
Glastonbury pretends it's the wokest place on Earth – but do they think it's OK to murder Tories?
I'VE had some of the greatest days of my life at Glastonbury Festival.
Michael Eavis's annual music jamboree is like nothing else and has to be experienced to be believed. If you know, you know etc.
5
Glastonbury also happens to be the wokest place on Planet Earth.
Pin-balling around the 1,000-acre site, you will never stop bumping into people wearing Free Palestine shirts, so much so you'll think it was the festival uniform.
You will find dreadlocked, middle-class white men called Ziggy performing 'pronoun poetry' or some such twaddle.
You will discover vegan food stalls where non-binary folk in tie-dyed smocks hand out leaflets about Britain's nasty farming methods as they charge you £23 for a bowl of recycled lentils.
There will be people reading The Guardian. Yep, whatever is right on, is right there. Yet amid all the hippy-dippy, save the world business, what you don't typically get is calls to murder anyone.
This year, that might change. An excitable Irish band called Kneecap, named after a notorious IRA punishment, have been booked to perform — and they want you to kill your MP.
Well, only if they happen to be a Tory MP, naturally.
These rowdy republican rappers — a cross between Welsh p**s-takers Goldie Lookin Chain and Rage Against The Machine — have been caught telling fans: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.'
Oh, and this Brit-hating band, who were happy to take more than £14,000 of government funding, despite Kemi Badenoch's best efforts to stop them when she was Business Secretary, also like to plug Hamas and Hezbollah.
Never mind that supporting them is a criminal offence in Britain — the Kneecap lads decided to chant, 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah!' at a recent gig in London.
'It just makes me happy', says legendary singer Elton John as he praises 'brave' Irish musicians
Cue the counter terrorism police announcing yesterday that they are now investigating both that and the 'kill Tories' incident.
Politicians have hit out. Both Keir Starmer and the now-Conservative leader Badenoch have condemned them. As have the families of MPs murdered for doing their jobs.
Katie Amess, whose dad, Tory MP David Amess, was murdered in 2021, said she was 'gobsmacked' at their 'stupidity . . . and dangerous violent rhetoric'.
The Belfast trio spat out their dummies and evoked the standard response offered by those when caught out saying something reprehensible — that their words were 'taken out of context', before offering a mealy-mouthed apology.
'We do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah,' they claimed, adding: 'Kneecap's message has always been — and remains — one of love, inclusion and hope.'
Cool. So that's all right, then?
Brendan Cox, husband of Jo Cox MP, gunned down in her constituency in 2016, doesn't think so, branding their apology 'not particularly genuine'.
Kneecap, who fancy themselves as latter-day punks, probably didn't care about any of this when it all started to erupt.
I bet they were dying for a headline along the lines of: Is This The Most Dangerous Band In The UK? (Sorry to disappoint, lads.)
They've also been emboldened by their cheerleaders in the music biz, including Eton Rifles' geezer Paul Weller, who reckon it's just 'political repression of artistic freedom'.
Would they have said the same if Kneecap had been condemned for calling for Labour or Green Party politicians to be murdered?
Of course not. Conservatives are always fair game to the #bekind leftie brigade.
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But now the row is starting to hit Kneecap in the pocket.
A big gig planned for the Eden Project has been kyboshed and two festivals in Germany have dumped them.
The spotlight has turned to Glastonbury. Will this hugely influential festival, with its ethos of 'peace, love, music and community', drop them from the bill?
Dairy farmer Sir Michael Eavis — knighted last year under a Conservative government — is no stranger to the rough and tumble of politics.
The 89 year-old stood as a Labour MP for Wells, Somerset, in 1997 but was beaten by the sitting MP, David Heathcoat-Amory . . . a Tory.
The history books record that Eavis did not call for his constituents to then execute him.
So does he, or indeed his daughter Emily, who now runs the show, condone those who do?
POSH TO GET PUSH
5
SO a Spice Girls reunion is back on (again) but missing one key ingredient (again): Posh.
Victoria Beckham is still refusing to perform with her old pals, despite demonstrating that she can bear to be in the same room with them after reuniting for her 50th last year.
Much has been made of the fact that she doesn't need the cash.
OK. But what about the fans? They know she wasn't the vocal heart of the group, to put it lightly, but they'd love to see her sashay on to a Wembley stage in one of her trademark LBDs (which, let's face it, she could definitely still get into).
Instead, they might have to make do with an 'avatar experience', whatever that is. Boo!
Come on, Posh, you didn't get where you are today without all those millions of loyal fans.
Would it kill you to give them something back?
