thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--My Pride Anthems: Munroe Bergdorf

My Pride Anthems: Munroe Bergdorf

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and that includes how we’re all celebrating Pride in 2020.
With huge public gatherings out of the question, we’re asking a range of LGBTQ celebrities and allies for their personal Pride anthems, to help us all get into the Pride spirit from lockdown.
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Today we’re speaking to model and activist Munroe Bergdorf, who in recent years has been at the centre of conversations surrounding transgender rights and white privilege.
Luke Nugent
In the latest in our My Pride Anthems series, Munroe reveals why she feels a kinship with Britney Spears, and how Carly Rae Jepsen’s music helped her through an especially difficult period...
Britney Spears – Gimme More
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“Back when I was living in Brighton, my Pride anthems were very much all of Britney Spears’ Blackout album. It’s just very expressive of where I was at during that time in my life – it’s very hedonistic, very sexually-charged and free, and whenever I listen to it, it just reminds me of being myself on my own terms.
“I think my generation feels a real closeness to Britney in terms of going through really difficult patches and still coming out the other side. Obviously I’m very open with how I’ve struggled with my mental health, and I know what it’s like to feel like you’re not coping, and I know what it’s like to get into situations where you are not coping. So to see her struggling is difficult for me, but also I feel a closeness to that. And I think that a lot of queer people feel a closeness to that. There’s a reason that she’s a gay icon, and I think it’s because she had a really raw deal, and came through it.”
Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande – Rain On Me
“Out of really difficult times, art thrives and culture thrives. And we’re going through such a tough time with the government messing up, the pandemic, all of the police brutality, the Conservatives trying to repeal trans rights. We’ve got the opportunity to bring ourselves closer, during this time. And I can see it happening again, with Lady Gaga... so I would say that Rain On Me is going to be my Pride anthem this year.
“It’s just camp as tits, isn’t it? It’s just the gayest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. And it’s exactly what we needed. I just think Lady Gaga is fab, she’s an incredible talent, and Ariana Grande is obviously incredible too. Rain On Me is an undeniable homage to queerness. And even though we’re in tough times, and we’re being ‘rained on’, we’re still gonna make the most of it and soldier on.”
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Beyoncé – Freakum Dress
“Beyoncé’s B’Day album has got a lot of amazing memories for me. It came out around the time I was just coming out of high school, but it’s timeless. I just think there’s something about Beyoncé, I’m highly suspicious of anybody who doesn’t like Beyoncé. She’s just an undeniable talent.”
Madonna – Get Together
“Confessions On A Dance Floor is a classic, it’s flawless from start to finish. I love the mixed version that just flows right the way through.
“Madonna is phenomenal in many respects, with what she’s done for women, what she’s done for queer people in terms of the conversations and expression, and I think she deserves a lot more respect than she gets these days.”
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Pussycat Dolls – Buttons
“I was really excited to see Pussycat Dolls at Brighton Pride and I’m gutted that I’m not going to be able to. I was actually more excited about the Pussycat Dolls than Mariah Carey, even though I love Mariah. But the Pussycat Dolls are just fab.
“And I love how the narrative has changed with the Pussycat Dolls, now they’re a little bit older. Before they were in their twenties and thirties, and now they’re in their forties, and it’s just really great to see 40-year-old women being sexy and expressive, [it shows] that age is no longer deemed a cut-off for being the kind of woman you want to be. And obviously Nicole Scherzinger is just gorgeous.”
Spice Girls – Wannabe
“I think the Spice Girls are indicative of when I didn’t have Pride. When I was a kid, I think they were my access to being flamboyant and embracing who I was.
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“They were very much my introduction to feminism as well. In terms of Girl Power – it was very much an entry level thing, but we all need to start somewhere. Geri Halliwell and Mel B were my heroes, and still are, really.”
Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On
“I grew up in the middle of nowhere, basically. So as soon as I came to Brighton as a teenager, and started hearing songs like Missy Elliott and Aaliyah and all these songs that I had grown up with – but didn’t have anyone to enjoy them with – out in clubs, they really just took on a new meaning for me. It just made me feel like all of that time that I’d been in isolation, I was actually connected to a community that whole time.
“And I feel like that’s what we’re going to experience when we’re all out of isolation and we can celebrate Pride. Songs like Rain On Me, that we’re listening to now while we can’t see the ones we love or our community, we’re going to experience that release.”
Carly Rae Jepsen – Run Away With Me
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“It’s just iconic, isn’t it? I love a strong instrumental, and that saxophone intro is just like a gay klaxon. I’ve just got so many amazing memories of it.
“That whole Emotion album came out during a really difficult time. And I just needed an album as extremely joy-filled as that. I think I discovered it during the whole L’Oréal scandal, actually. Or just after that. But I listened to that album and it completely changed my mindset.
“It’s just unashamedly kitschy fun dance-pop, but sometimes that’s just exactly what you need. It’s not trying to be cool, and I don’t give a fuck about being cool. I think the coolest thing that you can do is be yourself, and not censor yourself. And I think that’s what it reminds me to do.”
We’ll be adding each celebrity’s song choices to our bumper My Pride Anthems playlist each day. Take a listen below:


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--What We Know About Possible Covid-19 Treatments And Vaccines So Far

