The Hay Festival of Literature & Arts has crumbled under the weight of boycott pressure, pulling the plug on its longstanding sponsorship deal with a company over its investments in fossil fuels and Israel. The Mailhas the story.
The literary festival in Wales, which is taking place until June 2nd, cut ties with investment management firm Baillie Gifford “in light of claims raised by campaigners and intense pressure on artists to withdraw”.
Noted figures including comedian Nish Kumar, singer Charlotte Church and Labour MP Dawn Butler have all pulled out of the event.
It comes after the campaign group Fossil Free Books called upon festival sponsor, Baillie Gifford, to “divest from the fossil fuel industry”.
It claimed in a statement that the company “currently has between £2.5-5 billion invested in the fossil fuel industry and nearly £10 billion invested in companies with direct or indirect links to Israel’s defence, tech and cybersecurity industries”. …
Julie Finch, Chief Executive of Hay Festival Global, said in a statement that the charity’s first priority is “our audience and our artists”.
Stand-up comic Kumar, 38, announced his withdrawal when he posted a statement from campaign leaders, Fossil Free Books, on X, and said dropping out “was the right decision for me”.
Sad to say that I will be pulling out of Hay to support this campaign. Love the festival and the people that work in it, but this was the right decision for me. https://t.co/cXO6InzPJi
In another statement to social media, Church, 38, who is a pro-Palestinian campaigner, said she was boycotting and not attending the festival “in protest of the artwashing and greenwashing that is apparent in this sponsorship”. …
I’m scheduled in to talk at the Hay Festival with the brilliant Mary Loudon this weekend.
However, due to the continuing sponsorship of the festival by asset manager Baillie Gifford, I will be boycotting and not attending
— Charlotte Church (@charlottechurch) May 23, 2024
A spokesperson for Baillie Gifford said: “The suggestion that Baillie Gifford is a large investor in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is seriously misleading.” …
The statement said the companies the firm has invested in, which have commercial dealings with the state of Israel, have not violated any laws in doing business with the country.
The statement continued: “We are not a significant fossil fuel investor. Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels.”
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A better translation of Kachelmann’s faschistoides Pack would fascism-affine scum. The remainder of his statement is verbatim pretty much untranslatable. What’s it’s calling for is that the establishment parties must stop pretending to enable voters to choose among meaningful alternatives by fielding individual candidates. In future, only the party of democracy and its candidate must exist.
The amusing issue here is that what’s referred to in the text above as Left is the party currently called Die Linke (literally The Left). It’s former name was PDS — party of democractic socialism and the name it used for most of its existence was SED — the former state part of the GDR. Twenty years ago, before the AfD existed, they were the antidemocratic pariahs¹ democratic parties must fight with a united front. And before them, this position was occupied by the Greens. It really means nothing but party not yet feeding from the public trough which all parties which do already feed from it must fight tooth and nail because the whole trough is rightfully theirs.
¹ At this time, state elections in Hessen resulted in a hung parliament where no coalition could be formed. The then party leader of the SPD – Andrea Nahles – could have become first minister of the state by PDS MPs voting for her and she actually proposed doing this. The resulting outcry of The True Democrats™, an accolade not yet awarded to the SED, and a rebellions among members of her own party forced her to resign instead.
People forget, and the left do not remind them, that Die Linke are directly connected to the vile, prison camp dictatorship of East Germany. Same mindset infects the new German left. Dangerous people
That’s literally the same party. After the GDR was abolished, they first renamed themselves to PDS. Some years later, they merged with a hard left faction of the SPD to form The Left — Die Linke. They may have been ruling as communist dictators in central Germany (that’s not eastern Germany, eastern Germany is nowdays a depopulated wilderness nominally occupied by Poland and Russia) for 40 years and created a fortified border to keep the population in on threat of being killed¹ but this just means that they’re the democratiest of the democrats and nobody ever contemplated outlawing the party.
¹ The crime such peope were deemed guilt of which was to be sanctioned by capital punishment without trial used to be called Republikflucht — trying to escape from the democratic republic of the east to reach the fascist republic of the west. Surely something extremely nefarious.