As one Nineties girl group famously sang: 'Who do you think you are?'
HISLOP IN PUB PUZZLE
HAVE I Got News For You posho Ian Hislop has been claiming he's had a brush with real life and visited a Wetherspoons.
But rather than just enjoy a quiet tipple at Britain's beloved bargain- booze chain like the rest of us, he apparently found himself in the belly of the beast.
The jowly jester said he witnessed domestic abuse and drug dealing when he turned up, presumably for a pint of Spitfire, at a branch in Wales. Oh really, cried 'Spoons gaffer Tim Martin, who described his claims as 'fantasy'.
Martin invited Hislop to tell him which pub this was so he could investigate, having found nothing on CCTV footage from any of his Welsh watering holes.
Cue radio silence from the usually fastidious editor of Private Eye.
So which one was it, Ian?
IT'S weeks like this I feel blessed that, despite fast approaching 50, I still have a full head of hair and don't have to grapple with some sort of dodgy baldness 'cure'.
I refer to news that billiard ball-bonced blokes taking a certain prescription-only hair- loss treatment have seen their libido slump and, horror of horrors, their manhood SHRINK.
That's one hell of a dilemma for a chap to face. What's more important, an impressive upstairs or downstairs?
I'm now praying the penis enlargement tablets I've ordered won't make my hair fall out.
Dannii covered herself in glory
HOW sad to read that Dannii Minogue always felt like a fatso next to Polly Pocket-sized Kylie.
My cold heart breaks. So I would like her to know that there is a small army of us straight blokes out here who have always preferred her to her more famous sis.
My devotion to the one-time Home And Away star has lasted more than 30 years.
When I was a young pillock in the mid- Nineties, I cleaned the industrial kitchens of Edinburgh for the best part of a year so I could jet off to Australia for some fun in the sun. My arrival Down Under coincided with the delectable Dannii gracing the cover of 'men's sophisticate', Playboy.
I skipped a few shrimps on the barbie to have enough cash to procure a copy of this most special of Special Editions.
Perusing it in my bunk at the backpackers' hostel, a room mate took one look at it and joshed: 'Who's that mate, your girlfriend?'
Cue a heavy sigh from me and the reply: 'I should be so lucky.'
POPE? NOPE
I WAS busy mowing the lawn last Saturday so forgot to tune in to the 'funeral of the decade' or whatever the Pope's final hurrah was billed as.
I know some people were excited, but I haven't had less interest in a global event since Meghan Markle dropped her last podcast.
My daughter, 11, summed up the occasion, saying: 'Daddy, I'd never heard of Pope Francis until he died.'
Which did make me chuckle until I suddenly thought: So what the hell are they teaching you in R.E. these days?
I feel sure I won't like the answer.
I'VE said it before and I'll say it again, the whole transgender toilet row could be ended overnight if we just directed trans people to use the disabled loo.
Providing accessible, safe and private loos is a legal requirement, so you will struggle to find any public building or office without one.
'Oh, but what if there's a disabled person already in there?' I hear some cry.
Look, if you're a trans woman looking for a genuine female experience, then you'd struggle to find a more authentic one than queuing for the bogs.
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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Israel's ambassador to the UK takes aim at Labour's half-hearted backing for her war-torn nation as it takes on Iran
In Israel, where warnings of attacks from enemy nations are rampant, being woken at 6am by a loud air raid alarm is all-too common. But when the same sound pierced the air two hours later, Tzipi Hotovely, Israel's first female ambassador to Britain, realised this warning was more serious than usual. The third time it rang out in central Israel, where she was staying with her in-laws, she turned to her husband as they hurried to the family bomb shelter and said: 'This is war.' Chillingly, she was right. It was the morning of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists stormed through a security fence sealing Israel from Gaza and militants flew in firing guns from paragliders. That day – the worst intelligence failure in the country's history – was marked by carnage and barbarity on an unprecedented scale. In their murderous rampage, Hamas killed 1,189 people and wounded 7,500 - leaving many with life-changing injuries. The terrorists raped and sexually abused hundreds of women and young girls. To this day 53 hostages are still in captivity, and the ambassador fears only 20 may still be alive. Some of Tzipi Hotovely's loved ones were among the victims. 'We lost members of our extended family. We lost friends,' she says of that horrendous day. The war that began that morning is now reaching a new peak with Israel's relentless bombardment of Iran. She says that her parents, who remain in Israel, have been caught in the crossfires of Tehran's retaliatory strikes in the past week. Three or more times every night, they have been moving into the bomb shelter in the basement. Not long before we speak, a ballistic missile landed close to her parents' home. Despite the civilian death toll on both sides, the straight-talking ambassador is in no doubt about the justification of waging war on Iran. At 75 times the size of Israel, Iran has sponsored a proxy network of terror groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen to fuel conflict against the Jewish state. 