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As the coronavirus pandemic has become a mainstay of our lives, everyone is awaiting an effective treatment or a vaccine for Covid-19 that will allow our country to begin normalising.
There’s been near-constant speculation about which potential drugs could be effective against the virus, but early tactics for treatment were mostly based on scientists’ best guesses. The amount of “fear and emotion and psychological angst” in this pandemic produced a lot of discussion on specific drugs before clinical trials got underway, said Dr. Dan Culver, a pulmonologist at Cleveland Clinic leading the clinical trials committee evaluating Covid-19 research.
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“Some of the press got ahead of the science, let me put it that way,” he said. “I think we’re seeing a little bit of a drawback on that now; people are realising this is a marathon and not a sprint. Some of the things that are happening now are being done with a little more rigour and circumspection.”
Which drugs will become effective Covid-19 treatments still remains to be seen, but there are a few names you’ve likely heard tossed around in the news ― from hydroxychloroquine to remdesivir ― and several more worth knowing more about.
Here, experts give a breakdown on what we know, and what we don’t, about coronavirus treatments so far.
Hydroxychloroquine
Initially, some experts were hopeful about hydroxychloroquine as a treatment of Covid-19. The medicine, which is an antimalarial drug with anti-inflammatory properties, is also used in patients who have diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
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“It’s a drug that has some activity in the lab against coronaviruses, and a drug that has a very long history of safety and efficacy for connective tissue diseases,” said Dr. Michael Dubé, a professor of medicine and interim chief of infectious disease at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “Because of its availability, it was very early on proposed as a treatment for Covid-19.”
However, so far there’s “very little evidence of efficacy and accumulating evidence for toxicity,” Dubé said. The push for it to be a treatment for Covid-19 from President Donald Trump has also led to a shortage for people who need it and other dangerous consequences.
In mid-May, a study published in The Lancet suggested that patients receiving hydroxychloroquine were dying at higher rates and experiencing more heart problems than those receiving other treatments. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader of the White House’s coronavirus task force, told CNN, “The scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for it.”
The Lancet study and the drug is still being debated by researchers, though. Part of the problem is that hydroxychloroquine has not seen data from a randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial, Dubé said. “But the signal is that at least in sick, hospitalised patients, there may be increased risk of cardiac problems” like arrhythmias, he explained.
Remdesivir
Remdesivir is an antiviral drug developed by Gilead to treat Covid-19 when a person is already sick. Dubé said the treatment has “fairly broad antiviral activity, and was thought to possibly be useful for Ebola, for example, and again, studies in the lab suggested that remdesivir had activity against coronavirus.”
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Remdesivir was brought rapidly to clinical trials, where “one of the two placebo-controlled remdesivir trials showed a benefit” over placebo, Dubé added.
In the clinical trial, patients receiving remdesivir recovered slightly faster than those who didn’t; the mortality rate of patients on the drug was also slightly lower, but not statistically significant.
Even so, the trial was stopped early and the drug was sent out to Covid-19 patients. “There’s been a larger disbursement of all of Gilead’s supply of remdesivir to the states for distribution,” Culver said.
The drug is administered through an IV, and seems fairly well-tolerated by patients thus far. “I think that remdesivir is probably somewhat helpful, but it’s more of a single [hit], not a home run,” Culver said. “It’s probably going to mitigate the impact of the virus, but I don’t think this will be anything like a cure.”
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Plasma Or Antibody Treatment
Those who have been previously exposed to or sick from the coronavirus will have experienced an immune response against it, developing antibodies that can possibly protect them further against the disease.
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The idea for treatment is that these antibodies people have developed can then be “passively infused into patients who are infected” with Covid-19 through the form of convalescent plasma (aka the liquid part of the blood) to “augment or bolster” their own immune response against the virus, Culver said.
“This is an idea that’s been around since the Spanish flu pandemic over 100 years ago,” Culver added.
The antibodies will “hopefully neutralise the virus and stop it from spreading and replicating,” according to Dubé. “It probably has its greatest chance of being a preventative therapy by blocking the virus before it has a chance to establish a foothold.”
One drawback? “There can be antibodies present that can actually make the disease worse, a phenomenon known as ‘antibody dependent enhancement,’” Dubé said. “But hopefully the plasma currently being used will have antibodies that will neutralise the virus without having the potential to enhance the viral infection.”
It’s still tough to say how effective convalescent plasma is, as most studies thus far have given inconclusive results, Culver said.
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“We also don’t know how to screen for antibodies yet,” he said. “In a potential donor, will that donor be an effective donor who can really grant immunity to a recipient of plasma? Or will the donor be less effective? We don’t really know.”
Most patients in the United States are receiving this therapy as part of an expanded access program out of Mayo Clinic.
“The drug is well-tolerated, and the incidence of side effects is low, though we don’t know how useful it will be,” Culver noted. That said, he still “would encourage people who have previously had Covid-19 to contact their local blood bank” about the potential to donate plasma.
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Vitamin C
There have been reports of high-dose, IV-administered vitamin C for hospital patients sick with Covid-19.
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“Certainly, there’s some data that it augments immune function and lots of data that it has strong antioxidant properties,” Culver said. “This has, of course, been proposed as a treatment for infections and a variety of inflammatory conditions. In many cases, it failed or had marginal benefits. But I certainly think there may be some possibility that it can be helpful.”
Culver said the vitamin C could “reduce or dampen the virus rather than curing it — but maybe for many patients, that’s enough,” he said. “At Cleveland Clinic, we are doing a trial of vitamin C, zinc, and a combination of the two, in patients who have Covid but are not administered to the hospital. Zinc, even, has a little bit better data, especially in influenza.”
Culver said he would not encourage people to go out and take vitamin C or zinc to prevent covid-19, however. “The doses that you need for this are quite high” and must be administered in the hospital, he said.
Moderna’s Vaccine
Culver said there are some 100 vaccines currently undergoing testing for use against Covid-19. At the moment, though, Moderna’s RNA vaccine is the most buzzed-about.
“The Moderna vaccine showed in a very small number of patients that antibodies can be generated after administering the vaccines,” he said. “The recipients’ immune systems did generate antibodies against the spike protein, which is the goal of the vaccine. But it’s a long way off from proving the vaccine works in a broad population, and it’s also a long way off from proving the antibodies actually protect the patients from infection.”
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The next steps, for Moderna, and all vaccine candidates, will be showing that the vaccination creates antibodies in a broad spectrum of people, “including elderly patients — who are not well-studied in these, but are at the highest risk — and then proving that that actually protects people from infection,” Culver said.
“This will require longer and larger trials, with many more patients, and the readout of those trials I don’t expect to happen anytime this year. If we are extremely lucky, it’ll be the first half of 2021,” he added.
To speed up innovation, researchers are throwing a host of new vaccine technologies at Covid-19.
For example, using parts of the spike protein of the virus (those “spikes” you see on renderings of Covid-19), Culver said. Some scientists are working on vaccines where they hide parts of the virus in another, non-infectious virus ― called an adenovirus ― which is used as a “Trojan horse,” Culver said. The spike protein may be the only piece of COVID-19 that is introduced into a person’s system through the adenovirus, and that can prompt an immune system response against it.
Oxford University’s Jenner Institute ― which has been in the news with frequency similar to Moderna ― is working on a vaccine using an “adenovirus construct,” Culver said. The other two broad categories for vaccines involve DNA and RNA ― so, the virus itself is not introduced into the body, but rather genetic material from the virus is introduced instead.
Other Treatment Ideas
These are far from the only treatments under consideration for Covid-19. Dubé said another drug called Kaletra could have some promise, given results from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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“Kaletra is an HIV drug that has been around for well over a decade and appears to have activity against coronavirus in the lab,” he said. “The Kaletra study was widely reported as being negative, and it wasn’t negative at all. There was actually more clinical improvement with the Kaletra, and a shortened ICU stay by four to five days with the use of the drug.”
Dubé, who was not affiliated with the study, added that the drug is readily available and able to be administered orally instead of through an IV.
Other treatments are less about targeting the virus, and more about controlling the overwhelming immune response in some severely ill Covid-19 patients ― often referred to as a cytokine storm.
“You can sort of combine the strategy of controlling the virus with the antiviral, as well as trying to control the inflammatory response with an anti-inflammatory intervention,” Dubé said. “The most mature data at this time is with tocilizumab. This is a very promising anti-inflammatory drug that can shut off the excessive inflammation that occurs in some people with severe Covid that really drives the ARDS and need for ventilators.” (ARDS is a respiratory complication that can happen when someone gets really sick from Covid-19.)
Dubé’s team at USC is also looking into the effects of the drug baricitinib against Covid-19, which may work in a similar fashion to curb the immune system effects.
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Dubé does not believe there will ever be one miracle cure for Covid-19. “It’s unlikely we are going to find a single antiviral intervention that will be sufficient to prevent the need for a ventilator or prevent people from dying,” he said. “It’s really going to be a combination of drugs that act against the virus and clamp down the immune system that is likely to make the most impact in seriously ill individuals.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--The Funniest Tweets From Parents This Week

(5 year old on his iPad reading app)
Me: whatcha doing?
5 year old: looking up ways you can get stronger.
Me: Why?
5 year old: so you can play The Rock in my movie.
Me: I can’t do that as I am?
5 year old: ...


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Retro, Baby: These Names Were Popular For Infants In The 1950s

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We all love classic films and classic songs – so, how about a classic name for your baby? After all, vintage has never been so popular, whether it’s buying boutique clothing or old vinyl records.
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Now, you can channel a Mad Men feeling of your own by calling your baby one of these names from the 1950s. We searched through the archives and picked out 10 names that really capture the era. Is it time to bring them back?
If you’re looking for more baby name inspiration, we’ve got lots of ideas at HuffPost UK Parents. Find out more.
George Marks via Getty Images
Susan
Number one on the baby name list in 1954, Susan can be shortened to ‘Sue’, ‘Susie’ or lengthened to ‘Suzanne’.
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Christine
Make like Christina Hendricks, who played dynamic and voluptuous Joan Holloway in the Mad Men TV series.
Valerie
Meaning ‘strong’, or ‘valiant’, Valerie has a distinctly French twist to it. Tres belle.
Annette
Also giving off a French vibe, Annette means ‘gracious’ and ‘merciful’.
Audrey
You can’t think of the 1950s without thinking of screen siren Audrey Hepburn.
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David
David was the most popular boys’ name in 1954 – and it’s still in favour today.
John
Similarly, John is a main-stay. You can’t go wrong with John. It’s timeless.
Terence
In Latin, Terence means ‘smooth’ and it has a host of likeable nicknames, too. Try ‘Terry’ or ‘Tel’.
Robin
A unisex name that was once used as a shortened form of ‘Robert’.
Gregory


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--I'm An Angry Black Woman. This Is What I Want White People To Know

