Ossermania

Thanks to @MartinChilton for the dubious honour of naming me the @Independent's nichest book of the holiday season! I too wish it weren't so expensive, but that's academic publishing 😓. Stay tuned for the paperback!

The truth is that you owe our members over £250,000 and haven't paid up. When will you give us back the money we deserve?

A group of London renters has won a six-figure sum from a billionaire landlord who left them living in unsafe conditions. After a three-year legal battle, the 46 former tenants of 15 flats in east London were awarded £263,000 by a tribunal – but some fear “rogue landlord” John Christodoulou could try to dodge the penalty. This may be the largest rent repayment order in UK history, but it isn’t the first for residents of Somerford Grove in Hackney. The group has been winning in court against Christodoulou since lockdown, yet three former tenants awarded £24,000 in 2022 say they still haven’t been paid. During the court case, Christodoulou – a Monaco-based property magnate who is 70th on The Sunday Times Rich List – shut down the two companies he used to collect rent. "This appears to be a deliberate attempt to evade financial responsibility through corporate restructuring," said Marc Sutton, a member of Somerford Grove Renters. Jordan Osserman, a 36-year-old lecturer and spokesperson for the campaign, added: "This case shows how the law is rigged against renters. Christodoulou makes millions off our rent while flouting the law and cutting corners on safety. But even when we win in court, landlords like Christodoulou can game the system to avoid paying up. The only way we can fight back is by organising and taking collective action." The group has been supported by the London Renters Union, which described the ruling as a “huge victory” but added that “the fight continues” until Christodoulou pays up.

Exclusive: A group of tenants have been awarded a record six-figure sum in rent repayments from one of Britain’s richest men. John Christodoulou, who is based in Monaco, has an estimated wealth of £2.5bn, but has failed to pay rent repayment orders before. thetimes.com/life-style/pro…

After agreeing to fight alongside Hackney renters, we are once more asking: "WHERE ARE YOU, SEM?" Labour speak a big game but again and again renters see no change. We are left living in unsafe and dangerous housing while landlords face zero accountability.

@owenjonesjourno @AyoCaesar @JayDot90 @thetwerkinggirl @Comediandana So sorry you've been dealing with this Owen and have had to go public about it all.

