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Sunny Hundal Profile picture
@sunny_hundal
Sep 28, 2020 • 12 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
A thread on Andrew Neil and why I won't be celebrating his new broadcasting venture.

🧵
In 2014, Andrew Neil saw a news story on winter coming early to Tennessee and retweeted it with a sarcastic, “Damn you, global warming!!!!”

Scientists might say climate change creates the extreme temperature swings he was railing against but it would be a waste of time.
Andrew Neil has poured scorn on the idea of climate change for at least a decade.

The Spectator, a magazine he publishes, has toed that line too.

He used his platform at the BBC to push this nonsense too. He is a part of the reason BBC needed to have ‘balance’ on this debate.
I say all this because I think Andrew Neil is one of Britain’s foremost culture warriors.

Most of our media don’t recognise it because culture-wars have never been a key part of our politics. Or perhaps they’ve known him a bit too closely. But that's about to change.
I think Andrew Neil wants to be Britain’s Roger Ailes. He wants to bring a version of Fox News to Britain.

A polarising, divisive TV channel that has long peddled in conspiracy theories and victimhood in the name of 'balance' isn't something I welcome.
You say Ofcom rules won't allow him. But Johnson is looking at Paul Dacre @ Ofcom.

Scenario:
1) Neil's channel attracts complaints & publicity
2) Dacre says Ofcom 'balance' requirement hinders broadcasting.
3) Kills rule
3) Neil / Dacre / BJ celebrate
I want to say this plainly: Pushing people into angry, polarised tribes is poison. It leads to endless arguments over nonsensical things.

Political and cultural polarisation destroys a country from within. This is the reason why the United States is such a mess.
There’s a lot of people - on left and right - who want to fight culture wars. Twitter is an e.g.

Every day we get bombarded with new:
- reasons to be angry
- opportunities to see opponents humiliated
- debates to argue about

In culture wars, the only winners are the grifters.
If you think we won’t fall for it you’re headed for disappointment.

In 2015 the EU was barely an issue outside Westminster. By 2019, tribal loyalty to Remain / Leave was stronger than to political parties. This new divide could be fanned for decades.
ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-identit…
Britain has the potential to be far more polarised than it is now.

It would make this country far angrier and far uglier. That’s not a country I want to see.

And that is why I won’t be praising Andrew Neil’s new venture.
Few responses:

I suspect actual TV viewers won't be high. But Fox News is watched by minuscule number of older Americans too.

But they have outsized impact on debates by polarising small, vital demographics on GOP side. Same will happen here.
Let's not forget that time in 2018 when he was praising the work of Viktor Orban's political allies

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More from @sunny_hundal

Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Dec 11, 2022
As soon as I got into Tiktok (about a year ago) I saw lots of videos by wannabe British finance and investing "influencers", who emphasised how easy it was to make a passive income through multiple buy-to-let houses.

And I think it says a lot about the world we live in...👇🏽
Firstly, if wannabe influencers on Tiktok are talking about it, it must already be popular.

That suggests a lot of Britons took advantage of zero interest rates to borrow money up to their eyeballs for buy-to-let properties.

This might explain our housing shortage problem
Secondly, it implies that low interest rates may exacerbate inequality in our society by making it easier for richer people to buy, and earn from, lots of assets.

Poorer people on the other hand may not take as much debt to acquire assets.
Read 7 tweets
Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Nov 1, 2022
A few thoughts on Suella Braverman's extreme and offensive language on asylum seekers crossing the Channel.

There's this idea that Rishi Sunak is using another brown woman to "whitewash racism".
THREAD
Some on the left believe that only white people can be racist. This neatly puts brown and black people on a pedestal, who can only be authentic and "right on" with left-wing politics.

I'm just glad we have Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak to prove you wrong.
Of course, brown and black people can have abhorrent politics. They can be racist too!

As @soniasodha wrote: I am not sure it is any less bigoted to apply benevolent rather than malevolent stereotypes to Asian and black people.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 6 tweets
Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Oct 30, 2022
We all love to hate the Tories, but I think left/liberals in the West should look at the bigger picture.

Because there's a global culture war going on and we're on the losing side.

Written about it in the FT but here's an overview - THREAD
ft.com/content/1fcc69…
Lefties say Rishi Sunak is too rich to be representative and is bringing in policies to harm minorities. Partially agree.

But the fact he's been tasked to lead Britain shows we are increasingly comfortable with being a Multicultural Democracy. That matters a great deal /2
I define a "Multicultural Democracy" as one where different races, faiths and gender identities are embraced.

Ys, we argue over our differences, and there is a lot of bias/discrimination to be tackled, but our diversity is regarded as a strength.

ft.com/content/1fcc69…
Read 10 tweets
Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Oct 24, 2022
One common response to Rishi Sunak's coronation as PM is that he doesn't represent the "common man" or even British Indians.

This is true. But there is an important way in which he is one of us, the Tofu-eating Twitterati, and why the hard-right hate him.
When you hear phrases like "globalist" and "WEF elite" etc, mostly from the radical- & far-right, the implication is that Rishi Sunak is a metropolitan social liberal.

Not the criticism Suella Braverman and Priti Patel usually get.

And Sunak *is* obviously a social liberal.
He voted for Brexit because (like BJ) he saw which way the wind was blowing. And he made absurd claims/promises during the leadership election because he was losing to Truss.

The right don't believe it either, hence the implication he's a snake.

So he has two choices IMO:
Read 6 tweets
Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Oct 24, 2022
As we are about to get our first non-white and Hindu PM, a few reminders:

1) Disparaging someone's racial or religious background, or claiming they're not "authentic" brown/Hindu is racist.

2) Point 1 applies regardless of your own background.

3) Hindu is not same as Hindutva
4) Calling someone a "brown sahib" or a "coconut" or anything along those lines is racist and derogatory. Why? You're implying they are controlled by white people.

5) Rishi Sunak doesn't represent you? That's fine too. He's not trying to
independent.co.uk/voices/conserv…
6) There is already a lot of racism being directed at Rishi Sunak from the far-right (see below). Please don't add to it.

If you're not celebrating Britain's first non-white or Hindu PM, that is your right. But others will and have that right too.

Read 5 tweets
Sunny Hundal Profile picture
Oct 23, 2022
Here's the case against Rishi Sunak as PM, from a liberal-left perspective.
Thread

1) He has absolutely no good ideas. His earlier leadership campaign was awful, with not one good idea.

2) he will claim a "mandate" from the markets (not so simple, pal) to pursue more austerity
3) He's a plutocrat, a rich kid with no sense of how the poor in Britain are suffering. He'll say Britain needs a large dose of cuts to balance the books because that's the kind of politics he's comfortable with.

4) He will always pander to the Tory right bc he's scared of them
(evidence for point 4 is his earlier leadership election)

5) Britain needs cheaper energy, cheaper housing, cheaper trade. He's pushing policies that will do the opposite.

6) In a desperate bid to maintain support he will lean into "culture wars"
Read 4 tweets

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