The author's great-grandfather, Booker Howze, as a young man. Courtesy of Candace Howze
This a photo of my great-grandfather, Booker Howze.
I never met him. In fact, my dad never met him either. He passed away when my grandad was barely a teenager. Over the past few years, I’ve spent some free time trying to discover as much about my family history as possible, connecting dots of information across yellowed, torn sheets of paper that contain snippets of the people who came together and thus produced me.
A copy of the author's great-grandfather's prison record, via Ancestry.com. Courtesy of Candace Howze
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On one of the sheets of paper shown above is my great-grandfather’s name. A Mississippi native who went North during the Great Migration, he was arrested in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (greater Pittsburgh), at the age of 24. His crime? “Suspicious person.”
Let’s pause for a moment and take that in.
My great-grandfather, at an age where most of us have barely graduated a college or snagged a decent job, was taken to prison because somebody felt he looked like a dangerous, dishonest young man.
When it comes to matters of race, I used to focus on how to fix it. My thoughts always consisted of things like, How do we solve it? Is there something new we could try? If everyone did one little thing, it could create a ripple effect. I grew exasperated at older relatives and neighbors and even peers who had grown “jaded” by the system, believing that they simply were choosing not to look on the bright side, insisting that their “complaining” and apathy was not how civil rights were “won.”
Then Trayvon Martin’s killer was left to walk free. And then cop after cop was not arrested, or arrested but not indicted, or indicted but not convicted. And then I understood.
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A photo the author took at the "The Mere Distinction of Colour" slavery exhibit at James Madison's Montpelier in 2018. Courtesy of Candace Howze
I discovered how modern policing has its roots in slave patrols and not gun-slinging sheriffs in old Westerns as I’d once believed. Through research like the 1619 Project and the ”Mere Distinction of Color” exhibit at Montpelier, I finally realized that Africans were enslaved long before ― hundreds of years before ― the Constitution was even written, which means, of course, that when it was “signed, sealed and delivered,” it was a lie. White supremacy is just America’s big brother. Although they’re always trying to be better than him, they learned everything they know from his example.
When I realized these things, my feelings changed.
I no longer want the system fixed. I just don’t want the system at all.
Black Americans have consequences for our actions that are almost always potentially equal to our life. Try to pay for groceries with a counterfeit bill in the middle of a pandemic that’s left half the nation economically deprived and you end up dying in the street for the world to see. Play for your music too loud with your friends and a random guy can shoot you in broad daylight.
Yet on the other hand, calling the police on someone who’s done nothing illegal and who hasn’t harmed you could lead a white person to lose their job, take a hit in their reputation, and have people say that’s gone too far. To think that threatening or harassing someone based on race or prejudice should not have consequences is ludicrous. And it’s privilege.
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Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT who was shot and killed by police in her apartment this March, did nothing to merit consequence. The police were looking for a man who had already been arrested earlier that day. They allegedly entered Breonna’s apartment without announcing themselves (known as a no-knock warrant) in the middle of the night and shot her eight times. Her boyfriend ― thinking the officers were intruders ― fired back in an attempt to protect them and was charged with attempted murder. It took weeks for those charges to be dropped.
I keep thinking about this young woman, my age, with dreams and aspirations, who probably had a long day at work and was finally in the comfort of her own home, with the person she loved. Who went to sleep thinking about all the things she had to do the next day, probably hoping she didn’t catch COVID-19 at work, but instead ended up shot dead in her own bed. By men who are sworn to protect and serve the community. And for what reason? That could’ve been me, a friend, a relative. Why would that ever be OK?
We, Black people, do the work of fighting for justice because we care about one another. We defend our humanity the way your gun-toting neighbors defend their rights at every moment’s notice. But ultimately, I now see that this is not our battle alone.
We can seek justice after the fact. We can march for integration into communities that would rather move out of their homes than live across the street from us. And yes, we might change a few words in a few laws.
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But marching doesn’t end racism. Smiling, speaking the King’s English, getting fancy degrees, pulling our pants up ― none of it ends racism.
Racism exists because white colonists decided hundreds of years ago to dominate a land full of native people who were minding their own business and then to kidnap people from another continent to labor mercilessly without compensation for their economic gain. And every turn of events since, every snippet of progress thereafter, has been twisted to maintain the economic and social hierarchy that existed the day America became America.
I admit it, the idea of America is super cool. It really sounds amazing and yes, it’s a geographically and culturally influential and beautiful place. But America isn’t really America. Anyone who’s paid two seconds of attention to history knows America does not live up to its own standards, and its ideals of things like unalienable rights certainly don’t apply if you’re not white. Where were the rights of all the men, women and children throughout history whose lives were taken for nothing?
If America was indeed America for everyone, we wouldn’t have to beg for our life in the street only to have it taken anyway. We wouldn’t have to argue on Twitter about whether or not someone deserved to live based on what they did during a two-minute or ten-minute video.
Today I am not tired, disappointed or hurt. I am angry. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do with that anger. I’ve been thinking a lot about what to say to white friends who are reaching out and to people on social media who want to be an ally. In the past I would’ve thought it’s time to educate, but I am not in a period of my life where I feel compelled to do so. I’m sharing as much love as I can, appreciating the support, but I know everyone has to do this work for themselves.
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So if you are a white person looking at a Black person like, How do I join the fight? I want you to know that joining the fight is just the beginning. There will be conflict, but it’s worth it. This is a long haul. You will need to take the mantle in spaces in which we have little influence. You need to make this your priority. It’s your turn to be angry. It’s your turn to be dissatisfied. You need to hate racism and inequality. You have to take the time to understand exactly what those things are and how you play a part. You need to pull up, read the books and check your people when opportunity arises.
If you’re thinking, “I’m not racist, I’m not prejudiced, I’m not biased.” You are. On some spectrum. And here is how I know.
I grew up surrounded by Black history. I was homeschooled and stayed largely untouched by the more direct effects of racism and prejudice in the educational system. I was raised by two educated, involved Black parents who taught me to be proud of my race. And I still left home with stereotypes and prejudices about Black people. With ideas passed down to me by mainstream media and relatives and images that taught me to think a certain way about “kinds” of Black people, based on their hair or their name or what they listened to on their iPod, as if that somehow told me their story or correlated with their intelligence. Thankfully, my interactions with people shattered all those assumptions.
But if I thought that way about my own people, how much more does a white person in a white American family feel about my people?
The author standing next to a log that slaves cut down at a South Carolina rice plantation. Courtesy of Candace Howze
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It’s time to dig down and open up so you can heal and help others to heal. I’m proud of everyone who’s already doing that.
If you’re Black and you’re reading this and needed to hear that too, it’s OK. You may not find yourself receiving a gold star for doing this at first, because it’s a bare minimum to advocate for human respect. But it’s appreciated.
Otherwise, we’ll just be over here telling our kids and grandkids what to do around police, how to be prepared for their white friends to say something insensitive, urging them not give up on life or God or their future because of what they see on the news. Black people will keep doing that 100 years from now and white people will keep saying, “Oh, wow, this is still happening.”
Or you can change that.
We do not live in separate worlds, although it often feels like we do. We live in the same country with the same news, it’s all a matter of whether you choose to take action.
If you want this to stop happening and you’re white, this is your fight too.
This requires your courage and conviction.
This is your demon to kill.
What you do in times of crisis reflects your truth.
Candace Howze is a North Carolina-based writer, podcaster and multimedia artist. Find her on Instagram and Twitter. This article first appeared on HuffPost Personal.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--I Should Be Doing My GCSEs Right Now. Instead, My Whole Future Is In Doubt

