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@docrussjackson
'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did & it never will' - Frederick Douglass #FuckMusk #FuckTrump #FuckReformUK Occasionally on https://t.co/jbTnppuRyL
62 subscribers
Feb 17 • 40 tweets • 8 min read
#THREAD

Life was demonstrably worse in the 1979 than it is today.

Zymunt Bauman calls this yearning for an imagined past, ‘retrotopia’, in which the ‘Volk’ (the ‘simple folk’, who Reform UK claim to represent) are constructed as homogenous, Christian, white, & ‘indigenous’. Image Life was demonstrably inferior in the 1970s compared to today for almost everyone in England.

Life expectancy in the UK in 1980 was 71 for men and 77 for women. By 2019, life expectancy at birth in England had increased to 79 years for men & 83.5 for women.
Feb 11 • 35 tweets • 14 min read
#THREAD

'Anti-elite man of the people' Nigel Farage, educated at one of the most expensive private schools on earth, is now the highest paid MP in the UK. His basic annual MP salary is £91,346 plus expenses.

The UK National Living Wage for people aged 21+ is just £12.21/hour. Image Let's take a look at some of Nigel Farage's additional earnings that he's legally obliged to declare in the MPs Register of interests - and which contains a few surprises - starting with GB "News".

Full details publicly accessible here:

members.parliament.uk/member/5091/re…New York, USA. 15th Dec, 2024. NIGEL FARAGE chats with far-right shit-stirrer and former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News London, RAHEEM KASSAM (who describes London as a "shithole" as The New York Young Republican Club held their annual Gala event at Cipriani's on Wall Street. (Credit Image: © Laura Brett/ZUMA Press)
Jan 30 • 25 tweets • 11 min read
#THREAD

Late on 22nd January, The @Telegraph claimed on its front page that “One in 12 in London is an illegal migrant.”

Millions of people were shocked and outraged.

This 🧵 is about our broken news media, the subversion of truth and democracy, and the amplification of hate. Image PART ONE: WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

The front-page article, published in the Daily Telegraph, claiming “London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population” was covered across the media and widely discussed by politicians and others. Image
Jan 24 • 33 tweets • 10 min read
#THREAD

What does the English Defence League (EDL) have in common with Reform UK?

And what do the EDL and Reform UK have in common with Islamist extremists?

Quite a lot actually...

Image The EDL is an Islamophobic protest movement aimed at preserving UK identity and culture in the face of a perceived Islamization of the UK and Europe.

So is Reform UK. Image
Jan 21 • 25 tweets • 7 min read
🧵 Quite a few politically & historically illiterate brainwashed Trump-supporters replied or quote-tweeted the tweet below to tell me lifelong democratic socialist George Orwell was not in fact a democratic socialist. Truly Orwellian. So I asked Oligarch Musk's Grok about it... 1. Why was George Orwell a lifelong democratic socialist?

Grok: Image
Image
Jan 21 • 65 tweets • 21 min read
#THREAD

In the preface to her newly reissued book, 'Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan - 30th Anniversary Edition', historian @NancyMacLean5 reflects on the resurgence of white power nationalism and political violence in contemporary America. Image MaClean is known for her prescient best-selling 2017 book about the post–WWII conservative thinkers and policymakers who shaped the hyper-neoliberal #Project2025, 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America',

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
Image
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…