Despite today's ridiculous rhetoric & preposterous punditry, know that fewer than 3 in 10 of the UK *electorate* voted for the #sociopathic Tories in 2019, & just 22% voted Tory in the #HartlepoolByElection.
But 'what's the difference between a sociopath & a psychopath' you say?
Why would I say Tories are 'sociopathic'?
Psychopaths & sociopaths share a similar set of traits: they both have a poor inner sense of right & wrong, & they both lack empathy - they can’t seem to understand or share another person’s feelings. But there are some differences, too.
One difference between psychopaths & sociopaths is psychopaths don’t have a conscience. If they lie to you in order to steal your money, they won’t feel any moral qualms, though they may pretend to. They may observe others & then act in a way that ensures they're not “found out".
A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it’s weak.
They may know that taking your money, or that relentlessly lying to you for their own advantage is wrong, & they might even occasionally feel some guilt or remorse, but that certainly won’t stop their behaviour.
If you recognise some of these traits in politicians, you might think we're being governed by psychopaths or sociopaths. But just because they're mean, selfish, immoral, vacuous uncaring bullying liars who treat you with contempt, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a disorder.
It’s not easy to spot a psychopath. They can be intelligent, charming, & good at mimicking emotions.
They may pretend to be interested in you, but in reality, they probably don’t care.
“They’re skilled actors whose sole mission is to manipulate people for personal gain".
Sociopaths are less able to play along. They make it plain that they’re not interested in anyone but themselves.
They often blame others & have excuses for their behavior.
Some experts see sociopaths as “hot-headed.” They act without thinking how others will be affected.
Psychopaths are more “cold-hearted” & calculating: they plot their moves, using aggression in a planned way to get what they want. If they want more money or status, they make a plan to take out any barriers that stand in the way, even if it’s another person’s job or reputation.
Recent research suggests a psychopath’s brain is not like other people’s.
It may have physical differences that make it hard for the person to identify with someone else’s distress.
The differences can even change basic body functions.
When most people see violence in a movie, their hearts beat faster, breathing quickens, & palms get sweaty, whereas a psychopath gets calmer, which may help them be fearless & engage in risky behavior, because “They don’t fear the consequences of their actions".
So when I suggest that many senior Tories may well be sociopaths, I'm actually being quite polite.👍
Here's some evidence & information about our charming, charismatic & ruthless PM, which might help you better understand who the real Boris Johnson is:
Life was demonstrably worse in the 1979 than it is today.
Zymunt Bauman calls this yearning for an imagined past, ‘retrotopia’, in which the ‘Volk’ (the ‘simple folk’, who Reform UK claim to represent) are constructed as homogenous, Christian, white, & ‘indigenous’.
Life was demonstrably inferior in the 1970s compared to today for almost everyone in England.
Life expectancy in the UK in 1980 was 71 for men and 77 for women. By 2019, life expectancy at birth in England had increased to 79 years for men & 83.5 for women.
1. Economic Hardship
In 1979, the UK economy was struggling with high inflation, unemployment, and a budget deficit. This eroded purchasing power, making essentials like food, clothing, and housing more expensive relative to wages. "Stagflation" was a significant problem.
'Anti-elite man of the people' Nigel Farage, educated at one of the most expensive private schools on earth, is now the highest paid MP in the UK. His basic annual MP salary is £91,346 plus expenses.
The UK National Living Wage for people aged 21+ is just £12.21/hour.
Let's take a look at some of Nigel Farage's additional earnings that he's legally obliged to declare in the MPs Register of interests - and which contains a few surprises - starting with GB "News".
Between 16th July 2024 and 15th January 2025, Farage decalred earnings of £264,790 for his work as a presenter on Reform UK Ltd's 24/7 propaganda channel, GB "News", co-owned by Islamophobic billionaire hedge-funder, Paul Marshall.
The front-page article, published in the Daily Telegraph, claiming “London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population” was covered across the media and widely discussed by politicians and others.
The claim that “One in 12 in London is illegal immigrant” is based on this report, commissioned by Thames Water, conducted by the research company Edge Analytics in February 2023, which the Telegraph says it obtained “under freedom of information-style laws for the environment”.
The EDL is an Islamophobic protest movement aimed at preserving UK identity and culture in the face of a perceived Islamization of the UK and Europe.
So is Reform UK.
The EDL reinforce the notion of the “nationalist subject” - a fallacious conception of citizenship - that wrongly assumes members of the majoritarian culture are possessed of certain core values, beliefs, and traits that embody the true essence of the nation.
🧵 Quite a few politically & historically illiterate brainwashed Trump-supporters replied or quote-tweeted the tweet below to tell me lifelong democratic socialist George Orwell was not in fact a democratic socialist. Truly Orwellian. So I asked Oligarch Musk's Grok about it...
In the preface to her newly reissued book, 'Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan - 30th Anniversary Edition', historian @NancyMacLean5 reflects on the resurgence of white power nationalism and political violence in contemporary America.
MaClean is known for her prescient best-selling 2017 book about the post–WWII conservative thinkers and policymakers who shaped the hyper-neoliberal #Project2025, 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America',
Evidence of why her prize-winning book has aged well and why @OxUniPress decided to republish it is obvious: numerous instructors continue to assign it, countless historians cite it, and the best Klan scholars have given it well-deserved praise.