Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #cummings

Most recents (24)

1/. “We want to make the UK fully autonomous, from a regulatory and geopolitical point of view”

Palantir, the shadowy data, surveillance & genomics, that run the NHS COVID data store, plans to shift its entire UK data processing operation from the US! ft.com/content/76fa6a…
2/. “Are you aware that #Palantir & #FacultyAI have links to the discredited #CambridgeAnalytica?”

“Er..um...er...I don't think I'm aware of that, no”

@DawnButlerBrent tells @MattHancock that Palantir rptdly taught #CambridgeAnalyica to scrape data!👇
3/. Whistleblower @chrisinsilico says that Palantir showed #CambridgeAnalytica how to harvest data from Facebook users ahead of #Brexit vote

Palantir run the NHS’s #COVID19 data store with #FacultyAI (linked to Vote Leave & rprtdly to Cambridge Analytica)

Read 155 tweets
@Turloughc @NarcAware @maryellenfield @BylineTimes @RealBristolNews The British Helsinki Group defended dictators - including Milosevic.
And Johnson has ennobled Fox.
balkaninsight.com/2020/08/06/ang…
@Turloughc @NarcAware @maryellenfield @BylineTimes @RealBristolNews Stone a regular speaker at meetings of racist-libertarian offshoot of neoliberal Mont Pelerin Society, the Property and Freedom Society. Peter #Thiel, Palantir (co #Cummings hired to manage NHS pandemic data) another guest
+#Richard_A_Epstein #NewFrontiers
northeastbylines.co.uk/cummings-brexi…
@Turloughc @NarcAware @maryellenfield @BylineTimes @RealBristolNews Part 2
'Dark money has flowed into the making of Brexit from America, Putin & other sources. It is likely to have been flowing in 2003-5 from the Heritage Foundation to New Frontiers Foundation founded by Cummings & his ally James Frayne' @Tentoads4truth
northeastbylines.co.uk/cummings-brexi…
Read 4 tweets
1/. #BREAKING #COVID NEWSFLASH: The “official scientific advisers" behind the #HerdImmunityScandal were in reality were political advisors, appointed by politicians, who's advice had little or no basis in science (e.g. “Dr” David Halpern who has a doctorate in Political Science)
2/. Today’s findings are not new

The truth has been in plain sight from the start

We didn’t need #Cummings to tell us

Indeed, @Dominic2306 ‘revelations’ raised far more questions than answers

It was clear that #HerdImmunity was the strategy & they didn’t “pivot away” from it
3/. Every epidemiologist, virologist or public health expert will tell you that #HerdImmunity is an “outcome” NEVER a “strategy”

Without a vaccine it would involve sacrificing the vulnerable in vast numbers

This “strategy” would also clearly damage the economy

So why do it?👇
Read 12 tweets
1/. #PandoraPapers reveal secret dealings of 330+ politicians & officials - including 35 current & former heads of state & govt

Exposé is based on a leaked dataset of 11.9 million files from all over the world & include disclosures about Tory party donors
google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg…
2/. “The tax system is a haven of scams, perks, City deals and profits" (#TonyBlair 1994)

The #PandoraPapers reveal the Blair’s bought an offshore firm that owned the £6.5m house they were buying so did not have to pay £312,000 in stamp duty @BBCPanorama bbc.com/news/uk-587805…
3/. The #PandoraPapers expose offshore accounts of world leaders, billionaires, oligarchs & criminals

It should lead to a crackdown on tax loopholes & money laundering...but we’ve been here before

What was the impact of #PanamaPapers & #ParadisePapers?
Read 5 tweets
The Prime Minister of Britain, @BorisJohnson
“Shall I tell you a terrible truth?”

In this footage of @BorisJohnson from 2013, the then London mayor says that, in politics, you can “make a case for any course of action”.

He also admits that he isn’t really “bumbling”.

He’s “hard as nails”.
“They cover up crime with scandal & covers up malice with incompetence. They want to project an image of being inept, instead of as having a cruel & well-defined plan.” @sarahkendzior

His ‘bumbling’ persona is a carefully constructed disguise

@BorisJohnson is very dangerous
Read 6 tweets
24/. It may be tempting to frame this as “a battle btw democracies & autocracies” BUT the problem of malign surveillance is inseparable from the wider assaults on our privacy that are intrinsic to our daily online life.
#Pegasus #PegasusProject @NewYorker
newyorker.com/magazine/2021/… ImageImageImageImage
25/. “My work to expose the crimes of the Saudi regime led to a hacking attempt on my phone. Today, I am overwhelmed by feelings of vulnerability & intrusion.”

