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27 Oct, 5 tweets, 3 min read
Rishi Sunak is believed to be the UK's richest MP. 🧐

He used to work for the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, & his total net worth is estimated to be around £200 million - which would take over 10,000 YEARS to accumulate earning the "living" wage.

#Budget2021
In 2015, a full 25% (1 in 4) of all Tory MPs had an occupational background in finance (compared to just 4% of Labour MPs), & 52% of Tory MPs were privately educated, compared to 12% of Labour MPs (nationally, 6% of children are privately educated).

…nstitutethinktank.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/who-go…
A fifth of all new Tory MPs from 2019 have worked as lobbyists, including for banks, private healthcare & arms manufacturers.

Priti Patel was a corporate lobbyist, & she's lobbied for big tobacco, then as an MP she voted to overturn the smoking ban. 🧐

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
And don't get me started on who funds the Tory Party, how the Tories are linked to the right-wing free-market fundamentalist think tanks at Tufton St, or what role tax-avoiding press barons play in persuading voters to keep electing the sociopathic Tories.
99-percent.org/who-governs-br…
#BREAKING: up to 43 members of the House of Lords have investments totalling millions of pounds & senior roles in oil & gas companies, prompting accusations of “unethical” conflicts of interest.

British democracy is not fit for purpose.

theferret.scot/oil-industry-4… via @ferretscot

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More from @docrussjackson

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25 Oct
'Freedom of speech should not be restricted lightly', by Alison Assiter, Professor of feminist theory at the University of the West of England, & Miriam David, Professor emerita of sociology of education at the UCL.

(Paywalled, so summary below).
timeshighereducation.com/blog/freedom-s…
Although debates about freedom of speech are not new, the form they take now seems to be more vindictive than hitherto. Two recent case cases illustrate the point. Earlier this month, the sociology professor David Miller had been sacked by the University of Bristol.
The official reason was that his lectures about Israel, Jews & Zionism “did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff”. His disciplinary hearing included an investigation by a Queen’s Counsel who found Miller’s comments “did not constitute unlawful speech”.
Read 22 tweets
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25 Oct
British Sociological Association @britsoci statement on Freedom of Speech in Universities.

Here's the BSA's statement on what is basically the very troubling oxymoronic intention of the partisan UK Government to intervene in academic free speech:

es.britsoc.co.uk/bsa-statement-…
Freedom of speech is currently the subject of intense debate within universities and learned societies, and especially in relation to the announcement in the May 2021 Queen’s Speech of the Freedom of Speech (Universities) Bill.

bills.parliament.uk/bills/2862
The Bill, which is approaching its third reading in the House of Commons, proposes “to make provision in relation to freedom of speech and academic freedom in higher education institutions and in students’ unions; and for connected purposes.”
Read 14 tweets
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24 Oct
I'm late to the Andrea Jenkyn's thing.

Not sure which is the best bit of this tweet - that she accuses a man who makes his living letting strangers speak on his radio show of being "anti-free speech", or the fact she thinks James O'Brien is a socialist.
Some career highlights:

In January 2019 she stated that Kenya exports flowers to the EU under WTO terms, which was proven to be a big fat lie.

fullfact.org/europe/no-keny…
In May 2019, on the @BBCPolitics Live show, despite pushing the idea the UK could trade with the EU using World Trade Organization (WTO( terms, she was unable to name any countries that trade solely with the EU using WTO terms.

Read 5 tweets
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24 Oct
Only infected people spread coronavirus. If you're not infected, you can't spread it.

The risk of transmission from the vaccinated is much lower than for the unvaccinated.

Vaccines are the best protection against infection.

Vaccinated people are far less likely to be infected.
"No, Vaccinated People Are Not ‘Just as Likely’ to Spread the #Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People."

"This has become a common refrain among the cautious—and it’s wrong."

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
"People who are fully vaccinated against #Covid19 are far less likely to infect others, despite the arrival of the delta variant... Findings refute the idea that vaccines no longer do much to prevent the spread of the coronavirus."

newscientist.com/article/229425…
Read 6 tweets
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23 Oct
Imho, Neil Oliver IS very stupid, deeply immoral, profoundly narcissistic, & dangerously irresponsible: he increasingly resembles a paranoid drug-addled conspiracy theorist, spouting cod science, rejecting enlightenment values & sounding like a poundland Alex Jones from Infowars.
Every anti-vax nutjob, ever New World Order conspiracy theorist, every gullible fool, every vulture capitalist, every grifting maniplulator, ever fake, shit-stirring troll account & every nihilistic clown in Britain will lap up Coast Guy's rambling, paranoid, delusional bullshit.
I've received a lot of criticism for my appraisal of Oliver. Fair enough - if you dish it out, you have to be prepared to take it. Which I am. I try to avoid personal 'ad hominin' attacks, but sometimes I get angry & lose my shit, as I suspect we all do from time to time.
Read 4 tweets
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18 Oct
In 1971, along with Sandy Lieberson, David Puttnam had the audacity to bid for the rights to the book ‘Inside the Third Reich’ by Albert Speer.

Rank outsiders in pursuit of the rights, the publisher agreed that we might at least travel to Heidelberg to make their case in person.
"Albert Speer, Hitler’s former Architect & Armaments Minister had walked out of Spandau prison five years earlier, having served twenty years for war crimes – he patiently listened for several hours as we took him through our reasons for wanting to make the film".
"To our amazement, he agreed that if a movie was to be made, it should be produced by & for a younger generation. That was the start of an adventure which took us and our screenwriter Andrew Birkin on numerous occasions back & forth to Heidelberg."
Read 17 tweets

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