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Jun 10 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
#THREAD

In 2020, the independent Sweden-based 'Varieties of Democracy Institute' ranked #Rwanda 150th out of 179 countries on its Index of Liberal Democracy - it's clearly #authoritarian. 🤬

But UK Govt Social mobility Tsar Birbalsingh says it's "lovely"! 😬

So who's right? 🤔
This article by Alexander Dukalskis, an expert on authoritarian states & international human rights, is about the multiple ways that authoritarian states – countries where the leadership maintains power by non-democratic means – manage their image abroad.

theconversation.com/how-authoritar…
To manage their image abroad, authoritarian states like #Rwanda try to advance a favourable narrative about themselves.

They do things like hire PR firms to produce positive content, disseminate #propaganda, & cultivate friendly foreigners who can speak on their behalf. 😬
During his decades in power, #Rwanda's President Kagame has systematically undermined opposition, manipulated elections & repressed critics at home & abroad.

He also amended the constitution so he can rule until 2034. 😬

freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda
Just because Birbalsingh, who LOVES being the UK's most authoritarian Headteacher, says it's lovely, doesn't mean it isn't, right? What does the US State Dept of Democracy, Human Rights & Labour say in its 2021 report on Human Rights Practices in #Rwanda?

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More from @docrussjackson

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Jun 10
A great & timely read: 'Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century', by Sergei Guriev & Daniel Treisman.

How a new breed of dictators hold power by manipulating information & faking democracy.

Does Britain have a #SpinDictator?

press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
#THREAD

Over the past 40 years or so, the face of dictatorship has changed a great deal. Could Britain's increasingly antidemocratic & authoritarian Government mean Britain could be joining the likes of Hungary, Turkey & Rwanda in becoming an autocracy?

ft.com/content/ff7574…
The most notorious tyrants of the 20th century, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong & Idi Amin, ruled by means of mass violence, cults of personality, rigid ideological conformity, all-encompassing censorship & the exclusion of unwelcome foreign influences from their countries.
Read 28 tweets
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Jun 10
#THREAD

Under the Tories, the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals has risen again, & now stands at 22.5%.

Nearly 2 MILLION schoolchildren in English schools were eligible for free school meals at the start of this year, government data shows.

#SunlitUplands Image
22.5% of pupils in English schools were eligible for free school meals (FSM) in January - an increase of 160,000 on last year's figure - described as "shocking" by headteachers' leaders.

This thread is based on this article:

tes.com/magazine/news/…
School leaders' Unions warned that these pupils' circumstances could become even "more severe" due to the #CostOfLivingCrisis & called for additional funding "for both educational & pastoral support".

No doubt the Mail & Tory MPs will ramp up their anti-union rhetoric, as usual. ImageImage
Read 16 tweets
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Jun 9
#ThoughtForTheDay

Bonuses in the financial & insurance sector have hit a record high, growing by 27.9% over the last year, while average wages in the same period grew by just 4.2% - nearly £6BILLION was paid out in City bonuses in March alone.

#LevellingUp #CostOfLivingCrisis
“There is no justification for such obscene City bonuses at the best of times – let alone during a #CostOfLivingCrisis. While City executives rake it in, millions are struggling to keep their heads above water.” - Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary.

theguardian.com/business/2022/…
“Working people are at breaking point, having been left badly exposed to soaring bills after a decade of standstill wages & universal credit cuts. Ministers have no hesitation in calling for public sector pay restraint, but turn a blind eye to shocking City excess.”

#JoinaUnion
Read 5 tweets
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Jun 9
#THREAD on right-wing culture war crank Katharine Birbalsingh's first speech since becoming the Government's Social Mobility Tsar - predictably delivered to the dodgy opaquely funded free-market lobbying group Policy Exchange, which pushes libertarian-right ideology.
She starts by downplaying the importance of inequality & social mobility, attempting to discredit the evidence which is crystal clear that rising inequality is a key contributing factor to the lack of social mobility: her first move is to separate inequality from social mobility.
Her heavily implied suggestion is that accidents of birth are really not that important, & thus structural issues should be pretty much disregarded, although she (reluctantly) accepts "Those born nearest the top have advantages over those born nearest the bottom" - no shit.
Read 43 tweets
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Jun 9
#THREAD

So grotesque hard-right ideologue & Tory darling Katharine Birbalsingh is finally giving her first speech as the Govt's Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, having been appointed in October 2021 - to the hard-right Policy Exchange think tank.

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
In her speech Birbalsingh will say that success is often too narrowly defined as stories of people rising from humble backgrounds to elite jobs & will call for more focus on smaller steps up the ladder, such as 'the children of unemployed parents getting stable work'.
I'm sure you remember the Govt's controversial whitewash report of the Commission on Race & Ethnic Disparities, written largely by hand-picked culture war ideologues & given a brief to play down both structural/systemic & institutional racism in Britain.

Read 28 tweets
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Jun 8
#THREAD

Opening contribution to the Special Issue 'Cultural Studies & Education: A Dialogue of Disciplines?' - Guest Editors Bill Green & Andrew Hickey survey the pedagogical & disciplinary intersections of Cultural Studies & Education.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
The Editors cast a distinction between the pedagogical & educational, and from this basis argue that predominant accounts of Cultural Studies’ educative purpose derive from the relationship that the field has maintained with formal and institutional sites of Education.
Cultural Studies sought to ‘awaken the desire for education amongst working people in the belief that education was central to the cause of emancipation’, asking how ‘experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, & institutional forms’.
Read 23 tweets

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