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Rajesh Thind Profile picture
Rajesh Thind
@RajeshThind
Award-winning Director Producer Writer #Defiance: Fighting the Far Right (C4) ‘Children of the Revolution’, ‘Travels With My Beard’ (BBC) ‘Italia 90’ (Sky) +Dad
Aug 10, 2024 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
Douglas Murray is drawing on anti-Semitic Middle Ages tropes btw, for eg. when he says “the soul of England, the soul of Britain, is about to be trampled on very, very visibly, by people who are gleeful in their trampling, & they have defaced & defiled all of our holy places”.
/1 Image In Middle Ages Europe, it was claimed that Jews stole consecrated Hosts, or communion wafers, & desecrated them to reenact the crucifixion of Jesus by stabbing or burning the host or otherwise misusing it. The accusations were often supported only by the testimony of the accuser. Image
Jul 27, 2024 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Stockholm. We get in an Uber to go home from lunch & a swim with friends. The driver says, “Where are you from, Rajesh?”

London, I reply.

“From Indian family?”

Yes, I say.

“I speak Urdu, but I don’t speak English,” he says, in Urdu.

OK, I say, I can speak Urdu, no problem… Where are you from? I ask.

“Kabul. I play tablas!” he says. He starts scrolling on his phone which he has in a holder by the steering wheel. He pulls up a video of himself playing the tabla drums, & playing them pretty well. In another video, his son plays the harmonium.
Oct 27, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
With Badenoch as Women & Equalities Minister, & Suella 'Sir John Hayes is my Guru' Braverman @ Home Office, I hope British women are ready for the coming assault on their abortion rights. These 'social conservative' extremists see such rights as the enemy of the 'Trad Family'. See:
Oct 26, 2022 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
It's in periods of rapid national decline that people's already limited attention moves away from the most vulnerable towards our own personal survival concerns. Such moments are extremely dangerous: bad things happen in hidden corners, esp. when you have ugly extremists in power For example, this from the other week. This is an absolute horror show. We must demand accountability & responsibility from the @ukhomeoffice, @SuellaBraverman & @RishiSunak.
Oct 26, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Been speaking w London Estate Agents.

1. An influx of Americans buying up big, fancy houses. Whole country is at a 20%+ discount due to forex rates bw $/£.

2. Sunak delaying budget from Oct28 to Nov17 is likely to push BoE to be >hawkish: probs 1% rise on Nov 3rd, not 0.75%. 3. Same Estate Agent thought there'd also be another 1% rise in December (!) bc BoE needs to get inflation down asap. Hopefully, shorter cycle that way.

4. Same guy expected these rapid rate rises will force some people to sell up as early as Q1 & Q2 2023. Gave an eg:

[Cont.]
Oct 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
You can see how inexperienced Sunak is. He totally didn’t know how to respond to Starmer bringing up that viral video of RS telling a group of Tories this summer that he had been levelling down. Sunak looks very hesitant & out of his depth. He’s a money-man, not a leader. #PMQs Sunak completely ducks Ian Blackford’s call for the “sleazy deal” RS has done with Suella Braverman to reappoint & Home Sec to be reversed and Braverman to be sacked. Very notably, Sunak doesn’t say ANYTHING to support Braverman, just waffles about working with Scotland. #PMQs
Oct 26, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What a country: vicious public attacks on the most marginalised groups in our society are deliberately being orchestrated by a group of (at least) 50 sitting Tory MPs. Even better: many of the ordinary people acting as their foot-soldiers probably don't even realise they're pawns I note the way this orchestrated 'War on Progressive Values' works as a many-headed hydra, such that one group of soldiers (say, anti-immigration lobby) don't need to necessarily know they are working alongside another (say, transphobes). Reminds me of terrorist cells structure.
Oct 26, 2022 • 75 tweets • 26 min read
Braverman didn’t make a ‘mistake’, she deliberately tried to circumvent security rules by emailing a market sensitive document to her private email before then trying to send it on to Sir John Hayes for advice. We only know bc she sent it to the wrong person who reported her. Qs:
Who is Sir John Hayes MP, & why does Braverman - by her own admission - pass everything she does by him first?

Ans:
Hayes is one of the most extremely ‘socially conservative’ Tory politicians in Britain. He is, for eg, ‘RESOLUTELY OPPOSED TO ABORTION, IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.’
Oct 25, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
'We’ve got inflation just over 10%. At the same time, wage growth is running at about 5.5 /6%. So people are seeing their real incomes fall.

