#THREAD
By the end of her time as Secretary of State for Justice & Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss had lost the confidence of the entire legal profession & the judiciary. The Lord Chief Justice told the House of Lords Constitution Committee she was “constitutionally absolutely wrong”.
In November 2016, Truss was criticised by the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve & the Criminal Bar Association, for failing to support more robustly the judiciary & the principle of judicial independence, after judges came under attack from politicians & from the Daily Mail.
Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, who had previously suggested that, like her immediate predecessors Chris Grayling & Michael Gove, Truss lacked the essential legal expertise that the constitution requires, called for her to be sacked.
And in March 2017, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, told the House of Lords constitution select committee that Truss was "completely & utterly wrong" to say she could not criticise the media & reiterated the importance of protecting judges, which she failed to do.
Truss, like virtually every Tory politician since 1931, is incapable of criticising Jonathan Harmsworth's Mail, Frederick Barclay's Telegraph or Spectator, or Rupert Murdoch's Sun or Times, as she is entirely dependent upon them to act as vehicles for anti-opposition #propaganda.
Following Liz Truss's failure to criticise the Mail for its dangerously irresponsible 'Enemies of the People' front page, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, said “I regret to have to criticise her as severely as I have, but to my mind she was completely & absolutely wrong.”
“I can understand how the pressures were on in November (2016), but she (Liz Truss) has taken a position that is constitutionally, absolutely wrong.”
It is was Truss’s duty, as lord chancellor, to defend the judges, the ex-Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, said.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “An independent judiciary is the cornerstone of the rule of law, & it is the duty of the lord chancellor to defend that independence.”
Coward Truss simply said she supported freedom of the press.
Who needs judges when you have the press?
The Tories would NEVER form a Government without the daily support of the toxic divisive billionaire-owned press, which is partly I believe #Leveson2, a Royal Commission, or an independent Public Inquiry is essential to protect Britain's fragile democracy.
Here's an article from 2016, criticising Liz Truss & powerfully asserting that far from being 'enemies of the people', in many other countries, judiciaries are rightly seen as defenders of freedom.
Without an impartial judiciary, democracy is dead.
In many countries like ours, which also have populist nationalist leaders & Governments, the judiciary is often the last line of defence of our freedoms: an independent judiciary can be a last bulwark against corruption, press censorship, & antidemocratic authoritarianism.
In 2020, the Law Society warned that the Government's proposed changes to the judicial review process would reduce the accountability of Government: some proposals "would allow unlawful acts by Government or public bodies to be untouched or untouchable."
Although Britain's legal system is on the verge of collapse, Dominic Raab refuses to meet leaders of the Criminal Bar, & the Tory voices calling for Britain to leave the ECHR - set up by Churchill after WWII to prevent another #Holocaust - grow louder.
Given Liz Truss's failure to protect the judiciary when she was Lord Chancellor, we can predict Liz Truss's response to the #barristerstrike. Please express your solidarity & get reliable information out about exactly why they're striking.
Shit-stirring hypocritical bigoted playground bullies were once shunned by society, but now they can become MPs.
Is Reform UK's Lee Anderson, who exploits ordinary people with his infantile divisive populism, the thickest & most hypocritical bigot ever to become an MP?
#30pLee is on his third party in six years.
He was elected as a Labour councillor in 2015 & suspended by the local branch of the Labour Party in 2018 after receiving a community-protection warning by the council for using boulders to block members of the Traveller community.
#30pLee resigned from Labour in 2018 & was elected as a Tory councillor on Mansfield District Council in 2019. He was selected as the Conservative candidate for Ashfield in 2019, and was elected as a Tory MP.
The Chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, Richard Cooke, has been suspended after he branded racism allegations as "nonsense" on social media after a former chief inspector alleged racism & homophobia were rife within the force.
Policing is hard. The Police Federation of England and Wales is the statutory staff association for police constables, sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors & special constables in the 43 territorial police forces in England & Wales. Cooke is Chair of the West Midlands branch.
Under UK labour law, the police are prohibited from joining ordinary trade unions to defend pay and working conditions, by the Police Act 1996, because of the view that a police strike would pose an exceptional public safety risk.
🧵Trump has assigned Musk a chilling task: To dismantle & destroy large parts of the federal government. Musk wants us to call this project by a humorous & innocent-sounding name: the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE).
First, Musk's project is not an official Dept, so it's not factual to call it one.
Second, the goal of Musk's project is destruction, not "efficiency." Efficiency is when you make something work better. Musk clearly seeks to eliminate, not improve, large parts of government.
Finally, Musk has named his project after a meme, DOGE, a crypto scam named for a Shiba Inu dog. He's treating it all as a joke. But the destruction of government is deadly serious, and there's no reason why everyone should automatically participate in Musk's juvenile antics.
I've lost count of all the ultrarich privately educated 'anti-elites' in Reform UK!
Dubai World Trade Centre & Nick Candy's Candy Capital have a partnership to develop a “super-prime” real estate development in Dubai - where co-owner of GB "News", Legatum, is based! 🤑
Candy joined the Tory party in 2009 & has donated at least £290,000 to it.
In February he gave an interview saying it was “probably time for a change” & that Keir Starmer was “a decent man with good values and good morals”.
Nick Candy is to become Reform UK's new treasurer!
He hopes to raise more than £40M for Reform UK: "This morning, I’ve had millions of pounds worth of donations from people that have never donated to a political party in this country. But it’s not just about getting rich donors & billionaire people or whatever."
My 2023 Open Letter about @BBCQuestiontime, read by 300,000 people in 144 countries, was widely reported in the media & informed questions asked of @BBC DG Tim Davie at a Parliamentary Select Committee.
Here's my 🧵 analysis of the recent episode of #bbcqt, featuring:
My main criticisms of #bbcqt were: poor & biased chairing, including a tolerance of panellists who continually interrupt; ambiguity about the audience political demographic; & the well-evidenced bias toward platforming panellists from right-leaning media.
The @BBC's desire to drive engagement means #bbcqt is now overly dependent on platforming guests known for generating division, soundbites, & polarising controversy, rather than engaging in nuanced, respectful debate, which compromises its duty to 'INFORM & EDUCATE' the public.
Farage has defended Reform UK MP James McMurdock, who was jailed for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend, & said 'he should be forgiven'.
In 2014, Farage dismissed a Polish MEP's comment that beating women "helps bring wives back to Earth", insisting it was "just a joke".
Back in 2014, the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticised Farage - then UKIP Leader - for striking a deal with far-right Polish party Congress of the New Right, whose leader has a history of #Holocaust denial and racist and misogynistic comments.
In October 2014, UKIP, led by Farage, struck a deal with Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz - whose far-right party leader casually uses racial slurs and questions the Holocaust - following UKIP's fears that its grouping in Europe would lose millions of pounds in taxpayers’ funds.