'Leftist @BBC Maitlis' - here pushing the 1935 myth - did her bit to help Johnson's Tories beat Corbyn's Labour in 2019. And in the ashes of our broken, polarised country, with millions facing poverty, & our economy & public services ruined, NOW she's found her voice? 🧐
In July 2007, Maitlis was appointed as a (unpaid) contributing editor to billionaire Barclay's right-wing #Spectator. This was approved by her immediate manager, then head of @BBCNews Peter Horrocks, but the decision was subsequently overturned by BBC News director Helen Boaden.
By 2019/20, Maitlis was amongst the highest paid @BBCNews & current affairs staff, receiving a salary between £370,000-£374,999!
This was just over a decade after Peter Mandelson said: "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich - as long as they pay their taxes."
In her 'easy opposition' tweet, Maitlis didn't bother to check her facts, or she'd have known there wasn't a general election in 1936.
The *1935* GE did result in a large, albeit reduced, majority for the NATIONAL (coalition) Government, led by the Tory, Stanley Baldwin.
The mythical "disastrous" election result that Maitlis refers to, was actually characterised by the RESURGENCE of @UKLabour, who made net GAINS OF OVER 100 SEATS, & their highest share of the vote yet, under what was regarded internally as the caretaker leadership of Clem Attlee.
In a 2019 interview, Maitlis said she was sceptical about the charge that people like her are the “elite”, existing in a liberal bubble, where everyone knows everyone else - despite having Piers Morgan as 'a good friend', & having Emma Thompson’s number in her mobile. 😬
Maitlis's response to the charge that she is part of the 'elite' (her hubby is an Investment Manager, & she hangs out with Piers Morgan) is: “We understand that word for what it is... incredibly elitist people try & gain the populist upper hand by calling everyone else elite.”
“There was a time when everyone was cowed by it. It was like somebody shouting: ‘You’re a racist,’ & you think, ‘Oh my God, what have I said, what have I done?’ Now I hear that word & I just, dare I say, roll my eyes... You have to be very careful as to who’s actually using it.”
Maitlis's husband - whom she met in Hong Kong while he was working in equity capital markets - is investment manager Mark Gwynne. From September 1999 to May 2007, he worked for Merrill Lynch. She proposed to him while on holiday in Mauritius in 2000. So definitely not elite.
Maitlis & her husband often stay at his parents' country estate. Her husband grew up doing 'traditional upper class sports' such as polo, & was taught hunting, fishing & shooting, which is DEFINITELY not elitist, & of course, they'd have NOTHING against Corbyn or his policies.😬
Tom Mills argues that Maitlis’ criticisms of the BBC “are best understood as an expression of a conflict between the liberal and conservative wings of the British establishment… a conflict in which the latter is proving more and more antagonistic”.
Maitlis is a Capital 'C' Centrist who was comfortable at the @BBC, which over the years has shifted so far to the Right that the moderate & sensible policies espoused by Corbyn's Labour - popular & mundane across much of Europe - are mischaracterised as 'radical' or 'hard-left'.
While #Newsnight has criticised the right’s divisive, scapegoating populism, it's rarely as vicious, misleading or mocking as when it's criticising the populist Left. When the Left complain, it's ignored. When the Right complain, it's all over the press...
As for #GE2019, all but two of the Tory gains were in Leave constituencies, so Brexit seems to have been an important factor, along with the press & broadcast news media having for FOUR YEARS relentlessly demonised Corbyn, & framed Labour policies as economically risky & extreme.
Will end with this. 🧐
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JD Vance has told Greenlanders that life with the US would be better than with Denmark.
Musk, Trump & Vance insist that Europe is in many ways inferior to the US.
But how accurate are their claims? What does the evidence say?
#FactCheck
Brainwashed by billionaire's propaganda, force-fed a diet of dumbed-down soundbites, divisive, misleading bigoted rhetoric, and adolescent memes, many Americans simply have little idea about how their quality of life compares to the average European's.
🧵 Online #Incel communities foster misogyny, resentment & extremism, which have led to multiple murderous attacks in the US & UK, motivated by hatred toward women.
Their echo chambers also amplify mental health issues like isolation & anger, radicalizing vulnerable men & boys.
In the US, proven murders attributable to incels include: Elliot Rodger, who killed 6 & injured 14 in a shooting & stabbing spree; Lyndon McLeod shot & killed 5; & Mauricio Garcia shot & killed 8 & injured 7.
In the UK, Jake Davison shot & killed 5, including a 3-year-old girl.
Farage defended his Reform UK MP who was jailed for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend (which wasn't disclosed to voters before he was elected), & in 2014, he dismissed as "just a joke" an MEP's comment that beating women "helps bring wives back to Earth."
A 🧵 about how spurious and inflammatory claims, based on unevidenced cherry-picked data, are passed off as truth by partisan private limited companies and used as a weapon to divide voters and to scapegoat and demonise migrants.
At 1.32pm on Monday 10th March, The Telegraph published the claim that based on “the first data analysis of its kind. Data from the Ministry of Justice, obtained under freedom of information laws,” shows that “Foreigners [are] convicted of nearly a quarter of sex crimes.”
Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, said the figures were “shocking.”
Shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, said: “Not only is mass migration making us poorer, but this data proves it’s also making us dramatically less safe.”
Democracy is under attack. As with the US, Italy is 1 of 5 European Govts undermining the rule of law ‘in nearly all aspects’, with changes to the judiciary & a “heavy intolerance to media criticism”, fueling Europe’s deepening “democratic recession”.
A report by Civil Liberties Union for Europe said Italy was one of five “dismantlers” – with Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania & Slovakia – that “intentionally undermine the rule of law in nearly all aspects”.
The report highlights judicial systems subject to political manipulation, weak law enforcement against corruption, overuse of fast-track legislative procedures, harassment of journalists & growing restrictions on peaceful protests.
Many of Britain's most vocal 'anti-establishment' voices attended some of the most expensive schools on earth.
These broken boys masquerade as 'anti-elite' while serving the interests of the ultrarich by turning working class people against each other using 'Divide & Rule'.
Moscow born Konstantin Vadimovich Kisin came to the UK aged 11 & was sent to Clifton College boarding school (current fees: up to £18,360/term).
He recently said about Rishi Sunak "He’s a brown Hindu; how is he English?" He's a regular speaker at Paul Marshall's ARC conference.
Rupert James Graham Lowe was sent to Radley College, an all-boys independent boarding school (current fees: up to £19,200/term).
Lowe worked in the City of London for companies such as Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank and Barings Bank.
My own summary is above, but journalist @gilduran76 - of the brilliant #FrameLab - has now written his own summary, review and interpretation of it, which I reproduce with a few links and commentary, below.
To fully understand Silicon Valley’s project to destroy democracy, read 'The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State.'
In 1999, it was rebranded as 'The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.'