Analyst @MadawiDr, on how #PegasusProject findings have affected her. #Pegasus @declassifiedUK
middleeasteye.net/opinion/pegasu…
26/. Alarmed by #PegasusProject revelations that #Pegasus has been used to facilitate worldwide human rights violations on a mass scale, 146 NGOs call on states to implement an immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer & use of surveillance technology
amnesty.org/en/documents/d… Image
Read 57 tweets
1/. Gross press freedom violations revealed by #PegasusProject can’t be met with impunity

Govts & agencies who’ve spied on journalists must provide answers on this misuse of NSO technology #Pegasus #PegasusSnoopgate @amnesty @globalfreemedia @pressfreedom forbiddenstories.org/pegasus-the-ne…
2/. Journalists, MPs & human rights activists were selected as targets for surveillance by authoritarian regimes

#Pegasus is the spyware developed, marketed & licensed to govts around the world by the Israeli company NSO Group.
@citizenlab #PegasusProject
3/. In the months before he died & a year after his murder, people associated with Jamal Khashoggi, were selected for potential surveillance by clients of NSO

Hungary’s far-right govt is suspected of hacking phones of journalists & targeting owners
Read 74 tweets
1/. Starting today, the most important courtroom drama the UK has ever seen

The PM challenged on grounds of national security following the findings of the #RussiaReport by
@BenPBradshaw @RhonddaBryant @CarolineLucas @LordStras @AlynSmith & @PJWheatcroft
2/. Last July - after much delay - the #RussiaReport was finally published

It’s findings were truly terrifying

It revealed the govt & intelligence agencies had actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered in the Brexit vote

Self-sabotage
3/. The implications of the #RussiaReport fed into my ongoing investigation into what appears to be a global #DataGrab for population-wide genomic data

I’d already traced the plan back to 2015

Russian interference in the 2016 #Trump election & #Brexit vote made perfect sense!
Read 12 tweets
If @NHSEngland claimed that, NHS England LIED. (Not for the first time...)

The original @PalantirTech contract is here:

cdn-prod.opendemocracy.net/media/document…

And the story behind how it was awarded is here:

thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-0…

#WatermelonCocktails
If @NHSEngland & @NHSX want to talk about #transparency and proper #process, then why haven't they published the data release register for the #COVIDDataStore from which @PalantirTech and others are fed?

We've been asking for it since March 2020; we reiterated & escalated our...
..request in writing in June 2020; colleagues at @useMYdata made an identical request in October 2020:

usemydata.org/resources/use%…

and @NHSEngland's Chief Data & Analytics Officer told #CitizensJuries in March, April and May 2021 that she could share the #COVIDDataStore...
Read 6 tweets
1/. It isn’t remotely credible that #Hancock had no idea of the links btw #Palantir & #FacultyAI - who run the NHS #COVID data store - & #CambridgeAnalytica

And yet, had due diligence been done, Palantir wouldn’t have been embedded at the heart of the NHS
2/. It also isn’t remotely credible (or intelligible) that #Cummings had no knowledge of what #Palantir are doing in the NHS “other than on ICU bed capacity”

It also isn’t credible when he claims he thinks #FacultyAI “do not have personalised data at all”
3/. Two questions by about #Palantir & #FacultyAI

Two garbled, nonsensical answers from @MattHancock & @Dominic2306

It’s a shame it’s taken 16 months before these question have finally been asked

It’s a shame the media still ignore it

But as this👇shows, Palantir are central.
Read 8 tweets
Tweet from 8 months ago👇on how the govt was sharing our private NHS health data for “life science research” (genomics) with private companies

Now, NHS Digital is “refusing to rule out #Palantir being involved in the datastore from the GP data grab"

I call it the #PalantirPlan. Image
2/. The NHS is the most trusted brand in UK

#CambridgeAnalytica is the least trusted

Yet #Palantir - who rptdly taught Cambridge Analytica how to scrape data - run the NHS #COVID data store along with #FacultyAI, a company that worked for LeaveEU/Cummings & also has links to CA
3/. A year ago, Blair’s ex-Chief of staff – someone who knows about political skulduggery – wrote:

“This looks like the beginning of a rolling coup. It starts with the civil service then moves on to the judiciary & the media”

A coup for health data?

A coup for genomic data?
Read 5 tweets
NEW: Today #Cummings called secrecy of SAGE ‘a catastrophic mistake’. We know.

It’s why we’ve supported @IndependentSage from the start. And why at 8pm tonight, we launch our @YouTube documentary: the inside story.

(Warning: includes more #Cummings)
Only on May 4, day @IndependentSage launched that govt released SAGE names.

The story of how #Cummings spurred them to action is told for first time. Featuring: @Sir_David_King @globalhlthtwit @SusanMichie @Zubhaque @chrischirp @CarolineLucas & @krishgm
We refuse to let govt off the hook. We refuse to let #Cummings off the hook. It’s why we’ve launched new project #KeepingTheReceipts. Join us at 8.15 for a Twitter Space hosted by @drmeenalviz for a #Cummings deep dive with @GabrielScally @dgurdasani1 @JujuliaGrace & @peterjukes Image
Read 6 tweets
1/. All the claims about our preparations & how everything was in order were basically completely hollow, but we didn’t figure this out until the back end of February”

#Cummings claims he was lied to by Hancock & others about the preparedness for COVID

These were not “mistakes”
2/. “Lots of COBRA meetings are just a bunch of PowerPoints & not very useful”

#Cummings explains why he didn’t bother to attend any of the 5 Crucial COBRA meetings in Feb 2020 & didn’t advise @BorisJohnson to attend either

He sent ‘his friend’ 33-year-old Ben Warner, instead.
3/. #Cummings has referred to Ben Warner a dozen times

Ben isn’t an epidemiologist, virologist or public health expert

His 2014 thesis was “Engineering the properties of magnetic molecules through the interaction with the surface

#Cummings has now mentioned his brother, Marc👇
Read 13 tweets
Today #DominicCummings will give evidence to parliament. This is what you don’t know. The revelation that he was sitting on SAGE had many consequences. This was one of them
#FollowingWhatScience?
Thank you to @CarolineLucas @krishgm @globalhlthtwit @SusanMichie @Zubhaque & the rest of @IndependentSage.

The full film by @sheridanflynn will launch later today
5 MINS TO GO! Stay with us as we live-tweet on #DominicCummings hearing.

Read 72 tweets
It's a while since I've done one of these threads, so bear with me.
In advance of tomorrow's #DominicCummings extravaganza, I offer you this...

#Cummings #Boris #HerdImmunity
Alas, poor Boris! I knew him Goveio: a fellow of unfunny jest, of most racist fancys: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it.
Here hung those wibbly lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.
Where be your bigoted gibes now? Your many mistresses? Your gaffes? Your flashes of homophobia, that were wont to set the Tories on a roar?
Not on now, to mock your own downfall? Quite chap-fallen.
Read 4 tweets
1/. In 2009, I there was a commotion in the small Tuareg compound where I was staying near Aueglhok, northern Mali

3 boys had chased a deadly snake into a nearby rocky outcrop

Men gathered with sticks & takobas (swords) pushing dry grass into holes & crevices around the outcrop ImageImageImageImage
2/. The men positioned themselves around the outcrop, waiting by each hole with their weapons raised

They then lit the grass

Snakes are v sensitive to smoke & before long the horned viper emerged from rocks to be swiftly battered to death

And I learned how to smoke out a snake ImageImageImageImage
3/. I've been smoking out snakes ever since

Like everything in life, the answers we seek are usually in front of our noses all along

But sometimes - if something is being concealed - you have to smoke it out

Which brings me on to #DominicCummings!
#Cummings #CummingsTestimony Image
Read 8 tweets
With #Cummings’ admission of what has been obvious from the start & is what me & a handful of journalists have been saying all along, it’s surely time for @peston to come clean & tell the nation who in No.10 briefed him on 12/3/20 that #HerdImmunity was the UK’s #COVID19 strategy
2/. But #Cummings’ thread raises more questions than it answers

We KNEW #HerdImmunity was the strategy & the govt didn’t “pivot away” from it

In Feb, @Dominic2306 rprtdly said the strategy was “herd immunity to protect the economy & if that means some pensioners die, too bad."
3/. Every epidemiologist or virologist will tell you #HerdImmunity is an “outcome” never a “strategy”

Without a vaccine it would involve “sacrificing the vulnerable on the altar of the economy in truly vast numbers”

It was clear this “strategy” would ALSO devastate the economy.
Read 13 tweets
“I think what the public wants, is for us to move on from this #BarnardCastle thing” said @BorisJohnson & his entire cabinet

What the public wanted was transparency & accountability

@maitlis deleted this tweet about @adamboultonSKY’s story

The media were largely silenced
By asking why #Cummings hadn’t been sacked by the PM, @maitlis was doing her job

Political journalists NOT asking this question were failing to do theirs

Cummings’ trip to Durham proved to be one of the 2 clear drop points in adherence to lockdown rules.
“Some journalists are sitting on explosive information that should come out in real time.” @joncoopertweets

Shrinking space for journalism is something we witnessed in the UK during the Iraq War

Is it happening again now?

