Ian Dunt Profile picture
13 Feb, 5 tweets, 1 min read
God what a lot of impenetrable gibberish. Hard to discern what, if anything, the new powers will entail, but I guess we'll find out next week when we get the ministerial statement rather than the govt-approved Telegraph spin.
I mean, how exactly would this work? The government going to each student union and forcing them to invite someone from their approved list of commentators? They're off their dimwit tits.
Not so long ago the government had a blacklist of media outlets it wouldn't talk to because they had the temerity to scrutinise the prime minister. Now they set themselves up as the supposed defenders of free speech.
None of this is genuine. It's just their idiot culture war. But even if it was genuine, the fight for free speech is not settled by governments dictating what people debate. It's done through people and organisations themselves.
And I can't even begin to express how much harder it is to win that fight when the Conservatives weaponise free speech as part of their 'war on woke'.

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More from @IanDunt

13 Feb
This can fuck right off. And then when it's done fucking off, it should take itself into a dark alley and fuck off some more, before reaching its final resting place, where it can fuck off a little further for good measure. bbc.com/news/entertain…
I am so tired of being told to heal over Brexit by people who treated even the most miniscule of concessions as a kind of treachery.
Remainers were offered nothing, literally nothing, in policy terms. Even aligning with European chemicals or aviation regulators was considered too much. The absurdity of it.
Read 4 tweets
6 Feb
People have spent the week getting very cross about flags, but really we should spend more time slagging off national anthems. They are all so dreadful.
And yes this was triggered by the singing before the rugby thing.
Every time I hear the national anthem I feel slightly less patriotic.
Read 7 tweets
3 Feb
Bit of covid advice. If you think you might have covid, or have tested positive, the first thing to get is an oximeter. They're about £20 and easily available online.
They measure oxygen in your blood. If it's above 95%, you're good. If a bit below, you should call 111 or your GP. If significantly below, you should go to hospital.
It's a good fail-safe. But it also offers an objective assessment of your condition during a period in which you're liable to freak yourself out on the basis of your subjective assessments. They're tremendously reassuring.
Read 7 tweets
3 Feb
You can't defeat nationalism *without* patriotism. People have a need to belong. Either the left and liberals have something to say about that, or they leave it to more sinister political forces.
Orwell wrote about this convincingly during the war. For some inexplicable reason people fail to grasp it. Now we're having to learn it all over again.
Many replies to this stress that you can't oppose Tories by doing the same thing as them. The entire point is that you express belonging without doing the same thing as them.
Read 4 tweets
2 Feb
Aghast at the comments from Ursula von der Leyen here, or those from Clément Beaune and Emmanuel Macron in France. They're coming close to actively encouraging vaccine hesitancy. theguardian.com/world/2021/feb…
The suspicions they're voicing are nearly identical to the most common forms of vaccine hesitancy - specifically nervousness over the speed and reliability of authorisation. Whatever the political reasons behind it, it's intolerable.
It's particularly disgraceful from Macron, given France has a major problem with hesitancy. One poll suggested under 50% of people were planning on getting the vaccine.
Read 6 tweets
29 Jan
Right yeah, so the missus and I totally got coronavirus. We tested positive last week and basically lost the last 10 days. We seem to be slowly recovering now and are hoping to be sort of OK to do most things by next week.
We had it mild, but I can tell you right now: This thing is no fucking fun at all, and even the mild version will sit you on your arse.
Anyway, crucial point: We were basically saints. We've been proper little goodie-two-shoes about the rules. We still got it. There's a lot of this thing about - be safe.
Read 4 tweets

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