Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

This recent @BBC article makes it crystal clear to any sane & reasonable person why Nadine Dorries - with her long history of divisive, misleading & inflammatory 'culture war' rhetoric - is completely unsuitable to be Britain's Culture Minister.

bbc.co.uk/news/entertain…

Her central claim is that an imaginary homogeneous group of "left-wing activists" are *solely* responsible for unacceptable rhetoric which has resulted in "cancel culture" & an environment where 'people are scared to say what they feel' - something Dorries has never experienced.

She clumsily, inarticulately & misleadingly claims that she doesn't plan "to charge out on a culture war battle" but immediately contradicts herself by bringing up the hard-right's favourite cliched culture war trope: "cancel culture".

Let's explore this initial claim.

She claims people are afraid to say what they think for fear of being "cancelled", mainly due to 'mean Lefty activists' - when many good & decent people are terrified of supporting Palestine for fear of being labelled antisemitic by people like Dorries, & of being "cancelled".

Organisations like the National Trust have been demonised as "anti-British" by Tory MPs & right-wing newspapers & other media, & many progressives are now fearful of being labelled 'anti-British' or 'anti-free speech' just for challenging racism, sexism or other forms of bigotry.

Furthermore, the relentless demonisation by Government Ministers & other right-wingers of scholars involved in the legitimate academic field of critical race theory, & ordinary people supporting the global #blacklivesmatter movement, can make people fearful of challenging racism.

Nadine Dorries has claimed that ‘Left-wing snowflakes (another culture war term) are killing comedy', yet when a left-wing comedian like Nish Kumar gets unexpectedly "cancelled" by the @BBC's right-wing Time Davie, Dorries has nothing to say.

chortle.co.uk/news/2021/09/1…

I know the claim that cancel culture is an exclusively left-wing phenomenon is a grotesquely misleading lie: on three separate occasions, right-wingers have written to my employer to try to taint my professional reputation & get me sacked, purely because of my views.

Like so many right-wing culture war warriors, Nadine Dorries claims to be all for free speech, but like some hypocritical authoritarian dictator, she's more than happy to attack comedians for making jokes & to disingenuously accuse them of misogyny - if the jokes are about her.

Dorries accuses what she calls "online campaigners" (people who share opinions on a public platform) of 'frightening' young people "who actually do want to engage" in serious debate: it's as if the numerous grotesquely bigoted & abusive hard-right Twitter accounts don't exist.

Dorries disregards all the evidence showing that over the last few years, no doubt encouraged by the right-wing press & the Govt's dangerously divisive & inflammatory rhetoric, by far the fastest growing terrorism threat in Britain is from the far-right.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1407982779191726081

Her gaslighting is breathtaking - just last year Nadine Dorries, Maria Caulfield & Lucy Allan, were reprimanded for sharing & amplifying a doctored video of Keir Starmer from a known far-right Twitter account.

She also RTd a Tommy Robinson tweet before his account was suspended.

She complains in the interview that "People were making these comments (comedians making jokes) for political attack & nothing else" & she found them "thoroughly unpleasant." This reveals her hypocrisy: Dorries is a seasoned veteran at hurling vile insults at political opponents.

It recently came to light that she'd called James O'Brien a "posh boy fuck wit", but allow me to recap some of her "best bits" which demonstrate to any reasonable person beyond any doubt whatsoever, that Nadine Dorries is arguably THE most inappropriate MP to be Culture Minister.

Dorries really has no shame whatsoever: without a shred of humility or self-awareness, while claiming she is a victim & saying how awful it is that comedians make humorous comments about her which she finds "thoroughly unpleasant", she can tweet out disgusting crap like this:

In 2013 she was accused of racism after saying Chuka Umunna looked like Chris Eubank as they both had an "arrogant smirk" in common: "Apparently, if you forget the name of someone who is black you are racist. I forget the name of loads of white people what does that make me?"

In March 2018 she commented on a video of Sadiq Khan, reading out death threats to him that called him a ‘Muslim terrorist’. Her comments are grotesque, & in any normal job - or Government - she'd have been sacked on the spot.

(Khan is not the mayor for Telford or Rotherham).

In 2017 she suggested there was an “implication” that the Muslim community “votes as instructed” in elections.

She's also ranted about the burka & Muslim treatment of women

It's *almost* like she has a massive problem with Muslims.

When Boris Johnson described Muslim women who wear the burka as ‘bank robbers’ & ‘letterboxes’, Dorries commented that Johnson should have gone so far as to call for a ban on the burka & that women who chose to wear the burka do so out of force, to cover up their ‘bruises’.

Like fellow hard-right culture war cranks, Dorries has been a vociferous critic of the @BBC for a long time (despite sharing a doctored video herself), while giving gushing praise to the GB News channel. She recently asked “Will the BBC still be here in 10 years? I don’t know”.

In the same recent ideological attack on Britain's PUBLIC SERVICE broadcaster, Dorries claiming the @BBC is staffed by people “whose mum & dad worked there” when in 2013 she herself employed two of her daughters in her parliamentary office at a cost to the taxpayer of £80,000.

In 2012, Nadine Dorries made yet another unhinged, inflammatory & misleading claim when she said that the Left's support for abortion rights wasn't about choice, but stems from its historic relationship with the "eugenics movement".

In 2012 a regressive, controversial "unevidenced ideologically motivated" bill proposed by Dorries, calling for teenage girls (but not boys) to be given COMPULSORY lessons in sexual abstinence, was pulled at the last minute from the House of Commons.

theguardian.com/education/2012…

And in 2018, she compared Theresa May to Adolf Hitler: "Nadine Dorries seemed to suggest the Prime Minister might follow the Nazi Fuhrer's example of killing himself in a locked underground room."

I could go on & on...

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

Claiming that left-wing activists have "hijacked" social media is like claiming the far-right have "hijacked" the press, the Government, & British democracy.

To conclude: no reasonable, rational person would ever approve of Nadine Dorries occupying the role of Culture Minister.

And now THIS deleted tweet has resurfaced, in which she makes unhinged accusations & attempts to get @mrjamesob sacked.

Utterly grotesque & the absolute height of hypocrisy.

Nadine Dorries is EXACTLY the thing she claims to despises.

I rest my case. 🙏

https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/1461617557065158657

Their latest solution to those in fear of being "cancelled" by 'authoritarian woke snowflakes' & mean 'Lefty activists':