Rishi Sunak & his supporters claim he has a 'mandate' to be PM because he's 'promised to deliver the original 2019 @Conservatives' manifesto'. This is obviously a profoundly misleading & antidemocratic lie: he has absolutely no intention of delivering the 2019 manifesto.
"Hospitals" are mentioned 19 times in their 2019 manifesto: it explicitly promises "40 new hospitals" THREE times, "ON TOP OF the 20 hospital upgrades".
This was always lie, & they certainly WILL NOT deliver "40 new hospitals" - Thus, they will NOT "deliver" the 2019 manifesto.
And now Sunak looks likely to abandon the “triple lock” protection for the state pension.
To legitimate ignoring two of their most important promises to the British people - while simultaneously claiming he has a 'mandate' to be PM - they simply say 'circumstances have changed'.
Circumstances CONTINUALLY change! They want to have their cake & eat it: promise the earth to gullible voters, then once elected, disregard the promises they had no intention of keeping & replace the PM TWICE - with both PMs having ZERO intention of delivering the 2019 manifesto.
At his first #PMQs Sunak said 'There are over 15,000 new police officers on our streets', yet since 2010, the number of officers fell by about 20,000, & in the year to March 2022, more than 8,000 police officers left forces in England & Wales, a 35% increase on the previous year.
Responding to the point that a nurse would have to work for *20,000 YEARS* to gain as much wealth as Sunak, he claimed that 'as chancellor, we introduced actually very strong pay increases [for nurses]'.
In the real world, the paltry increase was actually a real terms pay CUT.
Sadly, it's blindingly obvious that Rishi Sunak is just another liar, willing to lie in Parliament, lie to the British people, & lie to himself.
His promise to bring ‘integrity’ to No 10 is simply absurd - especially given that he reappointed Braverman.
Britain may already be an #Oligarchy: #Shell paid ZERO windfall tax in the UK, despite making record global profits of nearly £26BILLION (so far) this year after exploiting a tax break brought in by our latest unelected PM, ex-hedge-funder Rishi Sunak.
We're told we have a 'representative democracy', but over the past fifty years, the proportion of MPs from manual work backgrounds has declined to ZERO, & the proportion of MPs who were elected representatives or worked in politics before becoming MPs is now over half.🇬🇧
The proportion of privately educated cabinet ministers has been much higher than the population for decades, even under @UKLabour. Truss (68%) & Johnson’s (64%) first cabinets had the highest proportions of private school-educated ministers since the early 1990s. Sunak's has 65%.
There has been a dramatic exclusion of those from lower middle & working class backgrounds from representation at the top of British politics.
There is also a difficulty in participation for the large majority of people who weren’t privately educated.
This #thread quotes extensively from the FT article above.
Many are fearful Musk's leadership could do more harm than good: he's pledged to restore “free speech” to the platform & undo permanent bans, paving the way for Trump to return as the US midterms loom just days away.
“We’ve seen people’s businesses and reputations rise and fall by what happens on Twitter, we’ve seen markets rise and fall by what happens on Twitter, we’ve seen elections rise and fall by what happens on Twitter,” says Joan Donovan.
@EXPOSEDbyCMD works hard to expose dark money entering US politics.
While @DeSmog & others do a great job here, given the enormous influence of opaquely funded #TuftonStreet "think tanks" on the UK Govt, we urgently need more of this in the UK.
For many years, the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN) has been operating, & its state-based affiliates now collectively bring in $152 million annually in revenue, according to analysis of the most recent publicly available tax filings by @EXPOSEDbyCMD. theguardian.com/world/2013/nov…
The Koch Foundation is a member of the SPN. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) & Heartland Institute founded the SPN, modeled off of the Heritage Foundation, & together coordinate to block solutions to global warming & the #ClimateCrisis
Last year, her husband's company held a contract to supply temporary staff to government departments. It had previously been disclosed that six of these workers had been employed using a controversial tax-avoidance scheme.
In June 2022, Lucy Frazer stated that she would vote in support of Boris Johnson in the 2022 vote of confidence in the Conservative Party leadership of Boris Johnson, despite him being a law-breaking pathological liar & serial cheat.
Extracts from the excellent 'Who Thinks, Feels. The Relationship Between Emotions, Politics & Populism', by Donatella Bonansinga (2020).
"Traditional political ideologies, usually embodied by mainstream parties, are anchored in emotionality as much as populism may be."
Research has shown how conservative thinking can be a response to a need to reduce fear & uncertainty. Experimental evidence suggests that priming mortality threats (eg via terrorism) results in post-manipulation conservative identification.
Liberals are less concerned with fear, & characterized by a higher propensity for empathy. This emotion of empathy emerges as a distinctive trait of liberal ideology in many studies, highlighting its centrality in underpinning attitudes toward social spending & the welfare state
Sunak's Govt should be honest for once & say what it REALLY wants: no welfare; no public sector; no taxes; no consumer, worker or environmental protections; no food or other standards; no limits on Party funding; no lobbying restrictions; no unions; & no human rights. 🇬🇧
A recent Open Democracy article by, Adam Bychawski, raised some interesting questions about Rishi Sunak - the richest MP in Parliament – who will be a boon for the financial lobby, tax justice campaigners have warned. They're summarised below.
Experts say multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak has not been transparent with his finances and that his hedge fund background raises questions about his commitment to fighting tax avoidance.
A slick public marketing campaign has disguised a man with an ultra-privileged background.