The ‘Anti-Semitism’ Witch-Hunt that Targets Rameh Aladwan is itself Anti-Semitic – Despite Having Been Found to Have No Case to Answer She is Being Tried Again

Dr Rahmeh’s Only Offence is  Being a Palestinian & Opposing the Genocide that Starmer & Streeting Have Enabled

IF you are JEWISH please sign the

Statement in Support of Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, the British-Palestinian Doctor Who is Being Persecuted by the General Medical Council and Wes Streeting

Link here

https://forms.gle/cnVMGb2ubD3edKY97

Video of the Arrest of Dr Rahmeh Aladwan

Last Tuesday, Dr Rahmeh Aladwan was arrested by the Metropolitan Police for three offences of making malicious communications and one offence of inciting racial hatred. What was the basis of these allegations? Well the Police officer arresting her told Rahmeh that on 21 July, at a demonstration outside the Foreign & Commonwealth Office she called for the eradication of the State of Israel.

Since when have calls for eradicating the genocidal and apartheid Israeli state been tantamount to inciting racial hatred or ‘anti-Semitism’? This could only be a possible offence if there is an inseparable link between Israeli Apartheid and British Jews. Clearly the numbskulls of the Metropolitan Police, especially their racist Commissioner Mark Rowley, have never heard of anti-Zionist Jews.

British police arrest doctor for opposing Gaza genocide, with Asa Winstanley

So a question to those who dreamt up these charges. Were calls to abolish the Nazi state an example of anti-German racism?  Or calls to abolish or eradicate the Apartheid South African State anti-White racism?  To merely ask the question is to answer it.

If anyone is being anti-Semitic it is the Metropolitan Police, who never lose an opportunity to link British Jews with Zionism’s genocide. It should never be forgotten that when Hitler was alive and kicking his disciples in the form of the British Union of Fascists were marching through the Jewish East End of London protected by the same Met Police who are now so concerned with ‘anti-Semitism’.

The Met are no more concerned about anti-Semitism than they are about any other form of racism. The Met are a cesspit of racism. They have repeatedly been found to be institutionally racist by the MacPherson Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and even by Thatcherite Baronness Louise Casey. Only in the past month Police at Charing Cross Police have been caught out up to their old tricks in a Panorama programme.

The sincerity of the Met can be gauged by the fact that they haven’t arrested a single Zionist for glorifying in and denying the genocide that Israel is carrying out in Gaza. If the government denies there is a genocide then why should the Met contradict them?

Although Rahmeh has been the target of the viciously racist pro-Israel lobby – the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism and the equally poisonous UK Lawyers for Israel [UKLFI], it is the British state that has moved into action.  Jews for them are a convenient alibi and pretext. The attack on Palestine solidarity activists is because British foreign policy is joined at the hip with that of the United States and Israel.

It is important not to invert this and believe that the British state is acting on behalf of the Israeli state and its stooges like the Board of Deputies. British imperialism has always been pro-Zionist as has the United States.  Israel is their racist Rottweiler in the Middle East.

Dr Radwan’s treatment has been disgraceful, even by British standards. In effect, having been found not guilty at her first hearing that despicable apology for a human being, the corrupt Wes Streeting demanded a rehearing of the charges. See here.

The UK 'israel' lobby has pressured my government and medical board into referring me to a tribunal hearing to try and suspend me for opposing genocide. This is Britain. We are occupied.

Hi. My name is Rahmeh. I am a part-Palestinian British NHS doctor. I am facing the… pic.twitter.com/hR9U90g42o

— Dr Rahmeh Aladwan (@doctor_rahmeh) August 28, 2025

A Google search produces this entry yet the page can't be found

Dr Radwan was first referred to a hearing of the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service by the General Medical Council [GMC] on 27 August. At the hearing on 25 September the GMC asked for conditions to be placed on Dr Radwan’s practice and the MPTS refused. She was found to have no case to answer. It appears that this decision has been scrubbed from the Internet. Although it appears in a Google search the page itself has disappeared. The Tribunal found that

·         There was no evidence that patient safety had been put at risk.

·         The GMC’s concerns arose solely from political statements, not from Dr Aladwan’s clinical practice, which remains unblemished.

·         A “reasonable and fully informed member of the public” would not be alarmed to learn that she continued unrestricted practice while the investigation proceeds.

