Twitter gets a bad rap. But the massive implications if the #PoliceBill amendments are being widely recognised and discussed on this platform, while they're almost entirely ignored by the established media.
*Twitter is doing a better job than the press*.
The same goes for many other issues. I feel there is more sense and moral seriousness here than in almost all the mainstream media.
Lots of nonsense and nastiness as well, to be sure. But don't let the trolls (whose numbers are smaller than their noise suggests) define the medium
In some mainstream newspapers and TV channels, by contrast, nonsense and nastiness dominate.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
This should be all over the front pages. The government's terminating our right to protest, through amendments sneaked into the Police Bill at the last minute.
It's the biggest assault on democracy in 70+ years, and hardly anyone seems to know.
My column theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Obviously, the Free Speech Union and all the other Freedom Warriors of the right are up in arms about this massive truncation of our liberties.
It's amazing isn't it, that they get so wound up about what students say, or about having to wear face masks, but say nothing about the biggest attack on civil liberties in the UK for at least 70 years. You could almost imagine that the only freedoms they believe in are their own
When you count the 250,000 believed to disposing of waste illegally, the networks ripping off the elderly and vulnerable, the money launderers in the City, the modern slavery ops in agriculture, beauty salons etc, how much of the UK workforce is engaged in criminal activity?
What we're witnessing in this country is almost complete regulatory collapse, driven by successive governments slashing what they call "red tape", alongside massive reductions in the budgets of regulatory agencies, whose monitoring and enforcement capacity has fallen off a cliff.
"Leave it to the market", they say. But when you leave the market to regulate itself, those who prosper are the spivs, the corner-cutters, the chancers and the outright criminals. Deregulation allows them to undercut their more conscientious competitors.
Misinformation on matters of public health kills people.
This is what happened when tobacco companies denied or downplayed the dangers of smoking.
This is what’s happening today, as unvaccinated people struggle for breath in intensive care units.
Thread/
Disease control measures are matters of political choice, and it is entirely legitimate to debate them. We can argue over how best to balance freedom from the disease with freedom from the disruptions and curtailments used to contain it.
But we must do so without spreading misinformation. False claims, ranging from “the virus is a hoax” to “the vaccines are untested” or “the vaccines are more dangerous than the disease”, are lethal. Those who spread them contribute to the deaths of others.
I’ve read Paul Kingsnorth’s anti-vaccine essay on Substack, and I suspect it might contribute to quite a few deaths. Why? Because his writing is elegant and powerful, but some of his facts are simply wrong.
Here's a very small sample:
Thread/
Ireland “has the highest vaccination rate in Western Europe”.
No, Portugal, Spain and Italy have higher rates, while the Netherlands, France and Finland have roughly equal rates. ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinat…
Ireland has “some of the highest covid infection rates in Western Europe”
No, its rates are more or less in the middle: ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/co…
Congratulations to Ruth Tingay's brussel sprout on becoming an Accredited Game Shot. We believe this might be the first occasion on which a brussel sprout has achieved this distinction. Its accredition is all the more impressive given @Gameandwildlife's *rigorous* checking system
The thorough testing Ruth's brussel sprout underwent to achieve this qualification is proof that @Gameandwildlife is ABSOLUTELY NOT a bullshit front for the shooting lobby. It is a highly respectable body upholding the most rigorous standards of brussel sprout certification.
Here’s my column on the huge but scarcely-known scandal of the UK’s illegal waste mafias. In hiding, burying and burning millions of tonnes of dangerous rubbish, they are poisoning our land, water and air. But the government looks the other way. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
PS: it's not just about fly-tipping. In fact that's just the visible, er, tip of the problem. We're talking about huge, organised, illegal dumps, all over the country.
What are advertised as independent "man with van" operations are often in reality members of major criminal syndicates, shifting industrial quantities of waste to secret dumps. The four governments of the UK, and their regulatory agencies, are turning a blind eye.