'The most striking thing about GB News is not how original it is, but how familiar it feels. For a supposedly “fresh approach", the only novelty lies in the fact that it’s on TV - it's a mix of tabloid sensationalism & ill-tempered phone-in radio.'
Like Fox News, GB News is a grievance-culture amplification system: from Brexit-based resentment against the EU to "anti-wokeness” & everything in-between: hostility to immigration, racial equality movements, “cancel culture” & lockdowns. an inexhaustible source of cheap content.
"GB News is a natural extension of the increasing popularity of a sort of conservative grievance politics, more concerned about what pictures students have on their walls than how the economy works or the outcomes of public policy."
Wootton claims it's a “broadcasting revolution in the UK, where presenters like me are honest about what we believe”. One of his first acts in that revolution was to quote the Sun, which asked if there's "a link between lockdown & the Govt’s drastic zero-emissions green agenda”.
GB News is planted in a soil already tilled by the rightwing press. In power is a govt that is only too happy to comment on & nourish culture-war confections... the audience will be slowly radicalised, helping to push Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit England even further to the right.
"We won’t be like Fox (News) in that they come from a hard right disinformation fake news conspiracy agenda." - Andrew Neil. 🤥
Epidemiologists are "DOOMSDAY SCIENTISTS ADDICTED TO POWER! WE MUST FIGHT BACK AGAINST THIS MADNESS!" - Dan Wootton. 🤪
Andrew Neil is GB "News" Chair, & Tom Harwood its Political Correspondent. There isn't a serious, credible news channel *on earth* that would allow its tea-maker to tweet dangerously inflammatory shit like this about a female journalist - never mind its "Political Correspondent."
Without a decent, credible news media, democracies cease to function. Disaster capitalists, libertarians & free market fundamentalists invest heavily in news media, & this process is well under way in Britain, America, Brazil, Hungary & other countries.
Andrew Neil criticises others for making 'Nazi analogies', but here he is, referring to an article in the Mail, amplified by Toby Young, suggesting a proposed boycott by a 'Pro-Palestine group' of venues showing #eurovision24 is "straight out of the early Nazi playbook".
The 'early Nazi playbook' involves propaganda, which like contemporary political & media propaganda works primarily not by lies, but rather by selective representation of information, distortion, fearmongering, demonisation of minority groups & misleading partisan misinformation.
The Mail's claim, amplified by Young & compared to "the early Nazi playbook" by Neil is 'Venues across the country have been forced to close their doors as they fear for their staff's safety after Pro-Palestine groups instructed their followers to hound pubs showing the contest'.
Divisive far-right extremist grifter Steve Laws is dangerous: he has a long & well documented history of using racist & Islamophobic rhetoric, harassing people, & trying to get decent people sacked. Laws' hateful rhetoric was even too toxic for Richard Tice's Reform UK.
Former UKIP candidate & far-right extremist Laws is a prominent so-called 'migrant hunter' who gets off on filming boats arriving in Dover. He constantly uses grotesque 1930s-style dehumanising rhetoric, & pushes the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
For decades, Big Tobacco cast doubt on the link between cancer & smoking. Today, doubts about climate science is fuelled by misinformation spread by politicians, news media & think tanks, invariably funded by those who benefit from fossil fuels.
The phrase "the spawn of communism" derives from early twentieth century US #nativism - the political strategy of promoting the interests of "native-born" inhabitants over those of immigrants.
But where does it come from, & what might it tell us about Jacob Rees-Mogg?
This thread is about how nativist ideology gave rise to the first US 'Red Scare', & how, long before TalkRadio or Fox & GB "News" existed, populist Christian broadcaster 'Father' Coughlin stoked the fears & prejudices of millions of his listeners using divisive nativist rhetoric.
The phrase "spawn of Communism" is now used by 'anti-woke' alt- & far-right nativists to describe everything from Democrats & socialists, through LGBTQ+ rights, CRT, & feminism, to 'identity politics' & 'environmentalism' - anyone, or anything, perceived by them to pose a threat.
GB "News"/TalkTV regular, Chair of the National Jewish Assembly & JC columnist, Gary Mond, liked posts by far-right extremist Pamela Geller (banned from entering the UK) & posted on FB in reference to Muslims “all [of] civilisation… is at war with these evil bastards”.
In January 2022, it was reported that then Board of Deputies Senior VP Gary Mond had been asked to “step down from his duties” while an investigation took place.
Evidence appeared to show Mond had liked two posts made by Geller in 2017, during his 6-yr stint sitting on the Board’s Defence Division, including one saying France was “finished” after voters picked current President Emmanuel Macron over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen.
Tory donor Bassim Haidar is the latest multimillionaire to say he'll leave the UK to avoid paying £millions in tax following plans to scrap the “non-dom” regime, which has allowed him & 68,800 other non-doms to avoid paying UK tax on overseas income for 225 years.
Haidar, who owns “more than 10 properties” in central London, including a £20 MILLION flat near Sloane Square, "gave" the @Conservatives £450,000 last year - including £10,000 worth of advertising to Lee Anderson in November, who promptly joined Reform UK. search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=2…
For decades the UK news media, owned by fellow non-dom billionaires, regularly run stories warning how 'superrich wealth creators' will leave Britain.
It's a bold & often-made claim, but is there any truth in it? Will many - or indeed any - of our 68,800 non-doms leave Britain?