In Place of the Missing Page

There was a fierce backlash from Streeting, who only held his seat in Ilford North by 500 votes, against the British Palestinian Leanne Mohammed. On 6 October Streeting was quoted in The Times as calling for medical institutions to ‘crack down on antisemitism’.

The issue was posed in terms of the danger to Jewish patients. Streeting warned that hospitals and medical institutions are “completely failing to protect Jewish patients”. The fact that these lies are carried without comment demonstrates the lengths the British press is willing to go to support Israel. There isn’t one verifiable example of a doctor with Palestinian sympathies injuring or failing to care for someone who is Jewish. Not one example.

However the treatment of Black and Muslim people in the NHS is a different matter. A third of Black and Ethnic Minority staff face racist abuse at work. Not that you would know from Streeting’s comments. His only concern are for a section of White people.  His allegations are completely unevidenced but were nonetheless seized upon by the Tory press.

The first ten NHS doctors to die of COVID were predominantly Muslim and from either a Black, Asian or Arabic background. Black and minority ethnic people are 40 percent more likely to access mental health services via the criminal justice system than white people. But this kind of racism is not something that Streeting, The Times or Telegraph is concerned with.

After a campaign by the Israel funded, so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism [CAA] (which is really a Campaign Against the Palestinians) the GMC rereferred Dr Aladwan’s case back to the MPTS on 3 October.  A hearing of the MPTS was held on 23 October and the MPTS agreed to hear the case again although it had already dismissed it previously.

At the second hearing on 23 Oct the GMC asked for the suspension of Dr Aladwan and the inclusion of all material from first hearing, which the MPTS agreed to. This is going to go ahead to a 3 day hearing date on a date yet to be confirmed. The GMC even want to add material they had before the first hearing but didn't submit. The video below and also this tweet explains the whole of this torturous attempt at the crucifixion of Dr Aladwan.

Dr Rahmeh Aladwan's Instagram Post Explaining the Background to her Case Before the MPTS

One factor in all of this has been the supine behaviour of the GMC which has  done its best to persecute Dr Aladwan.  Yet when it comes to genuine anti-Semitism from Zionists it behaves entirely differently. On 21 January 2024 I received a message from a Justin Stebbing which read:

At first I thought it was either from a neo-Nazi or a lunatic or both.  I wasn’t far wrong.  He is a lunatic Zionist. Justin Stebbing is a visiting professor at Imperial College and he is still listed on their website.

It is interesting to contrast the witch-hunt against Dr Aladwan, who hasn’t made any remotely similar comments with that of Stebbing. Imperial College in the form of HR Director, Harbhajan Brar, refused to do anything. I complained to the Met Police who were also reluctant to do anything. Eventually Sussex Police referred a complaint to the Crown Prosecution Service who also refused to do anything.  The Police Officer in the case informed me that the CPS had concluded that

a jury would be unlikely to conclude that he meant what he said literally, based on the surrounding circumstances, so there was no realistic prospect of conviction if the matter went to court.

Stebbing claimed that his remarks were ironic and he hadn’t meant them. There was nothing ironic about them. Sending someone Jewish an email out of the blue (because I’d never had contact with this reptile before) saying that all Jews should be gassed is clearly malicious as per the Malicious Communications Act under which Dr Radwan has been arrested. But of course the CPS is a highly political animal and it knows better than to prosecute a prominent Zionist.

I also complained to the GMC. Given their hyper activity in Dr Radwan’s case one might suppose that they would have been eager to suspend Stebbing. It was not as if he didn’t have form. In December 2021 he was suspended by the MPTS for nine months.

Stebbing was guilty of a “cavalier” approach in the way he treated some patients. This including sending “inappropriate” emails to a dying patient he nicknamed LMT (Little Miss Trouble). It would seem that I wasn’t the first victim of Stebbing.

But in my case the GMC exonerated him without even a reprimand. Stebbing was defended by UKLFI and by the CAA.  So what we have are the two most prominent Zionist organisations involved in making false ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations against Palestinian supporters defending someone guilty of making vile anti-Semitic comments about gassing Jews. This is par for the course with Zionists. They have never had any objection to genuine anti-Semitism, only anti-Zionism.

