Presenter of Double Down Newswatch, your one-stop shop for the best of independent media. https://teapaw.org/t.co/pxc7GyOjYx
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Joined November 2021
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Next Wednesday sees the launch of Double Down Newswatch, a new weekly magazine programme that will showcase the best of independent media.
Here I explain why it's needed.
youtube.com/watch?v=O8OBmdrB…
Richard Sanders retweeted
Anyone who has camped in serious rain knows how miserable it can be, especially when your attempts to keep the rain out fail. All you want is to feel dry again. When it’s cold it’s exponentially worse. When you’re with your kids, you feel awful for them as they shiver. Now imagine the tent is your forced home, the water keeps rising, and there’s nowhere to go to get dry or warm.
I admit that I completely broke down today. I cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t hold myself together after witnessing what I saw with my own eyes.
Today, we went to film a journalistic report inside the displacement tents along the seashore. I swear, what we witnessed was beyond what any human being should have to endure.
I saw men crying bitterly. Men I had never seen cry when they lost their children or when their homes were destroyed. Today, I saw them crying because they were powerless to do the simplest thing: protect their children from the water and the cold.
We spoke to families who told us they had spent the entire night carrying their children in their arms after floodwater covered the floors of their tents and soaked their mattresses. They couldn’t find a single dry place to put their children. They couldn’t even give them a few hours of sleep.
I saw children no older than five, without proper clothes to protect them from the cold, without heating, and without a dry place to sleep. Children shivering inside tents that cannot keep out the rain, protect them from the wind, or provide even the most basic sense of safety.
What more must happen for this world to act? How much more suffering must people endure before someone remembers that they are human beings?
I am sick of this world. I am sick of its hypocrisy and empty slogans. To hell with a world that talks endlessly about human rights while leaving children to drown inside their tents. To hell with everyone who has witnessed this suffering and chosen silence, and to hell with the governments and institutions that have the power to act but continue to turn their backs on us.
Richard Sanders retweeted
I admit that I completely broke down today. I cried uncontrollably. I couldn’t hold myself together after witnessing what I saw with my own eyes.
Today, we went to film a journalistic report inside the displacement tents along the seashore. I swear, what we witnessed was beyond what any human being should have to endure.
I saw men crying bitterly. Men I had never seen cry when they lost their children or when their homes were destroyed. Today, I saw them crying because they were powerless to do the simplest thing: protect their children from the water and the cold.
We spoke to families who told us they had spent the entire night carrying their children in their arms after floodwater covered the floors of their tents and soaked their mattresses. They couldn’t find a single dry place to put their children. They couldn’t even give them a few hours of sleep.
I saw children no older than five, without proper clothes to protect them from the cold, without heating, and without a dry place to sleep. Children shivering inside tents that cannot keep out the rain, protect them from the wind, or provide even the most basic sense of safety.
What more must happen for this world to act? How much more suffering must people endure before someone remembers that they are human beings?
I am sick of this world. I am sick of its hypocrisy and empty slogans. To hell with a world that talks endlessly about human rights while leaving children to drown inside their tents. To hell with everyone who has witnessed this suffering and chosen silence, and to hell with the governments and institutions that have the power to act but continue to turn their backs on us.
- @bbclaurak - a journalist who fits so snugly inside the box she's not even aware there is a box.
This is extraordinary from Laura Kuensberg. Polanski answered her questions but rejected her chosen framing. That's meat-and-potatoes stuff for combative interviewing.
It is very telling she reaches for this one interview to illustrate some broader anti-truth/populist politics - but says nothing about how we had a Labour Party leader/PM in Keir Starmer who lied, constantly, repeatedly, and flagrantly - who invented a political character from whole cloth to dupe the Labour membership. He lied on TV constantly - big lies, small lies, serious lies and frivolous lies. And he followed on from Boris Johnson, another fabulous liar, who made his career on changing the subject and dancing around questions, much to the delight of Kuensberg and the media class, who treated him with affection and kid gloves on his path to power.
