Boris Johnson: “It did happen & I’m not ashamed of it”
Angus Deayton: What aren’t you ashamed of, Boris?
Boris Johnson: Whatever there is not to be ashamed of
[LAUGH]
The laugh is crucial
He manages to make people laugh even while admitting his crime
In this 2013 interview, @BorisJohnson admits he’s not really “bumbling”
It’s just an put on act
In reality he’s “hard as nails”
He also tells us “a terrible truth about politics & human nature”
That you can “make a good case for any course of action”
“It’s often useful to give the slight impression that you are deliberately pretending not to know what's going on - because the reality may be that you don't know what's going on but people won't be able to tell the difference." @BorisJohnson#BorisJohnson
"I've got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes that nobody knows which one to concentrate on” @BorisJohnson 2006
In 2018 Bannon rptdly said:
“The real opposition is the media & the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit”
The strategy seems reminiscent of that used by Putin’s puppet master, Surkov, who it is rumoured Cummings spent time with
He turned Russian politics into a bewildering, constantly changing piece of theatre
A ceaseless shape-shifting that is unstoppable because it is indefinable
”I’ve been talking to him all weekend about this speech”
Bannon calls @BorisJohnson “one of the most important persons on the world stage”
In 2018, Steve Bannon told a far-right crowd in France:
“Let them call you a racist. Wear it as a badge of honour”
In 2015, Bannon told #CambridgeAnalytica’s @chrisinsilico to build a psychological warfare tool to hollow out democracy & rive open divisions in societies
It worked
The far-right have almost finished pulling off a well-planned, well-funded bloodless coup
2/. From the start of the pandemic the govt had given #Palantir, a US spyware company with reported links to #CambridgeAnalytica, access to NHS health data
3/. Palantir worked on the NHS data store with #FacultyAI - a company with ties to Cummings
In 2020, @amnesty warned that Big Tech firms might use the COVID crisis to hoover up genomic data, obliterating the last frontier of privacy: our biological selves
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
As the 2nd module of the #CovidInquiry begins covering “core UK decision-making & political governance”, comes news that Rishi Sunak - like Boris Johnson - has also fail to fully comply with the order to hand his WhatsApp messages
“The govt needs get professional IT experts to recover these messages”
Charles Persinger who lost his wife & mother to #COVID, echoes the call of @CovidJusticeUK’s lawyers calling on the @covidinquiryuk to commission experts to retrieve Sunak & Johnson’s ‘lost’ WhatsApp messages
Twitter's new privacy policy takes effect on 29 September
It gives X the right to use your posts - including DMs - & all your data - including phone, email, biometrics (e.g. face scans & eye scans) to train their AI & to share with any partner X wants👇 twitter.com/en/privacy
“I do not accept that Twitter has deteriorated in any way since Elon Musk took over”
A week before Twitter’s change in privacy policy, some questions for @elonmusk
1. What biometric information will be collected & what are the intended uses?
How will X ensure that that the data of X’s 530 million users isn’t used for unlawful purposes? mashable.com/article/x-twit…