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It seems impossible now, but just months ago GCSE students like me probably all saw coronavirus as something far away, something not to worry about.
With pressure mounting as we came closer and closer to our exams, every lesson was a revision session in which we attempted to cram in as much exam technique as possible before our first tests. Interspersed between the mocks and sixth form prospectuses there was vague talk about a possibility that school might close – but to none of us did it seem urgent.
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Looking back, there was a complete detachment between our reality and the reality we were watching unfold in the media. I remember doing my maths homework against the background noise of news updates about coronavirus cases rising overseas, and I remember my school installing hand sanitiser dispensers in classrooms. But rumours about schools having to close only ever felt like exactly that: rumours.
Now, three months and tens of thousands of deaths later, it’s difficult to imagine how this global pandemic couldn’t have been on my mind about as much as school. But in truth, coronavirus only really became real to me when I read that breaking news banner: ‘schools to close due to coronavirus’.
“It didn’t feel real, and yet it was still so clear this decision could impact all our lives for a long time”
Desgiau arholiad / Exam desks Rhisiart Hincks via Getty Images
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I remember the immediate feeling of shock and confusion. It didn’t feel real, and yet it was still so clear this decision could impact all our lives for a long time. And so we waited and waited for information, any information, about what it meant for our exams that we had all worked so hard for.
Now, ‘remote learning’ has replaced what we thought of as schoolwork before. Essentially, it’s work that will be taken into consideration by teachers when deciding on an estimate for our final grades, as well as for schools to produce some kind of ranking system – which seems to have remained decidedly elusive and without explanation to us students.
Something that can’t be changed, though, is that all our learning is now done completely alone. All the ‘lasts’ of being at school had been fitted into the space of a few days, with no time to readjust. Everything felt so rushed, and things were happening faster than anyone had expected. All the goodbyes we thought could be put off for a few months had to happen then, that day.
Though I understand why our exams had to be cancelled, there was such an overwhelming sense of confusion because we all left school with absolutely no clarity what would happen to us next. Students asked questions of our teachers – are exams cancelled, or postponed? What will our grades be based on? Are there chances to change the final grade? – but it was clear our teachers couldn’t be sure of anything either. Those three years of work for the final exams, which now represent 100% of the final grade for the majority of academic subjects, were suddenly for nothing. And the uncertainty, most of all, of what happens next made the situation more stressful than it needed to be.
“Thousands of students like me are stuck waiting until the end of August to know what our future looks like.”
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Even now, just going back to school in September doesn’t seem as certain as it should. Because places in schools and even individual subjects are usually based on the GCSE grades, thousands of students like me are stuck waiting until the end of August to know what our future looks like. Though the slowness of lockdown life has stopped some of the worry for the future, every now and then I have this realisation that results day is months away, and I can make no solid plans for my future until then.
For some of us, there is a sense that the untested procedures put in place to decide out final grades can’t be completely fair. For others, there’s a fear mistakes will be made and that we’ll never really know what we could have got if we had our exams. It seems impossible that any hasty method in these unprecedented times won’t be without anomalies. Who’s to say the result given to you won’t be one of them?
Before lockdown, the importance of these exams was drilled into us again and again. Now, the slightest chance of one system error undoing years of your hard work is terrifying – and a reflection of just how much pressure we heap on students like me.
It feels like I now have no control over the grades that could determine all my ‘next steps’: my A-Levels, maybe even university, maybe even my career.
Hanan Hussain is a GCSE student from Oxford
Have a compelling personal story you want to tell? Find out what we’re looking for here, and pitch us on ukpersonal@huffpost.com


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--White People, Your Solidarity With Black Lives Matter Is Not Enough

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The world watched in horror this week as George Floyd was killed in broad daylight in Minneapolis by a white police officer who was filmed pressing his knee down on Floyd’s neck while he repeatedly told him: “I can’t breathe.”
Black people, regardless of where they hail from have inhaled this trauma the most deeply. Some will have experienced police brutality themselves. Most will know the unique pain of racism on varying scales, the micro-aggressions of incorrect name pronunciations and “no, but where are you really froms.”
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“Some are still unwilling to do the extra work and be inquisitive about their own privilege and how that feeds into a system of white supremacy.”
In response to Floyd’s murder, white people and high profile brands posted messages of solidarity and “togetherness”, but the sentiment often doesn’t run much deeper than what could be conveyed via a hashtag or Instagram post. Fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing was dragged for tweeting a tone deaf image of a black and white hand clasped together with the caption “stand together,” while Amazon tweeted they “stand in solidarity” with “the Black community,” while seemingly doing nothing to support the community in question and no mention of or calls to donate to any grassroot movements.
Elsewhere, other individual tweets read: “This is not a race issue, it’s a human rights issue!!” and “This is not about white or Black, this is about being anti-racist.” And, if you can believe it, there’s even a video circulating showing a group of white people in the US kneeling down and begging their Black neighbours for forgiveness for years of racism, which makes for uncomfortable viewing.
Racial equality — an idealistic concept whereby people aren’t treated differently for their ethnicity or the colour of their skin — defines the underlying message of many of these examples, but unfortunately doesn’t travel very far before it hits a roadblock of its own making. My own experience growing up testifies to this. My mum would always tell me the colour of my skin didn’t matter, and that it was the person who I was on the inside that was important. This was a nice idea, in theory, but it didn’t prepare me for the ignorant taunts thrown at me carelessly by the kids at school who would make fun of my unruly head of curls and the light brown colour of my skin.
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“Promises of solidarity mean very little if white people do not take the time to understand that their own lived experiences are entirely different to those of Black people.”
My mum, who was white, and my dad, who is Black, raised my brothers and I in rural Kent where we were one of two families of colour in the whole village. In an attempt to shield us from the racism my dad lived through growing up in Northampton as a child, my parents taught us that race would never be a key factor of influence in our lives. It was a “mind over matter” kind of lesson, one that was meant to remind us that if we worked hard enough, there was nothing we couldn’t achieve. This parenting technique, while effective in making me a hard worker, would prove discombobulating later on, no matter how well intentioned I believed it to be.
As I got older and started reading into Black history, race became a topic that fascinated me as I grappled with my own identity. I wrote endless think-pieces about the importance of the #BlackLivesMatter protests that were just heating up in America, and my own experiences of racism throughout my life. My mum, while proud of me as she watched me get my work published, always felt a type of way about me discussing race and racism so openly, and on more than one occasion mentioned that by me doing so, I was denying my whiteness and in turn, her. From then on, despite us still having a very close relationship, there was always a glaringly obvious gulf of misunderstanding and foreignness between us. If she were still alive, I’d love to sit down with her and talk about the very real difficulties that I face as a Black woman, instead of brushing over the issue of race as we both typically did.
Protesters in Louisville, Kentucky, where Breonna Taylor was killed by police. SIPA USA/PA Images
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Because racism simply cannot be effectively addressed without acknowledging that there are differences between Black and white people in society. Choosing not to address these differences in my own household growing up did not protect me from the instances of racism I witnessed once I stepped outside our front door.
A refusal to acknowledge this crucial difference in many of the responses to Floyd’s murder has been disappointing, to say the least. And this disappointment isn’t excluded to one incident, either. The UK government’s rallying message during the coronavirus pandemic, that we are “all in this together” completely neglected to take into account the various inequalities faced by BAME people in this country and the impact those would have on infection rates – and more tragically, death rates. We now know that Black people are four times more likely to die from the virus than white people.
I believe the vast majority of white people acknowledge that racism is wrong, but too often, some are unwilling to do the extra work and be inquisitive about their own privilege and how that feeds into a system of white supremacy. Even white people who identify as non racist need to interrogate their own relationship with white supremacy and how they benefit from this system.
Promises of unity and solidarity in the form of social media posts and yes, even literally begging Black people for their forgiveness for sins from a murky past they don’t even remember, let alone understand, mean very little if white people do not take the time to educate themselves and understand that their own lived experiences are entirely different to those of Black people.
I understand that for many white people, getting to grips with systemic racism, which ultimately benefits you, isn’t exactly a five minute job. And if whatever work you’re doing doesn’t feel uncomfortable to you, then you’re not working hard enough. And while black people, through what we say, write, create and produce, can certainly help guide you in the right direction, it’s not up to us to hold your hand. It’s time for you to put in the work.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--How To Steer Clear Of Coronavirus-Related Fraud. Yes, It's A Thing.

