Latest news with #BritishConservative
Irish Examiner
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Kneecap announce new song ahead of headline performance at London's Wide Awake
Rap trio Kneecap have announced they will release a new song ahead of their headline performance at London's Wide Awake festival, just two days after one of their members was charged with a terror offence. The band, made up of Liam O hAnnaidh, Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh, thanked the '25,000 legends' who will be attending Friday night's performance in a post on Instagram, while revealing the new song will be released at 1pm. The band's post read: 'Well well London heads. Some day coming up. 'We've a brand new track landing in our WhatsApp channel at 1pm. 'Kemi Badenoch you might wanna sit down for this one, if you've any seats left. 'Then we're at Wide Awake in Brockwell Park London for a headline show to 25,000 legends tonight.' British Conservative party leader Badenoch has called for Kneecap to be banned and suggested they should be dropped from the Glastonbury Festival line-up. A number of other politicians have made the same demand. Last year, Kneecap won a discrimination case against the UK government in Belfast High Court after former business secretary Badenoch tried to refuse them a funding award when she was a minister. In another post, the band showed a short clip of their soundcheck at the Brockwell Park festival. It comes after O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged over the alleged display of a Hezbollah flag at a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, in November last year, the Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday. Kneecap are due to perform at Wide Awake on Friday (Brian Lawless/PA) The band held a surprise gig at the 100 Club on Oxford Street on Thursday, where O hAnnaidh could be seen in videos on social media arriving on stage with tape covering his mouth. He then joked about being careful what he said before adding he wanted to thank his lawyer. The rapper said: 'I need to thank my lawyer he's here tonight as well.' Police said they were at the central London venue on Thursday evening to manage visitors to the sold-out event. The band said on X that the event sold out in 90 seconds, with 2,000 people on the waiting list. In 2024, the band released an eponymous film, starring Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender, a fictionalised retelling of how the band came together and follows the Belfast group on their mission to save their mother tongue through music. Formed in 2017, the group are known for their provocative lyrics in both Irish and English languages, and merchandise. Their best-known tracks include Get Your Brits Out, Better Way To Live, featuring Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC, and 3Cag. Read More Kneecap star arrives at surprise gig with tape over mouth after terror charge
Canada Standard
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Canada Standard
Heres why no Western conservative can replicate Donald Trump
The current US president is a unique product of Americas political disfunction, and attempts to mimic him are foolish Australia's Labor government was returned to office at last Saturday's federal election in a landslide win. Labor now holds 90 seats in the House of Representatives to the opposition's 40, inflicting a devastating defeat on the conservatives. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, a keen admirer of Donald Trump, lost his seat. The conservative opposition in Australia has now been reduced to political irrelevancy in its present form, and - consumed by bitter infighting and recriminations - is destined to disappear as a major political force in the next few years. Earlier last week the centrist Liberal party in Canada won a federal election, defeating the Conservative party, which had been 25 points ahead in the polls earlier in the year. The Canadian Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre - once touted as "Canada's Donald Trump" - also lost his seat. Last Thursday, in UK local council elections, the British Conservative party suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Nigel Farage's populist Reform party - losing control of a raft of local councils and mayoralties. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is an enthusiastic fan of Donald Trump. She once praised him for being "a force for good in the world" and demanded that the Labour Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary apologise to Trump for daring to have criticised him. Badenoch is certain to face a leadership challenge in the near future and will be deposed as the conservative leader. The UK Conservative party, just like the conservative coalition in Australia, is destined for political oblivion. So dire is the party's predicament that Robert Jenrick, Badenoch's likely replacement as leader, recently called for it to form a coalition with the Reform party. These three election results make clear that conservative parties in the West that seek to imitate Trump derive no benefit from doing so - and that mimicking Trump only hastens their imminent political demise. It is true that Canada is a special case. Trump's absurd threat to make Canada America's "51st state" - a ham-fisted attack on Canadian sovereignty - together with his recent imposition of crippling tariffs made a Liberal election victory virtually inevitable. Canadians have always been particularly sensitive to threats of domination from America. It is also true that Trump's misguided tariff policy - that threatened the globalist economic order, until the global financial system swiftly compelled him to reverse it - caused his popularity within almost all Western nations, such as it was, to decline overnight. Why then have conservative leaders in the West nevertheless continued to flirt with Trumpism despite the negative electoral consequences for them? Conservative leaders clearly believe that by imitating Trump they can duplicate his political "success." That belief, however, is delusional in the extreme - because the circumstances that created a creature like Trump are qualitatively different from the situation in which conservative leaders in the West are constrained to function. No mainstream politician in the West could behave as Trump does and seriously expect to be elected prime minister. Nor could a prime minister who refused to accept the result of an election, fomented a violent attack on a sitting parliament, flagrantly disregarded the rule of law, or jailed judges that handed down decisions adverse to him hope to remain in office. Trump is not a politician at all - despite twice being elected president. Trump is a grotesque populist disrupter, a bizarre product of America's unique political system and its debauched popular celebrity culture. Conservative leaders ignore the fact that Trump is a president - not a prime minister. Trump does not sit in Congress, and he is not accountable to parliament in the same way that a prime minister or leader of the opposition is. Furthermore, as president, Trump has executive powers far beyond those exercised by any prime minister. Since being elected last year, Trump has governed by means of executive orders - a quasi-dictatorial political device that has no counterpart in most Western democracies. Conservative leaders also fail to appreciate the fact that Trump has taken over the Republican party and purged it of ideological divisions. The Republican party - like all traditional conservative parties - had, prior to Trump's capture of it, always been made up of ideologically opposed factions. When Trump took over the party in 2016 he drove out all the old Reagan and Bush conservatives and brutally imposed ideological unity on the party - hence the sad fate of Liz Cheney and other remnants of the older Republican elites. Trump has transformed the Republican party into his own personal fiefdom - and this allows him to behave in the disruptive and crude manner in which he has during both of his crisis-ridden presidencies. No other traditional conservative party in the West is as ideologically unified as Trump's Republican party. In fact, they are all bitterly and deeply ideologically divided. That is why no conservative leader can adopt a fully-fledged Trump agenda - because it would alienate a significant portion of their own parties. Conservative leaders also fail to appreciate that Trump's Republican party is no longer a conservative party at all - it is a populist party committed to a populist agenda. Conservative leaders, for all of the above reasons, are in a very different position from Trump. Nevertheless, they seek to emulate Trump because they are desperate to differentiate themselves from their social democratic political opponents with which - as many voters well know - they are actually in basic ideological and policy agreement. They also hope that flirting with Trump will help them to ward off the increasingly potent threat from emerging populist parties to their right and shore up their waning electoral support. This misguided gambit, however, has recently become a losing game for conservative leaders because disaffected voters in the West understandably now seek a genuine ideological alternative to both major parties. These voters - they make up 30% of the electorate and their numbers are increasing - don't want Trump lite, they want the real thing. Peter Dutton, like Badenoch and Poilievre, has foolishly flirted with Trumpism since becoming the conservative opposition leader three years ago - and his demise neatly illustrates the futility of a conservative leader attempting to turn himself into a Trump clone. Dutton - urged on by right-wing commentators employed by the Murdoch press, Sky News and the Spectator, as well as his close friend and outspoken Trump enthusiast billionaire Gina Rinehart - eagerly welcomed Trump's election as president last year. So deranged are Rinehart and segments of the Murdoch media that - even after Saturday's catastrophic election loss - they are still urging what is left of the conservative coalition to become more Trump-like. Earlier this year, Dutton acquiesced to calls by Trump's lickspittle supporters in his own party and the Murdoch media to recall Australia's ambassador to the US, former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, because he had the audacity to criticise Trump during his first presidency. Dutton enthusiastically mimicked Trump's "toughness" towards China and his support for the Netanyahu regime's atrocities in Gaza. When Trump announced his ludicrous and inhumane plan to turn Gaza into a Middle Eastern version of the Riviera, Dutton sycophantically hailed him as "a big thinker" and "shrewd." Then, just as the election campaign began, Trump imposed his draconian tariffs, thereby endangering the entire globalist economic order, and the Australian stock market crashed. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rightly protested and criticised Trump for this - but all Dutton did was to suggest that Albanese's attempt to protect Australia's economic interests and was not "tough" enough. Interestingly, the populist Nigel Farage, who is a close personal friend of Trump and who has campaigned for him, was far more critical of Trump on the tariff issue than Dutton was. Farage even compared Trump to Liz Truss - surely the ultimate political insult. Farage, unlike Dutton, knows that the only way to deal effectively with Trump is to stand up to him. The newly elected Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, did precisely this at his meeting with Trump this week. Trump has never been popular with mainstream voters in Australia, and his popularity plummeted after the tariff debacle. Dutton, however, persisted with his ill-advised Trump flirtation, foolishly following the advice of conservative commentators who urged him to become even more Trump-like. One commentator penned an article early last week stating that Trump had not caused the Conservative party to lose the Canadian election. Perhaps Dutton believed such nonsense. Dutton staunchly defended one of his shadow cabinet - to whom he had allocated the DOGE-like task of weeding out public service inefficiency - when she was photographed wearing a MAGA cap during the final stages of