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Feb 5 14 tweets 6 min read
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'.

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More from @docrussjackson

Feb 5
After graduating in 1996, Liz Truss worked for Shell as a commercial manager.

In a 2013 #bbcqt, just before she became Environment Secretary, Truss dismissed clean renewable energy as “extremely expensive” and said it was damaging the economy.

bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03…
“We do need to look at the green taxes because at the moment they are incentivising particular forms of energy that are extremely expensive. I would like to see the rolling back of green taxes because it is wrong that we are implementing green taxes faster than other countries."
Before she became Environment Minister in 2014, free-market fundamentalist Liz Truss also said on BBC Question Time that #fracking would benefit people living nearby. “We need to make sure shale gas is being exploited in this country, which will benefit local communities."
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Feb 5
Politicians who did Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Oxford Uni:

Liz Truss
Rishi Sunak
Jeremy Hunt
Rory Stewart
Matt Hancock

Ed Balls
Ed Davey
Ed Miliband
Edwina Currie
Yvette Cooper
Rachel Reeves
David Miliband
David Cameron
Peter Mandelson
Anneliese Dodds
Ann Widdecombe
Full list:
Non-UK politicians who did Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Oxford Uni:
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Feb 5
#THREAD

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during WWII.

Between 1941 & 1945, Nazi Germany & its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
European Jews were targeted as part of a larger event between 1933 & 1945, in which Germany & its collaborators persecuted & murdered millions of others, including ethnic Poles, Soviet civilians & POW, Roma, disabled people, political & religious dissidents, & gay men.
Some organisations uses the term ‘the Holocaust’ to refer specifically to the genocide of 6 million European Jews.

Most people now know that the Nazis & their collaborators also committed mass violence against many other groups.
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Feb 4
And if things go *REALLY* well, poverty & racism will be eliminated, climate change will be tackled, everyone will gain access to sufficient food, clothes, shelter & healthcare, everyone will be enabled to think critically about inequality, & billionaires will cease to exist! 🤞
In January 2020, before the pandemic hit, we learned that the world’s 2,153 billionaires had more wealth than the combined wealth of 4.6 billion people who make up 60% of the planet’s population. If you think this is in any way fair, you need to see a shrink.
#justsaying
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Feb 3
How may Brexiters & @Conservatives who slag off 'Commies' know they're ideologically aligned with the Revolutionary Communist Party?

Ex-RCP:

Munira Mirza (No10)

Brendan O'Neill, Frank Furedi (Spiked)

Claire Fox, James Heartfield, Alka Sehgal Cuthbert (Brexit Party candidates)
Munira Mirza co-authored the @Conservatives' 2019 manifesto.

In its crude repetitions & promises to “champion freedom of expression” & “unleash the country’s potential” by cutting red tape echo the RCP network’s preoccupations & polemical style.

All that time Boris Johnson, Rupert Murdoch & Nigel Farage spent making out Jeremy Corbyn was a Communist, when the REAL Revolutionary Communists were hiding in plain sight - some of them, like Munira Mirza, embedded in the heart of No 10, co-authoring the 2019 Tory manifesto.🧐
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Feb 3
#THREAD

The question of how much freedom the press should enjoy has been debated throughout US history.

In 1942 an impartial commission was formed to study mass communication, evaluate the performance of the media, & make recommendations for possible regulation of the press.
The result of the Commission on Freedom of the Press was a book: 'A Free & Responsible Press - A General Report on Mass Communication: Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines, & Books'.

Amazing that the US is having the same debate 80 years later.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
The Commission began with the premise that freedom of the press is essential to political liberty; it is unique among the freedoms, for it promotes & protects all the rest.

At the same time the commission feared the concentration of media control into fewer & fewer hands.
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