In the process the CAA/UKLFI alleged that I had been found guilty of being a ‘notorious anti-Semite’ myself when I made an unsuccessful libel claim against the CAA. However even the GMC was aware that in libel a defence of honest opinion merely finds the libel hasn’t been proven, not that it was correct. This in itself is an indication of the dishonesty of these Zionist organisations. The GMC nonetheless found that

Yet despite this finding the GMC declined to apply any penalty. The contrast with Dr Radwan, who has made no offensive remarks to anyone Jewish, even if some of her comments regarding ‘Jewish supremacy’ may be over the top, is astonishing. It is as clear a case of double standards as one could hope to find.

The justification for not imposing a warning on Stebbing is equally astonishing:

The double standards are self-evident. Criticism of Israel and Zionism is a hanging offence. Telling someone Jewish that all Jews should have been gassed is something that can be treated leniently. Incidentally the blacked out portions of the decision almost certainly relate to Stebbing’s previous striking off from the register which suggest that such an emotionally charged man is certainly not someone who should be near patients.  Again in contrast to Dr Aladwan who has handled herself with great aplomb and poise.

The full GMC decision can be downloaded here.

It is clear from the behaviour of the Police, CPS, GMC and Imperial College that when it comes to genuine anti-Semitism from Zionists and supporters of Israel, then the traditional defences go up.  Accusations of false anti-Semitism when made in support of Genocide in Palestine are, by contrast, treated seriously.

The lesson to draw from this is that the purported concern over anti-Semitism by the Met Police and the State in this and other cases is entirely spurious. Likewise the defence of Stebbing by the CAA and UKLFI demonstrates that these organisations are only interested in ‘anti-Semitism’ when defence of Israel is on the agenda.

This should also be a lesson to those in the Palestine solidarity movement who believe that the British state is genuinely concerned with anti-Semitism. It is the same with Donald Trump in the United States whose racism is a matter of record. But when it comes to ‘anti-Semitism’ and the ‘plight’ of Zionist Jewish students on campus Trump was so concerned that he threatened universities with defunding unless they fell into line and policed discourse on campus, in particular courses covering the Middle East.

Just as an addendum.  Rahmeh has attributed support for Israel amongst British Jews to ‘Jewish Supremacism’.  I think this is wrong. The reasons why British Jews have tended to support Israel are complex but racial superiority is confined to a minority of Zionist zealots such as Jonathan Hoffman.

The Jewish community in Britain has moved decisively to the right since 1945 when half the vote for Phil Piratin, the Communist candidate in the Mile End constituency in the East End, resulted in the first Jewish Communist MP.

In 1979 when both a Communist and a National Front candidate stood in Hackney North at the General Election, Professor Geoffrey Alderman could not discern a single Jewish vote for the Communist but estimated that a few hundred Jews voted for the holocaust denying National Front.

Zionism as a settler colonial and imperialist ideology is clearly attractive to those on the right. Coupled with its sense of victimhood arising out of the weaponisation of the holocaust, British Jews have been complicit in enabling Starmer and Lammy to support Israel’s genocide. However it would be wrong to ascribe the support of the British state to either the Zionist lobby or British Jews. The latter are the State’s moral alibi. It is not why the British state supports Israel.

Notwithstanding the above it is incumbent upon anti-Zionist Jews to give their full support to Rahmeh in her battles with the Medical Establishment and the Metropolitan Police. She is being attacked, not because of anti-Semitism but because she is a supporter of the Palestinians.

Tony Greenstein

EXCLUSIVE – Professor Justin Stebbing of Imperial College, London Sent Me An Email Saying How Much He Hates Jews and Why They Should All Be Gassed

When Challenged Stebbing Claimed That His Emails Were ‘Pure Irony’

I have become used to receiving racist and anti-Semitic emails and posts. Often my first task is to work out whether they come from neo-Nazis or Zionists (or both). But on this occasion it seemed clear that it was the former.

At 15.36 on Sunday I received an email from Stebbing thanking me for having made him hate Jews. Since I’d never even heard of him I assumed that this was just another racist crank with time on his hands.  Possibly it was a neo-Nazi who took my criticism of Zionism and Israel to mean that I was anti-Jewish.