the election campaign. And early last week Dutton urged voters to pay no attention to the ABC and The Guardian - which he described, in Trumpian terms, as "the hate media." Then - just two days before election day - it was revealed that Trump's campaign co-manager, Chris LaCivita, had made a secret trip to Australia two weeks previously to give Dutton election advice. This suggests that Dutton's infatuation with Trump may have been much more intense than previously thought - and the fact that Dutton kept the visit secret speaks for itself. Dutton could mimic Trump all he liked, but the one thing that he could not do, as a conservative party leader, was adopt a fully-fledged Trumpian agenda that distinguished him from the Labor government. Thus he alienated mainstream voters - while at the same time being unable to attract the votes of those disaffected voters who were seeking a genuine populist alternative to both major parties. These voters reacted by overwhelmingly voting for the safe and unthreatening Albanese government - that had never cravenly ceded Australia's autonomy to Trump as had Dutton - in unprecedented and unexpected numbers. And, on Monday, to add insult to injury, in an interview Donald Trump said "I am very friendly with Albanese. I have no idea who the other fellow who ran against him is." In similar fashion, Trump treated Mark Carney with respect when he met with him this week at the White House. Trump may use sycophants, but he only respects winners. Dutton did not lose last week's election just because of his imprudent mimicking of Donald Trump - but his aping of Trump was indicative of a fundamental lack of political judgment that led to his calamitous electoral defeat. Donald Trump has exerted a toxic influence on conservative politicians in the West for almost a decade, and will no doubt continue to do so - because conservatism's pathetic and increasingly desperate embrace of Trump is a symptom of its political irrelevance and its ideological bankruptcy. (
The Irish Sun
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Latest twist in Kneecap row as UK counter-terror police issue video probe update and A-list stars come out to back trio
UK TERROR police are investigating Kneecap over videos allegedly showing the band calling for the deaths of MPs and shouting, 'up Hamas, up Hezbollah'. The 3 UK terror police are investigating Kneecap videos Credit: Free for editorial use 3 Paul Weller was among the stars who have backed the band following the controversy Credit: AFP - Getty 3 Jarvis Cocker's band Pulp also showed their support Credit: Getty Images A video from another date last year appeared to show one of the embattled band shouting: 'Up Both Hamas and Hezbollah are banned in the UK and it is a crime to express support for them. It has now emerged that Britain's Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism officers will investigate to see if a crime has been committed. In a statement, they said: 'On April 22, we were made aware of an online video believed to be from a music event in London in November 2024. Read more on Kneecap 'Following this, we were made aware of a further video, believed to be from another music event in 'Both videos were referred to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for assessment by specialist officers, who have determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos. 'The investigation is now being carried out by officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command and inquiries remain ongoing at this time.' Earlier this week, Most read in The Irish Sun They argued that 'an extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action'. 'They're going to be a really big band. I really love them' - Elton John gives shoutout to little-known Irish musicians Referring to two UK MPs who have been murdered in recent years, the trio added: 'To the Amess and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies, we never intended to cause you hurt.' British Conservative leader But a number of A-list acts and performers have signed an open letter in support of the under-fire act. LETTER OF SUPPORT The letter reads: 'As artists, we feel the need to register our opposition to any political repression of artistic freedom. 'In a democracy, no political figures or political parties should have the right to dictate who does and does not play at music festivals or gigs that will be enjoyed by thousands of people.' It also accuses politicians of 'strategically concocting moral outrage over the stage utterings of a young punk band' while ignoring a 'genocide' in 'Kneecap are not the story. Gaza is the story. Genocide is the story,' it says. 'And the silence, acquiescence and support of those crimes against humanity by the elected British Government is the real story. 'Solidarity with all artists with the moral courage to speak out against Israeli war crimes, and the ongoing persecution and slaughter of the Palestinian people.' PROBE PRAISE The Mr It was the second murder of a British MP in less than 10 years, following the Previously, the Met said it was assessing whether the two clips of the Irish language trio met the threshold for an investigation. In response to Met's decision to pursue an investigation, Katie Amess said: 'Kneecap's rhetoric is not only abhorrent but poses a direct threat to the safety and well-being of elected officials and the democratic institutions they represent. 'INCITEMENT OF VIOLENCE' 'The glorification and incitement of violence have no place in our society and must be unequivocally condemned. 'I commend the swift action taken by law enforcement agencies in addressing this and urge a thorough investigation to determine the full extent of any criminal activity.' She added that musicians 'must be held accountable' for rhetoric that 'incites violence and hatred' and that cultural venues should 'not be exploited to propagate messages of hate'. Kneecap had addressed the families of murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox on Instagram, saying: 'We never intended to cause you hurt.' But Ms Amess accused them of 'gaslighting', saying their comments were 'absurd' and 'not an apology'.
