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Richard Bentall #FBPE @richardbentall.bsky.social Profile picture
Richard Bentall #FBPE @richardbentall.bsky.social
@RichardBentall
Political doppelgänger of @BentallProf. Scientists are allowed political opinions, which aren't those of my employer. Now on Bluesky as X is becoming a cesspit.
10 subscribers
Dec 21, 2024 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
1/17 A short 🧵 about terrorism and mental health in the likely forlorn hope of injecting a few facts into the conversation following events in Magdeburg yesterday, which are already being weaponised by the usual suspects. 2/ I speak as a very experienced clinical psychologist with specific expertise in psychosis, who has spent much of his academic career researching extreme beliefs, especially paranoid delusions.
Aug 27, 2024 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
A brief 🧵 about Brexit denialism currently suffocating the country.

1/19 As a psychologist, I am all too aware that, when faced with emotionally challenging issues and threats, facing them can be very scary and the temptation is to avoid. Can entire nations act similarly? Yes. 2/19 In the clinic, for example when dealing with people with addictions, obesity, or chronic personality disorders, we see people progress through stages of change. Image
Aug 4, 2024 • 22 tweets • 7 min read
We need to have some clarity about the causes of the rioting over the past few days.

A 🧵about the rioters, the instigators (two fairly distinct groups of people), and the processes leading to the current unrest. 1/21 First, although this was triggered by the tragic deaths of three children in Southport, it is NOT a reaction to violent crime. Violent crime is at a historic low, as are child homicides, and neither correlates with immigration. 2/
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May 26, 2024 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
1/14 I'm a bit surprised by how much traction my single-tweet rant at Oslo airport has got (22k likes so far), but less surprised by the volume of invective from leave accounts. It got me wondering why pictures of airport queues always wind up Brexiters so much. A 🧵 Image 2/14 If some of you reading this are leave voters, you may have pointed out that this is a trivial problem so I’d like to start by pointing out that I AGREE WITH YOU – in the scheme of things, this is much more trivial than many other harms caused by Brexit.
Mar 10, 2024 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
Growth is much misunderstood, especially by Brexiters. Buckle up for a short 🧵

1/23 Growth is annual change in GDP expressed as a %. So if GDP in year 1 = £2 trillion (approx UK GDP in 2016) and in year 2 = £2.02 trillion, growth is 1%.

Prolonged negative growth = recession. 2/ To calculate GDP, the ONS uses all sorts of measurements which are subject to uncertainty, so the numbers are often revised. Recently, they changed the method of calculation, causing previous estimates to be revised up. ons.gov.uk/economy/grossd…
Jan 5, 2024 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
1/4 🧵about fake economists.

A strange thing just happened when I responded to the IEA's @cjsnowdon's claim that the NHS was awash with money. His wiki bio says that he did an undergrad degree in Lancs so I asked him to justify his claim to be an economist.

Then he blocked me. Image 2/4 Which got me thinking about the qualifications of other so-called economists associated with the IEA, such as @CeeMacBee.
Nov 2, 2023 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
1/17 It's time to join some dots and talk about one of the very worst effects of Brexit.

I am not talking about the economy. I am talking about its impact on honesty in public life and the integrity of our institutions. A 🧵 2/ So far, the national conversation has been about effects on trade, growth, etc. There's no doubt about a negative impact. Brexiters who once boasted of unicorns, now perform cognitive acrobatics to argue things aren't quite as shit as remainers say.
Aug 23, 2023 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
1/20 As desperate Brexit fanatics make bogus claims about the UK outperforming the EU, I thought it might be useful to gather together a few facts. 2/ First up, the £, here compared to a basket of foreign currencies. Something seems to have happened to it in 2016. Image
Aug 17, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
1/13

A brief thread for any ‘A’ level students collecting their results today (and their anxious parents).

I’d like to tell you my story about how I screwed up my ‘A’ levels - TWICE! 2/ First time (C,E,F) at a well known public school which charged huge sums from my (actually not very rich) parents to tell them I was not very bright and, anyway, was too interested in psychology for my own good.
Aug 3, 2023 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
1/11 🧵

A sincere apology to all remaining Brexiters.

Yesterday I tweeted a simple and harmless anecdote from my travels in France for the amusement of followers (>3k have found it amusing so far).

I had no idea that it would trigger Brexiters so much. 2/11

There seems to be a bit of a theme in the way you reacted to it. Have you been talking amongst yourselves? You all seem pretty desperate to believe it didn't happen (it did).