After all Zionists claim that to be Jewish is to be a supporter of Israel so maybe Stebbing or whatever his real name was, had taken them at their word. Maybe it was one of those Trump supporters who stormed Capitol Hill wearing ‘camp Auschwitz sweat shirts.’

My immediate reaction was to make a complaint to the Police who quickly issued me with a crime number. I then circulated it amongst friends, one of whom googled the name and told me that there was a professor at Imperial College, London with the same name.

Stebbing then emailed me a second time with a link to a New York Times article, which has since been discredited, alleging that Hamas had weaponised sexual violence. I informed the Police and thought nothing of it.

I also circulated it to members of Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign one of whom suggested that I should contact Professor Stebbing to inform him that someone was distributing anti-Semitic emails in his name.

I therefore emailed Stebbing at 18.52 on the 22 January to inform him that

You will not know me though I am a well known anti-Zionist Jewish activist. I won't even begin to (go) into the mentality of Zionists who do this kind of thing but it is not, by any means, unique.

I have been sent the following emails in your name. I assume that this is not you but someone impersonating you. Nonetheless they are vile and I have reported them to the Police in Sussex.

The two emails I had previously circulated had come from a gmail account but the email I received back from Professor Stebbing was from his Imperial College email address.

You could have knocked me down with a feather when Stebbing replied that the emails were from him and it was no impersonation.

My e mail was pure irony, but as always here the response to the crime is blamed. I have zero doubt that in WW2, you would have been thrilled to gas all Jews. That was the point I was making.

I have no doubt you understood this.

Israel gassed its own captives

Stebbing’s emails were apparently ‘pure irony’. There was nothing at all in the first email to suggest irony. As far as I was concerned it was mere assertion. His second email referring to the NYT article arrived over 5 hours later.

What he was saying was that when he said he supported gassing Jews, what he really meant was that I did. Except that I don’t. It is Israel which at this present time is pumping poison gas into tunnels and killing Jewish captives in the process.

But even when the second email arrived there was no reason why I should assume that his first email was ironic. Perhaps whoever sent the email had read the NYT article alleging that Hamas raped his victims and approved of what had allegedly happened. The email was headed ‘friends’.

Having falsely said that I had contacted him previously, Stebbing then accused me of being ‘the most anti-semitic person I have ever encountered in my life.’ But he hadn’t encountered me before. I had the feeling that maybe Stebbing had mental health problems in that he assumed that other people understood his disconnected thought processes. Or maybe the illness he was suffering from was an extreme form of Zionism.

A further email from Stebbing claimed that

you know i don't think jews should be gassed but you do - that was my ironic point you miss, repeatedly but suspect you know this

Again there was an assumption that I knew what he thought despite not knowing who had sent the emails. Why should I know anything about someone I had never met? All I knew was what he had sent me. His claim that I believe Jews should be gassed is a typical evidence-free Zionist libel.

Finally I told Stebbing that I assumed he was not Jewish because no one who was Jewish would make a ‘joke’ about those who were exterminated in the death camps. Like most Jews I had relatives who had been murdered by the Nazis.

However I was wrong. Stebbing is not only Jewish but a Zionist and for most Zionists the Holocaust is something to be weaponised. That is what is happening now with the genocide in Gaza. As I have written previously, during the Holocaust the Zionist movement was focused on one thing and one thing only – creating a ‘Jewish’ state. All else, including rescue of Jewish refugees, was put to one side. It was a distraction.

At this point I emailed Imperial College authorities informing them of Stebbing’s emails and suggesting that he was not fit to teach students given his deep racism and anti-Semitism, itself not uncommon among Zionists.

Anders Breivik, Norway's Mass Murderer

The following morning I received an acknowledgement from Joanna Ivison, Secretary to the President of Imperial College, Hugh Brady. I have heard nothing since. I assume that Imperial College has policy on racism, including anti-Semitism albeit that Imperial has adopted the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism which doesn’t cover genuine, far-right anti-Semitism of the Breivik/Trump kind. However if Imperial don’t suspend Stebbing and proceed to remove him altogether then they will have a lot of questions to answer.

People then started to find out more about Stebbing. In December 2021 he was suspended for 9 months and nearly struck off the medical register.

