"Criminal investigations" into rap groups? Really? When Bob Vylan shouted "death to the Israeli Defence Force" as part of his Glastonbury performance, at the same time the IDF was carrying out "routine" killings in Gaza. And using starving Palestinians queuing for food as target practice, sowing terror among them.
So it's quite evident who the criminals and terrorists in this world are. As for calling Bob Vylan "anti-Semitic", which was Culture Minister Lisa Nandy's claim in the Commons on Monday, well, it's also obvious that rightly damning the IDF for its actions has nothing to do with anti-Jewish racism!
The Economist - not known for its pro-Palestinian stance - writes that as many as 109,000 Palestinians (~double the "official" figure) may have died, so far, from "traumatic injuries" in this one-sided war. Yes, a continuing slaughter which everyone knows (except, apparently, members of the British government and their loyal Opposition) is directed mainly against civilians and routinely targets hospitals and schools.
On Monday, the only operating internet café in north Gaza City, the seaside Al-Baqa 'cafeteria', was bombed by an IDF fighter jet, killing 39, including journalist Ismail Abu Hatab and the men, women and children known to gather there.
As for "condemning" the BBC for streaming Bob Vylan live, well, who takes the puppet BBC seriously anyway? It's always been a government mouthpiece, featuring apologists for its policies, with the odd opposition commentator for supposed "balance"!
Back in 1972, it banned Beatle Paul McCartney's song "Give Ireland Back to the Irish". He wrote it after the shooting dead of 13 civil rights protesters (including 7 teenagers) on Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland, by British paratroopers. Gagging by governments in Westminster which support massacres is nothing new.
Yes, it's a timely distraction
So what can one conclude from this latest government-led melodrama against Bob Vylan - and the labelling of Kneecap's Mo Chara as a "terrorist"(!)? Maybe it's that Starmer and his ministers are desperately in need of a distraction!
Indeed, it's embarrassing for a government to keep having to make U-turns over its anti-working class policies. So, after having to back down (only partly, though) over its cut to winter fuel allowance for pensioners, now the proposed cuts to welfare are being... cut. But not by much.
Yes, this latest government Bill, which will still cut disability benefits like PIP, had been intended purely as a way to raise money for the Treasury. And to use for what? To increase defence spending? To make more parts for the Israeli military? To keep fuelling the Ukrainian war? In line with its policy, it will certainly "grow" profits for the weapons industry capitalists!
Actually, the government's "tough" choices, to avoid increasing taxes on the rich, or on company profits, were deliberately tough on the most vulnerable. Stupidly, perhaps, they thought nobody would be too bothered - or at least not the Tory and Reform constituency they aspire to win over. But even Farage and Kemi Badenoch have condemned their attack on the poor - although one has, of course, to take their sudden discovery of a social conscience with a large helping of salt...
Actually, we all need to stop working!
In fact the black hole in all of the politicians' arguments, whether right, left, or centre, is made up of two fast-growing negatives: first, the almost complete absence of permanent, decent jobs in an economy in recession and second, the absence of therapeutic provision in a near-collapsed NHS.
Yet DWP minister Kendall expects claimants in mental distress (numbers are up 36% since the pandemic, with suicides, the "deaths of despair", up 24%!) to get brain-fit... Yup, and if they do, which is highly unlikely, it will be to work as poverty-stricken casual dish-washers on the minimum wage!
But no, claims Kendall, her benefit cuts will conjure up "good" work (and "good" bosses!), because Labour is now the "Party of Work" (not workers!). And, after all, "Arbeit macht frei" or, "work makes you free" as was written above the gates of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp...
After presenting its welfare cuts (as amended) as "reforms" for a "broken system" the Party of Work, finally got enough of its rebellious backbenchers to vote the Bill through. Whether it will save Starmer's face remains to be seen.
Because it has a lot of egg on it, not least from his attempt to lay down the law against the rappers who dare expose the "Work" Party's criminal policy against Palestinians.
But neither egg flung by rappers nor votes in the Commons will stop anti-working class policies - whether imposed here, or in the Middle East. That is the "good work" which the whole working class will have to undertake, by organising a collective fight back. And the sooner the better.