#THREAD

A small densely inter-connected homophily of political actors who share media platforms & cooperate with think-tanks, campaign groups & ‘educational charities’ wage the 'war on woke'.

#Spiked is #1 & #GBNews the #2 'anti-woke' media outlets.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.117… Recently, a group of academics and cultural commentators have framed wokeness as a pseudo-religion.

Hayek, in 1973, foreshadowed this by calling social justice a ‘quasi-religious superstition’ that ‘has no meaningful place in a social order organised around a market economy’.

#THREAD

“If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas & coal, from now – from this year.”

- Fatih Birol, Executive Director International Energy Agency’s (IEA), & one of the world’s foremost energy economists, back in 2021.

https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1663252484725276684

The IEAis a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis & data on the entire global energy sector.

Its 31 member & 11 association countries represent 75% of global energy demand.

#THREAD

Advocates of #degrowth say that addressing the #climatecrisis requires nothing less than a fundamental rejection of the whole principle of continuous economic growth as a policy objective.

Is #degrowth finally becoming a realistic option?

ft.com/content/e2f966… The concerns of #degrowth advocates have, slowly but surely, moved from the fringes of Europe’s policy debate to at least being granted a hearing in the EU institutions. European parliamentarians recently organised the second iteration of a conference entitled “Beyond Growth”.

#THREAD

The Grift is Strong with TalkTV & GB News regular & conspiracy nut, Lois Perry, director & sole shareholder of CAR26, & a representative of Laurence Fox's Reclaim UK.

She's tweeted climate change is a “scam” & “there is no climate emergency”.

desmog.com/car26/

https://twitter.com/LoisPerry26/status/1662873115230195716

Perry is a former PR who worked with her husband Richard Hill, who has an, er, a 'colourful' background. In 2013 it was revealed that Nigella Lawson was the "victim of vicious smear campaign by former Charles Saatchi publicist Richard Hillgrove".

mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/n…

Many have argued that Turkey has never had a more ultra-conservative and misogynistic parliament than it does now. Two radical Islamist fringe parties have joined the national assembly on Erdoğan’s side.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/… His AKP has not only brought the New Welfare party (YRP) into its alliance, but also nominated four senior members of the Kurdish Free Cause party (Hüda-Par) under its parliamentary candidate list. All four were elected to parliament on 14 May.

#THREAD

Ben Lawrence was arrested at the Let Women Speak Posie Parker event in Hyde park. Turning Point UK were quick to claim he's a "Jewish patriot... attacked (by "ANTIFA") in what appears to be an antisemitic hate crime".

Who is he, & is this a reasonable characterisation? Quick caveat/bit of salient context - I have some very close, decent, intelligent, compassionate & very left-wing female friends on both sides of this debate.

I know I won't be alone in this, but it does make me somewhat sensitive to the polarising rhetoric around this issue.

#THREAD

Unlike Andrew Neil, I haven't got the luxury of being Chairman of an establishment magazine which represents its billionaire-owner's interests.

Nonetheless, we need to talk about Andrew Neil's climate change stance & history of working for overseas-based billionaires. Here's Andrew Neil in 2013, asking: "Is the whole global warming schtick over?"

Global warming is, as kids know, the long-term heating of Earth’s climate due to human activity, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

#THREAD

When challenged on Britain's brutal asylum laws, Tory MPs often respond by telling voters there are "safe & legal routes" available from a range of countries.

What they DON'T tell voters is that there are NO 'safe & legal routes' to the UK *for people seeking asylum*. A ‘safe and legal’ route is the formal sanction (approval) by the UK Govt of journeys to the UK – eg where a visa is granted for the journey or the person is permitted to travel to the UK without a visa. A journey under any other circumstances is not by a safe & legal route.

🚨 The Govt lost a vote in the Lords on the Public Order Bill to change the interpretation of ‘serious disruption’ of other people’s day-to-day activities to mean ‘anything more than minor’.

The now want reinsert this change via secondary legislation which can’t be amended. 🤬

https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1662405494059794433

“This is a make-or-break moment for parliamentary democracy. The Lords defeated the government on this issue and the Minister is now acting like a seventeenth-century monarch by using a decree to reverse that vote." - Jenny Jones.

#THREAD

Ron DeSantis's entire election strategy is to announce a divisive & unwinnable 'War on Woke'.

This is reminiscent of Bush's declaration of a 'War on Terror', & Nixon's divisive & unwinnable 'War on Drugs', which also reduced complex global issues to banal slogans. In 2015, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the 'War on Drugs', estimated that the US spends $51 billion annually on initiatives, and in 2021, after 50 years of the drug war, others have estimated that the US has spent a cumulative $1 trillion on it.

