One of the worst examples of wishful thinking masquerading as news I've seen was the right wing claim that the 'Swedish model' could deal with virus. There was no need for lockdowns, no need to take extreme action to protect the vulnerable, all we had to do was follow the Swedes.
Today the Swedish king said: ""I think we have failed. We have a large number who have died and that is terrible. The people of Sweden have suffered tremendously." bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, prediction that letting the viurs move through the population would create herd immunity has proved to be the height of folly washingtonpost.com/world/2020/11/…
As for business, “Not only did these lack of measures likely result in mor deaths, it didn’t even help the economy: Sweden has fared worse economically than other Nordic countries.The Swedish way has yielded little but death and misery.”
Swedish fandom among British Tories undoutedly caused deaths in the UK. As was reported in September, "Johnson was advised by Anders Tegnell, the man behind Sweden's decision not to impose a full lockdown, before rejecting tougher restrictions" businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…
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1 Conclusive reply from @anneapplebaum to the “involuntary conservatives”, who say that, although they deplore Trump, they will vote for him because they fear the intolerance of the left more theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
2 “A nasty leftist made me do it” excuse doesn’t wash and not just because it’s infantilising. Trump’s racism and misogyny drive voters towards authoritarian left politics. A Trump victory, almost certainly won with electoral fraud, will only persuade others to follow them
3. If supposedly civilised conservatives are sincerely worried about left authoritarianism, rather than being secret admirers of racial exclusion and plutocratic economics, they would vote for Biden and stop their country being dragged into an extremist spiral.
1. Here's how fear spreads in British culture. The distinguished novelist Amanda Craig signs the letter condemning the “insidious, misogynistic and authoritarian” #RIPJKRowling campaign along with McEwan, Stoppard and dozens of others, me included. thetimes.co.uk/article/litera…
2. Retribution is instant. Mslexia magazine, which says it champions women's writing, tells her she is dropped as a judge on one of its competitions.
3.What is so sinister about the censorship in publishing is that the latest round of Rowling hate was started by the transparently false allegation that the message of her latest novel Troubled Blood was "never trust a man in a dress".
Sceptical take on Extinction Rebellion's politics and economics. They believe that if they can recruit 2.2 million protestors, or 3.5% of the British population, the implementation of their goals will be irresistible. uncancelled.co.uk/tie-world/the-…
The confidence comes from Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan’s study of non-violent movements. But Almost all cases examined in the study see a frustrated population toppling a tyrannical regime and implementing either a freer or more democratic political system.
Not one of the mass movements considered by the study, involved the defeat of a liberal Western democracy, and almost none were successful against democratic governments.
Here's Munira Mirza, director of Number 10’s policy unit, challenging a Black youth on whether the use of the “N word” is any different from calling someone “fat”, and asking whether he is playing the victim. hackneygazette.co.uk/news/racial-eq…
I wrote about Mirza's Spiked/Revoultionary Communist Party cult last week and how it has infiltrated multiple institutions theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Johnson has put he in charge of the government’s commission on racial inequality. At the time of the recording, 2011, she said that a university professor who claimed Black people have lower IQs than White people should not have been sacked.
This tweet from the Westmonster site shows how far right fake news industry works. It gives an authoritative source it knows few of its readers will have the good sense to check, and announces, “trust in BBC from some has collapsed 20 points since 2018”
The drivel is then retweeted and liked thousands of times. The indoctrinated say it is because the BBC is left wing and anti Brexit, as you would expect.
But what the hell does “trust in BBC from some” mean? Are these people illiterate or mendacious?
Possibly both. Go to the Reuters journalism report, Westmonster apparently quotes, and it says 64 per cent trust BBC News. It is the UK’s most trusted news source. By contrast, a tiny 16 per cent trust the Sun. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/…