Mike Saunders

Primary school teacher on #BBCQT "I think people are tired of it now.. We tend to follow the US.. I hope the rejection of Trump, and watching people like James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed and the poise they carry themselves with, the respectability that they have, will filter over to here and then we will reject bullies like Nigel Farage" "I'm a primary school teacher and I have to talk to my children about British values" "And if we end up with a Reform UK government, or a government similar, what are those values?" "I can't hand on heart say these are the things British people do, when they're clearly not" Fiona Bruce, "We don't have Reform UK on the panel, but we do have them often" My view: Teachers can spend all week teaching children to treat others with respect, challenge prejudice and take responsibility for their actions. But those lessons become harder when children see adults rewarded with attention and political power for behaving in ways that would never be acceptable in a classroom. What does a child learn when cruelty gets a laugh, intimidation wins an argument, or blaming an entire community becomes a route to popularity? They learn from what we reward as well as what we teach. That is why decency in political leadership matters. We should expect leaders to disagree without dehumanising, persuade without scapegoating and accept scrutiny without bullying. If politicians want to lecture anyone about British values, they should start by demonstrating them.

Wow, when you watch this from Abdul El-Sayed you realise that being a 'human rights lawyer' was just a bit of paper for Keir Starmer, opposed to actual conviction towards human rights for all. "I grew up in a community where 40% of my high school class is Jewish.. I grew up going to Synagogue, going to Sedar, going to Bar & Bar Mitzvahs growing up" "I have so much respect for the Jewish faith and to Jewish contributions to American life" "I also know how it's like to be discriminated against for how I pray, and I want an America where no one is discriminated against under our constitution" "The idea that anybody should feel unsafe in their Synagogue, or day school, is anathema - I know what it's like to drop of my kids to a mosque and wonder if they're going to be safe" "We are all united in the work that no matter who you are you are safe in this country" "I'm committed to the safety of Jewish children, just as I'm committed to the safety of my own children" "A lot of the issue is about the government of Israel and our posture to that government" "We spent billion subsidising a foreign government, buying bombs and tanks that have been used to do a genocide, an apartheid, used to war that we have no business fighting" "And we are told that if you want to stand up against the murder of Palestinian children, that's somehow about hate for anybody. It's not about hate for anybody, it's about equal love for Palestinian children as you would have for a Jewish child growing up in the Holy land" "My approach to foreign policy is simple: we should be the first to uphold international law" "But we have ran roughshod over the notion of what was done to Gaza as if that's not the central question; and it's still ongoing" "So if I stand up and say: hey, maybe we shouldn't be sending our money to do the worst things to other people. Well, it must be because you hate the people doing the worst things - that's insane" "I agree with President Trump that we shouldn't be sending a country foreign aid that is using it to do the worst things with our money" "I don't think we should be selling weapons to a country that is, again, using our weapons to do awful things" "We have to separate between Judaism and the Jewish people. And Israel and its actions. We have to" "I've tried to do that during my campaign but people keep saying, because of your position on Israel you must feel the same way about Jewish people - I say no" "We have to be governing on principle, and we have broken our own principles when it comes to Israel time and again" "I want to see a Palestinian child and a Jewish child growing up in the Holy land, and can say, my life is not going to be curtailed by somebody's violence." "How do we get there" My view: What gives Abdul El-Sayed’s words such force is his willingness to extend the love he feels for his own children to other people’s children. That should be the starting point for anyone seeking political power. Holding the Israeli government accountable does not make Jewish people responsible for its actions. Conflating the two places an unfair burden on Jewish communities while trying to silence those speaking up for Palestinians. Keir Starmer should be capable of expressing that same moral clarity. Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom belong in the same vision of a better world. Any politics that asks us to sacrifice either has failed.