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Jul 2, 2023 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
1/15 A 🧵about sovereignty.

Some (not all) Brexiters wanted us to leave the EU because they thought threatened UK sovereignty. Although legally, EU membership didn't do that, they argued that all of our laws should be made in Westminster and none negotiated with our neighbours. 2/15 Although I would argue that the laws made in Brussels were very limited and Brexit has made the UK weaker on the international stage, and that Tory shenanigans since then have undermined the rights of ordinary people anyway, the argument at least had a certain kind of logic.
May 25, 2023 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
1/14 A short 🧵about immigration.

It's been hugely depressing listening to the massively dishonest national conversation about it over the last few days. Both main parties seem to be trying to outdo each other to provoke anti-immigrant hysteria. Image 2/14 This hysteria is, of course, another toxic consequence of Brexit.

Brexiters tried their hardest to stoke up fear of migrants and then promised to keep them out. Precisely the opposite happened, so it's no wonder so many people are unhappy.
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Apr 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1/4: For the benefit of Brexiters, here's why Britain's new trade deals aren't worth much.

A standard FTAs removes (most) tariffs but not nontariff barriers (NTBs) which typically cost about 3x as much as tariffs. The EU single market removes both. 2/4 The gravity model, which states that trade decreases by half as distance doubles, is an iron economic law ("social physics" according to Paul Krugman). It has applied historically, even in the days of the British empire (we traded mostly with Europe): Image
Jan 31, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
1/16 Reasons for remainers to be cheerful. A 🧵

Whenever I feel a bit low about Brexit, which is quite often, I try and imagine what it was like during Prohibition in the US - a change so 'irreversible' that they baked it into their constitution only to repeal it 13 years later. 2/16 The parallels are remarkable. The campaign for Prohibition built up over decades, dividing the US into 'dries' and 'wets'. There were even soft dries and hard dries. There were Farage-like figures (Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League, the UKIP of the day).
Jan 26, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
1/10 This is a really good article, although very depressing. TL:DR it is almost a certainty that the harms caused by Brexit will get worse between now and 2027. Image 2/10 Nixon rules out the one thing that might mitigate these effects - rejoining the SM/CU - for all the reasons everyone else seems to. 1/ Refusal of UK political parties to contemplate it; 2/ Reluctance of EU to deal further with perfidious Albion.
Jan 22, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1/6 Seems to me that Johnson thinks he deserves to live a billionaire lifestyle but never had the funds. A snake oil salesman, he's extracted gifts of money, holidays, luxury accommodation, food, and No 10 decor from rich, equally corrupt people wanting access to power. 2/6 My guess is that the credit line 'loan' was never going to be paid back. It was a gift of nearly £1 million to our prime minister, disguised as a loan and then hidden. This is banana republic-level stuff.
Dec 11, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1/ Important post (behind paywall unfortunately) from @Samfr with polling confirming my own research finding that FoM isn’t toxic to leavers. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpol… 2/ Freedman asked the question in a completely different way (we explained FoM and asked if people would be happy to accept it; he included it in a list of things people might worry about if we got closer to EU). Triangulation makes it clear FoM really not a problem for most.
Oct 31, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
1/14 My timeline has been polluted all day by right-wing imbeciles bleating about the small boats crisis. They have two factors in common: (1) they mostly blame anyone except the government that has been in power for 12 years; (2) they have no solutions of their own. Image 2/ A clue for you mutton heads out there: Just shouting that the boats must be stopped won't work. Unless you have a realistic understanding of the problem, you will have zero chance of solving it.
Oct 24, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
1/14 A short 🧵 on why the UK rejoining the EU is now inevitable.

I have been confident for some time now that Britain will rejoin the European Union, predicting it will happen in the early 2030s, and I have the tweets to prove it. 2/14 The events of the past few days have only increased my confidence, and make me wonder whether it could even happen sooner.
Oct 22, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Arriving at the First National Rejoin March. Despite a rail strike and previous postponement because of the Queen’s death, a surprisingly large crowd.

We are already on the road to reverse the most monumentally stupid (and antigrowth) policy in modern British history! Lots of cars hooting support as they drive by. Still people converging on the March from all directions.
Sep 29, 2022 • 21 tweets • 5 min read
1/21 A 🧵about Brexit psychology. Watching the events of the past few days, I've been struck by the way that initial panic and disbelief at the economic chaos created by Truss and Kweteng has been followed by the usual Brexit ideologists doubling down: 2/ Apparently, there is no crisis: