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'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did & it never will' - Frederick Douglass #FuckMusk #FuckFarage #FuckTrump @docrussjackson.bsky.social
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Jan 15 26 tweets 9 min read
#THREAD

According to the UK Electoral Commission website, in June & July 2024 alone, more than £1.7M flooded into Reform UK. Since 2019, more than £16M (73%) of its funding is linked to just nine companies & individuals with offshore interests.

goodlawproject.org/the-offshore-b… The Electoral Commission website is easy to search, either by donations/loans to particular political parties, or by the names of individuals/organisations funding them. Since 2019, Farage's Reform UK Ltd/Brexit Party has recieved more than £22M (£4.4M/MP)
search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=1…
Jan 12 16 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

GB "News" is jointly owned by Paul Marshall & Legatum, under the umbrella of holding company All Perspectives: three of its significant shareholders work for Christopher Chandler's Dubai-based investment firm Legatum & three Tory life peers are shareholders or Directors. Image The five people listed as having 'significant control' over GB "News" umbrella holding company All Perspectives Ltd are: Philip Vassiliou; Paul Marshall; Richard Douglas; Alan McCormick; & Christopher Chandler.

Jan 10 18 tweets 6 min read
🧵

In 2013, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner published the final report of its two-year Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs & groups - the biggest investigation into the scale & nature of child sexual abuse in England ever published.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…Image Anyone wanting to read “If only someone had listened”, Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, Final Report', published November 2013, by Sue Berelowitz et al, it's here:

assets.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/wpuploads/2017…
Jan 3 28 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

In the new series of the #dystopian sci-fi series #BlackMirror, the second-richest man on earth, who owns 98% of one of the largest Hawaiian Islands, rolls out his total global surveillance system called 'The Oracle' to ensure 'good behaviour'...

404media.co/larry-ellisons…Image This is the very definiton of 'dystopian', & draws parallels with the warnings outlined in Orwell's 1984, which Musk often alludes to. But it's not fiction - it's real.

While we all know about Musk, far fewer people know much about the second richest man on earth, Larry Ellison. Image
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Dec 20, 2024 25 tweets 10 min read
#THREAD

The Heartland Institute (HI) is a Chicago-based lobby group at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

Nigel Farage was the “special guest of honour” at the launch of the Heartland Institute’s new European offshoot on 17 December. Image In September, Reform UK's Nigel Farage called on the US to “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels as he headlined a 40th anniversary HI event.

The Heartland Institute, which questions human-made climate change, has established a new branch in London.

desmog.com/2024/12/19/nig…
Dec 16, 2024 45 tweets 13 min read
#THREAD

Shit-stirring hypocritical bigoted playground bullies were once shunned by society, but now they can become MPs.

Is Reform UK's Lee Anderson, who exploits ordinary people with his infantile divisive populism, the thickest & most hypocritical bigot ever to become an MP? Image #30pLee is on his third party in six years.

He was elected as a Labour councillor in 2015 & suspended by the local branch of the Labour Party in 2018 after receiving a community-protection warning by the council for using boulders to block members of the Traveller community. Image
Dec 14, 2024 9 tweets 3 min read
#THREAD

The Chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, Richard Cooke, has been suspended after he branded racism allegations as "nonsense" on social media after a former chief inspector alleged racism & homophobia were rife within the force.

itv.com/news/central/2… Policing is hard. The Police Federation of England and Wales is the statutory staff association for police constables, sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors & special constables in the 43 territorial police forces in England & Wales. Cooke is Chair of the West Midlands branch.
Dec 11, 2024 18 tweets 7 min read
🧵Trump has assigned Musk a chilling task: To dismantle & destroy large parts of the federal government. Musk wants us to call this project by a humorous & innocent-sounding name: the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE).

#Framing is important.

theframelab.org/destruction-of… First, Musk's project is not an official Dept, so it's not factual to call it one.

Second, the goal of Musk's project is destruction, not "efficiency." Efficiency is when you make something work better. Musk clearly seeks to eliminate, not improve, large parts of government. Image
Dec 10, 2024 12 tweets 5 min read
#THREAD

I've lost count of all the ultrarich privately educated 'anti-elites' in Reform UK!

Dubai World Trade Centre & Nick Candy's Candy Capital have a partnership to develop a “super-prime” real estate development in Dubai - where co-owner of GB "News", Legatum, is based! 🤑 Image Candy joined the Tory party in 2009 & has donated at least £290,000 to it.

In February he gave an interview saying it was “probably time for a change” & that Keir Starmer was “a decent man with good values and good morals”.

Nick Candy is to become Reform UK's new treasurer! Image
Dec 9, 2024 74 tweets 24 min read
#THREAD

My 2023 Open Letter about @BBCQuestiontime, read by 300,000 people in 144 countries, was widely reported in the media & informed questions asked of @BBC DG Tim Davie at a Parliamentary Select Committee.

Here's my 🧵 analysis of the recent episode of #bbcqt, featuring: Image My main criticisms of #bbcqt were: poor & biased chairing, including a tolerance of panellists who continually interrupt; ambiguity about the audience political demographic; & the well-evidenced bias toward platforming panellists from right-leaning media.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/an-op…
Dec 8, 2024 19 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

Farage has defended Reform UK MP James McMurdock, who was jailed for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend, & said 'he should be forgiven'.