It's the "Woke Mafia!"

The EVIL WOKE MAFIA not only have the audacity to, er, challenge bigotry, but they've also been known to criticise the infantile divisive drivel puked out by dim-witted highly partisan clickbait columnists in non-dom billionaire owned #propaganda comics!😱 #THREAD

Read about how world-leading expert on nerve agents, Dan Kaszeta, was 'disinvited' from a UK Govt-backed conference after his @Twitter account was trawled through, THEN tell me to 'stand up to the cultural mafia or free speech will cease to exist.' 🤬

#Gaslighting101

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So Rishi Sunak has decided that Suella Braverman hasn't broken the Ministerial Code (again) so there's no need for an investigation!

Are some MPs more equal than others? Although Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak trying to persuade him of her innocence is quite lengthy, it does not address the claim that her special adviser lied to a Daily Mirror journalist when he denied that she had been caught speeding.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

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Scary ideological extremist Ron DeSantis will announce he is running for president in a cosy chat with Elon Musk on Twitter, ending months of speculation about his ambitions & placing the billionaire egomaniac Twitter owner front & centre in the race for the White House. The decision to host the announcement on Twitter comes as Musk, the infantile free speech absolutist with a penchant for posting alt-right memes, has 'relaxed' content moderation & appears to be increasingly courting conservative figures to feature prominently on the platform.

#THREAD

Police are seeking a fifth extension to the bail of a Tory MP arrested on suspicion of rape more than a year ago. The politician cannot be named for legal reasons.

It's important that YOU know what those legal reasons are, & the potential consequences of ignoring them. In January 2020, the Met received a report relating to alleged sexual offences committed between 2002 & 2009.

The Tory MP was arrested & detained in May 2022 over allegations of indecent assault, sexual assault, rape, abuse of position of trust & misconduct in public office.

International students give a net benefit of £37BILLION to the UK economy. On one hand, @Conservatives talk about prioritising economic growth. But on the other, they are willing to damage our economy because they depend on the votes of those who express anti-immigrant sentiment.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1624358404398383105

Universities UK, which represents universities, has expressed some concern about the Home Office plan announced today to impose restrictions on foreign students being allowed to bring dependents with them to the UK. It says women could be affected disproportionately.

You'll NEVER guess which GB "News" presenter is on the 'Leftist' @BBC *YET AGAIN*. 🤬
#PoliticsLive

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1641046803524009986

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1645218757751586818?s=20

There are conflicting claims circulating on social media about the 'riot' in Cardiff last night.

Most agree it was sparked by a fatal road accident, involving two young men, but while some claim it involved a police chase, the police have denied this.

theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/m… Some highly partisan accounts are already speculating & pushing a very politicised narrative, such as this one:

The donation of £5MILLION to the Tory Party - reported as the largest the party has received in 20 years- is from Mohamed Mansour, a former Minister under Mubarak.

Tory Donations are invariably motivated by self-interest, so what do they get in return?

news.sky.com/story/former-m… His company was investigated by HMRC. In 2020, Mansour was reported to have been involved in finance deal by the UK Govt after donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the @Conservatives attended private, off-the-record events with senior Tory figures. opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

#THREAD

On the @BBC’s Westminster Hour last night Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Brexit department, said he thought Braverman had broken the ministerial code.

He told the programme Braverman's actions were (another) "breach of the Ministerial Code": It's easy to forget with all the chaotic, dramatic, & frequent changes within the Govt, that just 7 months ago, Braverman had to resign for breaching the ministerial code, when she sent an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP.

theguardian.com/politics/2022/…

Mirror told by Braverman's team 6 weeks ago she had not received a speeding ticket. Some liars don't feel shame or guilt, & are incapable of empathy. "Our system rewards people who don’t care about others because they have an array of options that people with empathy don’t have." Many people who lack empathy have not had strong role models for empathetic behaviour in their lives.

Empathy deficit can also suggest a personality disorder, for example narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, & borderline personality disorder.

#THREAD

Timnit Gebru reveals Big Tech's & AI's dark side.

"Many of AI's systems may well be built on a huge mess of biases, inequalities & imbalances of power... Questions about what the technology does, & who it benefits & damages, remain unheard."

theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2… While working at Google, Gebru warned about the kind of AI that is increasingly built into our lives, taking internet searches and user recommendations to apparently new levels of sophistication and threatening to master a range of human talents like writing, & composing music.