This is something I'd hoped I'd never have to write about. The details below can be corroborated by @AyoCaesar @JayDot90 @thetwerkinggirl @Comediandana and many others. It's about a harassment campaign I've been on the receiving end of for several years. The reason for it is clichéd: a man was angry because he wanted to date me, and that wasn't reciprocated, and so he has spent years seeking revenge. Beginning in the 2017 general election, I organised mass canvasses to help Labour defeat Tory MPs. These events were called 'Unseat'. A man of my age, let's call him M, came along to these events. He was good looking, seemed nice, and kept trying to attach himself to me on those events. At the time, I was in a longstanding relationship, but we were open. On 2nd September 2017, I organised an 'Unseat' event in Putney. This was perhaps the third time I met M. After the event, the canvassers came to the pub, and I had a few drinks with M, who was chatting and flirting. I then said I was going to home and was going to get my bike. M asked to walk with me, and then asked to kiss me. We kissed for a few seconds, but then I stopped and told him that I needed to tell him that I was in an open relationship. Immediately, M's demeanour changed. He suddenly got upset, aggressively yelling a few times 'why the fuck are they always in an open relationship!'. At this point I realised I'd made a mistake: like I'd stood on a landmine. His entire demeanour had changed, he seemed genuinely furious, and frankly I felt very uncomfortable. I said I needed to get home, tried to keep it friendly, and that we'd hang out at the next Unseat event. When I got home, he messaged me to ask if I got home in one piece (all our messages in their entirety are attached to this tweet), and I didn't reply, feeling it was best to just leave it. 10 days later, he said he'd "really like" to see me again, asking for some food maybe next week. I had a problem - I knew he was going to keep coming to Unseat events, and that was awkward. So a month later, I replied, suggesting hanging out at the Unseat events instead, as an alternative to a date. He replied again asking to hang out one on one, which I again didn't reply to. My dad was dying of cancer at the time. After he died on in mid-January 2018, M sent me a nice message, which I replied to, and suggesting again that I'd see him at an Unseat event. This time he replied at length praising me for my work, adding "Ah. Yes. Unseat events are really effective. But to be honest with you I'd really like to hang out with you sooner. Will let you let me take you out for food and drinks next week?" Again, I didn't reply. Then, on 14th April 2018, I'd organised an Unseat event in Wandsworth. In the break between the canvassing, we all went to the pub. M was there, and this time was extremely agitated. He came up to me, asking insistently to speak to me one on one. My friends asked if I was OK and if I needed their support, but I agreed to speak to him. In the corner of a pub, he started to rant: "I HAVE to see you, I NEED to see you". I was, frankly, alarmed by his aggressive tone, and apologised, saying I was with someone, that he seemed like a really nice guy but I couldn't date him, but he just kept repeating that over and over again. Then he insisted on giving me a very large wrapped present, and then I walked away. I walked fast down the street with @AyoCaesar and a group of others, who were concerned because I seemed shaken up. I opened the present in front of them. M had taken a picture of me and my dead father from the internet, had it blown up, and put it in a large glass cabinet. Everyone around me - as Ash can testify - yelped, and then there was a prolonged silence as nobody knew what to say. I took the glass cabinet, and threw it in the nearest bin. In the coming months, M started denouncing me angrily on social media, at this point as a privileged white man and a careerist. Then, in August 2019 - a year and a half after the Wandsworth incident - he messaged me again, wishing me a birthday, adding "Happy belated birthday. I have a present for you. When can I give it to you...?" I didn't reply. The next year he increasingly angrily began denouncing me on social media narcissistic, manipulating, who used socialism to try and increase my power and get "impressionable men" to perform sexual favours. Then, on 9th October 2020, I did an event with @thetwerkinggirl at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. As I sat on the stage, I saw M in the front row. Throughout the whole show, he just stared at me: it was extremely uncomfortable. Then, at the end, I told my friend @JayDot90 that M was there. M came up to us, insistently asking to see me. I told him he was making me feel uncomfortable, and Jay told him to leave me alone. When we left, M angrily ranted to @Comediandana about how I'd accused him of making me feel uncomfortable. Me and Jay tried going to the green room to get away, but he followed us there. So then we tried leaving the pub, but M was then yelling at me, and then filmed part of the altercation, screaming that I used my position to come on to people and get sexual favours. When I tried calmly explaining it was him who had pursued me - and who was upset that his feelings weren't reciprocated - he got even more angry, screaming that I was a liar and that one day I was going to get "what was coming" to me. The next day, he posted the video on social media, declaring that he was a "fucking beast", adding "a lot of you have mouth online but are quiet on road", bigging up his name and concluding "You may be standing alone but you're still standing." At this point my friends told me to go to the police. I didn't want to do this, but they suggested that if he made a false accusation, then I'd be on the defensive and needed to be on the front foot. So I went to the police, showed the messages, explained this blow by blow account, and making clear my friends would corroborate all the details. The police asked me if I wanted to press charges. I said no: I just wanted him to leave me alone. So the police went to see M. They told him that if I pursued action against M, M would no longer be able to work with children, which was the job he was doing at the time. I blocked M on my phone, and he stopped, for months, tweeting about me. Months later, he started again. Exactly a year after the police had met him, he tweeted a picture of himself outside of a police station, denouncing me for falsely accusing him of sexual harassment, emphasising that they'd taken no action - which was at my own request. Since then he has continued to denounce me on social media over and over again. For a while now, his false claims - trying to portray me as a predator - have circulated among some on social media, who have believed the claims, unchallenged. Because they haven't caught on, and because it's extremely stressful having to deal with a harassment campaign of this sort, I've ignored them. They've caused a huge amount of stress, obviously. Unfortunately now an anonymous account which has developed a grudge against me - and shared other lurid false claims, such as that I had a relationship with Health Secretary Wes Streeting - has shared increasingly wild false claims from M which anyone who knows me can immediately contradict. Being on the receiving end of this kind of harassment campaign is distressing. Because he's active in political spaces, I've always had to be on guard in case he's there. I've always been worried about him circulating false claims as an act of vengeance and people believing them. Having to talk about your personal life to defend yourself from someone angry that you wouldn't date them is humiliating. That's all I intend to say on this and I'm now going to look at the options available to get this person to leave me alone.

