UsForThem - “opaque lobbyists” with links to the far right?

[LacyEdge]

Prof Alice Roberts started an interesting Twitter thread discussing this, linking to Nafeez Ahmed’s article about U4T in Byline Times. Replies suggest UsForThem aren’t a concerned parents’ group at all and are linked with a far right funded group.

Well I never.

twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1352993581414424576

I don't think we are going to agree on this thread but I certainly want schools opened to children and for those with concerns the vaccination programme is going very well in the UK which could mean even for those who want to save every last vulnerable elderly person in this difficult balance since March as to whom to save - the young or old etc - the mental health of 70m or the lives of 100,000 who are already sick or over 80, that schools could be opened up by or before February half term.

Temptashun

It's about how, for many people, if you push a narrative hard, and imply that you're a social failure if you don't conform, many parents will literally harm their own babies quite a lot, in order to avoid a very small potential other harm.

Pushing the narrative that schools are safe over and over again would be a good example of this.

@MarshaBradyo

Cat why would the people who have their names and occupations listed so clearly be ok with being a front?

Marsha they have removed all this information from their website so you may ask why are they removing their names instead ? This was all on there with photos but now just a few first name only (we're a group of mums). I posted the names just as a reminder of the people who fronted this despicable group.

I hold UsforThem entirely responsible for that fact that DDs teacher and teaching assistant are both in hospital with COVID. They both caught it in school from a child who had been sent in with a ‘cold’ by a oblivious parent. If you want to talk about mental distress- my daughter now has nightmares that her beloved reception teacher is dead. And the keyworker bubble has been shut for weeks because half the teachers in school are ill. Thanks UsforThem

I think any teacher that can prove they’ve picked up an infection in school and had life changing issues after being ill should sue the arse off the whole lot of them. I would crowd fund for that.

@BelleSausage

I hold UsforThem entirely responsible for that fact that DDs teacher and teaching assistant are both in hospital with COVID. They both caught it in school from a child who had been sent in with a ‘cold’ by a oblivious parent. If you want to talk about mental distress- my daughter now has nightmares that her beloved reception teacher is dead. And the keyworker bubble has been shut for weeks because half the teachers in school are ill. Thanks UsforThem

I think any teacher that can prove they’ve picked up an infection in school and had life changing issues after being ill should sue the arse off the whole lot of them. I would crowd fund for that.

I would too. Hope they recover swiftly. So sorry about the effects of it on your DD.

Us4them, the only lobbying group actively fighting for worse working conditions for a workforce in a fucking pandemic.

Disgraceful.

These “Groups” choose interesting names for themselves, don’t they?
The European Research Group - no actual research, just mischief-making and promoting their own batshit ideas (and financial self-interest).
The Covid Recovery Group - no actual recovery, just mischief-making and promoting their batshit ideas (and probably a hefty dose of financial self-interest).
And they’re often the same people, or linked to the same people. What a surprise!

@amusedtodeath1

The Teachers and Staff were right, it's been proven schools were a hotbed of infection. There is no discussion, you were wrong, get over it and get on with it.

Has it? Sorry, I watched the news yesterday and they seemed to say the exact opposite?

Primary going back soonish according to the Times.

I would not be surprised if the end goal from all of this was to remove lots of teachers working rights and to further the privatisation of schools- look how much they’ve enjoyed giving contact tracing, PPE and hospital contracts to their mates.

No teacher with CEV should ever have been sent back to the classroom

Correct.

The shielded are allowed to WFH or are the rare case that can be furloughed even from the public sector

But thus is classic diversion tactics, isn't it?

It's not just the CEV, it's also the CV, older teachers/staff and pregnant ones. Without whom schooling cannot function, because the numbers are too great.

Not wanting unsafe workplaces is the opposite of 'hysterical' - it's basic common sense.

