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As researchers both specialising on Palestine, we've taken a keen interest in what they've been saying. And on the side of Israel's apologists, we’ve seen two main narratives at work.

Both are deeply flawed. The first ignores all context to portray Israel as the undeniable victim of a brutish neighbour. The second draws selectively on context to portray Hamas and Israel as more or less equal adversaries tragically unable to come to an accord. This narrative, designed to appeal to moderates and confound pro-Palestinian messaging, argues that everyone has blood on their hands in this endless cycle of violence – meaning no easy condemnation of Israel is possible.

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When the capacity of one side to exert violence over the other is so overwhelmingly disproportionate, surely even to the most moderate of moderates, something rings discordant here.

Advocates for homeless people refer to the planters as “hostile architecture” meant to push the homeless population out of sight. The strategy is far from new: For years, frustrated residents and business owners in San Francisco, and even the city itself, have turned to architecture to prevent encampments on the street — things like planters, boulders or rocky pavement, windowsill spikes, curved or slanted or segmented benches, or even loud music or sprinklers meant to prevent the unhoused from sleeping, sitting or setting up camp in certain public spaces. 

Starmer, like Biden, insists that “Israel has the right to defend itself”. On the specific matter of international law, this is not a legal right. Israel, an aggressor because of its two-decade-long siege/blockade of Gaza, cannot claim “self-defense” to justify its violence against armed resistance to this illegal siege/blockade. When a Nazi claimed that Germany attacked Russia in “self-defense” during WW2, a judge at the Nuremberg Tribunal said:

“One of the most amazing phenomena of this case which does not lack in startling features is the manner in which the aggressive war conducted by Germany against Russia has been treated by the defense as if it were the other way around. …If it is assumed that some of the resistance units in Russia or members of the population did commit acts that were in themselves unlawful under the rules of war, it would still have to be shown that these acts were not in legitimate defense against wrongs perpetrated upon them by the invader. Under International Law, as in Domestic Law, there can be no reprisal against reprisal. The assassin who is being repulsed by his intended victim may not slay him and then, in turn, plead self-defense”. (Trial of Otto Ohlendorf and others, Military Tribunal II-A, April 8, 1948)

It’s very hard to see a strategy that leads to political change, if you accept a settler-colonial paradigm, in the metropole or in the colony — and more importantly in the metropole. If you look at the wars of independence in Ireland, Algeria, and Vietnam, or the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, what was happening on the battlefield was part of a larger political strategy that also included the metropole.

For example, it meant convincing popular opinion in Britain and the US that Irish independence was a worthy and achievable aim — or at least in the case of England, that it was a war not worth fighting. The Irish Republican Army won, I think, in Manchester, Birmingham, London, New York, and Boston as much as it won in Cork. They were on the back foot in military terms by the middle of 1921. But the British decided that they couldn’t sustain the war any longer.

It was the same with Algeria, Vietnam, and South Africa. Without the battle of Algiers or the Tet Offensive or the struggle in the townships, those liberation movements would not have won. But without the demonstrations in the US, you wouldn’t have had the US government deciding that it couldn’t win the war in Vietnam.

A letter signed by a cross-party group of local authority leaders in England indicates that some town halls in effect face bankruptcy and describes mounting temporary housing bills for homeless households as a “critical risk to the financial sustainability of many local authorities”.

It calls for an immediate cash injection of £100m for councils to provide emergency rent support for families at risk of homelessness, together with an end to the four-year freeze on housing allowance rates and long-term investment in social housing.

“Without urgent intervention, the existence of our safety net is under threat,” says the letter to Hunt, the chancellor. “The danger is that we have no option but to start withdrawing services which currently help so many families to avoid hitting crisis point.”

Most of the revenue lost in Victoria due to fare evasion comes from the career evaders, who were the smallest group of the four. These people were found to be typically wealthy and chose to evade for the challenge rather than being unable to afford the ride. Of this group, Currie said, “We’ve got this archetypal, old view that it’s a young person or a drop-out that’s doing bad stuff. No, that’s not what’s going on.”

What is going on, though, is that despite research showing the majority of fare evaders not having criminal intent, they are still being treated as though they do by the Victorian government’s authorised officers.

Other reports include requests for “data related to menstruation tracking applications” as part of the police’s investigations.

It’s understood these requests have been taking place for at least the past three years. Dr Jonathan Lord, co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers and an NHS consultant gynaecologist, called searching women’s phones for menstrual data “chilling and deeply intrusive”.

“We already know that police routinely remove phones and computers from women suspected of having an [illegal] abortion and it’s even happening following miscarriage and pregnancy loss,” Lord said. “This is damaging enough as it leaves women frightened and isolated immediately after suffering a substantial trauma.” 

Lord told Tortoise he was aware of cases of blood tests being taken with the woman’s consent by NHS staff at the request of police, including, he said, “when women knew they were innocent after suffering an unexpected premature delivery”.

Even when the test finds no trace of abortion medication women can continue to remain under suspicion “as a negative test does not exclude earlier use of drugs”, he said. In that event, he argued, “the only motivation for testing is entrapment”. 

One senior Labour party member described the resignation of Labour councillors in response to the party’s position on Gaza as “shaking off the fleas”. This approach has broadly characterised Labour’s approach to the dissenting views it has attributed en masse to a cranky left, but it seems increasingly risky when a high-octane political event galvanises people across a demographic profile that is too large to be so easily dismissed. Sulekha, another voter lost to Labour in the past two weeks, tells me of an atmosphere in her local area in Hackney where people are identifying with the Palestine issue through “different intersections” as it draws in “greens, feminists and a broader liberal coalition”. Meanwhile, polling reveals a political establishment dramatically at odds with the country as a whole, in which 76% are in support of a ceasefire. That’s a lot of fleas.

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There are signs that Labour, practised now in the art of figuring out who it can shake off without hurting its re-election chances, is beginning to catch on. In addition to Starmer’s attempt to reverse his position, there have been meetings with Labour MPs and council leaders. But it won’t be enough. Winning over those that have checked out is about more than Gaza. It’s about addressing the growing impression of Labour as a party increasingly out of touch with, and contemptuous of, its grassroots, both in policy offering and tone.

The worst-hit councils are now spending millions of pounds a year – in some cases between a fifth and half of their total available financial resources – to try to cope with an unprecedented and rapid explosion in homelessness caused by rising rents and a shrinking supply of affordable properties.

The scale of the crisis means smaller councils, often in affluent shire counties, are struggling to supply enough emergency homes to meet their legal duty to support homeless families. Homelessness rates in some districts have more than doubled year on year.

Successive governments that failed to build social housing whilst selling off social housing stock are partly to blame for this.

So, too, are the actions of some unscrupulous landlords.

But the real problem can be laid fairly and squarely at the door of the Bank of England. They forced interest rates up without any evidence that doing so would reduce inflation. So far, the contrary is likely to be the case. And now they are using quantitative tightening to keep those rates artificially high - and well above those that markets might otherwise settle on given the state of the economy.

The result is not just a cost of living crisis.

Nor is it just a massive decline in the financial well-being of millions in this country.

It is also an alarming hike in rents, which are, however, insufficient to cover the costs of some highly-geared (over-borrowed) landlords who are selling their properties as quickly as they can, so increasing the scale of homelessness and disruption, whilst also removing property from the rental housing stock, at least temporarily. It's a perfect storm for the councils involved, and it can only get worse since it is the policy of the Bank of England to maintain high interest rates as inflation declines, which can only make rents increasingly unaffordable whilst forcing more landlords out of business.