BreakingNews.ie
29-04-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Kneecap says footage has been ‘exploited and weaponised' over dead Tory comment
Belfast rap trio Kneecap said condemnation from Downing Street and British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is an 'effort to derail the real conversation' about Gaza. Mrs Badenoch called for a member of the group to be prosecuted after a video emerged from a November 2023 gig, appearing to show him saying: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.' Advertisement Keir Starmer's official spokesman said the British prime minister believes the comments were 'completely unacceptable' and 'condemns them in the strongest possible terms'. In a statement posted on X, the Belfast group – Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh – said they 'reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual'. KNEECAP STATEMENT: They want you to believe words are more harmful than genocide. Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral… — KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 28, 2025 They said a video extract had been deliberately taken out of context and was being 'exploited and weaponised'. The band has previously claimed they are facing a 'co-ordinated smear campaign' after speaking out about 'the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people'. Advertisement The statement said: 'Establishment figures, desperate to silence us, have combed through hundreds of hours of footage and interviews, extracting a handful of words from months or years ago to manufacture moral hysteria. 'This distortion is not only absurd – it is a transparent effort to derail the real conversation.' The band said they have never supported Hamas or Hezbollah and condemned all attacks on civilians, apologising to the families of murdered British MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, saying 'we never intended to cause you hurt'. British police are looking into the incident, along with another concert from November 2024 in which a member of the band appeared to shout 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah' – groups which are banned as terrorist organisations in the UK. Advertisement Mrs Badenoch said Kneecap's 'anti-British hatred has no place in our society' and that it is 'good' the police are looking into the allegation, adding: 'Kneecap's glorification of terrorism and anti-British hatred has no place in our society. 'After the murder of Sir David Amess, this demands prosecution.' Conservative MP Mr Amess was stabbed to death while meeting constituents in Leigh-on-Sea, England, in 2021. His daughter, Katie Amess, told BBC's Good Morning Ulster: 'It is just beyond belief that human beings would speak like that in this day and age, and it is extremely dangerous.' Advertisement She said 'to say to kill anybody – what on Earth are they thinking', warning there are 'absolute nutters' who could try to act upon the comments allegedly made by Kneecap. She called on the group to apologise, saying she was 'absolutely gobsmacked at the stupidity of somebody or a group of people being in the public eye and saying such dangerous, violent rhetoric'. Members of Kneecap, left to right, Mo Chara, JJ Ó Dochartaigh and Móglaí Bap. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Mrs Badenoch blocked a British government grant to the bilingual Belfast group while she was business secretary. But in November last year, Kneecap won a discrimination challenge over the decision to refuse them a £14,250 funding award after the UK government conceded it was 'unlawful'. Advertisement Downing Street indicated there would be no further public funds directed towards Kneecap. 'I don't think organisations such as that should be receiving taxpayers' money,' the prime minister's spokesman said. However, the Tory leader criticised the British government's approach towards the case prior to the emergence of the video. Mrs Badenoch said during a phone-in on LBC: 'I thought, well, that's not what we should be exporting. I'm not giving them any money. And they took me to court, said they were going to sue me, sue the government for not giving them money to go and export. 'Now the government doesn't owe anybody money. This is a nice thing that the Conservative government was doing, giving out grants. 'So the court case had been lodged, and in between the court and in between the court case starting and finishing, this snap election was called so I didn't get to see it through. 