alexist

A bit heavy handed, as expected, though he seemed to reserve most of his venom for the British government that actually planned and carried out the expulsion (aside from a snide comment about how it was all about America's desire to be the largest power in the world--hello, this was the height of the Cold War....) He may have fudged his facts slightly, though--he claimed that all the Chagossians were permanent residents. I was googling for more information during one of the advert breaks, before he said this, and the Guardian reported that some of the Chagossians were temporary plantation workers, though not nearly as many as the British government pretended. It hardly diminishes the problem, of course; I'm just a stickler for accuracy.

The other thing that bothered me was the way he painted the Chagossians as poor innocents living in a peaceful idyll. It was a blatant ploy for sympathy. It shouldn't matter how wonderful the Chagossians were. The British expulsion of the Chagossians--and particularly the inhumane way it was done--would have been horrible to anyone.

He also did his usual crusading-for-justice thing and expressed surprise that the Chagossians were not being allowed to return. It's news that the US wouldn't want to give up its lovely, large, and very strategic base? I'd be more disgusted by the fact that the British government hasn't even offered compensation for sneaking the islanders off and dumping them in a slum in Mauritius. Money might not be a substitute for going home, or even being resettled somewhere suitable, but at least it would give you a real house. The government can't even say "No, this should not have been done, and we're sorry." Instead, it's pretending it was all done right in the first place.