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Cormack Lawson Profile picture
Cormack Lawson
@eyes_lilly
Independent researcher and writer, mainly focused on UK politics. @CormackLawson@mastodon.world
Nov 6, 2023 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
#thread
Rising homelessness is a consequence of many policy choices, not a lifestyle choice.

ONS: 3,069 people slept rough any given night last year, 26% up on previous year, and 74% more than 2010. Spot the trend...

What are the wider implications?
theguardian.com/society/2023/n… This is a policy choice with a few unspoken purposes:

-the destitute don't rebel
-another group of vulnerable people/ manufactured crisis can be used to justify more authoritarian policies
-driving up deficits in local authority budgets prepping for CCAs

This last point is key.
Sep 14, 2023 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
1/21
#THREAD on healthcare, think tanks & regional devolution.

But 1st, some statistics🥳

ONS stats:
2.6m out of work due to ill health
0.5m added to the list from May-July '23
~0.25m deaths due to Covid

NHS stats: Currently 7.6m people waiting to start hospital treatment.... ...University of York researcher's stats, published in the Guardian via the BMJ:

Austerity responsible for >500,000 deaths in 5 years (to 2021).

Seeing the trend yet?... One more, then we'll move on.
theguardian.com/society/2021/o…
Aug 23, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
1/16
#thread #ClimateCrisis #Democracy

Since 2019 State subsidies, investments and loans to fossil fuels have more than doubled to £1.35 trillion despite pledging to accelerate efforts to phase them out at Cop26.

Not surprising when you consider that...
theguardian.com/environment/20… Fossil fuels fund our Government, opposition, media outlets, "think tanks", scientific institutions, and universities.

They have corrupted every institution that could have curtailed their power & influence.
Jun 17, 2023 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
1/X #thread #Freeports

Freeports are a considerable national security threat.

Of all the threats they pose, it is most astounding that this particular threat has seemingly *cough cough* escaped the selective attention of the wider British media...
medium.com/@cormack.lawso… While the press just about managed to mumble something about "Freeports" swallowing up swathes of National Parks, they failed to mention many have a concerning array of military assets in their boundaries & will likely be looking to leverage them to maximise their influence.
Jun 16, 2023 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
1/X #Thread
The website of every “Freeport”, their associated Local Enterprise Partnerships, captured Local Authorities, & the private partners backing the projects are parroting the same pre-scripted lines from their ‘plotting a Freeport’ starter packs...
medium.com/@cormack.lawso… Wild claims of £ billions of inward investments, unbelievable numbers of jobs, igniting green(washing) revolutions, or how they are ‘uniquely’ positioned as the gateway to the UK are plastered across all of their websites.
May 16, 2023 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
1/18 #thread
It's easier to break systems, services, groups & people down than it is to rebuild them.

Consider the effort, planning & funding it's taken the fascists to advance this far.

That's what WE have to collectively reverse. Now, it can only come from us, we the people. 2/
 Politicians have failed us, the media have failed us, all our institutions have failed us, & celebrities won't save us.

It won't cost us as much in time, effort or money to undo the damage & rebuild a fairer & better society for all.

But we all need to do this, together.
May 2, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1/
 Nazis here...
2/
 Nazis there...
Apr 25, 2023 • 26 tweets • 11 min read
1/lots
Was the Elections Act 2022 the end of free and fair elections in the UK?
Long #thread

Forget the influence of all the companies now filling the Cambridge Analytica void for a second, but based on just one Act, do we still have free and fair elections in the UK?
Image The targeted voter suppression with mandatory ID got the lion's share of the media coverage when it was just a bill, the same was true again approaching the local elections.

It is fascist to remove the right to vote from millions after systematically ruining their lives.

But...
Apr 5, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/8 #thread

We really shouldn't need a Commons Committee to tell us that "MPs should be banned from using foreign governments to fund parliamentary 'special interest' groups (APPGs)"

While sending a virtuous signal of cracking down on the influence of...
theguardian.com/politics/2023/… ...of opaquely funded special interest groups, as usual, in reality it will do very little to tackle the true scale & route of problems.

So long as lobbyists posing as academics are able to hide sources of funding behind their designated charity status, very little will change.
Mar 31, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1/9
 "Sunak’s new anti-trade union legislation would make the UK one of the most difficult countries in the democratic world in which to go on strike"

How cute, 10 "academic experts in employment law" think we're still part of the democratic world...

theguardian.com/politics/2023/… 2/
 This is obv a very troubling Bill, but, it is FAR from the first overtly anti-democratic/fascist legislation we've witnessed. We're quickly nearing a point of no return

I've been banging this drum for a while, but I'll continue doing so as too many clearly still cant hear it.
Mar 22, 2023 • 31 tweets • 6 min read
1/X #thread

Think tank regulation

The think tank stranglehold over policy agenda in the UK has arguably been the most important cog in the machine that is now tearing down the country.

