GET A GRIP Profile picture
Jun 3, 2021 14 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Just imagine the response had PM Corbyn overseen 150,000 deaths! 🤯

A short #THREAD on the *REAL* causes of Britain's mass deaths.

Despite the brutality & disarray of the current Government, the causes of Britain's catastrophic response to #COVID have been brewing for decades.
Since the 2008 financial crash — caused by the reckless irresponsibility of a greedy & woefully under-regulated & deregulated financial sector — our once genuinely world-beating public services have been utterly decimated, with tragic consequences for millions of decent people. Image
Following the imposition of ideological #austerity, council funding has been cut by 49%.

Essential public services have either been privatised or replaced with faceless profit-motivated corporate outsourcers, with only a superficial concern for the places in which they operate. Image
The local knowledge, expertise, understanding, forums, processes, links & accountability, carefully built up over decades & designed to ensure comprehensive & joined up public services, have been systematically destroyed & replaced with uncaring profit-driven corporate entities.
Public health is about preventing disease, prolonging life & improving quality of life. The Right frame it as an attack on personal liberty. Public health has been continually re-organised in "efficiency" drives & systematically decimated by successive free-market obsessed Govts.
But free markets don't care about people or places: they are motivated by profit & targets, & profit is ALWAYS the most important consideration.

If targets are not met, the consequence for the corporation is simply less profit.

Lives are reduced to an entry on a balance sheet.
Successive UK Govts' faith in the power of free markets has been catastrophic: Britain's 150,000 deaths were ALL largely avoidable.

Comparable countries like Japan, with a higher density population & twice as many citizens as Britain, suffered just *13,000* COVID-related deaths.
Short-sighted, cruel, unnecessary & purely ideological cuts & privatisations left Britain & our underfunded & undervalued #NHS highly vulnerable to #coronavirus, while at the same time, £BILLIONS in taxpayers’ money was handed over to Tory donors, with disastrous consequences. Image
This is fundamentally about #inequality.

Free market obsessives are relaxed about grotesque disparities & 150,000 deaths: "we did everything we could" they lie.

Blinded by greed, arrogance & blind faith, they dismiss the inequality & suffering caused by their misguided beliefs. Image
Britain has shocking levels of deprivation: over 2,000 foodbanks, which nearly 4 million UK adults have been forced to use, & at least 2 million pensioners living in poverty, as are 4.3 million children. This hasn't happened overnight.

And all the Govt offer is more of the same. Image
Supported by the richest people on earth & the vast majority of print & broadcast media, as well as myriad think-tanks, institutions & other billionaire-funded organisations, the Government seek to polarise & distract us with trivia while they continue to exploit people & planet. ImageImageImage
A handful of people have hoarded over $30 TRILLION offshore - they don't need any of it. A few hundred people could end global poverty & the use of fossil fuels within a few years. Instead, they choose to support Govts like ours, who protect their interests & enhance their power. ImageImageImage
In 2017 we had best opportunity since 1945 to change course, to actively create a much fairer, greener world - & the entire establishment fought like dogs to ensure we carried on sailing into the abyss.

COVID was catastrophic, climate change will be cataclysmic.

KEEP FIGHTING. Image
For a longer examination of how vulnerable forty years of deregulated free market capitalism has left Britain:

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More from @docrussjackson

Jun 29
🧵

A few thoughts on Bob Vylan leading the #GlastonburyFestival crowd in chants of "Death to the IDF" (Israeli Defence Force), livestreamed by the @BBC, and the mischaracterisation of the chant by some MPs, news media, and activists. Image
In England, where #GlastonburyFestival is located, all of us have the right to freely express our criticism of anyone or anything - as long as there is no intent to provoke immediate unlawful violence or there is a reasonable likelihood it will occur as a consequence.
In England, free speech is protected under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998. However, inciting violence is a criminal offence under several laws which attempt to balance public safety with free expression rights.