What we need more than anything else, children and wider society alike - is safer schools

There is now plenty published on the protective nature of masks, and plenty of evidence about how readily DC adapt to wearing them, when presented as the norm rather than the hyperbolic and baseless reactions of it being intolerable.

@Frodont

Great. Can you outline how my daughter’s school is going to open with half the teachers ill? The head is currently teaching remote learning to three classes on her own.

Just saying ‘open’ is not actually going to open a lot of schools and will further increase the infection rate (again).

[quote BelleSausage]@Frodont

Great. Can you outline how my daughter’s school is going to open with half the teachers ill? The head is currently teaching remote learning to three classes on her own.

Just saying ‘open’ is not actually going to open a lot of schools and will further increase the infection rate (again).[/quote]
Don't come at me, I have no idea! Just reporting what it says in the Times. PHE say primary can open after half term. Don't have a primary aged child so no skin in the game!

@Frodont

Then perhaps stop stirring the pot about primaries. It is really unhelpful to get people’s hopes up when it is absolutely not possible and shouldn’t be considered.

Crap like this is why no other safe options are being explored. Get them all back in fast and screw the consequences. So short sighted.

I find it hard to believe there are still people who think schools are safe. They patently are not and everyone of any intelligence knows this.

But some don't actually care as long as they can push their weird agenda.

Some very odd and dangerous opinions being expressed from the klaxon heeders. Lies are ok, it seems.

Then perhaps stop stirring the pot about primaries. It is really unhelpful to get people’s hopes up when it is absolutely not possible and shouldn’t be considered

OK - perhaps don't read a newspaper today then.

@noblegiraffe

I just did a search for Us4Them on here to see when it really started kicking off. July/August was really when we put the nasty posters on MN together with the arsehole organisation on twitter/Facebook,

I had to keep posting a checklist for teachers to spot them so they wouldn’t engage in endless arguments with the same people under different usernames.

For posterity:

noblegiraffe 19/08/2020

There is a demented fringe group who want them open at all costs with no safety measures at all for teachers and older pupils.

Here’s a handy checklist on how to spot them:

1. They will assume that anyone arguing for the safe re-opening of schools actually wants them to remain closed

2. They will suggest that any parent unhappy with the lack of mitigation measures deregister their child

3. They will suggest that any teacher unhappy with the lack of mitigation measures resign their job

4. They will slate teachers at any opportunity.

So anyone who disagrees with you then? Do posters need to achieve 100% or is 25% still a 'pass'?

You claim that you don't want schools to remain closed, but that is the impression you have always given over. Don't blame posters for coming to that conclusion with what you have written. If that wasn't your intention then fair enough, but it does mean that posters will respond in a way you perhaps weren't expecting.

It is no surprise that conversations on here have gone the way they have if anyone with a different opinion in treated with such contempt.

You claim that you don't want schools to remain closed, but that is the impression you have always given over.

I've seen giraffe describe how schools could be managed more safely in dozens of posts. The fact that in the worst periods that means partial closure in a planned way is not arguing for schools to shut. If Gavin Williamson were competent the levels of disruption we've suffered would not have been necessary.

Perhaps instead of relying on your 'inpression' it would be better to consider posters actual words? I don't think it is unreasonable to point out that a small number of posters have done those 4 things to a near obsessive degree, though I doubt most are shills for U4T.

I think most of us want schools to re-open.

But we want a safe re-opening.

That is not what U4T are pushing.

Frustration arises because what U4T are pushing risks locking us into this horrible world of schools closing and re-opening, the NHS being periodically overwhelmed, forever.

Why?

When there is a high rate of transmission, with high cases of infection, the opportunity for virus mutation climbs. The chances of a vaccine-resistant strain climb.

That's a nightmare scenario.

Imagine being forced back to 'Go', with no £200. Back to where we started.

That is awful.

And it's what the U4T strategy almost certainly would produce.

So, yes, I'm quite passionate about this.

