platform:

In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

At a fundraising event in San Francisco last Tuesday, President Biden spoke out against Trump’s antisemitism and white supremacy: “In just the last few days, Trump has said, if he returns office, he’s gonna go after all those who oppose him and wipe out what he called ... the vermin in America — a specific phrase with a specific meaning…. It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the '30s.”

In a post on Truth Social that went largely ignored by the mainstream media, Trump continued to summon Nazi imagery by threatening to imprison “Radical Left Zealots" in a “mental institution”:

Deranged Jack Smith, Andrew Weissmann, Lisa Monaco, the “team of losers and misfits” from CREW, and all the rest of the Radical Left Zealots and Thugs who have been working illegally for years to “take me down,” will end up, because of their suffering from a horrible disease, TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME (TDS!), in a Mental Institution by the time my next term as President is successfully completed. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Declaring that the enemies of the regime and the Great Leader are mentally ill and then imprisoning them for "treatment" is a common practice in authoritarian states.

Predictably, the mainstream news media and responsible political class responded with performative shock and surprise at Trump’s week-long channeling of Hitler and Nazism. In fact, Trump’s hateful behavior and language are no surprise.

For at least the last seven years (and for decades before that), Trump has shown himself to be a casual antisemite. He reportedly once slept with a copy of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet next to his bed. It is no coincidence that professed Nazis, white supremacists and other hate-mongers are among Trump’s strongest supporters, or that he refuses to publicly disavow or condemn them.

It appears that the American news media and political class, and by implication the mass public, have already forgotten that since at least September Trump has publicly spread conspiracy theories about being “stabbed in the back,” suggesting that the country is being “poisoned” by immigrants and that “good Jews” should support him while “bad Jews” will be punished for their “betrayals.”

But the mainstream media is bored with Trump's rhetoric and has now largely moved on. That irresponsible choice further normalizes Trump’s evil and the larger neofascist assault on the country’s democracy and civil society.

It is nearly incredible that the presumed nominee of one of the country’s two institutional political parties is explicitly channeling Hitler and the Nazis. That should be dominating the news. Trump's Fourth Reich aspirations constitute a national emergency. But America is an unhealthy society where all this will likely be normalized as just "culture war" tactics or political "polarization."

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If Donald Trump's American neofascist movement did not have tens of millions of followers, it would not pose an existential threat to democracy. History is full of examples of “good people” who become capable of doing horrible things to others once they are given permission and encouraged by fascist leaders, fake populists and demagogues.

In his book “Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself,” which examines mass suicides by Germans at the end of World War II, historian Florian Huber writes:

After leaving the German Reich in 1933 to run the Paris offices of the Daily Express, British newspaper correspondent Sefton Delmer returned in 1936. He found people transformed. Three years had been enough to put them under the Führer’s spell. “They were adoring his firm ruthless rule. They were in raptures at being told what to think, whom to hate, when to cheer.” … He knew, and knew how to galvanize, their feelings, yearnings and prejudices—how to transform depression into exhilaration. As a man of the people, he spoke their language. He was the faith healer they had been waiting for.” …

Silence in the arena, as his voice swelled. He spoke of victory over the past, of the present, and the future, work and happiness — and every member of the audience seemed to feel as if he we addressing them personally. ... [H]e transformed their vague but urgent feelings into something more tangible. People’s longings and resentments were laid out before them, on public view. Their most secret thoughts were no longer to be ashamed of; they belonged to everyone in the hall.

Trump has a similar power over his MAGA followers. Here is Hendrickson’s description of the scene at Trump’s Florida rally last week:

No other candidate has legions of fans who will bake in the Florida sun for hours before gates open. No one else can draw enough people to even hold a rally this size, let alone spawn a traveling rally-adjacent road show, with a pop-up midway of vendors hawking T-shirts and buttons and ball caps and doormats and Christmas ornaments. Voters don’t fan themselves with cardboard cutouts of Chris Christie’s head.

Multiple merchandise vendors told me that the shirts featuring Trump’s mug shot have become their best sellers. Some other tees bore slogans: ultra maga, ultra maga and proud, cancel me, trump rallies matter, 4 time indictment champ, super duper ultra maga, f*ck biden. “Thank you and have a MAGA day!” one vendor called out with glee. … In the hours before the night’s headliner, this felt less like a political event and more like a revival.

Trump’s Fourth Reich will not be an exact copy of its German counterpart from nearly a century ago. Instead, Trump’s Fourth Reich (or that of his successors) will be adapted to fit contemporary America’s cultural norms, values and institutions. The final horror is still evolving, but the threat and dangers are very clear. The American people are running out of time.