Stebbing had admitted adopting a “cavalier” approach in the way he treated some patients and having sent ‘inappropriate’ emails to a dying patient he nicknamed LMT (Little Miss Trouble). Stebbing had treated patients at the end of their life with aggressive treatments and had raised false hopes. Stebbing himself has since admitted, “I should not have treated any of these individuals; they were too sick to be treated.” An article detailing the nature of the case for his suspension is on the British Medical Journal blogs.

Sharon Beattie, QC for the GMC argued that Stebbing should be  struck off because he posed an 'ongoing risk' to patient safety and that he'd embarked on a 'persistent course of conduct' and 'persistent dishonesty' which he'd attempted to cover-up. Shades of his behaviour today.

However these are medical matters though it is interesting that the Daily Mail leapt to his defence.

What isn’t in doubt though is that he sent a virulently anti-Semitic email to me, that he made assertions about me that are not based in fact and that he doubled down on them. Furthermore all his emails subsequent to the first two were sent from an Imperial College email address thus bringing Imperial College into disrepute.

Tony Greenstein

As China reports no new cases, Coronavirus Illustrates all the Flaws and Failures of Free Market Capitalism and our broken NHS

Too Little Too Late - The Delay and Failure of Boris Johnson to Deal with the Coronavirus and its Consequences Could Kill Thousands

It has just been announced that there are no new cases of COVID-19 in China. Whatever the failings and flaws of the Chinese political and economic system, China has illustrated that a determined campaign to eradicate this infectious disease is perfectly possible. We don’t have to wait 18 months for a vaccine.

What is holding us back is the political and economic system we live under. The  prioritisation of profit and the needs of capital over  human beings has resulted in a failure to close workplaces, universities, schools, pubs and recreational centres.

I have to confess that I have more than a personal interest in this! In addition to being over 60 I had a liver transplant 5 years ago and therefore take immune-suppressive medication. In the event of contracting COVID-19 it is likely that I will become one more statistic.

Only a week ago Boris Johnson announced the Government’s ‘strategy’ to deal with Coronavirus, if one can dignify it with that description. In essence it consisted of a series of platitudes such as stay at home. Given the 3 options outlined by researchers at Imperial College of suppression, mitigation or do nothing, Johnson chose the latter.

It is only now that schools are to be closed and still no news about pubs, swimming pools and gyms, cafés etc.

Although the mainstream media was uncritical of Johnson’s ‘strategy’ many people, especially those in the medical world, realised what he was up to.  Johnson's main concern was about business profitability not people.

As Massachussett’s Institute of Technology Review explained

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that his country would adopt a different coronavirus strategy from the ones its European neighbors have followed. Most governments have sought to suppress the spread of the virus by reducing mass gatherings, imposing quarantine restrictions, and encouraging social distancing. But Johnson said the country would forgo such measures

No doubt this was part of this poundshop nationalist’s Brexit agenda, showing that we have now regained control from Europe. The only problem is that, like Climate Change, Coronavirus is no respecter of borders and national boundaries. Coronavirus has no nationality, which is why Trump’s reference to a ‘China Virus’ is so absurd. Even if it did come from China and that is still not certain, it hasn’t stayed there. No amount of immigration barriers or Mexican walls is going to prevent it spreading.

The Tory strategy was indeed different from our European neighbours. It meant letting 60% of the population get ill and thus allow ‘herd immunity’ to set in.  There was just one problem with that. It was going to cause a massive number of deaths.

The World Health Organisation estimated that 3.4% of those who contract it will die. 60% of Britain’s population is about 36 million.  In other words we are talking about over a million people. Even if we assume that with the NHS the figures could be kept to 1% that would still be some 360,000 deaths. As Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health at UCL wrote:

The stated government policy is to allow 40 million people to become infected. This could mean 6 million hospital admissions, 2 million requiring special or intensive care, and 402,000 deaths if the chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty’s 1% estimate of mortality is correct.

A statement from over 500 scientists in Britain caused Johnson to realise that proudly proclaiming that we are British and therefore different is not enough. Even if nationalism is irrational, science isn’t. We live in a globalised world and the vain boast of the idiot in the White House that border control has prevented Coronavirus in the USA is just one more of his empty boasts (having first denounced it as a hoax). They wrote to express their:

concern about the course of action announced by the Government on 12th March 2020 we are deeply preoccupied by the timeline of the proposed plan, which aims at delaying social distancing measures even further…. Under unconstrained growth, this outbreak will affect millions of people in the next few weeks. This will most probably put the NHS at serious risk of not being able to cope with the flow of patients needing intensive care… Going for “herd immunity” at this point does not seem a viable option, as this will put NHS at an even stronger level of stress, risking many more lives than necessary. By putting in place social distancing measures now, the growth can be slowed down dramatically, and thousands of lives can be spared. We consider the social distancing measures taken as of today as insufficient.

An open etter from Italy made the same point:

‘The beginning of the outbreak had the exact same number of infections in China, Italy, and other countries. The difference is that China strongly and quickly locked down Wuhan and all of the Hubei region 8 days before Italy [3].

The letter went on to say that just 8 days of delay would result in an ‘enormous increase in the number of total deaths in Italy with respect to China.’ Italy has now had more deaths than China. Whereas China has got the spread of Coronavirus under control, Johnson and the Tories have helped spread it. By delaying the closure of schools and other public institutions, the Tories embarked on a cull of the elderly and vulnerable.

The death rate varies by age. 7.5% of the over 70s who get the virus will die and this increases to 14% of the over 80s. Given that 67% of the over 70’s voted in the General Election for the Tories compared to just 14% for Labour, it’s a strange way for Johnson to express his gratitude for their stupidity.  But then Johnson and the Tories main concern have more pressing concerns - the interests of big business and capital.  Killing off the elderly and vulnerable will also have the 'benefit' of saving countless millions in care costs and social security.

Johnson, front row and Cameron next to him

Johnson, who wrote a ‘flawed and self-serving’ biography of Churchill, imagines that he is a second Winston rather than a vain and boastful Bullingdon boy born with a silver spoon in his gullet. He should take some lessons from his hero.

Until 1940 Churchill was a failed politician.  In 1931 he had resigned from the Shadow Cabinet over the Tories support for Dominion Status, i.e. self-government for India. In 1925 he had returned Britain to the Gold Standard thus ensuring deflation and economic crisis even before the 1929 Wall Street crash. What made Churchill’s reputation was the War and  his role as a national leader. Johnson’s first crisis has shown that he is an inept puffball, a buffoon without an ounce of originality but someone who understands where his class interests lie.

Boris Johnson is no Churchill

For the past 10 years, beginning with the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, the NHS has been starved of funds and facilities in order to achieve their aim, after the 2008-9 financial crash, of redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. The result is that we are more unprepared for the virus than virtually all other western countries bar the USA. We have such a massive shortage of nurses because Theresa May decided that student nurses didn't need bursaries. 

Whereas Germany has 29.2 critical care beds per 100,000 of the population, the UK has just 6.6 beds. We are 24^th out of 31 European countries. No doubt this is something that Brexit supporters are especially proud of, though it remains to be seen if they will maintain their pride if they succumb to the infection.

This may also help explain why Britain has one of the highest mortality rates (4.4%) and Germany has the lowest (0.2%), although many of these figures are provisional.

Above all this infection is highly political. We can only deal with the outbreak together and in co-operation whereas the spirit of capitalism was seen at 6.00 a.m. in my local Asda when there was a rush to grasp the limited supplies of toilet paper (which had run out by 7.00 a.m.).

Capitalism is both amoral, as George Soros said and also inefficient since it has only one term of reference – profit. It is a system which ensures that a tiny elite accumulates more and more wealth as the rest of us get poorer. How can an economic and political system built on impoverishment be efficient, still less just!

Even worse capitalism distorts what should be produced, hence why such a vast proportion of GDP is used to produce weapons, which we are then told is essential to ‘peace keeping’. We now need ventilators in a hurry but if production had been geared to such essential equipment in the first place there wouldn’t be the present panic. And lacking any control over industry we cannot simply order firms to diversify production.

Of course when COVID-19 threatens business then demands are made for Corporate Welfare, the only kind of welfare the Tories like. Chancellor Riki Sunak has pledged £330 billions to help industry. Undoubtedly there need to be loans to small and struggling businesses but it would be an outrage if one penny of this went into the pockets of corporate fat cats like Richard Branson. If much of the airline industry collapses it’s a good thing. It will reduce the world’s carbon footprint enormously. There is no excuse in the days of Skype and Zoom for someone flying to a meeting in New York.