In 2014, Farage dismissed a Polish MEP's comment that beating women "helps bring wives back to Earth", insisting it was "just a joke". Image Back in 2014, the Board of Deputies of British Jews criticised Farage - then UKIP Leader - for striking a deal with far-right Polish party Congress of the New Right, whose leader has a history of #Holocaust denial and racist and misogynistic comments.

theguardian.com/politics/2014/…
Dec 5, 2024 64 tweets 13 min read
#THREAD

In one of his many controversial Cabinet picks, Trump has said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr - a longtime spreader of sometimes dangerously inaccurate information about vaccines - to lead the US Dept of Health and Human Services. 🤮🤒😷

factcheck.org/2024/11/as-tru… RFK is a founder of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that is one of the most prolific sources of vaccine misinformation. RFK’s vaccine misinformation contributed to a measles outbreak in American Samoa in 2019 that led to the deaths of 83 people, most of them 5 or younger.
Dec 2, 2024 24 tweets 9 min read
#THREAD

Controversial 'anti-woke' Evolutionary Biologist, Colin Wright, is the Founding Editor of 'Reality’s Last Stand', which claims to 'hold the line on free speech, science, & reality', & a Fellow at the free-market Manhattan Institute, founded in 1978 by Antony Fisher. 🕷️ Image This isn't a thread about sex & gender. It's about free speech & the toxic influence of individuals who identify as 'heroic victims of wokeism' while receiving support from right-wing media, 'influencers' like Zuby, & a global network of opaquely funded free-market think tanks. Image
Nov 29, 2024 41 tweets 7 min read
#THREAD

#PETITION

Stop misusing Dietrich Bonhoeffer to support political violence and Christian nationalism.

Leading figures on the Christian right are misrepresenting Bonhoeffer in their campaign against secularism.
change.org/p/stop-misusin… Dietrich Bonhoeffer waa an antifascist theologian and pastor who resisted the Nazi regime before he was executed in 1945.

From #Project 2025 to violent political rhetoric, the legacy of Bonhoeffer is being invoked on behalf of Christian Nationalism.

theguardian.com/us-news/2024/n…
Nov 29, 2024 19 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

The well documented connections between Nigel Farage, the US & UK Christian right (including his billionaire employer at GB "News", Paul Marshall) & #TuftonSt lobbyists are deeply concerning.

Despite his '@BBC boycott', Farage is on #bbcqt next week, FOR THE 37TH TIME. Image In September 2024, opaquely funded Radical right-wing #TuftonStreet think tanks flocked to the Reform UK conference.

The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) hosted an event, alongside the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) & the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA).

desmog.com/2024/09/18/tuf…
Nov 27, 2024 27 tweets 9 min read
#THREAD

🚨 Prof Brooke Harrington has researched the ultrarich for 25 years & offers some terrifying observations about the aims of the new breed of super-wealthy tech barons, #Broligarchs like Thiel, Musk, Mercer etc - the real 'Sovereign Individuals'.

podbean.com/ep/pb-i5j8y-17… Very few people are fully aware of the goals & beliefs of Broligarchs like Elon Musk & Peter Thiel.

The truth is that these ultrarich Broligarchs want to reorder society, giving rise to threats to women, to minorities, society & democracy, all while bypassing accountability.
Nov 24, 2024 6 tweets 3 min read
🧵Call a General Election?

A 2016 petition calling on the Govt to have a threshold on the EU referendum got more than FOUR MILLION signatures. A 2019 petition calling on the Govt to revoke Article 50 & remain in the EU got more than SIX MILLION signatories.

Both were ignored. Image The Express says the petition, pushed by some of the UK's worst people, “is now being branded Britain’s fastest-ever growing petition!”

WHO BY?

Started on 20/11, by 11am 4 DAYS later, it had 509,095. The 2019 Revoke Article 50 petition got FOUR MILLION signatures in 48 hours! Image
Nov 23, 2024 57 tweets 11 min read
#THREAD

There was outrage when in 2020, the Tory Govt conceded a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal would "break international law" in a "specific & limited way".

But what is international law? What is the ICC?

And what were Margaret Thatcher's views on international law? Image
Image
First, what is 'international law'?

Broadly (it's complicated!) it refers to the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors.
Nov 21, 2024 28 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

"Improving the quality of life for people of this country is perhaps the most important duty of Government."

John Prescott has died.

In September 2000, John - then Deputy Prime Minister - gave a speech at the @UKLabour Party Conference, introducing Nelson Mandela. Image Nelson Mandela died in December 2013. Writing a tribute in the Daily Mirror, John reflected on his death, writing: “In my office at home I have a picture that is my most treasured possession. It’s of me shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand on stage at the @UKLabour conference in 2000." Image
Nov 16, 2024 17 tweets 8 min read
🧵
Allison Pearson posted then deleted disinformation, falsely accused three people of being "Jew haters", lied about where the photo was taken & what they were doing, then lied about what the Police said to her - and then moaned about being a victim! FFS

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/… The Telegraph's divisive shit-stirrer Pearson falsely claimed she was told by the police who came to her home it was over a “non-crime hate incident”. Her lie was then dutifully amplified by every Reform UK MP & billionaire-owned right-wing "news" media, painting her as a victim.
Nov 15, 2024 30 tweets 11 min read
#THREAD

Pearson, Farage, Musk, Young, Habib, & many other shit-stirrers who shamelessly try to normalize hateful, divisive, provocative & inflammatory rhetoric, often refer to George Orwell's 1984, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is much closer to the dystopia we inhabit... Image Harassment, malicious communications, incitement, & threatening violence are all crimes in the UK, & have been for a long time.

Print & broadcast media, & online social media are simply platforms on which we behave or misbehave: it's not about the medium, it's about the offence. Image