I think it's obvious that Kuensberg just doesn't like or support progressive politics. That's fine. But don't try launder that into a ham-fisted critique saying the left has a problem with journalistic inquiry - and don't imply bad faith and dishonesty, when it has been progressives who called out the honest truth of Israel's genocide in Gaza while the establishment laundered it as "self-defence" or repeated nonsense about human shields.
Richard Sanders retweeted
Scores of trucks carrying new tents and caravans (mobile homes) have been waiting at Gaza's border for more than a year, but Israel has blocked them from entering despite a US-brokered and monitored ceasefire.
Israel’s deliberate and systematic cruelty to deprive displaced Palestinians of shelter and compound their suffering is part of an effort to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, and is continuing with full U.S. support.
Richard Sanders retweeted
Local sources in Gaza report that at least 70,000 tents have been flooded within 12 hours.
Gaza emergency services issue urgent call as winter downpours submerge displacement camps
——
Gaza’s civil defense agency issued an urgent appeal for international mobilization on Saturday after a severe winter storm swept through the enclave, submerging entire displacement camps and destroying makeshift shelters housing hundreds of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Emergency crews reported receiving over 1,500 distress calls across the Gaza Strip as torrential rain and strong winds swept away makeshift canvas tents and brought floodwaters inside temporary shelters.
The agency warned that civil defense personnel are unable to manage the compounding crisis due to the deliberate Israeli blockade preventing the entry of heavy machinery, water pumps, fuel, and replacement shelter supplies.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, the civil defense director stressed that women and children are currently stranded in flooded camps as floodwaters drown encampments and destroy family belongings.
Humanitarian groups emphasize that the catastrophe is a direct consequence of ongoing Israeli restrictions on basic relief materials and infrastructure rehabilitation following months of widespread destruction, leaving over 90 percent of Gaza's population exposed to severe winter weather in dilapidated and unsealed shelters.
One of Trump's deepest instincts is to find a woman to blame.
8 of his original second term cabinet were women, out of 23. That's now down to 3.
cnn.com/2026/11/06/politics/…
Richard Sanders retweeted
This is the worst morning ever. No one in Gaza City slept last night. The rain completely flooded the tents, soaking mattresses and destroying families' belongings. We are underwater.
Thousands of families have been trying for hours to save what little they have left, with nowhere dry to go.
Richard Sanders retweeted
🚨 HORRIFIC SCENES IN GAZA: Displaced families’ tents are completely submerged in floodwater. After Israel destroyed their homes, families are now left with nothing but flooded tents, with nowhere else to go.
Is BAE colluding with your university to crush dissent on campus?
Lorna Hosford for Double Down Newswatch.
Is BAE colluding with your university to crush dissent on campus?
Lorna Hosford for Double Down Newswatch.
This is how you do it. Eyes on the prize.
👏👏👏👏 @ZackPolanski
"Israel would say ..."
This is an extraordinary compilation - an exhibit for the genocide museum.
The most painful part is the faces of the people from the region who just have to sit silent through what is essentially genocide denialism. /1
Richard Sanders retweeted
EXC: The lead drafter of the IHRA definition has condemned the UK govt for imposing it on schools, saying it's being pushed “at a time when there’s a big disagreement in the Jewish community over whether being a Zionist is required to be inside the tent or not”.
For @zeteouk 👇
- @vicderbyshire herself looks embarrassed to be still doing this.
So why do it?
Richard Sanders retweeted
At this very moment, as I write this post, shells are falling on the eastern areas of Gaza City. The sounds are absolutely terrifying.
They have literally gone insane. Aircraft are flying at extremely low altitudes and the situation is incredibly difficult.
Talk about what is happening here. Share our voices. Make Gaza the world's headline again.
Richard Sanders retweeted
My hotel room was forced while I was in the Supreme Court and the jamb spilt apart. But nothing was taken, £180 cash left on the table.
Please note just in case. I am not suicidal, I have the most wonderful family and friends and many battles to fight.