The formation of hundreds of mutual aid groups shows that there is an alternative to the dog-eat-dog ideology of free market capitalism. Self-isolation will be particularly devastating for the old and frail, many of whom will be unable to obtain help easily, go shopping etc.

We live in a fragile ecosphere and Coronavirus is one more example of the damage we are doing to the world. Once again we have an example of a pathogen jumping from animals to humans because of poor hygiene and food practices

What We Should Be Demanding

There is a Petition Calling for the Labour Party, which has so far been almost silent on the crisis, to adopt an emergency action plan. There is also a good statement by West Ham Labour Party.

It is crazy that sick pay is £98.25, the second lowest in Europe. It should be around £300 per week. There is a need for a moratorium on all evictions of tenants and mortgagees for failure to make payments. Landlordism has always been parasitical on the real economy. Empty buildings need to be requisitioned and open immediately for the homeless.  There should be a moratorium on utility bills for people self-isolated.

No one should ever be on the street, especially now. There is no better way to spread the infection than people having to live on the street. But this means challenging the idea that private property rights are more important than human need. Since there is £330 billions available it should go to the people who need it not for corporations  to pay it to their shareholders.

There needs to be an emergency injection of £50 billions into the NHS. If China could create emergency hospitals in one week in order to successfully contain COVID-19 why can British capitalism not emulate it?  Whatever the many faults of the Chinese system – a hybrid of centrally directed capitalism and collectivism – one thing is certain. They have shown that it is possible, by acting quickly, to contain the virus.

In contrast Boris Johnson has wasted weeks in dithering. In the United States health care is an integral part of the free market and it there that the chickens have come home to roost. It is the most expensive health system in the world. In 2014 it spent $2.8 trillion and wasted £750 billions in things like administration, competition, fraud, insurance profits and much more expensive drugs. 40 million Americans are uninsured and over 50 million under insured.

People can’t afford to seek help or not work in a society where there is no welfare state and thus no safety net. Which is why the infection is rapidly spreading in the USA. If the Democrats stood for a unified health system free at the point of delivery then they would have a guaranteed victory in the November elections. Instead, in Jo Biden, they are putting forward another corrupt corporation in human form.

If you can't afford to be treated and can't afford to be tested then it is impossible to measure the extent of the crisis.  Add to which without sick pay people who are sick will continue to go to work, thus spreading the virus.

The free market is completely incapable of dealing with this crisis.  In 1940 Churchill and the coalition government adopted measures that Johnson would denounce as ‘communist’ today. Nothing could be produced without the say so of the state. Exchange controls and rationing were taken for granted. The state took over distribution of resources. Imagine that instead of the unseemly rush at the supermarket at 6.00 a.m. that toilet paper, potatoes and Paracetemol (another shortage commodity) were rationed on the basis of need?

The NHS is so successful as a model precisely because it is an example of socialism. You contribute what you can afford from taxation and take what you need.  It is their ideological hostility to the NHS and what it stands for that has led to its stealth privatisation over the past decade.

What we need today is the requisitioning of all beds and facilities in the private sector, a sector that has been parasitic on the NHS for far too long.

As Jonathan Cook wrote:

there is nothing unique about the coronavirus crisis. It is simply a heightened version of the less visible crisis we are now permanently mired in. As Britain sinks under floods each winter, as Australia burns each summer, as the southern states of the US are wrecked by hurricanes and its great plains become dustbowls, as the climate emergency becomes ever more tangible, we will learn this truth slowly and painfully

We have the scandal that the crisis in Iran will be far worse because of sanctions. The pretext for this, that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon or that it sponsored terrorism, is shocking.  If nuclear weapons were the problem then Israel too should be under sanctions. If terrorism were the problem then not only Israel, but Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen and the Gulf Sheikdoms would be sanctioned, to say nothing of the United States itself. But of course they are the West’s allies and the West doesn’t do terrorism.

What this means concretely is that Iran’s people will die in their thousands to satisfy the appetite of Trump and Netanyahu. Apart from basic humanitarianism, this is utterly counter-productive.  People who travel to Iran and then get infected will simply pass on the infection.

As the World Health Organisation has made clear it is important to test, test, test.