'Labour come in and Johnny Reynolds, the new business and trade secretary, just gives them the money and says 'we're not fighting this court case,' they're going to have let them have the money. And I just thought 'this is extraordinary.' This is how money is wasted across the board in government.' Speaking about Kneecap, she said: 'But also, when you look at some of the people who were jailed for sending tweets after the Southport killings, and I'm not justifying what they said, but this is a much worse incident, and I think should face the full force of the law.' Meanwhile, Labour MP David Taylor has written to the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival, urging them to remove Kneecap from this year's line-up. I've written to @glastonbury urging them to remove Kneecap based on their alleged behaviour and the widely reported footage. Allegedly calling for the murder of colleagues is abhorrent, I stand in solidarity with MPs from across the House. Violence has no place in politics. — David Taylor MP (@DavidTaylor85) April 28, 2025 In a letter addressed to founder Michel Eavis and posted on X, the Hemel Hempstead MP said: 'By hosting such a group, Glastonbury Festival risks undermining its proud tradition of promoting peace, unity and social responsibility.' The band are listed to play on the West Holts stage on the Saturday of the June festival. British counter-terrorism police are assessing footage reportedly from the November 2024 gig in London's Kentish Town Forum and the November 2023 concert. On Sunday, a London Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'We were made aware of a video on April 22, believed to be from an event in November 2024, and it has been referred to the counter-terrorism internet referral unit for assessment and to determine whether any further police investigation may be required. 'We have also been made aware of another video believed to be from an event in November 2023.' Ireland Kneecap is a 'hate fest' promoting division, says... Read More He also said the force 'are assessing both to determine whether further police investigation is required'. The counter-terrorism internet referral unit (CTIRU) is a national counter-terrorism policing unit based within the Met's Counter Terrorism Command which is dedicated to identifying terrorist and extremist material online. Police will carry out an investigation if the material breaches the law.
Buzz Feed
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
David Tennant Criticized J.K. Rowling's Anti-Trans Behavior
David Tennant directly criticized J.K. Rowling for her anti-trans behavior in a new interview. For context, last year the actor (who played Bartemius Crouch Junior in the fourth Harry Potter movie) accepted an allyship award at the British LGBT Awards. He called out the now-leader of the British Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch, for saying that she wanted to bar trans women from some spaces. In his acceptance speech, he said, "We shouldn't live in a world where that is worth remarking on. However until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn't exist anymore — I don't wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up — whilst we do live in this world I am honored to receive this.' After his words triggered various comments from Kemi and other politicians, J.K. went on X and shared a post criticizing David, adding, "But the utterances of the Gender Taliban receive special dispensation, for they are a holy caste." Subsequently, when Kemi was voted leader of the Conservative party, J.K. wrote on X, "My thoughts and prayers are with David Tennant at this very difficult time." When David then called anti-trans activists "a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers who are on the wrong side of history, and they'll all go away soon," J.K. then took to the internet again to reply with a number of tropes about trans people. Fast forward to today, and David took part in a British interview series called The Assembly, where celebs are asked questions by interviewers with autism, learning disabilities, or other forms of neurodivergence. In it, he was asked by a trans person as to what prompted him to become an ally for trans rights. ITV / Via In response, he said, 'When I was a teenager, there was this thing that Mrs Thatcher's government introduced called Section 28, which was about stopping the promotion of homosexuality in school, which was a weird umbrella term, which was basically saying it was illegal to talk about being gay in school, or to suggest that that might be a normal way of behaving." ITV / Via 'We look back on that now as a medieval, absurd thing to try and say, and I think the way the trans community is being demonised and othered is exactly the same. It's become this kind of political football," he added. In a follow-up, he was asked how he felt about J.K. calling him out directly on social media. He replied, ' JK Rowling is a wonderful author who's created brilliant stories, and I wish her no ill will, but I hope that we can all, as a society, just let people be. Just get out of people's way.' His words come as the UK Supreme Court essentially ruled that trans women legally aren't women. J.K. donated tens of thousands of dollars to the cause and later celebrated the win by posting an image on X of her drinking and smoking a cigar, captioned, "I love it when a plan comes together."