I'm sorry if my tone isn't so great. Believe me, I want to get people to listen to me, not to put them off.

But there is so much at stake here - I will get angry sometimes.

Because I can see the disparity between me - with my common-sense, my compassion, my concern, my tedious reading of data - I can see that I (somehow) don't have the reach and power of this (supposedly grassroots) organisation.

This is despite the fact that everyone I know wants a safe return. An end to the cycle of open-close-open-close. And no-one I know wants a vaccine-resistant virus emerging.

And yet U4T - who seem to be speaking for no-one I know, with their message of, 'Just open and let it all run wild,' get so much press-space, and air-time, and have access to the government.

And that is very suspicious.

How? How do they get all this?

And then you realise they are not some innocent little grassroots group. Occam's razor tells you they can't be.

And that is infuriating.

Because how dare they exploit the difficulties and pressure of this time? How dare they exploit the concern we all have for their children? How dare they pretend to speak for me, whilst also silencing me and my reality?

The situation produces real anger in me, to be honest. ☹️

I’ve never seen noblegiraffe call for school closures, but have seen many patient and detailed refutations of those who have misread her posts and claim wrongly that calling for safer schools (including specific steps to achieve this) somehow amounts to advocating closures.

You claim that you don't want schools to remain closed, but that is the impression you have always given over.

If you actually read noble’s posts rather then getting ‘impressions’ about them, you’d know closure wasn’t what she advocated at all.

You claim that you don't want schools to remain closed, but that is the impression you have always given over.

Which is bollocks if you’d taken a single minute to read what I was writing.

Or any of the other teachers who wrote over and over that they wanted schools to be made safer so they could stay open longer.

The mischaracterisation of our posts about making schools safer as a campaign to close them was and is very much a feature of Us4Them posts.

Example threads:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4095400-noblegiraffe-wants-SAFER-schools-not-closed-schools-Do-you

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4059472-Ways-to-make-schools-safer-without-closing-them

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4122339-Government-finally-considering-making-schools-safer-masks-in-secondary-classrooms

You’d have to be pretty hard of reading (or have a deliberate agenda yourself) to keep claiming that I wanted schools closed.

@iVampire

I’ve never seen noblegiraffe call for school closures, but have seen many patient and detailed refutations of those who have misread her posts and claim wrongly that calling for safer schools (including specific steps to achieve this) somehow amounts to advocating closures.

This.

I think it's telling that you've reduced noble's repeated arguments for safe schools to = closed schools.

Both a gross simplification and wrong.

And you're suggesting she's responding with disdain?

I think that misrepresentation shows an extraordinary lack of respect. It doesn't even grant the basic respect of a true and accurate representation.

You claim that you don't want schools to remain closed, but that is the impression you have always given over

I find it difficult to understand how anyone can read multiple posts asking for schools to be made safer so that they can be open, and many many suggestions as to how this can be done, yet get the impression that said poster wants schools to be closed, unless severely lacking in comprehension skills.

So, kids with vulnerable parents will need to learn from home if their parents don't want to take the risk.

Yeah, thought as much. Very much concerned for education and mental health and how children need school until we talk about all children and not just your own. And there are vulnerable children too, not just parents.

You’re happy to give up art galleries(!!!) on a Tuesday for people’s mental health but when it’s something you don’t want to give up at all then other arrangements would have to be made.

Despicable.

Really good article from the Guardian here

WHO advice here (we don't follow it)

I want bloody school open! But safely I don't want the stress every day wondering what each cough and cold is! The paranoia, monitoring us all, everyday, wondering if we fall ill, what will happen to us!

I just want every stop pulled out and if rather they go back when safe and can be outdoors.

I'm sorry but I don't think sitting in a classroom to learn in person about a fronted adverbial is worth the sheer stress and worry I will face.

I suggest those that want school to be as safe as they possibly can be, also tweet, lobby, write to mps... Don't let, them for themselves win the battle of the airwaves..