In 2018, Sky News Australia sparked outcry after it broadcast an interview with a far-right #nationalist#extremist who has expressed his admiration for #Hitler.
Sky News Australia CEO Angelos Frangopoulos downplayed it as "an error of judgment".
Frangopoulos is GB "News" CEO.
GB News' creators clearly believe that US-style grievance politics can sustain at least a low-budget, tactically neutered version of Fox.
GB "News" is a right-wing TV "news" channel. Britain hasn’t had one of those before. The shift is real.
"Trying to find guests for “Uncancelled” who truly cannot get a hearing elsewhere would mean booking flat-earthers, extreme religious fundamentalists, or actual Nazis."
Many of the most listened to voices in British media try their hardest to get canceled. Think about that. 🤔
If GB News wants to “puncture the pomposity of our elites,” then it should acknowledge that no group fits that description more than the small number of shutdown skeptics employed by right-wing papers & GB News - 71% supported the delay in lifting the coronavirus restrictions.
"Political polarization in the US seems to have been turbocharged by a hermetic right-wing media universe built on paranoia, resentment, and mistrust of authority. As GB News matures, the channel may test how receptive Britain is to culture-war topics brought over from the US."
"Already, Brexit influencers have imported the vocabulary of the American right (snowflakes, triggered, woke) as well as the idea that “owning the libs” is a political goal in itself."
In a piece for ConservativeHome, hard-right crank Donal Blaney wrote: “As these triggered snowflakes wail uncontrollably in impotent fury into their kale, lentil, & chai lattes this morning, and for months to come, all at GB News need to channel their inner Churchill.”
"Perhaps GB News will bait @Ofcom the British television-news regulator - with ever more polarized content, and then pose as a cancel-culture victim if given an official rebuke. Little by little, the channel could chip away at the British principle of neutrality in broadcasting."
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🧵In January, Farage said Musk was justified in calling Starmer complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs: “In 2008 Keir Starmer had just been appointed as DPP & there was a case brought before them of alleged mass rape of young girls that did not lead to a prosecution.”
The allegation that Starmer was complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs is often repeated. But how true is it?
Two Facebook posts, originally appearing in April/May 2020, claimed Starmer told police when he was working for the CPS not to pursue cases against Muslim men accused of rape due to fears it would stir up anti-Islamic sentiment.
In 2022 the posts and allegations saw a resurgence online with hundreds of new shares. They said: “From 2004 onwards the director of public prosecutions told the police not to prosecute Muslim rape gangs to prevent ‘Islamophobia’.
Decades of research shows that parroting or appeasing the far-right simply legitimises their framing, and further normalises illiberal exclusionary discourse and politics.
Starmer's speech is more evidence that the far-right has been mainstreamed.
Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist who focuses on political extremism and populism in Europe and the US, is, imho, one of the most important voices on the Left today.
Allow me to briefly summarise some of his work.
In a 2023 lecture, Mudde emphasizes the importance of precise terminology in discussing the far-right, distinguishing between extreme right (anti-democracy) and radical right (accepts elections but rejects liberal democratic principles like minority rights and rule of law).
He argues we're in a "fourth wave" of postwar far-right politics, characterized by the mainstreaming & normalization of the far-right - what Linguist Prof Ruth Wodak in a related concept refers to as the 'shameless normalization of far-right discourse'.
After eight years as US President, on Janury 17, 1961, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during WWII, warned us about the the growing "military-industrial complex" (and Trump2.0) in his prescient farewell address.
Before looking at that speech, some context for those unfamiliar with Eisenhower, the 34th US president, serving from 1953 to 1961.
During WWII, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army.
Eisenhower planned & supervised two consequential WWII military campaigns: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–43 & the 1944 Normandy invasion.
The right-wing of the Republican Party clashed with him more often than the Democrats did during his first term.
In England, 18% of adults aged 16-65 - 6.6 million people - can be described as having "very poor literacy skills" AKA 'functionally illiterate'.
This leaves people vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation, and poses significant challenges for society and democracy.
Being 'functionally illiterate' means that a person can understand short straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately & independently, & obtain information from everyday sources, but reading information from unfamiliar sources or on unfamiliar topics can cause problems.
Adult functional illiteracy—lacking the reading, writing, and comprehension skills needed for everyday tasks—poses significant challenges for a country, society, and democracy.
The first asks "Is it OK to smoke while I'm praying?"
The Pope replies "No! You should be focused on God!"
The second Priest asks "Is it OK to pray while I'm smoking?"
The Pope replies "Of course, there's never a bad time to pray"
Nigel Farage’s rhetorical technique of framing controversial or inflammatory statements as questions, often defended as “just asking questions,” is a well-documented strategy - sometimes called “JAQing off” in online discourse - that has drawn significant criticism.
This approach involves posing questions to imply a controversial viewpoint without explicitly endorsing it, thereby maintaining plausible deniability. Farage often uses this strategy to raise issues around immigration, national identity, and 'wokeness' or 'political correctness'.