Remark on anti-democratic right-wing extremism by the AfD (as determined by the German inland secret service): I’ve tried my best to decipher the vague accusations reported (in German) in some of the articles but the only thing which really remains after doing away with all the handwaiving is The AfD is an anti-democratic right-wing extremist party because it doesn’t support unlimited immigration.
Has the horse bolted on mass immigration? Is it too late to stop the Islamification of Europe? Try reading “While Europe Slept” Bruce Bawer. ————–I knew people could sleepwalk but I never knew a whole continent could. But now I realise after reading this book that it can and certainly is.
WHILE EUROPE SLEPT is his enlightening and disturbing report on anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe and on the egregious failure of European liberals to confront Islamic extremism in their own countries.
Thanks but no thanks. That’s again just the US fault line Republicans/ Democrats forcibly retrofit onto a continent it doesn’t belong to. The AfD is a liberal party. This refers to a certain kind of political program and not just to relaxed sexual morale compared to average inhabitants of the bible belt.
The so-called West is the architect of its own demise. It won’t be missed.
Mogwai
1 year ago
This is a very interesting <9min clip ( the full vid is in the comments section and is 2hrs+ long ) looking at what Ireland will be like in 2040 as a result of mass immigration. I don’t know who this chap is but he certainly looks like he’d be labelled a ‘far-right extremist’ just for stating facts;
Speaking of immigration, I’m sure this is purely a coincidence, cherry-picking, and nothing more….
”TWO migrants living on the Bibby Stockholm barge have been arrested on suspicion of a sex attack on a woman in a nightclub.
The pair, aged 24 and 27, were held after the alleged assault four miles from where the floating accommodation block is moored.
The unidentified migrant pair have since been released from custody and are on police bail while under investigation.
Hundreds of migrants have been moved to the Bibby Stockholm while their asylum claims are processed since it was opened in August.
They are free to roam in the area and many are taken by coach to Weymouth Town Centre – where many spend their £40.85 weekly spending money allowance.”
I am probably getting too sceptical and suspicious for my own good but I do find myself asking if movements like the afd are really the unprompted voice of the dissenting people? Or are they just another piece in the complex Machiavellian plot to manipulate and control the narrative. Maybe the liberal woke approach has played out its hand and it is time for a switch to a more authoritarian style?
Or maybe it is time for me to stop spinning conspiracy theories and go to bed.
A dump but an important one from Sasha Latypova via the wonderful Dr Mike Yeadon.
Here she is detailing the Pfizer clot shots in the USA:
“the product is not serialized – i.e. unit doses are not barcoded and thus not traceable under normal pharmaceutical distribution rules which exist to flag any safety or quality issue in the supply chain. The product this is wide open to both falsification and adulteration. The product is shipped to DOD and handled through a “black box” DOD distribution system, ostensibly due to the cold chain storage requirements. The product is deemed “US Government property” until it is injected into a person.”
And this:
“Overall characterization of what is going on: the federal and most of the state governments are gone and captured. Whatever is running the federal gov agencies (e.g. HHS) really intends to kill you, or at least substantially injure you, damage your reproductive capacity and repossess your assets in the process. The aim is to reduce the population and terrorize the survivors enough to establish a totalitarian control over much of the world’s territory. Nobody is coming to save you, your survival and that of your children is in your hands only. Do not comply.”
From her excellent Substack ‘Due Diligence and Art.’
An explanation of the coming collapse of the Western banking system which will of course necessitate the introduction of CBDC and coupled with the revised International Health Regulations will ensure our imprisonment.
The year 2024 is going to be a series of Blitzkriegs on the populations of the Global North.
“World Economic Forum recently announced the theme for their annual meeting in Davos in January 2024.[1] This time it is about “rebuilding trust”. This also happens to be the theme of the United Nations 78th General Assembly that opened September 5 2023.[2]
I say good luck with those ambitions! Klaus Schwab and his army of “change agents” have never scored high on the popularity charts, and his achievements of the recent years haven’t exactly improved that.”
