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Paul Bernal Profile picture
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22 Jul, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Downing Street thinks none of us have any grasp of mathematics.
It’s the old lie that somehow there’s lots of wasted ‘non-frontline’ expenditure to cut. The same old lie that’s always used to excuse cutting back.
The old lie that hints at lazy people working in the public sector, and that if only we privatised the ‘non-vital’ stuff, everything would be more efficient. It’s all classic stuff.
There’s nothing new here. It should be called out for the garbage that it is.

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More from @PaulbernalUK

Paul Bernal Profile picture
14 Feb
A short thread on one aspect of trolling on here, from my recent experience. I’ve got a fair number of followers. I tweet about controversial topics - and yet I don’t get trolled that much. A bit, but not thatmuch. There are times, though, that I *do* get trolled a lot. 1/n
The pattern is pretty clear, and has been played out a few times over the last few days. I get into a conversation about a topic that could be considered race-related. Empire. Immigration. Something like that. And that conversation includes a highish profile BAME person. 2/n
More often than not, a BAME woman. In those cases, it takes very little time for the trolls to come steaming in. Most of them seemingly rational, taking issue with some technical point, but quickly descending into something much worse. 3/n
Read 9 tweets
Paul Bernal Profile picture
29 Nov 20
I’ve almost sworn off commenting on Labour and Brexit, but here’s my last thing. There’s nothing they can do now that won’t be disastrous. The problem was way back, well before the referendum, when they didn’t face up to how bad Brexit was going to be for the working class. 1/3
At that point, from the very start, well before the referendum, Labour should have made that abundantly clear, and taken a strong, solid, Remain stance. Not one saying the EU is perfect, not emphasising the economy as a whole, but the impact of Brexit on jobs, prices etc. 2/3
They didn’t, and the result of that is that they were always in a mess. There was never a stance that would work in the medium or long term. There was never a position that would actually help the working class. No ‘middle ground’ is available on any of this. So now? No way. 3/3
Read 4 tweets
Paul Bernal Profile picture
23 Sep 20
A short thread about Boris Johnson, the media, and Jeremy Corbyn. Boris Johnson won the election. Lots of reasons why - but one that keeps getting suggested is that it was a choice between Johnson and Corbyn, and wasn’t Corbyn terrible... 1/n
This is the reason generally given by people who supported Boris Johnson and are now beginning to realise it was a catastrophic error, and by people in the media who now spend their time attacking Johnson, and have forgotten what they did in the election. 2/n
The thing is, it’s a false argument from the outset. The choice was never between Johnson and Corbyn in any real sense. The choice was qualitatively different. It was between giving Johnson a stonking majority and electing a minority Corbyn coalition government. 3/n
Read 8 tweets
Paul Bernal Profile picture
10 Sep 20
Quick point about Vance and his ilk. Twitter and Parler perform different functions. Parler is for rallying the troops, discussing tactics, sharing information - and preaching to the choir. 1/n
Twitter is for the attacks. For the trolling and the intimidating - because Twitter has ‘the enemy’ on it, as well as the choir. You can always find places to preach to the choir.... 2/n
...but taking Twitter away takes away the opportunity to troll and to attack. That’s why being banned from Twitter matters - in a good and a bad way. 3/n
Read 4 tweets
Paul Bernal Profile picture
10 Sep 20
A very short thread on the suspension of Vance - well, not on him as such, but related. I follow lots of people on here, and take glances at a whole lot more - including people I disagree with massively. I never followed Vance, but I saw his stuff regularly. 1/n
I see stuff from people I disagree with politically. I see stuff from people I disagree with morally and ethically. I follow people who detest each other and quite regularly get asked ‘why are you following X, they’re a xxxx’, in some key subject areas. 2/n
Sometimes it’s really important to listen to voices you disagree with, and to hear political views and perspectives very different from your own. I do this actively and deliberately. Sometimes, though, it’s thoroughly poisonous. 3/n
Read 9 tweets
Paul Bernal Profile picture
5 Sep 20
A short free press anecdote, that might be apocryphal but I got from a source that is usually impeccable. During the Cold War, a Soviet delegation went to visit the US, to look at the way journalism worked there. Their host took them to a number of American cities.... 1/n
...and visited newspapers, radio stations, magazine publishers and more in each of the cities, including both the major metropolises on East and West coasts, and much smaller cities elsewhere. As the tour went on, the Soviet delegates seemed to get more and more impressed. 2/n
At the end of the tour, when they were about to leave, one of the delegates turned to their US host, and asked him ‘How do you do it?’. The American looked at him, very surprised. ‘How do we do what?’ 3/n
Read 4 tweets

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