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A 250% increase in the proportion of nuisance and scam calls has been recorded as fraudsters exploit the coronavirus crisis.
The findings were made following a call blocker programme funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
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National Trading Standards led a programme to install more than free call blocker units in people’s homes. The average age of people using the call blockers was 75 and around 23 scam and nuisance calls were prevented from reaching call blocker users every month. By comparison, the general population is thought to receive around seven scam or nuisance calls per month.
The latest news comes after a survey in June 2020 found one in 10 Brits had fallen victim to Covid-19-related fraud since the start of the pandemic.
Nearly a quarter had been targeted by digital fraud in the two months prior, with the most common methods being via email and over the phone. Overall, criminals scammed Brits out of an average of £550 each, credit reference agency TransUnion said.
Scams include donating money for personal protective equipment (PPE), companies claiming to offer a cure for the virus, and buying goods in short supply – such as toilet roll, face masks or hand sanitiser – that never turn up.
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Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for these issues, has received reports of Covid-19 related scams, the majority of which relate to the sale of protective items such as face masks. In June 2020, it said coronavirus-related frauds increased by 400% in March, with losses totalling £970,000.
What to do if you think you’re a victim of fraud
TransUnion research suggests 75% of fraud is going unreported. It’s urging Brits to make the most of guidance available through the government-backed TakeFive scheme. “Stop and think,” the campaign’s messaging states. “It could protect you and your money.”
It’s also important to report any scams to Action Fraud, which is run by the police, and contact your bank if you’ve lost money.
danijelala via Getty Images
Top tips for avoiding scams
“Fraudsters can be incredibly devious and often try to exploit their victims using emotion, so it’s not surprising they’re already playing on fear around Covid-19 in order to try to defraud people of their money,” Chris Ainsley, head of fraud strategy at Santander UK, tells HuffPost UK.
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Here are some tips for staying protected from Santander, Nationwide and TransUnion’s fraud teams:
1. Keep an eye out for ‘deals’ that look too good to be true, such as PPE equipment at knock-off prices. It’s probably a scam.
2. If someone calls up unexpectedly and tries to rush you into buying something, be suspicious. Don’t get caught up in the panic. Hang up.
3. Never let your account be used to deposit funds in from someone you don’t know, whatever their reason.
4. Keep your login details for online banking safe at all times. Avoid writing them down and don’t share them with anyone. Likewise, never share your One Time Passcode (OTP) for online banking with anyone.
5. Don’t share any personal or financial information and be suspicious if you’re asked for your password or PIN.
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6. Never let a cold caller talk you into giving them access to your device or downloading software.
7. Avoid clicking links in emails or messages unless you’re sure you know the origin. Ignore emails that are unsolicited.
8. Don’t be lulled into entering your online banking details after clicking a link in an email or text message. If you’re logging in to online banking, it’s best to type the full address into your web browser.
9. Install the latest security updates to your system software as they become available.
10. If using public WiFi, make sure you fully log out of everything once you’re done. TransUnion recommends avoiding connecting to public WiFi when shopping online, as it tends to be less secure. Fraudsters can use public WiFi records to download data, like location, device details and shopping habits.
11. When online, make sure the webpage you are visiting is HTTPS protected or shows a green padlock – both of which can be spotted in the domain bar. This indicates that it’s secure.
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12. Check the reliability of the source you’re buying from. For example, legitimate websites are likely to be typo-free, in good written English and informative.
13. Make sure you download apps through the Apple Store or Play Store. Downloading an app from an email could be a phishing attempt.
14. Check your credit report every now and then. It can help you monitor for fraudulent activity if someone tries to use your identity in a scam.
15. Be cautious of unsolicited approaches offering you exclusive investment opportunities.
16. Safeguard your mobile and computer with a passcode or password.
17. Tell your mobile provider immediately if your phone’s been stolen, and de-register your device from the banking app. Complete a factory reset if you sell your mobile phone or tablet.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Why Wearing Gloves To The Supermarket Won't Protect You From Covid-19

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As you walk around the supermarket, you may notice some of your fellow shoppers are wearing rubber gloves. One woman picks up a box of cereal, puts it back, touches her face with her gloved hand and tucks her hair behind her ear. She then pulls out her phone to consult her shopping list.
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Given what we know about how Covid-19 spreads – predominantly through droplets expelled in the air, but also through touching infected surfaces – if someone with the virus on their hands had already touched that cereal box, the woman may have transferred it to her gloves, her face and her phone.
It’s understandable that people are keen to protect themselves against coronavirus, but one expert in hygiene wants us to know that wearing gloves isn’t the best way to go about it – in fact, it might do more harm than good.
“What good are gloves going to do?” asks Professor Sally Bloomfield, honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Whilst you’re walking around the supermarket, you could easily touch your nose, mouth and eyes with gloved hands. The only reason it might help is if you remember you have gloves on and think: ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t touch my face’.
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“I don’t understand why we’re wearing gloves,” she continues. “I think people think that masks and gloves go together, because that’s PPE [personal protective equipment], and in hospitals people wear masks and gloves, so outside if you’re going to wear a mask, you’re going to wear gloves.”
The reality is that in hospitals, staff may be coming into close contact with patients who are very ill and they may also be taking care of bodily fluids, but are trained to use the gloves properly. That includes taking them off safely – grab the outside of one glove at the wrist and peel it away from the hand, pulling it inside out, then peel off the second glove by putting your fingers inside the glove at the top of your wrist and pull it inside out without touching the outside – before disposing of them.
For the general public, this doesn’t make sense. Gloves are just “an extension of our hands”, says Prof Bloomfield – and wearing them could be lulling people into a false sense of security and making them think that they’re protected, when they aren’t necessarily.
The public seems to have grasped the idea of social distancing better than it has an understanding of transmission via hands and surfaces, she adds. Touch a surface contaminated with the virus, then touch your face with a gloved hand and it’s akin to touching your face with your actual hand – we know from some studies that the virus can live on surfaces for up to 72 hours.
Vesnaandjic via Getty Images
The World Health Organisation (WHO) doesn’t recommend that members of the public wear rubber gloves. “Regularly washing your bare hands offers more protection against catching Covid-19 than wearing rubber gloves,” says the WHO guidance. “You can still pick up Covid-19 contamination on rubber gloves.”
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Also of issue is that gloves are frequently discarded on the ground rather than in bins, which is not only a problem for the environment and wildlife, but also pretty grim if they do have the virus on it and, for example, a child picks one up.
While disposable gloves are not a replacement for hand washing, Dr Ed Wright, senior lecturer in microbiology at the University of Sussex, says they can act as a form of protection when hand-washing isn’t possible, hand sanitiser isn’t available and you are unsure whether or not a surface is contaminated – but only if used and disposed of safely
“Safe removal and disposal of the gloves would mean that if there was virus on the surface none of it would remain on your hands,” he says. “Using gloves correctly is crucial though because, as with face masks, if they are used incorrectly or cause people to stray from the other public health measures, any benefit is far outweighed by the increase in risk from this change in behaviour.”
While the public may worry the virus can transmit through the skin, both experts we spoke to stress that it cannot. The key routes of transmission are respiratory: so, breathing in someone else’s infected droplets that they expel when breathing, talking or coughing, or through touching infected surfaces.
“It is not possible for the virus to infect us through the skin so washing our hands with soap, or using alcohol hand gel, is a highly effective way to inactivate and remove the virus,” says Dr Wright, “and minimises the chance of introducing it into our respiratory tract by touching your face, the major route of infection for SARS-CoV-2.”
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Prof Bloomfield’s approach is to sanitise her hands both before going into a supermarket and when she leaves, to kill any virus on her hands. The same is advisable in any public space. And once you get home, give your hands a proper wash with soap – remembering the 20-second rule.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Why People Love Ikea Enough To Queue. And Queue. And Queue.

