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@docrussjackson
Apr 26, 2021 • 18 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
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#THREAD about Boris Johnson, dead bodies, Brexit, & Andrew Neil's TV Channel & power.

The news is full of claims that last year, Boris Johnson said “No more fucking lockdowns: let the bodies pile high in their thousands”, which our sociopathic Govt dismissed as "comedy gossip".
Boris Johnson, 2017: "I look at Libya... There's a group of UK business people... want to invest in Sirte on the coast... They have got a brilliant vision to turn Sirte into the next Dubai. The only thing they have got to do is clear the dead bodies away!"
The speech was given to the #Legatum Institute (originally registered in Cayman Islands) a well-funded free-market think-tank specializing in disaster #capitalism, which in 2016, jointly sponsored a report called 'The Road to Brexit'. The foreword was penned by Iain Duncan Smith.
The Legatum Institute was founded in 2007 by the Legatum Foundation (a "philanthropic" arm of the Dubai-based investment firm the Legatum Group), & was given charitable status in 2015. Philippa (Baroness) Stroud was appointed CEO of the Institute in 2016, & it is based in London.
The Legatum Foundation was registered as a company limited by guarantee in 2010. According to the 2015 accounts, the bulk of its income used to come from the Legatum Foundation Limited, a company registered in Bermuda. It's complicated! See @bakerstherald

bakerstreetherald.com
In 2017, the Legatum Institute stupidly proposed using unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the Irish border issue post-Brexit.

Other potential measures including creating a special economic zone (aka 'free ports')- see @bakerstherald for details.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northe…
Shanker Singham left the Institute in March 2018, to take his team to another questionable free-market think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, & Tufton St favourite Matthew Elliott (co-founded the TaxPayers' Alliance/director of Vote Leave) left in May 2018.
Legatum Limited (aka Legatum), is headquartered in Dubai, & uses its own funds to invest globally.

It was set up in 2006 by the multi-billionaire Christopher Chandler.

Philippa Claire Stroud, Baroness Stroud, is the current chief executive officer of the Legatum Institute.
Philippa Stroud was a Special Adviser to Iain Duncan Smith (while Secretary of State for Work & Pensions) from 2010-15, & is also a co-founder & former executive director of yet another questionable free-market think tank, the ironically named 'Centre for Social Justice'.
One more figure: Lord (James) O'Shaughnessy, senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, & formerly Deputy Director of ANOTHER free market think tank, 'Policy Exchange'.

He was Cameron's Director of Policy (2010/11) & was Conservative Party Director of Policy & Research (2007-10).
Legatum's founder, Chandler, made his fortune through Sovereign Global Investment, investing in emerging markets, & Legatum invested heavily in developing countries: their speciality was moving into markets at times of crisis 'where assets are mispriced':
ft.com/content/fac8b5…
Legatum look for opportunities arising from deregulation & further privatisation – especially in the #NHS (it already has considerable healthcare interests).

It openly states that it "finds value where disruptive transitions create unique opportunities".

opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…
At the top of the thread I mentioned Andrew Neil's new controversial 'Fox News-style' & explicitly "anti-woke" TV channel - I don't mention it by name because it amplifies their brand, but some people call it #GBeebies. 😉

What's this got to do with #Legatum?

*Everything*.
#GBeebies' £60 MILLION funders include hedge-fund manager Sir Paul Marshall, & of course investment group Legatum, who are said to have put up to £20 million into the new station.

Btw, in 2016, Marshall donated to Michael Gove's leadership campaign.

bylinetimes.com/2021/02/15/gb-…
To be clear: a powerful network of Libertarian billionaires, through offshore investment funds, media ownership, think tanks & funding Political Parties, seek to maximise their wealth & power by dividing voters on issues as diverse as Brexit, climate change, trans rights & COVID.
The facts are largely hidden from good people on Left AND Right, who are played like fiddles: the culture war/anti-woke agenda is MAINLY a vehicle for introducing yet more damaging deregulated free market #capitalism, which is destroying democracies, societies, & the environment.
So when Boris Johnson says “No more fucking lockdowns: let the bodies pile high in their thousands”, or jokes about having to "clear the dead bodies away" to make way for 'business opportunities', please keep in mind Britain's largely avoidable #COVID & #austerity-related deaths.
This has been going on for forty years, & sadly, they're getting better at it.

Many disruptions we're seeing across the world are basically the fault lines created by a handful of sociopathic billionaires, driven by a mix of libertarian ideology & greed.

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More from @docrussjackson

GET A GRIP Profile picture
Sep 15
🧵

Tommy Robinson claimed his protest drew “three million patriots”. The Met Police reported 110,000.

Prof Milad Haghani, an actual world-leading expert on estimating crowd sizes, estimates “about 56,000... However I run the numbers, it’s very difficult to make it to 100,000.” Image
Unlike shameless liar and multiply-convicted violent far-right coke-snorting thug Tommeh, Prof Haghani is a world-leading expert on estimating crowd sizes. He leads geospatial transport planning initiatives, and is an expert in crowd dynamics.

