Mike Locke

What sort of democracy ransacks bookshops? The Israeli police just pillaged my brilliant friend Mahmoud Muna's wonderful bookshop opposite the American Colony, the best in Jerusalem. Apparently Muna and his nephew Ahmed have both been arrested & marched into court... theurbanactivist.com/idea/a-booksho…

Just imagine if that had happened to an American, French, not to mention Israeli pregnant woman. It would have been headline news - rightly so - everywhere. But not so when a Palestinian 8-month pregnant woman is shot dead. Then it is not newsworthy... aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/9/…

People in Gaza “are searching for family members… [in] the remains of their homes. And you see the dogs as well, on the rubble. And what you notice is that the people searching are thin, and the dogs are fat – because the dogs are also searching for corpses.” @UNReliefChief @TFletcher is in Gaza and witnessing the devastation firsthand. “This is the toughest working day of my life,” he tells me. Yet even amidst the desperation, he says he is hearing “defiance” from Palestinians, as more aid gets in: “This is our home and we’re not going anywhere.”

Ciaran Jenkins, "I ask the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator what he saw in Gaza" Tom Fletcher, "It's worse than I feared, and I had feared the worst" #C4News "It is apocalyptic" "Particularly that contrast.. You go from southern Israel into the most horrific epicentre of conflict" "And you drive for miles and miles and all you see is rubble" "People are picking through that rubble looking for their dead relatives" Ciaran Jenkins, "So people not only starving, they're scraping through their former homes trying to find their families" Tom Fletcher, "9 out of 10 people in Gaza have been displaced.. 9 out of 10 buildings houses have been destroyed" "And in that rubble - this is why rebuilding will be so hard - you've got lots of unexploded ordinances.. And lots of decaying bodies" "I've been in Darfur.. I've been in Syria.. I've been on the front lines of Russia-Ukraine.. This is worse than anything I've seen"

Many disabled people find benefits assessments to be stressful and humiliating and it’s clear the Work Capability Assessment needs reform. But we urge the government not to proceed with reforms that would leave disabled people on benefits worse off. theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

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1/2 We call once again on the world's wealthiest states – most of which are also the world's greatest causers of climate change – to assist Malagasy people with financial and technological aid, and every person on the planet by acting on net zero carbon emissions.

"Brexit has ruined this country, and now the majority of Britons thinks so too." RT if you are that majority.

To remember the victims of the Holocaust & later genocides, my wife, Sophari - who lost much of her family in the Cambodian killing fields - lit a candle 🕯️ alongside fellow survivors and the Prince & Princess of Wales at the moving #HolocaustMemorialDay ceremony.

I’m proud, as a Trustee of @HMD_UK, to have been part of the poignant events in the UK yesterday to mark #HolocaustMemorialDay. This thread from my sister, @CathyAshley, on our family history helps explain why we’re both committed to @HMD_UK & the principles that lie behind it.

This column has been the second most read on the whole Guardian site today and it’s all credit to Rosy who literally used her last voice to speak out about this country’s care crisis. Please do continue to read and share. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

It is worth two minutes of your time to read News Group Newspapers apology to Prince Harry and Tom Watson, in which for the first time the Murdoch organisation admits “unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for the Sun”. This is the first time the Murdoch group has admitted “unlawful activities” by the Sun. The statement is attached

So true.... How's NINE JOBS NIGEL doing?

Our latest on the situation in📍#Gaza and #WestBank: 🔹 UNRWA has provided 7M+ medical consultations in Gaza since Oct 2023. Attacks on health facilities continue. 🔹Eight newborns died of hypothermia in the last three weeks; at least 74 children killed in Jan 2025, @UNICEF reports. 🔹 70% of UNRWA’s aid delivery missions denied in Dec 2024, highest rate in past six months. unrwa.org/resources/repo…

Elon Musk has had a lot to say about the grooming gangs scandal. We looked at 24 hours on Musk's X timeline and found a range of false and misleading information being amplified. Produced by Catherine Karelli, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Jake Horton. Graphics by Jacqueline Galvin.