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With it’s intoxicating mix of flat-pack furniture, Swedish meatballs and adorable little pencils, there is no store on Earth quite like Ikea. Oh, how we’ve missed it.
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Monday marked the first day of Ikea’s opening since the UK lockdown began, and fans wasted no time flocking to the superstores. Photos soon emerged online of zig-zagging car park queues, as shoppers waited in the June heat to get inside.
Plenty of naysayers on social media have asked why you’d bother. So HuffPost UK asked dedicated Ikea disciples why they wanted to tread the one-way track at the first opportunity.
Christopher Furlong via Getty Images Monday's queues at Ikea Warrington.
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Jamal Greaves and his friend Bradly Hunt, both 27, went to Ikea in Wednesbury, West Midlands, on opening day to stock up on homeware.
“We got there around 12.10pm and got into the store about 1.25pm,” Greaves says. “The wait wasn’t as long as everybody anticipated.”
Jamal Greaves Jamal Greaves and Bradly Hunt.
His main goal once inside was hunting down some new storage for his quarantine purchases. “I’ve spent a fortune during lockdown on clothes and trainers and needed some more storage space!” he says. “I love the fact Ikea do 50p hot dogs and cheap drawer sets. It’s so convenient.”
Jennifer Creed, 18, visited the Croydon branch on opening day mainly because her dad wanted to go. “We’ve been talking about how we needed to get a new wardrobe for my bedroom, I went and I took loads of pics for inspiration for my bedroom,” she says. “I like how everything is so nicely put together, the displays and showrooms, and it’s just so convenient.”
Daniel, 45, went to the Wembley branch with his family, but after a lengthy wait to get inside was left a little disappointed.
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Not my best decision this morning @IKEAUK pic.twitter.com/Pqf5du0hR1 — Daniel aka baldy (@DanielArsenal1) June 1, 2020
“We wanted to get sun loungers as they don’t deliver [that product] and wanted to get the remaining three left. They’d gone before I got to them,” he says.
“Got some food for the family, so no wasted journey.”
First in the queue at Ikea’s Exeter superstore was Steven John, 36, whose family moved just before lockdown, so he’s been eagerly awaiting the opening to buy some furniture.
“We kept checking the Ikea app and saw a lovely bookcase but it wasn’t available online as it would have required a two person delivery,” he explains.
“When Ikea announced they were reopening I checked and the app said low stock of the bookcase. I thought if I turned up early we might be able to get it.”
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Steven John Photo taken by Steven John
He didn’t expect to be first in the queue at 7.30am but is glad he made the early start. “They had very good social distancing in the queue and in the shop and we managed to get what we needed,” he says. “I was out within 30 minutes with a new bookcase. Mission accomplished!”
Others on Twitter shared their own reasons for running to Ikea at the first opportunity.
I get excited over the 50p bowls and fake plants — Bradley Hunt (@BradleyHuntUK) June 1, 2020
Childhood memories of shopping there in the USA, along with the need to indulge unattainable lifestyle dreams. — Sahana Venugopal (@SahanaV_Journo) June 1, 2020
All I want is a toilet brush @IKEAUK pic.twitter.com/T172ifVMtV — Adrian (@AdrianRoach20) June 1, 2020
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If you love Ikea for the play areas, be warned that they’re currently closed, as are the customer restaurants in all stores.
The Swedish Food Market is however open, offering a takeaway service, so you’ll be able to get your precious meatballs at most stores – or you can make your own at home since Ikea released their famous recipe.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Exclusive: Labour Is Losing Black Voters Over Allegations Of Anti-Black Racism

