Lover of reading, coffee and tsundoku. A day without all three is a day wasted. She/her ♿️
Yorkshire and The Humber, Engl
Joined October 2018
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I’ve started a Substack to combat benefit misinformation spread by those who should know better. This is the first post. Please share, open.substack.com/pub/benefi…
From The Book Nook retweeted
Kemi, congratulations on leading a major British party as a Black Woman. It takes real talent to rise to where you are and deceit is what it takes to rise as a Black leader in a western Conservative Party.
It is a pity the climb did not leave room for a history book and since you chose to argue in the language of history, let us do the history. Let’s dissect your verbal diarrhea point by point.
Everyone participated." Slavery existed on every continent. So did war, and nobody calls a village feud the World War. The transatlantic trade ran for 366 years (1501 to 1866) and put about 12.5 million Africans on ships, of whom about 1.8 million died before they saw the Americas, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. It ran through joint-stock companies, chartered monopolies, Lloyd's underwriters and acts of Parliament. It was hereditary, because the law made the child of an enslaved mother property from birth. It was racial, because a whole continent was defined as chattel. No other system in history combined those features at that scale. Dissolving all of it into "people from every continent" is far worse than intellectual dishonesty.
Britain was a market leader, not a participant. British ships carried about 3.2 million Africans, second only to Portugal and Brazil. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave Britain the asiento, a thirty-year monopoly to supply 4,800 enslaved Africans a year to Spanish America. The Royal African Company, chartered in 1672 and headed by the Duke of York, later James II, branded its captives "DY". During Edward Colston's years in its leadership it shipped about 84,000 people, and roughly 19,000 died on the way.
You say British taxpayers should not answer for what happened before they were born. They did. In 1833 Britain borrowed £20 million to compensate slaveholders, and taxpayers serviced that loan until 2015, including the descendants of the enslaved. So the principle you invoke was not applied when the cheque went to slaveholders. It only appears when the cheque changes direction.
"Navel-gazing" is a curious charge from someone whose party spends more energy on the past (Empire nostalgia, culture war crusades) than most of those you accuse. Defend Britain if you must. But do not use your Nigerian name as the permission slip for arguments Nigerians know better than anyone.
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
So sad to hear that Patrick Stewart has died. I was lucky enough to see him on stage in No Man’s Land. RIP.
What do you think the NHS response should be to someone asking for help because they’re hearing voices? Am I right to be upset that it’s been weeks without help, while it’s rapidly getting worse?
Well done @floschechter on standing up to Ben Kentish! I’ve gone up against him as a Green Party member, it’s not easy. Although I wouldn’t have expected you to ever agree with Lionel Shriver.
Congratulations @LidlGB on being the worst supermarket for wheelchair users! I hope you gave the anti-access consultant in charge of refurbing my local branch a huge bonus because they went above and beyond. Even the baskets are unusable! Such attention to detail.
Yay I’m going to be doing my immunoglobulin infusions myself at home instead of in hospital. I’ve been fighting for this for nearly a year.
The good old ‘PIP isn’t linked to the cost of needs!’ Debate is back. Do the outraged people realise that’s because it’s cheaper this way? I have to choose between personal care and therapy. If it were only given based on actual costs I’d get enough for both. Costing double.
‘Mental illness shouldn’t qualify for disability benefits!’
‘Mentally ill people shouldn’t be allowed out without carers!’
Which is it? Because the same people are saying both things.
Another day another piece of benefit misinformation from @TomSwarbrick1. People don’t just get mortgage interest paid, they can get a loan secured against the home for the interest amount. He’s wittering about taxpayers paying mortgages.
I’m absolutely disgusted by the new banknotes. Why no otters? It’s pawful that all four are notters. Otterly ottrageous.
Why do all companies fix on one ingredient and put it in everything? I don’t want a drizzle of hot honey on everything I eat.
Masterful interview of @Helen_Whately by @IainDale.
ID: should people far in excess of the average wage get benefits?
HW: I assume you mean PIP *waffles on about why it needs to be cut*.
ID: actually I was talking about your plans to extend free childcare.
HW: that’s different.