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'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did & it never will' - Frederick Douglass #JoinAUnion #GTTO Views are mine & NOT my employer's.
LittleGravitas 🇪🇺 🇪🇸 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 #FBPE Profile picture Dame Chris🌟🇺🇦😷 #RejoinEU #FBPE #GTTO🔶️ Profile picture oatc Profile picture Roger Boaden 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺 #IAmEuropean Profile picture Charlie Helps FRSA ⚛️❣️💙🖤🤍 Profile picture 60 subscribed
Jun 30 26 tweets 6 min read
🚨#THREAD

Just two opinion polling companies have put Reform UK on 20% or more: People Polling (owned by Legatum Snr Fellow Matt Goodwin) & Whitestone Insight (CEO Andrew Hawkins).

The links to Reform UK, the Evangelical Christian Right & fossil fuel interests are concerning.
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On 18 June, a poll commissioned by GB "News" (co-owned by Legatum), conducted by Snr Fellow at Legatum Matt Goodwin, put Reform on 24%

The average of all polls since is just 16%.

Only two other outlier polls have put Reform on 20% or more - both conducted by Whitestone Insight.
Jun 27 24 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

Nowhere in the world have private equity firms found a more welcoming playground than in the UK: the volumes of buyouts have over the past two decades weighed more in the overall economy than in any other advanced market, including the US.

ft.com/content/e74d6a…
Image Private equity firms have snapped up high street names from grocers Asda and Morrisons to sandwich chain Pret A Manger, and invested in sectors ranging from insurance to nursing homes and infrastructure.
Jun 24 6 tweets 3 min read
OK people, WTAF is 'The Christian Institute'?

Who funds it?

What do they want?

Why did they hold a joint event with barking Clare Fox's Battle of Ideas on “Indoctrination in Education” with barking Frank Furedi of Spiked Online as a speaker?

Britain is NOT America. Not yet.

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The term 'Judeo-Christian' became widely used in the US during the Cold War to suggest a unified American identity opposed to communism.

The “Judeo-Christian tradition” was a political invention: an ecumenical marketing meme for combating godless commies.
Jun 23 9 tweets 4 min read
#THREAD

Britain was once the leading economy in Europe; it is now the most unequal. 🇬🇧

In 'Shattered Nation: Inequality and the Geography of a Failing State', Danny Dorling exposes a new geography of inequality.

dannydorling.org/books/shattere… Danny, a leading expert on housing, health, employment, education & poverty, has published with colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to UK social inequalities, & several hundred journal papers - which is probably why he's so rarely on TV.

dannydorling.org
Jun 19 31 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

The hateful anonymous @X account @benonwine constantly tweets out divisive, inflammatory far-right pro-Farage tweets.

Because it's impossible to find out who is behind the grotesque account, we cannot know who, or what, is behind it. It's the same for @UKUpdates_co_uk.
Image Now that all the main parties have published their manifestos, rather than actually read them, the overwhelming majority of voters will rely on (almost invariably partisan) third-party accounts to summarise and/or interpret them.

But how accurate & reliable is their analysis?
Jun 13 19 tweets 7 min read
#THREAD

A research paper from the University of Greenwich, 'The case for a progressive annual #WealthTax in the UK' (updated 12th June 2024), analyses the revenue potential of a progressive annual net wealth tax on the top 1% in the UK...

#TaxTheRich

gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/4732… A progressive net wealth tax is a tax on the stock of net wealth (assets minus liabilities), that is designed to raise revenues primarily from only the very wealthiest individuals, primarily to fund public & other essential services, which benefit *everyone*.

#TaxTheRich Image
Jun 10 88 tweets 19 min read
#THREAD

Today, you might get the impression from news and social media that the far-right has 'taken over' the EU, which is in its death throws: the evidence does not support this view: nationalist/populist hard/far-right parties are on course to get just a quarter of EU seats. Image Hard/far-right parties have made not insignificant gains in several countries across the EU, not least France, Italy, Germany & Austria, producing uncertainty about the EU - and Europe's - political direction & future.

However, it's certainly not the landslide you may think.
Jun 9 8 tweets 4 min read
#THREAD

Pop density(K)/square mile:

1 Macau 54
2 Monaco 47
3 Singapore 21.4
4 Hong Kong 17.4
5 Gaza 14.9
13 Bangladesh 3
17 Palestine 2.3
25 Rwanda 1.4
33 Netherlands 1.1
38 Belgium 1
44 Japan 0.8
52 UK🇬🇧0.7

We face housing & climate crises, not migrant & overcrowding crises.
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We need more affordable housing, but health is often forgotten about in housing policies. Amid the clamour for economic growth & house building targets, housing quality loses out. Decent regulations & standards are often derided as unnecessary 'red tape'.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Jun 8 25 tweets 9 min read
#THREAD

In 2022, 'political risk & intelligence analyst' & Egyptian immigrant to the UK, Khaled Hassan, explained in a podcast hosted by the controversial UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism why he, now 'a proud Jew', converted from Islam to Judaism.