I will cheer when these people are cancelled. Because they most certainly will be when the people get very angry. Ireland is a warning to them
Grim Ace
1 year ago
The left constantly try to label the right as nazis. Unfortunately for the left, they are in the spectrum that the nazis inhabited. Hitler and his party were socialists; national socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) was their name. Their programme was socialist
The nazis were declared ‘right wing’ by Stalin in 1928 because they were national socialists and Stalin and the soviets had decided that international socialism was the only acceptable kind of socialism.
The left are dangerous, undemocratic and discatorial. We can see this in their response to the rise of the AfD.
@fossilfreebooks pic.twitter.com/ken3fwdbBx
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Socialists don’t like ordinary people choosing, for they might not choose Socialism.
Thatcher
A better translation of Kachelmann’s faschistoides Pack would fascism-affine scum. The remainder of his statement is verbatim pretty much untranslatable. What’s it’s calling for is that the establishment parties must stop pretending to enable voters to choose among meaningful alternatives by fielding individual candidates. In future, only the party of democracy and its candidate must exist.
The amusing issue here is that what’s referred to in the text above as Left is the party currently called Die Linke (literally The Left). It’s former name was PDS — party of democractic socialism and the name it used for most of its existence was SED — the former state part of the GDR. Twenty years ago, before the AfD existed, they were the antidemocratic pariahs¹ democratic parties must fight with a united front. And before them, this position was occupied by the Greens. It really means nothing but party not yet feeding from the public trough which all parties which do already feed from it must fight tooth and nail because the whole trough is rightfully theirs.
¹ At this time, state elections in Hessen resulted in a hung parliament where no coalition could be formed. The then party leader of the SPD – Andrea Nahles – could have become first minister of the state by PDS MPs voting for her and she actually proposed doing this. The resulting outcry of The True Democrats™, an accolade not yet awarded to the SED, and a rebellions among members of her own party forced her to resign instead.
People forget, and the left do not remind them, that Die Linke are directly connected to the vile, prison camp dictatorship of East Germany. Same mindset infects the new German left. Dangerous people
That’s literally the same party. After the GDR was abolished, they first renamed themselves to PDS. Some years later, they merged with a hard left faction of the SPD to form The Left — Die Linke. They may have been ruling as communist dictators in central Germany (that’s not eastern Germany, eastern Germany is nowdays a depopulated wilderness nominally occupied by Poland and Russia) for 40 years and created a fortified border to keep the population in on threat of being killed¹ but this just means that they’re the democratiest of the democrats and nobody ever contemplated outlawing the party.
¹ The crime such peope were deemed guilt of which was to be sanctioned by capital punishment without trial used to be called Republikflucht — trying to escape from the democratic republic of the east to reach the fascist republic of the west. Surely something extremely nefarious.
Remark on anti-democratic right-wing extremism by the AfD (as determined by the German inland secret service): I’ve tried my best to decipher the vague accusations reported (in German) in some of the articles but the only thing which really remains after doing away with all the handwaiving is The AfD is an anti-democratic right-wing extremist party because it doesn’t support unlimited immigration.
Has the horse bolted on mass immigration? Is it too late to stop the Islamification of Europe? Try reading “While Europe Slept” Bruce Bawer. ————–I knew people could sleepwalk but I never knew a whole continent could. But now I realise after reading this book that it can and certainly is.
WHILE EUROPE SLEPT is his enlightening and disturbing report on anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe and on the egregious failure of European liberals to confront Islamic extremism in their own countries.
Thanks but no thanks. That’s again just the US fault line Republicans/ Democrats forcibly retrofit onto a continent it doesn’t belong to. The AfD is a liberal party. This refers to a certain kind of political program and not just to relaxed sexual morale compared to average inhabitants of the bible belt.
The so-called West is the architect of its own demise. It won’t be missed.
This is a very interesting <9min clip ( the full vid is in the comments section and is 2hrs+ long ) looking at what Ireland will be like in 2040 as a result of mass immigration. I don’t know who this chap is but he certainly looks like he’d be labelled a ‘far-right extremist’ just for stating facts;
https://twitter.com/Mick_O_Keeffe/status/1736800078889988377
Speaking of immigration, I’m sure this is purely a coincidence, cherry-picking, and nothing more….