It is easy…tempting indeed…to be distracted by the sound & fury of the battle between two powerful men – the billionaire who owns X and has turned it into a megaphone and the British Prime Minister. However, this story is much more important than a clash between Elon Musk and Keir Starmer. It is about how to protect girls and young women from terrible sexual abuse. For more than 10 years official reports and police investigations have revealed that some have covered up and others have played down the fact that gangs of men - mainly but not exclusively of Pakistani origin - have targeted, groomed, raped and tortured mainly white girls. Musk has attacked and abused the PM and his safeguarding minister Jess Philips for refusing to agree to a new inquiry into what really happened. The Conservatives and Reform UK have echoed his call if not his language (which, the former head of counter terrorism, has warned risks inciting violence). Now the one woman who had not commented when so many others had has broken our silence. Professor Alexis Jay - who chaired the Independent Inquiry into child sexual abuse which reported more than two years ago and who led the investigation into the cover-up of masss rape in Rotherham more than a decade ago - has told me on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme there is no need for a new inquiry. What’s more she argues that it would get in the way of what needs to be done – implementing the findings of her report which was published more than two years ago. Professor Jay refuses to comment on the words used by Musk or, indeed, Farage or the shadow Justice secretary – the Conservative Robert Jenrick who has argued that what is to blame is mass migration of millions of people with what he calls "alien cultures". However, she had a clear message for them all. Those who "politicise child sexual abuse" are ignoring the needs of the victims she says. In another interview on the Today Programme I asked Robert Jenrick whether he accepted the Conservatives in government for 14 years had failed to do enough to tackle a problem that was first highlighted more than a decade ago. Why, I asked him, had Tory ministers failed to implement the recommendations of the inquiry? Why had they refused calls for a second wider national inquiry when they had the power to set one up. I asked him whether he’d ever raise these issues as a minister in the Home Office and pointed out that there was no mention in the parliamentary record Hansard of him ever raising the subject before Elon Musk did. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, I asked Jenrisk whether he now wanted to stop immigration from those "alien cultures" he condemns despite the fact that immigration from, say, Pakistan has recorded since Brexit and that many of Pakistani heritage have and are serving this country proudly - not least the former Home Secretary Sajid Javid and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. You can hear his answers by listening back to the Today programme on @bbcsounds at 8.10 (that's 2 hours & 10 minutes into the programme) and Professor Jay's at 7.30ish (one hour & 30 minutes into the programme)Jenrick, like Messrs Farage and Musk insists that much more is now known about what happened in the past and much more needs to be known about what might be happening now right across the country. So they argue that there is a case for that second enquiry. Jay argues that that would distract from implementing the protections that are needed now and which the Home Secretary hastily announced last night - making it an offence to know about but not report or to actively cover up child sex abuse and improving the collection of the data on who the offenders really are.Having spent years investigating these crimes - unlike some who read a few tweets before firing off their own ill informed opinions - she is clear about two things. Firstly, the scandals exposed in Rotherham and Oldham - the covering up of mass child abuse - has undoubtedly happened elsewhere any may still be happening now. Secondly, child sexual abuse is not limited to any one group in society as repeated scandals have revealed. I've written this long post to put into context the clips of the interviews I'm also posting which I know will be taken out of context by some who want to abuse their political opponents more than they want to stop the abuse of young girls

Survivors of Telford abuse crimes & the mums of two women murdered by boyfriends say of the Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips that ‘no one in public life has done more to support victims and survivors and to advocate for their interests’ theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

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For those of you suggesting a national public inquiry into so called grooming gangs will deliver accountability Do you know that the grand total of people brought to justice following the Hillsborough, Grenfell, Post Office, Infected Blood & Bloody Sunday public inquiries is ONE?

Liz Truss - foreign secretary at the time - didn't know the difference between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Theresa Coffey thought Kigali was a country. And now Suella Braverman tells us she's seen the land border between Italy and Turkey.