1 in 5 of the 2019 @Conservatives worked in lobbying or PR for corporate interests, & four of Britain’s largest lobbying firms now have at least one former employee in parliament.

Britain is a for-profit corporation, run on behalf powerful shareholders.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Lobbying is a problem for democracy as it often substitutes 'special' interests for the interests expressed by voters, exacerbated by a lack of transparency: knowledge of lobbyists' activities is not sufficiently available to allow scrutiny or informed democratic decision making.
The transition from welfarism & social democracy to neoliberalism has significantly heightened the problem of lobbying because it has triggered a massive increase in the practice.

The perception & the fact of undue corporate influence has thereby dramatically increased.
The neoliberalisation of the public sphere has progressed further in Britain than in any other European country, & consequently, the quality of our democratic process has been significantly undermined.

Britain is now run for the rich, by the rich.

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More from @docrussjackson

31 Mar
Boris Johnson's fake race commission report is a #whitewash & an insult to UK ethnic minorities.

Despite overwhelming evidence, it DENIES institutional racism, & borrowing from the the National Front, has the gall to focus on the "white working class".

theguardian.com/p/gqm3m/stw
From #Windrush & #Grenfell to the disproportionate amount of deaths in childbirth, from stop & search to #COVID-related deaths - evidence of institutional & structural racism is CRYSTAL CLEAR.

What a nasty, grotesque & disturbing insult to millions of decent British people. ImageImageImageImage
Foregrounding "white working class" educational attainment is pure gaslighting: in 2019 the least educational progress was made by Irish Traveller & Gypsy/Roma Heritage kids, technically "white working class" - but what a grotesque & contemptuous ideological distortion of truth. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
30 Mar
Jews escaping the Nazis were asylum seekers.

Instead of pandering to racists, bigots, & the far-right, the UK Govt should welcome asylum seekers with open arms - not whip up anger & hatred by demonizing them & those who help them.

#StandUpForAsylum

act.refugee-action.org.uk/page/74354/sub…
Sadly, rabid intolerance - among both press & government - has a strong British pedigree.

The Daily Mail has been an 'anti-alien' newspaper since the 1900s - great continuity - & the Daily Express on the run-up to the EU referendum was utterly grotesque.

theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/08…
These antiquated, inhumane, & revolting attitudes appearing in our press & amplified by the UK Govt - especially the cruel & shameless Home Secretary Priti Patel - permeate British society & keep rancid ideas alive which belong in the dustbin of history.

Read 4 tweets
29 Mar
A THREAD about neoliberalism & corporate propaganda.

For forty years, neoliberal economic & political policies have profoundly shaped our present by introducing a form of hyper-deregulated hyper-free-market capitalism, with four main attributes:
1 Shrinking the role of the state;

2 Centrality of the market to enable the buying & selling of goods & services & drive economic growth

3 Risk is a central organising concept;

4 Collective responsibility replaced with a competitive individualism driven by self-responsibility.
A corporation is basically a large company or group of companies authorised to act as a single entity & recognized as such in law: a legal entity distinct from its owners, which enjoys most of the rights & responsibilities that individuals possess.
Read 90 tweets
27 Mar
In the wake of the death of Ian Tomlinson at the London G20 protests in 2009, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary proposed a number of reforms aimed at making public order policing strategies more ‘human-rights compliant’.

#BristolProtests

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
One significant development was the introduction of 'Protest Liaison Officers' whose role is supposed to be to build links between police & protesters through the establishment of dialogue & relationships based on trust.

Obviously, given scenes in Bristol, this is not the case.
Scholars started to examine the complex interplay between these practices & the more overt forms of Police coercion & control experienced by protesters.

This research shows that official accounts contrast sharply with the experiences & material conditions faced by protesters.
Read 4 tweets
27 Mar
I wonder if Laurence Fox knows that in 2017 the US alt-right embraced #milk as a symbol of white supremacism, with infamous white supremacist Richard Spencer & far-right 'social media personality' Tim 'Baked Alaska' Treadstone both adding milk symbols to their Twitter profiles? ImageImageImage
Many dismiss bigoted rants on #MilkTwitter as nothing more than irony targeting the humourless PC brigade. But irony/ambiguity are used by alt-right trolls who seek to exploit Poe’s Law (it’s almost impossible to distinguish satire from sincerity online.)

inews.co.uk/news/world/whi…
Two of the most notorious far-right accounts in America - using the milk symbol - 'just for laughs'.

Why am I bothering with this? I think winking at the far-right to appear 'edgy' is irresponsible, & 'd prefer the UK not to simply replicate the USA over the last few years. ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
25 Mar
Academic hat on.

🇬🇧 #Flag THREAD 🇬🇧

We know #flags are powerful symbols of national identity, & we know they have different meanings, for different individuals, & in different countries, largely dependent upon history.

But generally, this a surprisingly under-researched area.
#Flags evoke a very wide range of emotions, including pride, patriotism, egalitarianism & unity. However, we also know they can evoke a sense of national superiority.

They've been widely used as #propaganda, both good & bad.

The Nazis focused on division & national superiority.
I just want to flag up (see what I did there?) some interesting research.

The first is from 2017: 'What Do National Flags Stand for? - An Exploration of Associations Across 11 Countries'

pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles…
Read 26 tweets

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