As UK authorities battle to contain the Covid-19 outbreak, Labour Party voters are still reeling from the aftermath of a leaked Labour report that has fuelled allegations of anti-Black racism at the heart of the party – and many have told HuffPost UK that they now feel “politically homeless”.
The 860-page report was drafted in March and leaked in April, while Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, and was to be part of the party’s submission to an ongoing investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into anti-Semitism.
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The document, which contained private WhatsApp conversations, includes claims of a “litany of mistakes, deficiencies, and missed opportunities” to adequately address anti-Semitism within the party. However, it also did something else that was not on the tin: raised grave concerns of anti-Black racism, otherwise referred to as Afriphobia, which campaigners argue have not been adequately addressed by the party’s leadership. Labour officials used a string of insults in private WhatsApp groups to describe senior Black MPs and officials including Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis, the lengthy document revealed. Abbott is referred to as “repulsive”, with another official saying she “literally makes me sick”.
Black Labour Cancellations Supplied
The Hackney MP, who was found by a study to be subject to nearly half the abusive tweets sent to female MPs, was also described as an “angry woman” – a racist trope – by a Labour colleague.
Clive Lewis is referred to in one message by a member of Labour staff as “the biggest cunt out of the lot” during a discussion about the Progressive Alliance campaign – a cross-party alliance that supported tactical voting, which Lewis had publicly backed.
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On May 1, it emerged that Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) had appointed a four-person panel to investigate the leaked report.
This will be headed up by leading Black barrister Martin Forde QC and three Labour peer panellists: Debbie Wilcox, a former leader of Newport City Council; Larry Whitty, a former Labour Party general secretary; and Ruth Lister, an emeritus professor of social policy at Loughborough University.
Legal claims against the Labour Party covering the Data Protection Act, invasion of privacy, and libel are all being considered by individuals and entities named in the file.
Peter Macdiarmid via Getty Images
Meanwhile, the leaked report saw swift condemnation from critics of the party on social media. But not only did it “break the internet” – for a number of Black voters it meant it was time to part ways with the party. For many, this scandal is the latest let-down in a long list of concerns around Blackness and the Labour Party such as lack of representation. Though the party has long been the one of choice for many Black people from working class backgrounds, could there now be an exodus?
“The leaked Labour report has made me incredibly sad,” Naz Hamdi, 18, told HuffPost UK.
“The Black vote isn’t a lot in this country anyway – but in metropolitan cities like London is it incredibly important. For a party that boasts of progressive politics and has been pretty successful in backing up those claims, to regress has left a lot of Black people like myself politically homeless.”
Naz had tried to join the Labour Party before the leadership contest through a desire to vote for Rebecca Long-Bailey – though a technical issue meant she wasn’t able to.
But now the student, who lives in Brighton, said she “feels no desire” to participate in another election. This is owing, in part, to what she describes as poor treatment of Diane Abbott, a politician she admires and who represents constituents in the area she’s originally from.
“I think Diane has been treated appallingly during her time as MP and the most shocking part is her peers in the Labour Party being so involved in tarnishing her [from information published in the leaked report].
“She has inspired many Black women in the country; she’s a trailblazer and the first Black female MP, which a huge achievement in itself.
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“It is has been constant character assassination, from her colleagues tipping off journalists about her crying in the toilet after being on the receiving end of abuse – to [MPs] such as Jess Phillips and Wes Streeting treating her so badly in plain sight. Her colleagues should’ve done a better job in safeguarding her, but instead they were doing everything they could to undermine her.”
Naz Hamdi Supplied
The report contained WhatsApp conversations that fuelled concerns around treatment of senior Black, female politicians.
HuffPost UK put these to Labour, and the party pointed to the internal review it is carrying out in the wake of the leak. It said it was “committed to challenging and campaigning against racism, within the party and the country”.
When Abbott was found crying in the toilets in the wake of racial abuse in 2017, two staff members claimed in a private discussion to have told a journalist of her whereabouts – one with a “wink” emoji.
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Further down in the document, two female staff members made disparaging remarks about Dawn Butler’s promotion to shadow women and equalities secretary in a WhatsApp conversation, apparently suggesting that her accusations of racism within the Labour Party were untrue.
“Did she not accuse the LP and it’s [sic] staff of being racist this week? Nice,” read one.
Following the leaking of the report, a handful of Labour staffers tried to stop the party’s Unite branch from sending letters of solidarity to the Black MPs who were subjected to alleged racist treatment, ITV News revealed last month.
Naz added: “A party that has officials in the party who purposely target Black women, peddle misogynoir and anti-Black sentiment has betrayed the trust of many people. What made it worse was the late response of Keir Starmer and fellow Labour MPs choosing not to comment on the whole report.”
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In a joint statement published on April 13, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party, acknowledged the leaked document raised “serious concerns”, outlined intentions to order an inquiry into it, and urged readers not to draw “conclusions” before it was complete.
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“We have seen a copy of an apparently internal report about the work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism. The content and the release of the report into the public domain raise a number of matters of serious concern,” the statement read.
“I feel like I will always be politically homeless. [...] The UK has always been – and will continue to be – a peddler for anti-Blackness across every institution.” - Ché
“We will therefore commission an urgent independent investigation into this matter. This investigation will be instructed to look at three areas. First, the background and circumstances in which the report was commissioned and the process involved. Second, the contents and wider culture and practices referred to in the report. Third, the circumstances in which the report was put into the public domain.
“In the meantime, we ask everyone concerned to refrain from drawing conclusions before the investigation is complete and we will be asking the General Secretary to put measures in place to protect the welfare of party members and party staff who are concerned or affected by this report.”
Community worker Lucy Martindale joined Labour in 2019, but had supported the party for three years prior.
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“Loads of people I know have left Labour recently – particularly people of colour,” Lucy, 38, told HuffPost UK.
“I had pinned my hope on Jeremy Corbyn winning for a better society for my children and all working class people – and those who are suffering as a result of the past 10 years living in austerity.
“A few years ago, I didn’t even know what politics really meant, if I’m honest. I kept hearing about Corbyn and that’s when I took a big interest and started learning more about it.
“I even considered last year running as a local councillor for Wandsworth, I became really inspired at the possibility of a Labour government in the lead-up to the general election. Now, I’m angry we have the Tories in power, ruining many more lives and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Lucy Martindale Supplied
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As the election neared in December, figures revealed that Black and ethnic minority voters were backing Corbyn in far higher numbers than the overall electorate.
At the time, more than half (52%) said they could imagine the former Labour leader in Downing Street, according to data by Opinium.
Following Corbyn’s defeat, Lucy decided to stay on to “see what the year will bring along with the new leader” – but cancelled her membership in March 2020 after reading the leaked report.
“I was disgusted but not shocked,” she said. “I’m very aware of the racism that goes on in politics and this country,” she said.
“It made me feel like I no longer want to support a party that has so much ignorant and prejudiced people sitting at the top. It made me angry and disappointed.
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“Then to have Keir Starmer not stand up and call out these people was another huge blow. I believe he was more embarrassed at the report being leaked than the actual report.”
She added: “Labour have let down millions of people. I come from a council estate, grew up poor and I’m not educated. So Labour really was my hope of bettering myself but not any more.
“I’m politically homeless but still on the left. I am not sure where to turn next, so in the meantime I will continue to do my bit to support those vulnerable in my community.”
Ché, 23, told HuffPost UK: “The final straw for me was seeing Dawn Butler get a disgusting lack of votes in the deputy leadership election.
“I never thought she would win seeing how popular Rayner was at the time but, being the most qualified and experienced out of all of the choices, I was horrified.
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“I think I definitely saw a party where, like all over the country, Black people, especially Black women are consistently overlooked, and it made me think of my mother and the stories she would say about where she had worked.”
Dawn Butler pictured earlier this year Christopher Furlong via Getty Images
Ché, who asked us to withhold his surname, lives just outside Birmingham city centre and regularly went out canvassing for Labour in the lead up to the general election.
The public transport worker found it disheartening that the concerns of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people did not seem to matter to those whose homes he entered. It then began to occur to him how much of an uphill battle politics can be for people of colour.
“I came to realise the extent of what rural middle England was actually like during that time,” he said. “I never received direct racial aggression as I went door knocking. However, many [found it] easy to deny, shrug off, or accept the racist aspects of the current government.
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“The concerns of Black and brown people didn’t matter at all. I had then felt that it wasn’t and shouldn’t be my job to go through the mental and emotional labour of telling white people not to vote for a racist and explaining my humanity.”
“There isn’t any focus on anti-Black racism in the party. It suggests to me that there is no real commitment to dealing with these issues.” - Yvonne Witter
Ché joined the party in May 2019 in anticipation of a general election. Though he never fully saw Labour as an anti-racist party and believed it “still had many flaws”, his aim was to help get Jeremy elected because he’d been inspired by his history and policies.
Like others, he left the party after the report was leaked.
“My reaction to the report was one of initial shock. Then, soon after, I was laughing at all the leaks pouring out about the immense amount of self-sabotaging and back-stabbing going on, and it was all just a joke ting,” he said.
“When I then found out about what Dawn and Diane had been through it made me so angry and upset but at the same time it didn’t surprise me.”
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He added: “I am glad I left when I did as I cannot donate money to party that claims to be on our side but completely takes Black people for granted. It is no different to anything I or my family, particularly my mother, has experienced.
“I feel like I will always be politically homeless as I’m further to the left socially and economically on every issue than every party currently operating in this country.
“I feel the UK has always been – and will continue to be – a peddler for anti-Blackness across every institution.”
Mahmoud Supplied
“Do you remember how leadership was, rightfully, united to protect pregnant Luciana Berger against abuse? Who is doing the same for Abbott or Butler?”
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Londoner Mahmoud Junju is telling HuffPost UK why he cancelled his Labour membership last month after almost a decade.
Though he wasn’t surprised about the contents of the leaked report, Mahmoud described it as “damning” and finds the silence of the upper echelons of the party worrying.
“The findings exposed anti-Blackness in the party – especially towards Black Labour MPs like Auntie Abbott. She’s one MP who has faced the most abuse in recent British history and we can’t ignore the fact that it’s mainly because she’s a Black woman,” he said.
In recent months, MPs including Florence Eshalomi, Dawn Butler, Bellavia Ribeiro-Addy and Marsha de Cordova have been misidentified by prominent media outlets – the frequency of which lends itself to the racist view that all Black people look the same.
Labour has not openly addressed this or shown solidarity to these politicians.
Instead, these politicians have had to defend themselves and highlight for themselves why these frequent occurrences are problematic through various statements, social media posts and written columns published by the mainstream media.
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Marsha de Cordova was mistaken for Dawn Butler Screenshot
By contrast, the party launched an investigation in February 2019 over allegations that Luciana Berger was being subjected to antisemitic bullying. Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, also defended Berger in the Commons.
While a number of Black voters, including Junjo, feel it is is right that this support was shown to Berger, some have expressed concerns that Afriphobia within the party is not taken as seriously and have drawn comparisons between the two scenarios.
“Almost all corners of British societies have hurled abuse towards Abbott and you’d think the Labour Party and its leadership would protect her at all cost but, nah, they joined in,” Mahmoud continued.
“The anti-Blackness still prevailed in the way the leaked report was suppressed and dismissed by the current leadership. They even went as far as order local party branches not to share it. The people who piled on Butler still have their jobs in Unison; why hasn’t Starmer come out and pressed pressure for them to be fired or at least suspended?
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“I am just glad that an inquiry has been commissioned to put our concerns on record.”
HuffPost UK raised these concerns with party and it explained that its internal review is still being conducted.
The terms of reference for the inquiry specified that the inquiry will investigate the extent of racist, sexist and other discriminatory culture within Labour Party workplaces.
“Almost all corners of British societies have hurled abuse towards Diane Abbott and you’d think the Labour Party and its leadership would protect her at all costs but, nah, they joined in.” - Mahmoud Junju
Like Ché, Mahmoud was out canvassing for Labour every evening after work and found Black people who he joined him were disillusioned with the party.
“Many Black people that I used to canvass with have similar concerns – they feel like the Labour Party does not represent them any more. It used to be the go-to party for ethnic minorities.”
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All allegations of anti-Black racism were put to Labour.
A party spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “The content and the release of the report into the public domain raise a number of matters of serious concern. That is why Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner swiftly launched an urgent independent investigation into this matter.
“The National Executive Committee agreed the terms of reference for the independent investigation into the contents, circumstances and release of this internal report, and appointed Martin Forde QC to lead the investigation. It would not be appropriate to comment further until the independent investigation has concluded.”
The spokesperson added: “The leadership also instructed the then general secretary to put measures in place to protect the welfare of party members and party staff who are concerned or affected by the report.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Will Shifting The Goalposts On Covid Help The Government’s Cause?