'We have given Iran 20 years to try to make diplomacy work but they are more interested in blowing up the negotiating table than sitting next to it,' she tells me. 'Iran is 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) from Israel but it has circled us with its proxies. We are vulnerable. We are a small country the same size as Wales. 'Iran was on the threshold of making nuclear weapons and we had to stop it. This is not just our war. Iran is Britain's enemy. It is America's war too.' The ambassador, who has been in Britain since 2020 when Boris Johnson was prime minister, lavishes praise on Britain's intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 for their help: 'They are brilliant.' But, while she liked Johnson as PM, she struggles to conceal her disappointment – even anger – with Sir Keir Starmer and his bumbling Foreign Secretary David Lammy, whose gaffes have tried the patience of even the most loyal Labour MPs. As a diplomat, she chooses her words carefully. 'We have gaps with the British Government,' she tells me. Talk about an under-statement. It is more like yawning chasms in terms of support than gaps. Take the decision of the Starmer Government in September to restrict arms sales to Israel, which is the only democracy in the Middle East. 'It was political. In Jerusalem, people were astonished by the arms embargo. It is just so contradictory. When you are fighting the right war, you expect your allies to support you,' Hotovely tells me. Then there was the unexpected move by the Government last week to impose sanctions on two Israeli government ministers over their hardline stance on the Gaza war. The ambassador says: 'It was a very bad decision, morally wrong. You put sanctions on your enemy not your friend.' To underline this, she points to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who was denounced by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in 2020 for presiding over 'a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it'. She adds: 'Jeremy Corbyn could have been prime minister of Britain. He was anti-Semitic. 'He had supported a terrorist organisation. But we never sanctioned him or the Labour Party. We respect the British people. We can criticise their leaders but we don't sanction them.' As for David Lammy, she is even more circumspect when I ask if she thinks he is remotely up to the job of being Britain's diplomat-in-chief on the world stage. Lammy was widely criticised after saying he accepted the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes. 'It was a miserable decision,' says Hotovely. 'The ICC is a biased political organisation, which is why US President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on it. The British Government was used as a political tool by the court.' The ambassador is keenly aware that Labour's support from the Muslim community collapsed at the General Election in July last year. In the 21 seats where more than 30 per cent of the population is Muslim, Labour's share dropped from an average 65 per cent in 2019 to 36 per cent. Four Independent Muslim candidates won in previously safe Labour seats, and the situation in Gaza was a hot election issue. Hotovely, 46, is trenchant in her criticism. 'There is no doubt that the Muslim vote is a crucial part of Labour Party politics in Britain,' she declares. 'No one can deny it. It is clear to me. Many decisions about Israel are made [in Britain] according to domestic politics. It is a fact.' It was when she was just 26 that Hotovely first came to the attention of Netanyahu, who was then leader of the opposition. By this stage, she was a qualified lawyer who had done two years of national service and was working as a political commentator on TV. Netanyahu spotted her and, seeing her talent, made contact. 'I was called into his office. His first statement to me was, 'This is 1938. Iran is the equivalent to Nazi Germany'. That was his dramatic opening. It wasn't 'welcome to my office' or 'nice to see you'. That was 20 years ago. He was right then and he's right now.' Many now consider her to be Netanyahu's protege. Elected as an MP when she was 30, she is a small part of political history. 'Before I was in parliament, all the women MPs had grown-up children,' she says. 'I got married when I was an MP and had babies when I was an MP. I turned my parliamentary office into a nursery. 'I brought a nanny into the office. All my meetings were outside the office. Five times a day I returned to it to breastfeed my baby.' Her three daughters Maayan, 11, Eliraz, nine, and Noa, seven, love her being an ambassador. 'My youngest says, 'When I grow up, Mummy, I want to be the ambassador'. I never got that compliment when I was a politician.' In parliament she held eight ministerial posts – more than any other woman in Israeli politics with the exception of Golda Meir who was Israel's first and only woman prime minister from 1969 to 1974. Was Golda Meir her political hero? 'Absolutely not. It is Margaret Thatcher. She was a remarkable woman, a brave politician. Mrs Thatcher saved the British economy and her free-market thinking inspired Israel. 'In Britain I have seen that Winston Churchill is remembered everywhere. Quite right. But Mrs Thatcher is not – which means you need a place for people to learn about her.' In Israel, Hotovely was often demonised by her opponents for being hard-Right and a religious zealot. She is unmoved by the criticism. 