'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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Why doesn't Emma Watson offer a balanced view of Zero Hour contracts?
Because she's a free-market fundamentalist - a Common Sense Society Director, co-founder of Save Our Statues, also of the neoliberal Henry Jackson Society & #TuftonSt's CIVITAS & New Culture Forum...
The main argument in support of Zero Hour contracts is flexibility: if you're asked to work & it's not worth your while, you could turn it down. But employers don’t have to offer you future shifts, & if you turn down work, you may find you’re offered fewer opportunities or none.
While some companies *might* reward hard-working zero-hour contract workers with permanent or fixed contracts, many employers imply this in order to make you work hard & exploit you, and won't offer you a decent contract.
There are many disadvantages of zero-hour contracts...
There have been attacks on the @nationaltrust since at least 2017. Since 2020, The Spectator has published at least 25.
In 2020, a former Bullingdon Clubber asked "When will the Trust get it into its thick skull that it’s supposed to look after buildings & landscapes?"
Four days later, the Eton-educated trustee of the climate-sceptic GWPF, former Chair of the right-wing Policy Exchange, & former editor of The Daily & Sunday Telegraph & The Spectator, Charles Moore, followed up with this infantile attack on the "woke" NT: desmog.com/charles-moore/
On 9th November 2020, a letter in The Telegraph, signed by 28 Tory (Common Sense Group) MPs accused the NT of being "coloured by cultural Marxist dogma, colloquially known as the 'woke agenda'". 'Cultural Marxism is the antisemitic conspiracy theory that inspired Anders Breivik.
Andrew Neil criticises others for making 'Nazi analogies', but here he is, referring to an article in the Mail, amplified by Toby Young, suggesting a proposed boycott by a 'Pro-Palestine group' of venues showing #eurovision24 is "straight out of the early Nazi playbook".
The 'early Nazi playbook' involves propaganda, which like contemporary political & media propaganda works primarily not by lies, but rather by selective representation of information, distortion, fearmongering, demonisation of minority groups & misleading partisan misinformation.
The Mail's claim, amplified by Young & compared to "the early Nazi playbook" by Neil is 'Venues across the country have been forced to close their doors as they fear for their staff's safety after Pro-Palestine groups instructed their followers to hound pubs showing the contest'.
Divisive far-right extremist grifter Steve Laws is dangerous: he has a long & well documented history of using racist & Islamophobic rhetoric, harassing people, & trying to get decent people sacked. Laws' hateful rhetoric was even too toxic for Richard Tice's Reform UK.
Former UKIP candidate & far-right extremist Laws is a prominent so-called 'migrant hunter' who gets off on filming boats arriving in Dover. He constantly uses grotesque 1930s-style dehumanising rhetoric, & pushes the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
For decades, Big Tobacco cast doubt on the link between cancer & smoking. Today, doubts about climate science is fuelled by misinformation spread by politicians, news media & think tanks, invariably funded by those who benefit from fossil fuels.
The phrase "the spawn of communism" derives from early twentieth century US #nativism - the political strategy of promoting the interests of "native-born" inhabitants over those of immigrants.
But where does it come from, & what might it tell us about Jacob Rees-Mogg?
This thread is about how nativist ideology gave rise to the first US 'Red Scare', & how, long before TalkRadio or Fox & GB "News" existed, populist Christian broadcaster 'Father' Coughlin stoked the fears & prejudices of millions of his listeners using divisive nativist rhetoric.
The phrase "spawn of Communism" is now used by 'anti-woke' alt- & far-right nativists to describe everything from Democrats & socialists, through LGBTQ+ rights, CRT, & feminism, to 'identity politics' & 'environmentalism' - anyone, or anything, perceived by them to pose a threat.