Richard Burden, a Labour Member of Parliament for a Birmingham constituency, accuses me of being a troll. He tweeted as much on 29th December (see below).
All I have been doing is pointing out to him the amount of time he dedicates to undermining Israel as opposed to helping the people in his constituency.
Burden’s twitter profile describes him as “Labour MP & community advocate for Birmingham Northfield. Shadow Minister for aviation, shipping, strategic networks & road safety.”
As you can see there is no mention of Israel in his job description. Yet, a large proportion of his tweets are spent dedicated to attacking Israel.
Obviously, the time he spends attacking Israel on twitter is less time for him to spend on thinking about how to improve the lives of the good people of Birmingham Northfield.
Considering his salary is paid for partly by the people of Birmingham Northfield, via their taxes, surely he should dedicate his time to working for them as well as fulfilling his shadow ministry duties.
Only yesterday (30th December) Burden was attacking Israel yet again.
AP Jerusalem correspondent Matti Friedman describes Breaking The Silence like this:
“Today, like B’Tselem and others, it’s a group funded in large part by European money which serves mainly to provide international reporters with the lurid examples of Israeli malfeasance that they crave. They are not speaking to Israelis, but are rather exploiting Israelis’ uniquely talkative and transparent nature in order to defame them.”
Over the next year I will publish on this page all of Richard Burden’s tweets about Israel. Then we can see who the real troll is; myself for merely pointing them out or Richard Burden MP in his constant trolling of the Jewish state.
The people of Birmingham Northfield can then decide whether Burden is more dedicated to working for them or to defaming the Jewish state.
Oh, did I mention that Burden met Hamas in 2007? As we know Hamas, in its own words, is dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state as well as to every single Jewish person whether in Israel or not (see Article 7 of the Hamas Charter).
In the meantime wishing you a happy new year and thank you for visiting here over the last year.
RichardMillett's Blog 
As the Bradford Telegraph reported, the results of a survey showed that George Galloway lost his seat because of his preoccupation with “Palestine” and other international issues over which the good people of Bradford have no control. The same could easily happen to Richard Burden.
I trust the Birmingham-based media will pick up on Richard Milett’s expose on MP Burden whose anti-Israel remarks have sickened me.
Like ‘Islamophobia’, ‘troll’ is a meaningless and redundant word, used by people to negate anyone who challenges their closed minds.
Troll is a nasty accusation. Obviously the depth of the insult is meant to silence me. Yet all i was doing was pointing out his Israel obsession while working for Birmingham Northfields. Troll should only be reserved for the truly bullying type which can end very badly for the victim.
Unless we are using the term.
There is a slippery assumption in the Burden MP exchange. In respect of the NGO bill to regulate or at least impose transparency on the foreign and other funding of NGO’s there is an assumption that anybody who is against a government or its agents is in the right and the government /agents are in the wrong. This is not necessarily the case even if virtue hath no gossip value and complaints about government have some substance – usually resulting from underfunding because the electorate falls for the tax-strike mentality of those who do not like government regulating the cowboys of the private sector.
Austerity is cheap and cheap is dear,
So there won’t be any thanks this year.
Hopefully he will be out in 2020, his majority is only 2500
Richard, I think your work should receive far more praise than it does. It is about time we honoured all those who work so hard at defending Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State of Israel.
In one way, albeit unpleasant, Burden’s attack on you is evidence that you do get to him by exposing him for what he represents.
I wish you a happy and healthy 2016.
Thank you so much. And to you all to. Happy and healthy 2016. Nice words to hear.
OT
finally I’ve found an identity-free image to wish Richard and his friends all the best while I hope that the next year will be really really uninteresting
Thank you, Silke. And to you and, yes, may 2016 pass with nothing untoward for us all and for the world. Only good things to come.
If I’m not too late, I wish all the regulars and less regulars of this excellent blog a very happy and healthy new year!
He is only one in a long list of Israel-bashing antisemites in the Labour party.
Don’t forget Nick Soames et alia across the gangway.
Soames is Conservative, not Labour. I’m speaking about Labour antisemites, a much longer list.
Keep up the good work Mr. Millet! Thanks for exposing the misuse of the time, money and “brainpower” of Richard Burden. Perhaps if he’s not interested in fulfilling his mandate to represent the people he was elected to represent, he should leave. But that would require honesty and integrity. Those two qualities don’t seem to go with Richard Burden territory.
BtS uses anonymous quotes from unverified sources, yet European governments have no trouble funding it. Imagine if Israel was financing an BtS organizations in Europe. Publishing anonymous reports on European Soldiers. I guarantee European governments would be furious.
I can even say that in most parts of EU, those NGOs’ statements would fall under defamation laws. Anonymous or not.
So…Proscute.
The State should prosecute. Armies and soldiers are their responsibility. Fact is they don’t prosecute and allow this kind of attacks to spread.
Richard Burden isn’t quite unknown, when it comes to supporting antisemites:
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/28/friends-of-raed-salah-labour-mps/
Several hundred IDF combat reservists and officers who organized a committee titled Reservists at the Front are currently working to file a slander lawsuit against the nongovernmental organization Breaking the Silence, which publishes testimonies, often anonymous, about alleged IDF misdeeds. The reservists claim that Breaking the Silence intentionally and consistently disseminates outright lies.
Amit Deri, a major in the reserves and one of the leaders of the campaign against the NGO, told Israel Hayom that “over a long period of time we’ve collected facts that prove that Breaking the Silence twists, manipulates and sometimes even lies, slandering IDF soldiers and commanders in Israel and the world.”
Oh, and btw, here’s looking at you Richard! All the best for 2016
Happy New Year, Richard. Keep up the good work.