Boris Johnson uses the phrase "Liberal Left Lawyers" in response to a question about the Govt's #Rwanda Plan, in the full knowledge that Priti Patel's use of the phrase "Activist Lawyers" was linked by counter-terrorism police to a far right terror attack.
This is dangerously irresponsible rhetoric & Boris Johnson knows it - but he doesn't care.
He is without doubt totally unfit for public office, as so many people who have worked with him warned voters he would be.
And now Boris Johnson's dangerously irresponsible rhetoric, used despite explicit warnings from Britain's counter-terrorism experts, are being amplified by the dangerously irresponsible non-dom billionaire-owned Daily Mail.
Facts don't change our minds. "The vaunted human capacity for reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with thinking straight." New discoveries show the limitations of reason. This thread is based on an article by Elizabeth Kolbert.
People are often reluctant to abandon personal beliefs that are directly contradicted by new evidence.
This tendency has been well demonstrated for opinions, impressions of people, social stereotypes, scientific hypotheses, & "common sense" ideas
Belief perseverance is puzzling as it is commonly assumed that beliefs are based on evidence.
If it's rational for people to form a belief based on evidence, then why are people reluctant to modify the belief when confronted with evidence that invalidates the original evidence?
On 16thth April, news broke that a park named after William Gladstone could be rebranded “Diane Abbott Park” by a @UKLabour council, “as part of a slavery review.”
This thread is about truth, the culture war, the UK's broken news media, & the amplification of hate.
On 16th April, Boris Johnson's former employer, the non-dom billionaire-owned Telegraph, along with the non-dom billionaire-owned Daily Mail, broke the story.
Both claimed Gladstone Park could be renamed 'Diane Abbott Park' by a Labour Council "as part of their slavery review".
Both newspapers describe school pupils "as young as 5" "were briefed on the killing of George Floyd & 'systematic racism.'"
Brent Council's Tory representatives predictably "slammed the attempts to rewrite history", & described it "as an attempt at 'indoctrination'."
Influential thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation has led the backlash against the UK net zero policy & despite always claiming it is independent of the fossil fuel industry, has received funding from groups with oil & gas interests. theguardian.com/environment/20…
I understand that Neil Record, Chair of the #IEA - imho the most dangerously destructive of the antidemocratic Tufton St think tanks in Britain today - sits on the board of climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Forum.
And the fact that even in the midst of a #CostOfLivingCrisis, 99% of UK voters are blissfully unaware of Tufton Street or 'The Nine Entities' shows how ineffective & biased our so-called 'news' media is at informing audiences about the operation of power.
In 2021, Priti Patel published a consultation paper with proposals to reform the Official Secrets Act which could mean 14 years in jail for journalists publishing stories which embarrass the Govt.
Media North hosted a panel of experts for @FestOfDebate:
The proposed bill includes a major crackdown on 'unauthorised disclosures', or leaks of sensitive information.
Much hard-hitting investigative journalism is based on such leaks, & equates investigative journalism with spying.
It represents a direct threat to the ability of journalists & their sources to make public their information about wrongdoing. Indeed the proposals want to eliminate a 'public interest' defence.
"The architects of neoliberalism believed that if capital markets and global trade were connected via a series of institutions that floated over the laws of any given nation-state, the world would be less likely to descend into anarchy." - Rana Foroohar.
"For a long time, this idea worked... Even during the Reagan years, despite the anti-Govt rhetoric, there was a sense that global trade needed to serve the national interest rather than merely itself (or, more particularly, the interests of the large multinational companies)."
"Consider the way that the US fought back when Japan tried to dominate the entire physical infrastructure of the computer. The Reagan administration response included putting tariffs & quotas on Japanese exports & subsidising the development of next-generation computer tech."
Boris Johnson: "I think you, y-yes... what the UK is doing & has done since the start of this conflict began is lead the world in helping the Ukrainian people to protect themselves".
On the #CostOfLivingCrisis, Boris Johnson says "the cost of chickens is crazy" & Britain's dependence on foreign electricity is "insane", "because we haven't done enough to invest in our own security of energy" - the #Conservatives have been in power for TWELVE FUCKING YEARS.
Susanna Reid: "Why dont you impose a windfall tax?"
Liar Boris Johnson doesn't say. Living standards are set to fall at their fastest rate since records began in the mid-1950s, & since the financial crisis, productivity has barely grown & sits 15% below the US, Germany & France.