Tommeh is a world-leading grifter. Image
Compulsive shameless liar Tommy Robinson made the laughable claim that his 'Unite (Divide) The Kingdom' rally was “officially the biggest protest in British history.” 🤥

In reality, as only about 56,000 people attended, it struggled to scrape the top TWENTY. 😂 Image
Read 7 tweets
GET A GRIP Profile picture
Sep 13
🧵

OK, I'll bite.

The word Fascism isn't 'meaningless'.

To spell out why, we need to unpack both the underlying implication of Andrew Doyle's argument and the reasons why it fails to adequately account for contemporary political dangers. Image
Andrew Doyle asserts that the term "fascism" is misused to the point of recklessness, echoing George Orwell’s 1944 observation that the word had been rendered meaningless. Doyle’s concern is not uncommon—but imho, it’s ultimately misplaced, especially in today’s context.
While it’s true that “fascism” is sometimes deployed rhetorically or hyperbolically (eg by Trump), Doyle’s framing dangerously downplays the genuine resurgence of fascist-adjacent movements across the Western world and undermines the analytical clarity necessary to confront them. Image
Read 23 tweets
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Sep 8
🧵

Boris Johnson appears to have had a secret meeting with billionaire Peter Thiel - perhaps the most fanatical of the libertarian Oligarchs and co-founder of the controversial US data firm Palantir, the year before it was given a role at the heart of the UK’s pandemic response. Image
A month after entering No 10, Johnson and his senior adviser Dominic Cummings had a meeting with Thiel, leaked files suggest.

Johnson is now likely to face questions about whether the non-disclosure amounts to a breach of the ministerial code.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/s…
The hour-long afternoon meeting on 28 August 2019 was marked “private” in a log of Johnson’s activities that day and was not subsequently disclosed on the government’s public log of meetings.

Read 12 tweets
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Aug 31
🧵

Elon Musk has been amplifying far-right accounts again, including Tommy Robinson, Rupert Lowe, and numerous anonynmous known #disinformation superspreader accounts like 'End Wokeness'.

Let's examine the context for yesterday's march in Richard Tice's constituency, #Skegness. Image
After decades of neglect, Skegness (pop 20K), stands out on key socio-economic markers on national averages: residents are older; whiter; lower full-time employment; higher rates of few/no qualifications; and concentrated deprivation - it's far-more deprived than most of England. Image
History repeatedly teaches us that burdening already struggling communities is a recipe for disaster.

These communities have been crying out for help for DECADES, but successive UK Govts have largely ignored their pleas, and continued to increase inequality, which harms us all. Image
Read 60 tweets
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Aug 28
🧵 @Rylan Asylum seekers coming here aren’t technically "illegal." International law (the 1951 Refugee Convention) allows people to seek asylum in any country regardless of how they arrive or how many countries they pass through, as long as they're fleeing persecution or danger.
Allow me to explain why asylum seekers aren’t “illegal”, and how misinformation and nasty demonising and scapegoating rhetoric by certain politicians and media, including news media, has made some British people less welcoming of asylum seeekers.

@Rylan
People fleeing war, torture, or persecution have the legal right to seek asylum.

The 1951 Refugee Convention, which the UK helped write, says anyone escaping danger can apply for asylum in another country no matter how they arrive: claiming asylum isn't a crime.

@Rylan
Read 23 tweets
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Aug 27
Farage's illiberal, immoral, & unworkable authoritarian plan involves ripping up human rights laws forged after WWII, which protect British people, & wasting £billions of UK taxpayers' money, giving some of it to corrupt misogynistic totalitarian regimes.
theguardian.com/politics/2025/…Image
Image
Leaving the #ECHR, repealing the Human Rights Act and disapplying international conventions

The UK would be an outlier among European democracies, in the company of only Russia and Belarus, if it were to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Opting out of treaties such as the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, the UN Convention against torture and the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention would also be likely to do serious harm to the UK’s international reputation.

It could also undermine current return deals, including with France, and other cooperation agreements on people-smuggling with European nations such as Germany.

The Society of Labour Lawyers said the plan would “in all likelihood preclude further cooperation and law enforcement in dealing with small boats coming from the continent and so increase, rather than reduce, the numbers reaching our shores”. 

Farage said he would legislate to remove the “Hardial Singh” safeguards – a reference to a legal precedent that sets limits on the Home Office’s immigration detention powers – to allow indefinite detention for immigration purposes. This would be highly vulnerable to legal challenge.

Many of the rights protected by the ECHR and the Human Rights Act are rooted in British case law, so judges would still be able to prevent deportations, even without international conventions.

x.com/docrussjackson…
Reform UK’s grotesque far-right mass deportation plan is not just economically and socially illiterate (Britain an ageing population and low birth rate) rely on striking “returns agreements” with countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Sudan, offering financial incentives to secure these deals, alongside visa restrictions and potential sanctions on countries that refuse.

These are countries where the Home Office’s risk reports warn of widespread torture and persecution.

It would risk the scenario of making payments to countries such as Iran, whose regime the UK government has accused of plotting terror attacks on British soil.

The Liberal Democrats called the payments “a Taliban tax”, saying the plan would entail sending billions “to an oppressive regime that British soldiers fought and died to defeat”. They said: “Not a penny of taxpayers’ money should go to a group so closely linked to terrorist organisations proscribed by the UK.”
Read 13 tweets

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