The latest salvo in the "common sense" bullshit-get-out-clause, which the Tories always mobilise to avoid taking responsibility or being held accountable.
The last time Boris Johnson spouted this shit & it was splashed on the front pages was in may 2020, & that went REALLY well.
People who say "just use your common sense":
Julia Hartley-Brewer
Iain Duncan Smith
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Isabel Oakeshott
Allison Pearson
Boris Johnson
Michael Gove
Laurence Fox
Nigel Farage
Toby Young
Claire Fox
People who think that's dumb:
Albert Einstein
Antonio Gramsci
"Common sense" is a myth. The Tories' "common sense" call for #austerity has been revealed as a perverse & damaging ideological ploy.
We now know that cuts to public spending resulted in Britain being one of the most ill-prepared countries in the world to deal with #coronavirus.
The Tories' "Common Sense group" criticised the @nationaltrust for publishing a report into slavery links at some of its country houses, using the antisemitic far-right terrorism-inspiring conspiracy of 'cultural Marxism' to accuse the Trust of an "anti-British" "woke” agenda!
There is no consensus about what "common sense" is, or means.
Seemingly innocent appeals to common sense often mask controversial ideas or viewpoints.
Asking the public to use their common sense is a very irresponsible thing for any politician to do.
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”.
🧵 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.
According to the UK Electoral Commission website, in June & July 2024 alone, more than £1.7M flooded into Reform UK. Since 2019, more than £16M (73%) of its funding is linked to just nine companies & individuals with offshore interests.
The Electoral Commission website is easy to search, either by donations/loans to particular political parties, or by the names of individuals/organisations funding them. Since 2019, Farage's Reform UK Ltd/Brexit Party has recieved more than £22M (£4.4M/MP) search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=1…
My January 2024 article in @BylineTimes revealed that by far the biggest single Reform UK Ltd donor is Thai-based Chris Harborne, who made his fortune in aviation fuel & crypto investing. He's given them around £13.7M (62% of their total donations).
GB "News" is jointly owned by Paul Marshall & Legatum, under the umbrella of holding company All Perspectives: three of its significant shareholders work for Christopher Chandler's Dubai-based investment firm Legatum & three Tory life peers are shareholders or Directors.
The five people listed as having 'significant control' over GB "News" umbrella holding company All Perspectives Ltd are: Philip Vassiliou; Paul Marshall; Richard Douglas; Alan McCormick; & Christopher Chandler.
The House of Lords Register of Interests reveals three Tory life peers are Directors or shareholders of All Perspectives: Lord Agnew of Oulton & Baroness Morrissey are Directors; Lord Farmer is a Shareholder.
Whose interests does free-market propaganda channel GB "News" serve?
In 2013, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner published the final report of its two-year Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs & groups - the biggest investigation into the scale & nature of child sexual abuse in England ever published.
Anyone wanting to read “If only someone had listened”, Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, Final Report', published November 2013, by Sue Berelowitz et al, it's here: