Suspension, and his beliefs

CORBYN SUSPENDED

According to the BBC, UK Labour Leader Keir Starmer has suspended predecessor Jeremy Corbyn for alleging that allegations of anti-Semitism under his leadership had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.

Corbyn, who intends to “strongly contest the political intervention” to suspend him, was responding to a new report by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that argued Labour had failed to provide adequate training for handling anti-Semitism complaints, that there had been political interference with the complaints, and harassment including “using anti-Semitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears”.

Starmer has accepted the report in full but the former leader — while denouncing anti-Semitism and arguing he had tried to speed up investigations — argues it is “undeniable that a false impression has been created of the number of members accused of anti-Semitism, as polling shows: that is what has been overstated, not the seriousness of the problem”.

His comments follows concerted media campaigns that, according to a 2019 Survation poll, led UK residents to believe one-third of Labour members had been disciplined for anti-Semitism when the actual figure was around 0.1%.

PS: Check out this article in left-wing publication Jacobin for how, exactly, UK advocacy and media bodies conflated the Labour left faction’s pro-Palestine/anti-imperialism stance with anti-Semitism.

The piece also explains why the EHRC is perhaps not quite as independent as outlets today report — i.e. its funding has been slashed by the Conservative Party, which it repeatedly declines to investigate over allegations of Islamophobia (despite, y’know, Boris Johnson).

FUNDING OVERHAUL NEEDED

According to The Australian ($), the Productivity Commission has called for a complete overhaul of how Indigenous funding is allocated after finding the government has little evidence of the effectiveness of current programs.

The new report finds that multiple initiatives are ­developed without adequate consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and that, after a decade of failed Closing the Gap targets, efforts to gauge program effectiveness are “ad hoc’’ or afterthoughts.

Elsewhere, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that head of peak body Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care, Richard Weston, has been appointed the NSW deputy guardian for Aboriginal children and young people as part the government’s response to a 2019 Family is Culture report into Indigenous over-representation in state care.

PS: The NSW announcement comes almost two years after the state government placed a two year time frame on children staying in out-of-home care before courts can order the child be adopted, a move NITV explained faced allegations it would lead to more children permanently removed.

EXERCISE CAUTION

According to the ABC, NSW Health authorities have issued a COVID-19 warning for F45 gym at Leppington in Sydney’s south-west, after a positive case visited more than a dozen times in the past fortnight.

The warning comes after NSW recorded its first mystery case in over two weeks — as did Melbourne — while The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Gladys Berejiklian is calling for an aggressive expansion of its QR contact tracing tool ahead of any reopening of the Victorian border.

Berejiklian has also again labelled Queensland’s reopening benchmark of 28 days without a mystery case “unrealistic”, while Annastacia Palaszczuk is expected to make an announcement on the border today ahead of Saturday’s state election.

PS: As The Courier-Mail ($) reports, Palaszczuk will also take on Deb Frecklington in a final leaders’ debate at the Queensland Media Club following a dash across crucial electorates yesterday in the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

MOMENT OF TRUTH: PRE-ELECTION COVID SPIKE

According to The Guardian, the White House COVID-19 taskforce has warned of an “unrelenting” spike in the western half of the United States and urged aggressive mitigation measures.

The warning comes after journalist Bob Woodward released a tape of Jared Kushner — a son-in-law and senior adviser to Donald Trump — bragging in mid-April that, as CNN reports, the president was “getting the country back from the doctors”.

On the Democrats’ side, The New York Times’ live blog reports that Nancy Pelosi has urged the Treasury secretary to respond to Democrats’ demands on a relief package — and, if the party wins, pass a package in the “lame duck” session between presidents — while some public health experts have rallied around Joe Biden’s (legally tricky) bid for a national mask mandate.