As of Wednesday there were 2,626 cases and 104 deaths in Britain. These are likely to be gross underestimates. Given that only those already seriously ill are being tested we may already have over 100,000 cases of infection. Many deaths may be attributed to different causes as well.

It is clear that now infections have reached over 100 that the infection is spreading fast. There needs to be a massive testing programme put in place now coupled with quarantining of those infected. If you are not even testing people until they fall ill how can you possibly know the extent of the problem? Everyone should be tested.

The decision to close schools is welcome but far too late.  Likewise a decision should have been taken to close pubs, bars, clubs and other communal spaces. But it is not enough. As the WHO spokesman said:

The most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission and to do that you must test and isolate . You cannot fight a fire blindfolded and we cannot fight this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.

Because of its almost instant reaction, China's mortality rate from COVID-19 has been 0.4-0.7% - a fraction of what European countries are now experiencing and which Britain, thanks to the murderous incompetence of Boris Johnson’s regime is also experiencing. China has been using a drug developed in Cuba, Interferon Alpha-2B which inhibits lethal complications in those who become infected with the virus.  Although it is licensed in the UK the government has been silent about its use. Why?

This is really important since there is no guarantee that a vaccine will work. There is no vaccine for HIV or the common cold, both viral infections. It may well be that the same route as that of HIV, mitigation and alleviation, will be the best route. It is also somewhat ironic that despite its economic size Cuba, because it isn’t a free market economy, has a health service that is superior to the United States. For example infant mortality in Cuba is less (4.4%) than that of its big neighbour (5.8%). Hence why Cuba was willing to take in a British cruiser with nearly 700 passengers on board that the Barbados, the Bahamas and the United States rejected. See Tory inaction is leading Britain into unnecessary Coronavirus catastrophe

The failure to deal effectively with Coronavirus, which can be considered another other man-made natural disaster, is not because of the scientific problems but the systemic problems of a political and economic system that prioritises private profit and greed over human need. If disaster strikes in over populated Gaza, subject to Israel’s brutal siege for over a decade, with an almost collapsed health service then the responsibility for what happens will be that of the West which encouraged Israeli oppression by opposing the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement. 97% of Gaza’s water is polluted, its population ‘kept on a diet’ by the brutal Israeli occupation regime which calculates how many calories are allowed into the territory (much as the Nazis calculated the calorific intake of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Coronavirus Bill and the Attack on Civil Liberties

The government has just released proposed legislation. In the words of ITV’s political correspondent, Robert Peston:

There has never in my lifetime been a law that so encroached on our civil liberties and basic rights as the Coronavirus Bill, scheduled to become law by end of month. It is all aimed at keeping us safe. But the transfer of unchallengeable power to the state for two years is huge. It covers everything from burials, to holding those who threaten national security for longer, to closing borders, to detaining those with mental health issues, to empowering the police to quarantine those with the virus, and much more. This is... wartime stuff.

In particular the Bill:

·       Allows health professionals and the Police  to detain someone suspected of being affected

·        Allow just one doctor to section (detain) someone against their will under the Mental Health Act. This is a massive power for just one doctor who may for example have a personal grudge against that person.

·       Instead of being detained for a  maximum of 6 months before a review, that detention will now be indefinite.

·       The NHS will now no longer have to provide care and treatment plans for those leaving hospitals.

·       Reductions in standard of social care for the elderly, disabled and others.

·       Deaths to Coronavirus will not be subject to being heard by an inquest jury.

The law will last 2 years and be passed as secondary legislation, i.e. without any scrutiny. Even more worrying Labour, which is supposed to be the Opposition, has said it won’t oppose the Bill.

Emergencies such as Coronavirus are the ideal opportunity for the government to get away with a massive attack on civil liberties under the guise of dealing with the emergency. Reductions in the rights of mentally handicapped people have nothing whatever to do with fighting the virus. For more information see The Tories just revealed the most terrifying part of their coronavirus plan

Economic Impact

Coronavirus is going to have a massive economic impact. The leisure industry could be devastated.  Rail and bus will see far fewer travelers. Many workplaces will be shut down and consumption ie demand will also fall away. Coupled with Brexit Britain is certainly heading into a recession. The only question is whether it becomes a depression.

Reading up on the Virus

Here is a list of what to do compiled from various sites by Spotlight and here is a useful interview with a doctor.

Tony Greenstein