Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration
Wealth distribution is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower & more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism
Daily life has become more of a struggle for hundreds of millions of ordinary decent people
The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance, costing the US economy upwards of $15 TRILLION (vastly more globally)
Free-market theory presumes that innovation is necessarily benign. But much of the financial engineering of the deregulatory era was self-serving, opaque, & corrupt—the opposite of an efficient & transparent market
The existential threat of global climate change reflects the incompetence of markets to accurately price carbon & the escalating costs of pollution
The entrenched political power of extractive industries & their political allies influences the rules & the market price of carbon
The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact do not regulate themselves
Democracy itself is under threat: increasingly authoritarian & antidemocratic legislation is being introduced in supposedly democratic countries like Britain.
It's not simply the neoliberalism of outsourcing, privatization, & shrinking the state. The US Libertarian-right billionaire project, now playing out in the UK as well as the US, is nothing less than a permanent alteration power relations: dismantle democracy & install #oligarchy
🚨How did Britain get here?
🚨What has been the true cost to British people?
🚨And most importantly, WTAF are we going to do about it?
🚨If we don't take decisive action NOW, it may well be too late.
The front-page article, published in the Daily Telegraph, claiming “London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population” was covered across the media and widely discussed by politicians and others.
The claim that “One in 12 in London is illegal immigrant” is based on this report, commissioned by Thames Water, conducted by the research company Edge Analytics in February 2023, which the Telegraph says it obtained “under freedom of information-style laws for the environment”.
🧵 Quite a few politically & historically illiterate brainwashed Trump-supporters replied or quote-tweeted the tweet below to tell me lifelong democratic socialist George Orwell was not in fact a democratic socialist. Truly Orwellian. So I asked Oligarch Musk's Grok about it...
In the preface to her newly reissued book, 'Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan - 30th Anniversary Edition', historian @NancyMacLean5 reflects on the resurgence of white power nationalism and political violence in contemporary America.
MaClean is known for her prescient best-selling 2017 book about the post–WWII conservative thinkers and policymakers who shaped the hyper-neoliberal #Project2025, 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America',
Evidence of why her prize-winning book has aged well and why @OxUniPress decided to republish it is obvious: numerous instructors continue to assign it, countless historians cite it, and the best Klan scholars have given it well-deserved praise.
According to the UK Electoral Commission website, in June & July 2024 alone, more than £1.7M flooded into Reform UK. Since 2019, more than £16M (73%) of its funding is linked to just nine companies & individuals with offshore interests.
The Electoral Commission website is easy to search, either by donations/loans to particular political parties, or by the names of individuals/organisations funding them. Since 2019, Farage's Reform UK Ltd/Brexit Party has recieved more than £22M (£4.4M/MP) search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=1…
My January 2024 article in @BylineTimes revealed that by far the biggest single Reform UK Ltd donor is Thai-based Chris Harborne, who made his fortune in aviation fuel & crypto investing. He's given them around £13.7M (62% of their total donations).
GB "News" is jointly owned by Paul Marshall & Legatum, under the umbrella of holding company All Perspectives: three of its significant shareholders work for Christopher Chandler's Dubai-based investment firm Legatum & three Tory life peers are shareholders or Directors.
The five people listed as having 'significant control' over GB "News" umbrella holding company All Perspectives Ltd are: Philip Vassiliou; Paul Marshall; Richard Douglas; Alan McCormick; & Christopher Chandler.
The House of Lords Register of Interests reveals three Tory life peers are Directors or shareholders of All Perspectives: Lord Agnew of Oulton & Baroness Morrissey are Directors; Lord Farmer is a Shareholder.
Whose interests does free-market propaganda channel GB "News" serve?
In 2013, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner published the final report of its two-year Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs & groups - the biggest investigation into the scale & nature of child sexual abuse in England ever published.
Anyone wanting to read “If only someone had listened”, Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, Final Report', published November 2013, by Sue Berelowitz et al, it's here: