Leading leave campaigner Boris Johnson has told the Telegraph that today’s vote is more important to him than his future in British politics.
‘Frankly, if this is the end of my political career… I’ve done eight years as mayor of London, I enjoyed it hugely, it was a massive privilege. Fine by me.’
But he remains fairly chipper about the outcome.
‘Our campaign has been about optimism and self-reliance. This is an absolute turning point in the story of our country because I think if we go on with being enmeshed in the EU it will continue to erode our democracy. That is something that worries me.’
Boris spent part of the final day of campaigning kissing fish at Billingsgate.
From here. Personally, I hope that it is the end of Boris in British politics, but I’m biased.
The people in the photo have been betrayed by Ukip, rather than me personally. But it has backfired on Ukip. People are very intelligent – they could see this was clearly not a group of people coming to the UK. They aren’t sucked in that easily. Which makes it almost comical for Ukip, because it’s had completely the opposite effect they thought it would have.
I was busy on another job when I heard they’d used it, and carried on with my work as normal. My job – telling the story of the migrants – had been done. It’s just unfortunate how it’s been picked up. It’s difficult for any agency – Getty, Reuters, AP – that circulates photographers’ images. They’re out there. And it’s not just Ukip. Newspapers also use shots in the wrong context. It depends on the political slant of any organisation.
The photographer who took the refugees photo used in UKIP’s appalling “Breaking Point” ad talks about the shot, and its subsequent use. From here.
To everyone who self-identifies as queer but worries about claiming that ID publicly b/c of passing privilege: You are real and valued and seen. We love you. We need you. We want you with us.
To everyone who isn’t or can’t be or chooses not to be visible in their queerness; to everyone still in the closet by choice or necessity; to everyone who doesn’t yet know where they fit: you are no less real. We love you always, and we are holding space for you.
How Can We Say ‘It Gets Better’ After Orlando?
How Can We Say ‘It Gets Better’ After Orlando?
(The link is an article by my friend Anthony Easton, for MTV
news. Please prioritise the article, not the thoughts of mine it prompted.)“Don’t politicise”, people are told after terrible events.
But politicisation is inevitable – much of the time, it’s just a symptom of the
need for context and meaning, the urge to fit events into a story. Narratives
are how we process our lives and the world: breaking this urge is not easy.And narratives are readily available. The murders in Orlando
slotted into two very familiar ones. The first narrative was of Islamic terror,
the malign force of ISIS directing its attackers from outside and within “the
West”, constantly seeking to harm. The second narrative was of gun violence,
the lethal ease of American murder.Both these narratives have the support of powerful actors.
The Republican party, the European right, the right-wing media and ISIS itself
back the first. President Obama, the Democratic party and liberal US media back
the second. The stories are not contradictory, of course – no nationalist
European demagogue, keen to bang the drum against ISIS, also wants US-style gun ‘freedom’. It’s only the
battle for primacy that makes them feel that way, as each side accuses the
other of ignoring its chosen story.But with Orlando a third story fights to be heard. The
narrative of decades of homophobic violence against LGBT people and communities
in America and beyond: physical violence, state violence, legal violence, acts
of terror. All ongoing. This narrative is inconvenient, just as LGBT people are so often
seen as inconvenient. Watch, if you can bear, the clip of Owen Jones (a gay
man) being shouted down to the point of leaving a Sky News studio by
commentators desperate that their narrative about Orlando – it was an “attack
on humanity”, on “all of us” – gets to dominate. “It was an attack on LGBT
people-“ Jones says about a slaughter in a gay club during Pride month .”ON ALL
PEOPLE” the presenter thunders. No. For a trivial example, this was not an
attack on me.The LGBT people I know, and those I read on social media are
not a unit. They have not been unanimous that this third inconvenient narrative
is the lens through which to view Orlando. Other voices are always available.
But from what I have seen they have felt overwhelmingly that it is the lens. The
story that homophobia continues, that violence continues, is in the interest of
no major political party. It is inconvenient not just at this immediate framing
level. It cuts across mainstream political stories from right and left about progress or its
supposed costs; stories of lesbian and gay people as liberated by marriage; of
young bi or genderqueer people as pampered; of trans women as threats themselves.The inconvenient story demands space, and volume.