'In politics if, like Mrs Thatcher, you make great changes you will never be loved. I am very opinionated. If you want to be loved, find another profession than politics.' It was Netanyahu who persuaded her to take up the ambassador role. She prepared for it by binge-watching the 1980s political satire Yes Minister, a favourite of Margaret Thatcher. The star of the TV series was the civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by the late Nigel Hawthorne. 'I loved Sir Humphrey and it gave me a great insight into the British civil service,' she says with a loud laugh. 'I have met some really interesting British diplomats.' When she arrived in Britain, she coined a nickname for her husband Or Alon, a lawyer she married in 2013 with a staggering 2,500 guests. 'I'd call him Mr Ambassador. Every time we went to a royal event, or an official reception, people would come up to him and say: 'Mr Ambassador'. They never thought it could be me.' She has met the King and says her proudest moment was presenting her credentials as the new ambassador to the late Queen. 'I am so proud and so happy I talked to her, even though it was on Zoom because of lockdown. She said to me, 'You have too many elections in your country'.' Indeed, when Netanyahu was elected again in October 2022, it was the fifth election in Israel in four years. While Hotovely loves Britain – the Scottish Highlands and Cornwall are her favourite places – she says she will not miss 'all those dark nights in your winter'. But she enjoys the dry British sense of humour and says 'the Jewish school my children go to is wonderful. The discipline. The manners'. Yet to this day she is shocked by the anti-Semitism she has experienced in Britain. She believes it is rampant in many universities. When she addressed the London School of Economics in 2021, she needed an armed escort off the premises. 'I did not think in post-war Europe I would experience these levels of hate. I am very involved with the Jewish community here and they no longer feel safe. They don't think they can wear symbols of their Jewishness on their clothes.' By tradition, many Jewish families place a mezuzah, a small symbol of their Jewish faith, on their front door frame. 'But since October 7 most now have brought those symbols into the house, which is very sad.' Since the war with Gaza, she has become one of the most closely guarded women in Britain. 'I cannot even go to the synagogue because of the security so I pray at home. The security guys are all British. They have been wonderful to me and my family.' Every Saturday there is a huge march, involving thousands of pro-Palestine protesters, into central London. There has been repeated criticism of the police for standing by and ignoring anti-Semitic chants and even banners proclaiming support for Hamas. 'There is something badly wrong if a major part of the Jewish community feels they are excluded by the marches from going into central London. I have good relationships with successive home secretaries who say fighting anti-Semitism is an important part of their work. 'But when those marches, with their anti-Jewish slogans go past Big Ben, they are seen by Jewish people on TV all around the world. It sends out a terrible message.' The ambassador has an interesting suggestion. 'Words matter. I think the phrase anti-Semitism is now anachronistic. It does not come across as what it really is – Jewish hatred or racism against Jews. Perhaps we should change the description to reflect that. Education is a key factor.' In the ambassador's view, this education could start with the BBC, which still refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organisation. The corporation maintains that would mean it was taking a side. 'Hamas is an internationally recognised terrorist organisation,' she counters. 'Look what they did on October 7. Hideous terrorist brutality. I don't understand the BBC's position which I think damages its reputation worldwide. 'Hamas use children as human shields. They looted the food aid that we provided. They don't care about their own people but the BBC will not criticise them.' In the current febrile atmosphere, with President Trump upping the anti-Iran rhetoric, it is significant that Starmer has been more circumspect. Is he unwilling to upset the Muslim community or the vocal anti-Israel lobby in his own party? 'The ambassador returns to diplomatic-speak. 'Britain is an important ally. We have shared valuable intelligence with your MI5 and MI6.' No word, however, on Starmer. Later this year, she will go back to Israel because it is the end of her five-year posting. She is widely expected to return to parliament at the election expected next year. She is a serious contender to replace Netanyahu, 75, who has now served as PM for 17 years. 'I think I am tough but I am very human and I have cried so much since the war started. I cry over the devastating loss of life,' she tells me. 'But I am proud of my country. I will be proud to serve my country in whatever way I can. I have been proud to serve as ambassador to your great country.'

Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Stocks finished mixed; investors brace for more Middle East news
Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, says he is being punished for his political speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, in New York City, U.S., June 1, 2024. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon/File Photo


Scottish Sun
3 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Love Island game of ‘spin the bottle' kicks off as Tommy snogs TWO girls – and Megan is left fuming
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