Tweet

@Baddiel

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @simonmaginn

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

9 Feb

Baddiel's latest intervention in the Labour antisemitism campaign is intriguing. Baddiel claims 'someone on the NEC' told him something - 'and this is probably true…’ - and then the smear.

I think it’s possible this marks a new phase of the smearing war. Previously the smears have been predicated on at least *some* evidence, no matter how flimsy or distorted or exaggerated. There was something concrete to point to - a mural, a wreath, whatever else.

But here, we just have ‘someone said something which is probably true.’ That’s the entire evidentiary warrant for this story - that someone Baddiel doesn’t name told him something, and Baddiel thought it was probably true.

Read 8 tweets

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

7 Feb

A long coup was carried out in the UK between 2016 and 2019, the protracted assassination of Corbyn and the left. It was achieved by a section of the Labour party and the media, with BBC/Guardian leading the charge, and with near-unanimous compliance from broadcasters and press.

The coup was successful, and the staus quo ante restored. We now have a compliant and neutered opposition, and a Tory government which is steadily deforming the state in its own image.

The media who carried it out continue as if nothing happened. They carry on in their career trajectories, they are rewarded, they are championed. No adverse consequences attach to them. It’s as if nothing happened.

Read 8 tweets

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

5 Feb

I can recall when I first heard the words ‘second Holocaust’ in relation to Corbyn’s Labour party. It was a BBC report (of course), a vox pop.

I initially (naively) thought it would immediately be condemned as an outrageously extreme statement. But no, it was incorporated into the discourse without a pause. It was now legitimate to debate whether a Corbyn-led government would occasion a second Holocaust or not.

Emotional manipulation in politics is of course nothing new, it’s very much the stock-in-trade. People are motivated by *feelings* not *facts*, goes the received wisdom, illustrated by Bush V Gore, in which Gore had all the facts and Bush had all the feels, and Bush won. (Kinda.)

Read 11 tweets

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

4 Feb

The most disturbing element of the #GreatSmearingWar, for me, is how easily people were duped by it. People who are, presumably, of good sense and sound judgement in their ordinary lives became wide-eyed, credulous cattle, ready - eager, even - to swallow every scam and fraud.

Just swallow it all down, seemingly without the slightest hesitation. Many touting this conspiracy theory were, of course, merely cynical political operatives, political assassins doing their jobs. But those who believed them should not have believed them, and they did.

A culture in which an obvious scam like this can succeed so effortlessly is a culture in trouble. If large numbers of people can be persuaded so easily of something so obviously false - the exact opposite of the truth, in fact - then they can be depended upon to believe anything.

Read 8 tweets

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

30 Jan

It’s not clear to me how we proceed now. The antisemitism smearing war has accomplished its aim and only limps on under Starmer’s woeful captaincy, lumbering on more from inertia and paralysis than anything else.

The heady days of Rachel Riley and Margaret Hodge’s suitcase in the hall, and Jon Snow screaming ‘Do you apologise?’ at Jeremy Corbyn seem a long way off, as media attention turns elsewhere and it becomes yesterday’s news.

I’ve lost count of how many Jewish Chronicle stories have been found to be frauds, libels. There’ll be a ‘correction’ and an ‘apology’, which no-one will ever see, and there’ll no doubt be many more as time goes on. It won’t make any difference.

Read 13 tweets

simon maginn

@simonmaginn

25 Jan

This might be a tad on the long side, for which apologies.

The Great Smearing War of 2015 - present is one of the most successful political campaigns of recent times.

Built out of almost nothing, it grew into a vast conspiracy against the truth, in which there was a race to the bottom as to who could make the most outrageous accusation.

This race was won, handily I’d say, by the Telegraph’s Simon Heffer, who infamously commented on an LBC show that Corbyn ‘wants to open the gates of Auschwitz’.

Read 24 tweets

Share this page!

simon maginn

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @simonmaginn

simon maginn

simon maginn

simon maginn

simon maginn

simon maginn

simon maginn

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Like this author's thread?