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Peri peri difficult statistics
Whenever a government is in trouble, it’s not always the big shifts to look out for. The subtle changes of often just as much of interest. Yesterday, Matt Hancock introduced the No.10 press conference with the words: “We’re going to do things slightly differently today. I’m going to go through the charts.” The charts had also changed (no transport graphs).
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And today, the health secretary again read out the statistics on tests, cases and deaths, “in keeping with the new format”. That new format basically means the minister now reads out the figures - figures that were previously the preserve of the medics and scientists. Could it be that those independent advisers have decided they would rather not do that bit any more?
Well, few would blame them after today’s scathing assessment by the UK Statistics Authority of the way the government has presented its stats on testing. The letter from chairman Sir David Norgrove was very strongly worded, referring to “misleading”, “inadequate”, “incomplete” data that is now “often mistrusted”.
His letter blew away the fiction that somehow it was OK to classify test swabs posted out as tests carried out. This fiction was first exposed by the Health Service Journal just before Hancock miraculously hit his 100,000 daily tests target for the end of April, but thanks to its endorsement by people like Prof John Newton many people moved on. Today, Newton himself had to admit “we are happy to report the numbers in any way we are asked to”.
Given that the public are more likely to go to a drive-thru McDonald’s (it reopened 168 more today) than to go to a drive-thru testing centre miles from their home, the home testing kits are seen as a key route to controlling this virus. The problem is that we have little clue how many are being returned or even properly administered.
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If there was any doubt about how these posted swabs skew the figures, today’s stats underlined it again. Of the 135,000 tests classed as conducted, almost exactly a third of the total (44,758) came from tests posted out. Without this sleight of hand, even April’s 100k target would not be met. More encouraging is the 205,000 capacity figure, but we still lack detail on how many posted tests are actually completed.
Of course, the bigger picture is the number of deaths. Today, they hit 39,369, so in a few days (maybe two) the UK will cross the awful milestone of 40,000 deaths. That would be double what chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told us on March 17 would be “a good outcome” for mortality figures (20,000, he said).
And that’s just DHSC death totals. If you look at today’s new ONS death total, the figure is 48,106 (up to May 22). Worse still, the ‘excess deaths’ figure reported by the UK’s own official statisticians now stands at 62,000. That’s three times Vallance’s ‘good outcome’. When the chief scientist came out with his line at the start of the pandemic, many wondered what a bad outcome would look like. Well, 62,000 (and rising) looks pretty horrific.
Another subtle change that became more obvious today is the way No.10 has tried to shift the goalposts on its route of the lockdown. The Nando’s-style chart system featured varying alert levels from what you could call peri-peri hot risk (orange) of high transmission to the medium (yellow) of the virus just being ‘in general circulation’.
The PM himself actually told us in his TV address a few weeks ago that: “If the alert level won’t allow it, we will simply wait and go on until we have got it right.” He then said that the UK was coming down from Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3. Oh, and his masterplan stated explicitly: “The JBC [Joint Biosecurity Centre] will be responsible for setting the new Covid-19 Alert level to communicate the current level of risk clearly to the public.”
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Health secretary Matt Hancock during a media briefing in Downing Street. PA Video - PA Images via Getty Images
But No.10 finally coughed today that things had changed. “In terms of the setting of the alert level, it is ultimately for the chief medical officers who are informed by the data which has been collected, collated and analysed by JBC,” the PM’s spokesman told us. So why are we still at Alert Level 4? Well, as the BBC reported, those chief medical officers decided last week to keep us there.
Despite all that, Boris Johnson still went ahead with its June 1 ‘easements’ because it had met its other condition: meeting its five tests on the virus.
Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that the ‘plateau’ of cases is longer than thought. Today, ‘Professor Lockdown’ himself, Neil Ferguson, warned “the level of transmission and number of cases will remain relatively flat between now and September”.
The chief suspicion must be that the PM thinks the public can’t wait that long in Covid lockdown limbo. And that he is so determined to get the UK out of lockdown that warnings from medical officers, from the statistics watchdog and even members of his own Sage group of scientists are being swept aside.
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No wonder those No.10 press conferences are being cut back to weekdays. Some wonder how long will it be before they become once-a-week affairs. And what’s the most cynical way to avoid your own goals as well as those of your opponents? Don’t just shift the goalposts, pull them down altogether.
Quote Of The Day
“This is a particularly timely publication, because right across the world, people are angry about racial injustice. And I get that. Black lives matter.”
Matt Hancock on the new report into Covid-19 impacts on age, sex and race
Tuesday Cheat Sheet
A Public Health England review found that Covid-19 had a disproportionate impact on the UK’s black and minority ethnic (Bame) communities. Although it did not take into account occupation, pre-existing conditions or obesity, the study also found age, sex and deprivation were big factors. Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch is to lead the government’s response into the causes.
The Commons voted by 261 votes to 163 to end the virtual voting system for parliament. Some 31 Tory MPs rebelled on an amendment to retain remote voting. The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned the change would exclude older MPs and those with health conditions or disabilities.
Labour MP Cat Smith, who suffers from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, nearly fainted and had to sit down after she was forced to stand in the sun too long in the MPs’ conga-queue. Other MPs complained bitterly about the 45 minute time it took to vote.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg hinted that MPs could be forced to have a shorter summer recess if legislation cannot be speeded up under new voting systems. “I would not like to confirm that that date will be set in stone. It is at the end of July..” he said.
Matt Hancock announced that the next lockdown review period would be extended from 21 days to 28 days. It will be on June 25.
Downing Street press conferences on the Covid-19 crisis will no longer take place at weekends because of low TV ratings, No.10 has revealed.
Iain Stewart, Tory MP for Milton Keynes South (in England), was appointed as a junior minister at the Scotland Office.
What I’m Reading
History Will Judge The Complicit Republicans - Atlantic
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-06-02--Test And Trace Could Replace Quarantine For Travellers, Top Scientist Suggests

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Holidaymakers could submit themselves to coronavirus testing and contact tracing rather than being forced into quarantine on their return to the UK, a senior government scientist has suggested.
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Government testing tsar Professor John Newton said plans for a mandatory 14-day quarantine, which are opposed by business groups and some Tory MPs, could eventually be replaced.
The proposals have generated strong opposition due to fears they could damage the economy.
Some MPs are instead calling for quarantine-free so-called “air bridges” with lower risk countries.
Health secretary Matt Hancock acknowledged the idea had been floated but declined to say whether any countries had expressed an interest.
Newton said that, for now, “caution has won the day” on the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), which has recommended quarantine.
But he gave hope for Britons eyeing up a summer holiday as lockdown restrictions are eased in the UK and across Europe, by suggesting they could be tested on their return and freed from quarantine if they test negative.
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From June 8 travellers to the UK will have to quarantine for 14 days PA
He told the Downing Street daily briefing: “Just like in this country, if somebody might be at risk of having the virus we need them to be isolated during any period when they might be infectious.
“And if people are coming into the country, then they really have to be treated as an unknown and therefore there’s a quarantine.
“There are two reasons why we might not do that: that would be if the risk of them having the virus when they come to our country is so low that we would just take the chance – that the chances of them becoming infectious are very low – and I think at the moment the judgement is that it is too early to say that and therefore it is better to be cautious for people travelling.
“And secondly if we are able to very quickly respond with a test and trace programme then we could cover it in that way – so if travellers are able to be tested and self-isolate in response to contact tracing just like a domestic new case then that would also be a way of dealing with it.
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“At the moment I think caution has won the day and Sage’s advice is that quarantine is appropriate.”
On air bridges, Hancock said: “I know that some countries have been mentioned in the media but that is a piece of work that is being done by the Home Office and the DfT [Department for Transport] and I’m not going to tread on the toes of my colleagues.”
Former transport minister Stephen Hammond is among Tory MPs calling for the plan to quarantine all people arriving from outside the UK to be scrapped.
The Tory MP told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme that air bridges would be a “sensible, targeted response” between low-risk countries.
“I think the idea of air bridges are the right way forward,” he added.
“I think, as we’ve seen across the world, people are taking measures out of the lockdown and this targeted approach would be a much more sensible way to behave.”
But housing minister Simon Clarke said the two-week quarantine period for new entrants to the UK will be enforced from June 8, despite some backbench opposition.
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The MP told BBC Breakfast: “This is a temporary, time-limited measure to make sure that we avoid that risk manifesting itself.
“It is very clear that as of Monday, June 8, a two-week quarantine is in place for people coming into the UK from abroad and that needs to be understood very clearly.