Warwick: Tory student group apologises over video ‘showing members singing and dancing to Nazi song’
A Tory student group has apologised after a video reportedly showed its members singing and dancing to a Nazi marching song.
The clip, taken at a chairman’s dinner at the University of Warwick Conservatives Association two weeks ago, shows people singing Erika – a song that was used by the armed forces of Nazi Germany.
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The Sunday Times, which obtained the footage, said it shows several members of the association dancing and laughing as the song plays on the sound system.
The footage ends after one member sees the camera and says: “Don’t film!”, according to the newspaper.
In a statement, the University of Warwick Conservatives Association said it “wholeheartedly condemns the behaviour exhibited during this video and apologises for any offence that has been caused”.
It said most of those in the video “were completely unaware of the origins and connotations of the song”, but the member who asked for the song to be played would no longer be welcome at its events.
The association said a person heard “actively singing lyrics” was not a member but “has been barred from future events along with others”.
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However, it rejected allegations of being a “toxic society” that “normalises racism”.
The association said its members have “consistently campaigned against antisemitism on campus, including campaigning to disaffiliate Warwick Student’s Union from the National Union of Students over its failure to deal with antisemitism”.
“Our members have also worked hard to ensure the Students Union commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day in a fitting way,” it added.
“We are proud of these efforts and will continue to stand against discrimination.”
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The Union of Jewish Students called the video “utterly abhorrent” and a “blatant and unchallenged support for Nazism”, as it called on the Tory Party to take action.
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party said the student group was not affiliated to it.
“There is no place for racism in the Conservative Party and we will always ensure appropriate action is taken against any member who acts in ways that are not in accordance with our values of tolerance and respect,” the spokesperson added.
A spokesperson for Warwick University said: “We have been made aware of this video and the allegations surrounding it, which are extremely troubling.
“Behaviour like this is reprehensible and we are disappointed to see our students involved.
“The university is reviewing the material disclosed to us via our reporting service and has notified the Student’s Union.
“We have requested a meeting with the Jewish Society to assist with our review.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Task Force has scheduled a roundtable discussion centered on privacy and financial surveillance for December, as a renewed focus on privacy grips the cryptocurrency industry.
The privacy roundtable is slated for Dec. 15. Like other SEC roundtables, crypto industry executives and SEC officials will discuss common pain points and solutions, but no hard policy proposals will be submitted.
Privacy has become a hot-button topic following several developments, including the partial guilty verdict in Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s trial in June, the Samourai Wallet developer sentencing in November and the privacy token price rally over the last two months.
“Authoritarians thrive when people have no privacy. When those in charge start being hostile to privacy protections, it is a major red flag,” said Naomi Brockwell, founder of the Ludlow Institute, an organization advocating for liberty through technology.
The renewed interest in privacy hearkens back to crypto’s cypherpunk roots, and one of the core reasons the cryptographic technology that underpins crypto was invented — to ensure secure communication channels between parties in hostile environments.
Related: Crypto investors flee visibility for anonymity as privacy coins surge 80%
Crypto community sounds the alarm about privacy following precedent-setting legal cases
The verdict in the Storm trial and other cases where open-source software developers have been convicted or imprisoned for creating non-custodial, privacy-preserving protocols has set a dangerous precedent for privacy technology in the US, legal experts have said.
Crypto industry executives and advocates argue that the prosecutions are meant to dissuade developers from building privacy-preserving tools.
The verdict in the Samourai Wallet case is analogous to the US government accusing car manufacturer Toyota of a conspiracy because terrorists and criminals also use their cars, according to journalist and crypto advocate Lola Leetz.
“People should not be held accountable for what other people do with the tools they build,” Leetz said.
In August, Matthew Galeotti, the acting assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s criminal division, signaled the agency would no longer prosecute open-source software developers for writing code.
“Our view is that merely writing code, without ill intent, is not a crime,” Galeotti said. “The department will not use indictments as a law-making tool. The department should not leave innovators guessing as to what could lead to criminal prosecution.”
Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto: Canton, Zcash, and more
Politics
All four UK governments ‘failed to appreciate’ scale of COVID pandemic threat – inquiry finds
All four UK governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19 or the urgency of the response the pandemic required, a damning report published on Thursday has claimed.
Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, described the response to the pandemic as “too little, too late”.
Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved during the first wave of COVID-19 had a mandatory lockdown been introduced a week earlier, the inquiry also found.
Noting how a “lack of urgency” made a mandatory lockdown “inevitable”, the report references modelling data to claim there could have been 23,000 fewer deaths during the first wave in England had it been introduced a week earlier.
The UK government first introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing.
Had these measures been introduced sooner, the report states, the mandatory lockdown which followed from 23 March might not have been necessary at all.
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All four UK govts ‘failed to appreciate’ scale of pandemic
COVID-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, and as it developed into a worldwide pandemic, the UK went in and out of unprecedented lockdown measures for two years starting from March 2020.
Lady Hallett admitted in her summary that politicians in the government and devolved administrations were forced to make decisions where “there was often no right answer or good outcome”.
“Nonetheless,” she said, “I can summarise my findings of the response as ‘too little, too late'”.
‘Toxic culture’ at the heart of UK government
The report said there was “a toxic and chaotic culture” at the heart of the UK government during the pandemic.
The inquiry heard evidence about the “destabilising behaviour of a number of individuals” – including former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings.
It said that by failing to tackle this chaotic culture – “and, at times, actively encouraging it” – former PM Boris Johnson “reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making”.
‘Misleading assurances’
The inquiry found all four governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland failed to understand the urgency of response the pandemic demanded in the early part of 2020.
The report reads: “This was compounded, in part, by misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care and the widely held view that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.”
The report notes how the UK government took a “high risk” when it significantly eased restrictions in England in July 2020 – “despite scientific advisers’ concerns about the public health risks of doing so”.
Lady Hallett has made 19 key recommendations which, if followed, she believes will better protect the UK in any future pandemic and improve decision-making in a crisis.
Repeated failings ‘inexcusable’
In a statement following the publication of Thursday’s report, Lady Hallett said there was a “serious failure” by all four governments to appreciate the level of “risk and calamity” facing the UK.
She said: “The tempo of the response should have been increased. It was not. February 2020 was a lost month.”
Read more:
A timeline of the UK’s response to the pandemic
Lady Hallett said the inquiry does not advocate for national lockdowns, which she said should have been avoided if at all possible.
She said: “But to avoid them, governments must take timely and decisive action to control a spreading virus. The four governments of the UK did not.”
Lady Hallett said none of the governments were adequately prepared for the challenges and risks that a lockdown presented, and that many of the same failings were repeated later in 2020, which she said was “inexcusable”.
She added: “Each government had ample warning that the prevalence of the virus was increasing and would continue to do so into the winter months. Yet again, there was a failure to take timely and effective action.”
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