'It’s the deepest 2-year fall since modern records began in the early 1950s. So for households, it’s fairly grim.'
theringer.com/2022/9/8/23343… This is a really interesting conversation with @DuncanWeldon. It's particularly of note that having looked at the raw numbers, he describes Brexit as "less like a revolt of the economically left behind, & more like a revolt of older, relatively prosperous voters."
Oct 25, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
'When global financial crisis hit in 2008, it hit hard, smashing the engine of Britain’s economic ascent. Wary of rising deficits, the British government pursued a policy of austerity, fretting about debt rather than productivity or aggregate demand. The results were disastrous.' theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…
Oct 25, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Sunak is going to unravel & fast. India will be keen to get a good trade deal (good for India) signed as quickly as possible, while Sunak hangs on in office. But by appointing Braverman as Home Sec, Sunak has hamstrung his ability to give India what it most wants: WORK VISAS. In return for Braverman's support last weekend, she has managed to extract a promise from Sunak (he's SO naive!) to put her back in as Home Sec, & now she's going to use that to build her authoritarian base. Braverman will be obstructive on all attempts to liberalise immigration.
Oct 25, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
After the negligent, incompetent, unforgivable mess Raab made of Afghan withdrawal, this is another nail in the coffin of any credibility that the Sunak administration might have managed to accrue today. This is just Jobs For The Cronies, not a Cabinet of All The Talents. Dire.
Oct 25, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
What is truly amazing is how the people from the financial world, whose looting led the economic world into the epochal collapse of the last 15yrs, have now managed to stage a takeover of the political world. It's like the looters used their booty to buy the whole shopping mall. That the denouement of this corporate reverse takeover is happening just as Central Banks are finally trying to end the flow of Quantitative Easing drugs that have kept the global economy alive for the last 14 years is no coincidence. The markets are sovereign now, not countries.
Oct 25, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Brace yourselves for the Cabinet picks. If he puts Braverman back in, it'll be the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end for him. "The mandate doesn't belong to any one individual," says Sunak outside No. 10.

TRANSLATION:
"Hasta la vista, 'Boris'."
Oct 24, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
A risk with Sunak becoming PM as a mid-term 3rd substitute is that he'll get 6 months, a year tops, during which he'll struggle - & likely fail - to hold back the Tory nutjobs & to sort out problems, & then this half-arsed pseudo-Obama UK Moment will be over. He might be a piñata Alternatively, Sunak may himself prove to be a Tory nutjob, hellbent on repressive Hard Right law & order measures, stepped-up anti-refugee policies/ rhetoric, austerity etc etc. A distinct possibility, although he’s mostly going to have to think about next General Election?
Oct 24, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I'm curious to see how many of the xenophobic UKIP entryist faction of Conservative Party members will now cancel their membership.

Will the likes of Farage now see an opening to set up a new Hard Right party to soak up the voters who switched from UKIP to Tory under Johnson?
Oct 24, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The wealthiest MP, whose family is among the Richest 250 in Britain, may be about to be undemocratically appointed our PM. Those who claim that this is a progressive victory just bc Sunak is of Indian-origin are ignoring Class, Politics & Democracy by focussing ONLY on Ethnicity. I would describe such an ill-thought out & simplistic position as essentialist, reductive, one-dimensional & naive. If you don't think that this Tory Panto isn't a knowing tactical attempt to put a faux-progressive mask on a Hard Right agenda, then just look at Sunak's policies.
Sep 26, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Whatever the Anglo-American media might say to the contrary, 21st century neo-fascism is still fascism, & now parties with clear fascist origins are in power in Italy, knocking on the door in Sweden & no doubt energised across the whole continent of Europe. Putin will be pleased. This from the Economist seems pretty bloody lame to me. This is how madness becomes normalised. Image
Sep 18, 2022 • 70 tweets • 21 min read
The tragic events in #Leicester are, imo, one predictable result of the ways Conservative politicians have, for many years:

- sought to divide & rule British Hindus & Muslims (eg: Zac Goldsmith's 'Hindu List');

- supported the ethnonationalist Hindutva project, in India & here. Watch the Hard Right stir the pot over this in months to come. Already, some of the usual suspect Hard Right mouthpieces, incl. some who were hustings interlocutors during Tory leadership campaign(!), are trying to raise the tension further with irresponsible & divisive comments.