Would journalists be able to comment if it were?
Read 4 tweets
1/. Let’s not forget, that #DominicCummings - who employed ‘eugenicist’, Andrew Sabisky - was central to the #HerdImmnityScandal which is central to the #PalantirPlan

It puts genomics at the heart of the programme for govt, using the UK as the petri-dish for a ‘brave new world’.
2/. “I feel we’re all paying the price for a girl laughing at his poem in 6th form” @MarinaHyde on Cummings

#DominicCummings imagined the mood of these photos was very James Dean. Instead they reveal his narcissism & complete tone-deafness
#CummingsGate
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
3/. Here’s a good #HerdImmunityScandal intro

It’s long, but gripping & it has #Cummings’ grubby fingerprints all over it

#HerdImmunity is an outcome not a strategy. Every scientist will tell you that

This thread starts to unpick WHY the govt knowingly went against the science.
Read 7 tweets
In this chilling 2013 interview, @BorisJohnson admits he’s not really bumbling

“I’m hard as nails” he says

He also tells us “a terrible truth about politics & human nature”

That you can “make a good case for any course of action.” #HerdImmunity #COVID19
When the subject moves to ethics, @BorisJohnson becomes more guarded

Asked whether he believes one "can derive the ethics from the science" he avoids answering

Perhaps he’s aware that discussions of genomics can easily slip into the subject of eugenics.
I know!

Most of us switch-off at the mention of “genomics”, but it is crucial to understanding how the world is transforming & how “super forecasters” see the need for society to transform too

This thread👇offers a potted summary of just some of what is going on. #GenomeUK
Read 13 tweets
It is vital for @Peston to reveal who was his senior Downing St source that told him UK strategy was “allowing #COVID19 to spread through the population”

These were the identical words @BorisJohnson used in his #TakeItOnTheChin interview

It is in the public interest we know.
Every virologist will tell you that herd immunity without a vaccine is - by definition - not a preventative measure

The govt knew this

The No.10 press office has never attempted to correct @Peston’s story & yet govt ministers claim that #HerdImmunity was never their “strategy”!
Contrast No.10’s reaction to the @Peston story with their reaction to the @thetimes story that #Cummings had said the govt strategy was #HerdImmunity “& if that means some pensioners die, too bad”

They claimed it was “a defamatory fabrication”

No action for defamation was taken
Read 9 tweets
A year ago on 13/3/20, @Telegraph ran this headline:

"Anyone questioning the govt's #COVID strategy is not only wrong, they're a danger to us all"

The heat was being turned up on those journalists trying to do their jobs

But was @maitlis’ Cummings monologue the turning point? Image
“He made those who struggled to keep to the rules feel like fools & has allowed many more to assume they can now flout them. The PM knows all this but chosen to ignore it.” @maitlis
on Cummings

The PM was also choosing to ignore ‘the science”. #COVID19
Everything that @maitlis said in this monologue Is accurate

The next day, the BBC issued an apology

"It says a lot about the political culture in the UK that the only person who has faced any consequences for Cummings' action is a journalist who pointed them out." @AdamBienkov Image
Read 5 tweets
1/. On 5 March 2020, the PM was asked why Britain hadn't locked down

He replied saying "one the theories is that we could #TakeItOnTheChin"

A year ago today - briefed by No.10 - @Peston revealed the govt strategy was to “allow the virus to pass through the entire population”. ImageImage
2/. It was clear that @Peston & his “senior No.10 source” had not understood #HerdImmunity which - as every virologist will tell you - is an OUTCOME never a STRATEGY

Allowing #COVID19 to spread
without a vaccine would be madness & result in mass deaths.
3/. Rather than correct @Peston & his “senior No.10 source” @uksciencechief came out publicly to defend “the strategy”

#HerdImmunity without a vaccine is, by definition, not a preventative measure

What was going on?!!

The was no lockdown & the #CheltenhamFestival was starting! Image
Read 24 tweets
1/. The many emotions of Matt Hancock

REMORSE: @MattHancock realises that the deliberately late lockdown increased the #COVID death toll by at least 20,000 & that the govt’s policy of transferring people from hospitals to care homes without testing also killed tens of thousands
2/. GUILT

Hancock is asked about failures with the contact tracing app, with testing, with providing PPE to frontline NHS staff, with doing checks in airports, with late introduction of masks & why he says he “didn’t know about asymptomatic transmission”!
3/. DISTRESS

@MattHancock is asked why billions of £ of #COVID19 contracts were fast-tracked to unqualified companies (including his neighbour’s) & why companies with links to #CambridgeAnalytica -
#Palantir & #FacultyAI - are running the NHS data store.
Read 6 tweets

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