”TWO migrants living on the Bibby Stockholm barge have been arrested on suspicion of a sex attack on a woman in a nightclub.
The pair, aged 24 and 27, were held after the alleged assault four miles from where the floating accommodation block is moored.
The unidentified migrant pair have since been released from custody and are on police bail while under investigation.
Hundreds of migrants have been moved to the Bibby Stockholm while their asylum claims are processed since it was opened in August.
They are free to roam in the area and many are taken by coach to Weymouth Town Centre – where many spend their £40.85 weekly spending money allowance.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25095986/migrants-bibby-stockholm-arrested-alleged-sex-attack/
Barbed wire and watch towers should surround any facility where these people are kept. No free movement for potentially dangerous criminals.
I am probably getting too sceptical and suspicious for my own good but I do find myself asking if movements like the afd are really the unprompted voice of the dissenting people? Or are they just another piece in the complex Machiavellian plot to manipulate and control the narrative. Maybe the liberal woke approach has played out its hand and it is time for a switch to a more authoritarian style?
Or maybe it is time for me to stop spinning conspiracy theories and go to bed.
Oh these far-left conspiracy theories are so funny. They obviously need us to curate their news intake to protect them from dangerous misinformation.
They’re funny until they are not. People are dead because of leftist immigration policies.
A dump but an important one from Sasha Latypova via the wonderful Dr Mike Yeadon.
Here she is detailing the Pfizer clot shots in the USA:
“the product is not serialized – i.e. unit doses are not barcoded and thus not traceable under normal pharmaceutical distribution rules which exist to flag any safety or quality issue in the supply chain. The product this is wide open to both falsification and adulteration. The product is shipped to DOD and handled through a “black box” DOD distribution system, ostensibly due to the cold chain storage requirements. The product is deemed “US Government property” until it is injected into a person.”
And this:
“Overall characterization of what is going on: the federal and most of the state governments are gone and captured. Whatever is running the federal gov agencies (e.g. HHS) really intends to kill you, or at least substantially injure you, damage your reproductive capacity and repossess your assets in the process. The aim is to reduce the population and terrorize the survivors enough to establish a totalitarian control over much of the world’s territory. Nobody is coming to save you, your survival and that of your children is in your hands only. Do not comply.”
From her excellent Substack ‘Due Diligence and Art.’
https://www.globalresearch.ca/central-bank-digital-currency-cbdc-weapon-of-mass-destruction-and-whos-health-tyranny-towards-a-totalitarian-world-government-no-way/5814122
An explanation of the coming collapse of the Western banking system which will of course necessitate the introduction of CBDC and coupled with the revised International Health Regulations will ensure our imprisonment.
The year 2024 is going to be a series of Blitzkriegs on the populations of the Global North.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/families-inject-covid-19-mrna-vaccines-together-have-heart-attacks-blood-clots-develop-turbo-cancer-die-suddenly-together/5843279
Talk about murder!
https://www.globalresearch.ca/psychopaths-world-united-rebuilding-trust-world-economic-forum/5843287?doing_wp_cron=1702651466.8995959758758544921875
“World Economic Forum recently announced the theme for their annual meeting in Davos in January 2024.[1] This time it is about “rebuilding trust”. This also happens to be the theme of the United Nations 78th General Assembly that opened September 5 2023.[2]
I say good luck with those ambitions! Klaus Schwab and his army of “change agents” have never scored high on the popularity charts, and his achievements of the recent years haven’t exactly improved that.”
Mr Hux——–You are on a roll ….wink
Thanks varmint.
I will cheer when these people are cancelled. Because they most certainly will be when the people get very angry. Ireland is a warning to them
The left constantly try to label the right as nazis. Unfortunately for the left, they are in the spectrum that the nazis inhabited. Hitler and his party were socialists; national socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) was their name. Their programme was socialist
The nazis were declared ‘right wing’ by Stalin in 1928 because they were national socialists and Stalin and the soviets had decided that international socialism was the only acceptable kind of socialism.
The left are dangerous, undemocratic and discatorial. We can see this in their response to the rise of the AfD.