They pose as charities to hide the true source of their funding...

medium.com/@cormack.lawso… ... but, its widely reported to be a few billionaire family empires, hedge funders, the new age tech billionaires, the fossil fuel industry & other corrupt companies funding US think tanks pushing the same agenda in America.

There's no reason to believe its any different here.
Mar 15, 2023 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
1/X #thread

A Written Constitution

There have been several events in the last few years that have shone a blinding light into the gaping chasm that is our unwritten constitution.

We should have had multiple constitutional mechanisms to stop this by now.
medium.com/@cormack.lawso… This Govt routinely makes decisions based on the continued support of their patrons (& at our expense).

That much has been clear for years.

From burying the Russia report & giving Cambridge Analytica a week to clear out their offices before they were raided by police...
Feb 25, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
1/5 Plymouth Freeport site and defence.

Babcock, the defence and nuclear engineering firm mainly working for the MoD, is being celebrated by local councillors for creating 90 jobs in Plymouth Freeport building military vehicles & taking advantage of the tax exemptions on offer. This is important.

Plymouth already has a considerable military presence & has many defence companies in the area

I expect this to increase as the Freeport develops a distinct military/defence focus with Babcock & other similar companies fulfilling govt contracts from this site
Feb 5, 2023 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
"Ninety years on from the Enablement Act that gave rise to the most monstrous political movement in history, Britain is about to replicate the frightful final flourishes from the Nazi playbook on establishing a fascist authoritarian regime..."
medium.com/@cormack.lawso… "Namely, rapidly restructuring the established systems of power and enabling the bypassing of Parliament."
Jan 14, 2023 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the Government's own Crypto plans or influencing the nature of regulations they are currently considering for the market in the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

A 🧵 "(Then) Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak said:

It’s my ambition to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology"

"introducing a ‘financial market infrastructure sandbox’ to enable firms to experiment and innovate"
Jan 12, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
So much in here, well worth a read for anyone interested in Teesworks Freeport and the mass die-off, but it also covers misused funding, dodgy contract awards and everyone's favourite Freeport fanboy @BenHouchen gets an honourable mention too.

Some highlights ⬇️ "The local fishing community, in turn, is calling Ben Houchen quite a lot of things, none of them complimentary. This is because they can spot insincerity when they see it."
Nov 21, 2022 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
The UK has been subjected to a cleverly partitioned, rolling attack delivered by 5 #BrexitPMs
The 5th to advance the cause is Rishi Sunak.
Charter Cities true believer & partly responsible for the 2008 crash.
What he's done & will do for the cause, a thread 1/12
#BrexitPMs In 2015,Sunak authored the CPS report suggesting Freeports could reignite the UK economy once it was freed from the shackles of European democracy. He co-authored a report for Policy Exchange which sought to classify & map the targeting of ethnic minority voters. #BrexitPMs
Nov 21, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
The UK has been subjected to a cleverly partitioned, rolling attack delivered by 5 #BrexitPMs
The 4th to advance the cause was Liz Truss.
The supreme Brexit stooge, Truss was a national joke that was far from funny & cost us dearly.
What she achieved for the cause, a thread 1/9 Prior to the referendum Truss co-authored Britannia Unchained, at the time, the book was largely dismissed as out of touch and misguided, but 10 years on & with Truss briefly in No 10, this pseudo-intellectual epic came to be the guiding ideology of the Tory party. #BrexitPMs
Nov 21, 2022 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
The UK has been subjected to a cleverly partitioned, rolling attack delivered by 5 #BrexitPMs
The 3rd to advance the cause was Boris Johnson
The most immoral, self-serving & corrupt PM the UK has ever seen by a country mile
What he achieved for the cause, a thread 1/18
#BrexitPMs Prior to the referendum, Johnson was working for the Kremlin-funded Telegraph newspaper & Spectator magazine writing xenophobic, inflammatory & misleading columns, manipulating opinion on immigration & exaggerating alleged over-reach of the EU into UK domestic affairs. #BrexitPM
Nov 21, 2022 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
The UK has been subjected to a cleverly partitioned, rolling attack delivered by 5 #BrexitPMs
The 2nd to advance the cause was Theresa May.
She was as maliable as Truss & her actions are often overlooked in the longer arc.
What she achieved for the cause, a thread 1/14
#BrexitPMs Like Cameron, May had been advocating for leaving the ECHR under the pretence of being able to better deal with immigration for years before the referendum.

May did campaign for Remain but her efforts were half-hearted at best. #BrexitPMs
Nov 21, 2022 • 14 tweets • 9 min read
The UK has been subjected to a cleverly partitioned, rolling attack delivered by 5 #BrexitPMs
The 1st to advance the cause was David Cameron
The most deceptive of the 5, he lit the fuse on the Brexit bomb & set our course.
What he achieved for the cause, a thread 1/9
#BrexitPMs He played on EU scepticism in the Conservative party first to gain his seat in Witney in the 2001 election and then again during the 2005 party leadership contest.

He advocated for leaving the ECHR, falsely claiming it was impeding our ability to tackle immigration. #BrexitPMs