A short #THREAD on some of the controversies surrounding Tory MP, Ben Bradley.
Bradley attracted criticism for a 2012 blog post in which he wrote of a "vast sea of unemployed wasters", who he suggested should have vasectomies in order to stop them having multiple children.
In 2016 Bradley was forced to apologise for having written "For once, I think police brutality should be encouraged!" in 2011, three days after Mark Duggan was killed by the Metropolitan Police, an event which led to the 2011 riots in London and other English cities.
In 2018 Bradley was further criticised for a 2011 blog post titled "Public sector workers: they don't know they're born!", in which he suggested that public sector workers should find alternative employment if they are unhappy with low pay or deteriorating working conditions.
In 2016, Bradley claimed Ashfield District Council had spent £17,000 paying an Indian company to call local residents from a call centre in Mumbai.
Contacted by a local journalists, he said: "I admit the post about using an Indian call centre was untrue & I took it down."
Whilst working for the Conservative MP Mark Spencer, both Bradley & Spencer were criticised in 2017 by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for misusing taxpayers' resources, such as the MP's newsletter, to link to "overtly party-political content".
In 2018, Bradley falsely accused Jeremy Corbyn of having "sold British secrets to communist spies" in the 80s. Corbyn responded & Bradley deleted the tweet, issued a full apology, agreed to make a substantial donation to a charity of Corbyn's choice & paid Corbyn's legal costs.
A spokesman for Corbyn stated that the donation would be split between a homeless charity & a food bank, in Bradley's constituency of Mansfield.
Two Conservative Party donors - David Brownlow & Sir Mick Davis - paid the £15,000 donation to the charities on behalf of Bradley.
Emails sent by Ben Bradley in 2016 revealed Bradley had berated a local journalist, & threatened to cut off media access to the local Tory party, after revealing Bradley vociferously defended a Tory councillor sharing Facebook memes mocking Muslims & disabled benefits claimants.
This was in response to the journalist approaching Bradley for a comment on the series of Islamophobic & disablist posts made on a Tory councillor's Facebook page.
Bradley's response accused the journalist of 'childish backstabbing', described the Islamophobia story as 'crap'.
On 23 October 2020, Bradley said that free school meal vouchers for deprived children in his constituency effectively handed cash directly to crack dens & brothels. His comments were criticised by many schools, food banks & anti-child poverty charities in Bradley's constituency.
Tulip Siddiq write to the co-chairwoman of the Conservative Party: "I am sure that you will want to make clear that this kind of crass stigmatisation of children from poorer families is deeply damaging, and distance yourself from Mr Bradley's misleading and troubling comments".
Bradley signed the hard-right 'Common Sense Group''s letter accusing the @nationaltrust of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma".
"Cultural Marxism" is the debunked, hateful, & divisive antisemitic conspiracy theory that inspired far-right terrorist Anders Breivik.
On 2nd February 2022, it was revealed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority that Ben Bradley's total Business costs for the 2020/21 financial year were £212,299 - more than the £209,859 the previous year - & more than £10,000 above the average for all MPs.
Draw your own conclusions about the kind of people the Tory Party values. Imho, there should be no place for the dangerously irresponsible rhetoric used by Ben Bradley, who is Chair of the troubling right-wing populist group, 'Blue Collar @Conservatives'.
Echoing objections to social-media fuelled violence from the government of the UK & others, the Chamber of Progress, a tech business advocacy group, is urging delusional adolescent billionaire Musk to take his leadership role at @X more seriously - or resign if he cannot do so.
Since July 29 when right-wing influencers made false claims on Twitter/@X & other social media platforms that falsely blamed the murder of three children on Muslims & asylum-seeking immigrants, dozens of far-right #FarageRiots erupted around the nation.
The #FarageRiots started with a lie – a fake name and false information that suggested the teenager alleged to have killed three young girls in #Southport was a Muslim asylum seeker. He was neither.
There is an uncomfortable hypocrisy at the heart of this story, which is that people didn’t react the same way when, earlier this year, a white man killed a 14-year-old black boy, Daniel Anjorin, with a sword.
While that perpetrator was treated as a horrific anomaly, the Southport attacker was viewed by racist rioters as representative of migrants & Muslims, despite being neither.
A psychologist explains the cognitive biases and psychological responses behind this disparate treatment.
Researchers have developed & articulated the concept of “everyday extremism” to acknowledge that extreme narratives derived from non-mainstream sources can become a part of mainstream political discourse via social media.
As usual, @elonmusk takes a half-truth, removes important context, then selectively presents a misleading claim implying something about contemporary society, in this case mobilising a 'white victimhood' racist dog whistle narrative to fuel anger, division, & engagement.
Musk presents the claim that the etymological origins of the word word slave derives solely from the exploitation of 'white people', rather than, say, emphasising how religious texts from Judaism, Islam & Christianity all recognise slaves as a separate class of people in society.
Before examining Musk's misleading claim, it's worth knowing that the word 'Slav' refers to a member of the most numerous ethnic & linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern & southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean.
#NEW opinion poll: "73% of the British public say that the riots are shaming rather than standing up for Britain, & the public overwhelmingly believe that those helping clear up after the riots (87%) represent British values." - @Moreincommon_ 🇬🇧
Rather than attitudes to the riots sitting in two contrasting pro- & anti-riots camps, public opinion is akin to Russian Dolls: small groups are willing to condone the riots but much bigger groups with opinions cited as motivation for the violence condemn it without hesitation.
The smallest group are those who express support for the unrest: 7% of the public say they are ashamed Britain is a multi-ethnic country; 8% think violent demonstrations outside asylum seeker accommodation are acceptable; & the 11% who have a positive opinion of Tommy Robinson.