"Israel Has Weaponized Trauma. Should We Talk About It?" A searing piece full of humanity, moral grace, moral clarity, by my brilliant friend @Ossermania. publicseminar.org/2024/06/israel…

As genocide rages on, @Ossermania asks: "Who do we identify with as we watch? And what do our identities have to do with that deceptively simple word, solidarity?" publicseminar.org/2024/06/israel…

Since writing this thread nearly a year ago I've grappled a lot with how to understand my relationship with Israel in the face of its genocidal behaviour. I've recently published an essay reflecting on this question with @PublicSeminar: publicseminar.org/2024/06/israel…

It was a foolish decision for me to stay at that London rave after I received the phone call, struggling to process the news surrounded by blaring techno. But I don't think I deserve to die for it. Neither did they.

I returned from a trip to visit family in Israel two weeks ago. On Saturday, I learned that my niece barely managed to escape that infamous rave alive, by hiding as dead. Two of her friends were not as lucky - they are currently hostage in Gaza.

@ProfEdwardPeck Shame you've denied future generations similar opportunities at NTU...

I will stop now!

@drrhianelinor @ucu @eyukhnem @GertjanLucas @gbuttars @UoNUCU Many branches are also not currently in dispute but are heading in that direction or receiving dire signals about potential redundancies - so I think it'd make sense to broaden this out

@ucu @Ossermania @eyukhnem @GertjanLucas @gbuttars @UoNUCU Will HEC be invited to observe in any case? It would be useful to be across this including what UCU is doing

@jaissance @BarnabyRaine I'm saying this BC I've had to defend free speech at work for (white) activists who I think also used daft language, and it drained a lot of momentum / support for Palestine organising

A thought experiment: if after Nat Turner's slave uprising - which killed whites indiscriminately - black people elsewhere carried images of Nat Turner and were then rounded up by states funding the slave trade, should leftists take to pulpits to condemn those protestors?🧵

Universities are not corporations. They are legally obligated to uphold freedom of expression and academic freedom of their staff and students. Shame on @UniversityLeeds

@tamars I was once told by the ticket woman at the Acropolis "you don't want to go on that tour, it's all loud Israelis". I told her my mom was Israeli. Her co-worker burst out laughing. I tried to reassure her with "it's OK, I know they're all really loud and obnoxious"

Some important analysis and questions here raised about @DrJoGrady previous election promises.

Happy to discover an article I wrote, on 'Psychoanalysis and Trans', is now out in the Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies. Thanks to all the authors, activists and thinkers I learned from and sometimes disagreed with! Download here: jordanosserman.com/writing/psycho…

@LuGuangMing @SamMorecroft @ucu @zenscara Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure if you're implying this proves Vicky was breaking BDS to work with ST - of course, PACBI only just made this call. Personally I'm disappointed they did, and agreed with this thread by a pal citizen of Israel: twitter.com/z_00pIz/status…

@Ossermania @SamMorecroft @ucu @zenscara twitter.com/luguangming/st…

I think Vicky Blake is a serious trade unionist and a serious. candidate for General Secretary, something which we badly need. I'd urge every @ucu member to read this 👇

@MichaelAbberton @JamesBSumner @PaulCinnam0n That's missing the point as @JamesBSumner clearly stated. UCUL wrote "HAS announced". That means they (rightly or wrongly) thought she already announced it. The Commons post suggests she chose to announce her campaign via UCUL. It's misleading and lacks integrity.

Tell you what. Read this, then read what is actually at the "in that grouping's newsletter" link, then decide for yourself whether the Commons folk are being strictly truthful about the extent of @zenscara's closeness to @UcuLeft or not. I'll just sit here quietly.

@UCUCommons One of the odd things about @UCUCommons and @UCUDemocracy is that they propose no alternative democratic structures that a GS must be bound by, but defend the GS breaking the current ones. How do we hold a GS accountable?

@UCUCommons Just to correct some of the misinfo: "rank and file revolution" began as a grassroots GTVO support group, and grew as an informal WhatsApp network. Vicky hasn't been involved. We're now publicly trying to formalise things and published demands: ucurankandfile.wordpress.com/2023/12/31/dem…