So who is Khaled Hassan?
Image In March 2022, The Jewish Chronicle featured Hassan, describing him as a "hero moderator" of @YouTube videos, "who dared to speak up (but) was silenced as Whistleblower".

He described what he perceived to be as YouTube's failure to remove hateful videos.

thejc.com/news/i-couldnt…
Jun 4 15 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

Rumour has it, the character leading Nigel Farage away is George Cottrell, an interesting chap, who may give some insight into Farage's 'anti-elite' Reform UK team.

(Btw, I don't agree with chucking drinks over anyone).

So who is George Cottrell? The former head of fundraising for UKIP, Cottrell was born to an aristocratic family.

His dad, a businessman & landowner from Gloucestershire, attended Gordonstoun School with Prince Andrew.

Remember: Reform UK self-identity as an 'anti-elite' party.

Jun 3 20 tweets 7 min read
#THREAD

Given Kemi Badenoch's well-documented history of gaslighting, performative cruelty, divisive rhetoric & questionable judgement - which includes the time she told the Covid Inquiry 'there's no cure for poverty' - here's a short thread of some of her 'best bits'... 😬 Image That time an irritated & condescending Kemi Badenoch told the Covid Inquiry that "we don't have a cure for poverty".

Jun 2 69 tweets 15 min read
#THREAD

Most people are aware of influential 78-year-old British-Belizean billionaire 'Lord' Michael Ashcroft - but how much do people know about him, his multiple controversies, & his relentless interference in, & subversion of, Britain's democracy?

A few highlights... Ashcroft's dad Eric was a British colonial civil servant; Ashcroft spent some of his early years in British Honduras (now Belize) and Malawi.

Following a period in Belize after completing his education, in 1967, Ashcroft joined Carreras Tobacco as a management trainee.
May 30 23 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

In a chilling echo of 1930s Germany, a quarter of all political donations in the EU went to extremist & populist parties.

What's this got to do with Nigel Farage, Tory MPs & other figures on the UK far-right?

Who funds the far-right, & why?

theguardian.com/world/article/… In France, donations to the small nationalist group, Reconquête, backed by Marine Le Pen’s niece & founded in 2021 by *far-right TV & radio personality* Éric Zemmour, totalled £4.7m in 2022 - raising more than President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party.

theguardian.com/world/article/…
May 29 14 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

If divisive, hateful, unelected far-right extremist GB "News" presenter Nigel Farage appears on this week's @bbcquestiontime (36th time this century), it will be the final nail in the coffin of the @BBC's credibility as an "impartial" "public service" broadcaster.
#bbcqt
Image Like all sensible people, I want the @BBC to STOP platforming a highly disproportionate amount of unelected partisan billionaire-funded right-wing propagandists, & instead platform more of our tens of thousands of actual experts. 🇬🇧

#bbcqt @CommonsCMS

May 25 16 tweets 6 min read
#THREAD

Recent changes in election spending limits, combined with weakened checks & balances, means that more than ever, money is subverting British democracy.

Right-wing parties like Reform UK & the @Conservatives already have the support of the billionaire-owned 'news' media. Unlike virtually all the billionaire-owned UK newspapers (including the i, Metro, Mail, Times, Sun, & Telegraph) and the billionaire-owned broadcast 'news' media (GB "News" TalkTV/Radio), @BylineTimes has at least tried to inform voters of these changes.

bylinetimes.com/2023/11/22/rev…
May 24 25 tweets 9 min read
#THREAD

Graham King, an Essex businessman who has accumulated a £750 million fortune, partly through taxpayer-funded government contracts, has entered the Sunday Times Filthy Rich List.

Associate Prof, Melanie Griffiths, explains why this is a problem.

theconversation.com/asylum-housing… King’s business empire includes Clearsprings Ready Homes, which has provided asylum accommodation to the Home Office since 2000, & currently receives £3.5M/day for asylum housing & transportation, even though it's often accused of providing substandard & unsafe accommodation. Image
May 21 22 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

The day after GB "News" was found to have AGAIN broken @Ofcom broadcast rules, they platform nativist extremist Leo Sherlock, founder of an influential website known for spreading false, misleading or absurd claims about COVID-19, immigration, Muslims & other topics. Image Leo Sherlock is little-known here, but his website 'The Liberal IE', which spreads all manner of awful divisive misleading hateful garbage, has over 575K Facebook followers, as well as around 40K subscribers and followers on @X, @YouTube and @instagram .

isdglobal.org/wp-content/upl…
May 20 11 tweets 3 min read
#THREAD

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.
May 18 18 tweets 7 min read
#THREAD

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?" Image 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/
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May 14 25 tweets 8 min read
#THREAD

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".

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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. Image
May 13 5 tweets 2 min read
#THREAD

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. Image 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.