There are a number of key provisions in UK Law.
Read 29 tweets
Jun 26
🧵

Socially isolated and radicalised online, Marcus Monzo, 37, was convicted of murdering 14-yr-old Daniel Anjorin and attacking others with a sword.

He was fascinated by violence, far-right extremism, Incel ideology, conspiracy theories and figures like Musk, Tate, and Hitler. Image
UK society is insufficiently concerned about the harms of extreme online material of the kind pushed by the far-right, incels, & conspiracy theorists.

Debate is too often framed as being about free speech, rather than its sometimes horrific consequences.

actearly.uk/radicalisation…
In many countries, especially since Musk bought Twitter/@X, underregulated online extreme content has been used to groom and radicalise vulnerable people.

Too many cowardly politicians are scared to speak up for fear of being branded 'anti-free speech'.

Read 30 tweets
Jun 10
🧵

Some MPs who have been in parliament for many years NEVER appear on any of the @BBC's "flagship" politics shows - but Reform's privately educated shit-stirring 'anti-elite' former Tory Sarah Pochin - an MP for FIVE WEEKS - gets her own special introduction on #PoliticsLive. Image
Politicians using dangerously irresponsible anti-Muslim rhetoric know their comments are normalising Islamophobia and endanger British Muslim women. Islamophobic incidents rose by 375% in the week after Boris Johnson called veiled Muslim women “letterboxes” in 2018.
#PolitcsLive Image
Britain prides itself in NOT being the sort of country that tells women how to dress. States that do dictate women’s clothing (eg Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia) are vilified as misogynistic & ultra-controlling: the antithesis of the enlightened, liberal west.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 11 tweets
Jun 7
🧵

The 'Women's Safety Initiative' is an anti-migrant AstroTurf disinformation group founded by Jess Gill, a Fellow of the Koch-funded climate change denial group, the Foundation for Economic Education, & an apprentice at the Mises Institute. The '1 in 4' claim is a lie. Image
Before I outline the evidence that (despite what we are told every day by politicians, activists, and news media) there is no discernable link between either legal or illegal immigration and increased crime rates in OECD countries, including ours, some context about Jess Gill. Image
Jess Gill’s involvement with these radical free-market climate change denying Koch foundation funded organisations is deeply concerning.

The WSI exploits young women to make misleading claims about supposed links between immigration with women’s safety.

Read 32 tweets
Jun 2
🧵

"Foreigners" DO NOT claim £1BILLION/month in benefits.

This disgusting anti-migrant dogwhistle by shameless liar and former Head of Policy Exchange, Neil O'Brien MP, is just one of several recent dispicable divisive Telegraph front page lies.

WTAF @IpsoNews? @HoCStandards? Image
The claims that the UK spends £1bn/month "on UC benefits for overseas nationals" (O'Brien) and "Foreigners claim £1bn a month in benefits" (Telegraph) are revealed to be lies in the article: the£1bn relates to "Benefits claims by HOUSEHOLDS with AT LEAST ONE FOREIGN NATIONAL." Image
The Telegraph claims that (unnamed) "experts suggested the increase reflected a SURGE in the number of asylum seekers being granted refugee status and in net migration."

To evaluate/make sense of this sensational unsourced claim, additional context is needed (but not provided). Image
Read 57 tweets
May 30
🧵

Chase Herro, co-founder of Trump’s main crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, on crypto:

“You can literally sell shit in a can, wrapped in piss, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story’s right, because people will buy it.”

theguardian.com/technology/202…
Despite crypto being bullshit, & memecoins being consciously bullshit, many – especially angry young gullible men – still invest: 42% of men & 17% of women aged 18-29 have invested in, traded or used crypto (2024 Pew Research), compared to only 11% of men & 5% of women over 50. Image
“It’s no accident that memecoins are such a phenomenon among young people who have grown immensely frustrated with a financial system that, I think it’s fair to say, has failed them” - Sander Lutz, the first crypto-focused White House correspondent.

theguardian.com/technology/202…
Read 16 tweets

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