George Monbiot says: “Something has changed: not just in the UK and the US, but in many parts of the world. A new politics, funded by oligarchs, built on sophisticated cheating and provocative lies, using dark ads and conspiracy theories on socialmedia, has perfected the art of persuading the poor to vote for the interests of the very rich. We must understand what we are facing, and the new strategies required to resist it.
“When the same thing happens in many nations, it’s time to recognise the pattern, and see that heaping blame on particular people and parties fixes nothing.
“In these nations, people you wouldn’t trust to post a letter for you have been elected to the highest office. There, as widely predicted, they behave like a gang of vandals given the keys to an art gallery, “improving” the great works in their care with spray cans, box cutters and lump hammers. In the midst of global emergencies, they rip down environmental protections and climate agreements, and trash the regulations that constrain capital and defend the poor.
“They wage war on the institutions that are supposed to restrain their powers while, in some cases, committing extravagant and deliberate outrages against the rule of law. They use impunity as a political weapon, revelling in their ability to survive daily scandals, any one of which would destroy a normal politician.”
Monbiot proposes a new model of politics which he calls political ‘rewilding.’
The second view on the outcome of the election is a guest post (below) by my friend and fellow campaigner Ian Mclauchlin, reflecting his own justified suspicion of a “new politics, funded by oligarchs, built on sophisticated cheating and provocative lies, using dark ads and conspiracy theories on social media, has perfected the art of persuading the poor to vote for the interests of the very rich.”
He says: “I’ve been dismayed to see that the world seems to be going from bad to worse. Rogues are elected and there’s a suspicion (in my mind at least) that it’s happened not always by fair means. They’ve been doing the ‘wrong’ thing almost as a matter of course and getting away with it. Their values are not my values. etc.
How could this be? Why, in recent times, have we been saddled with particularly unsavoury and incompetent leaders?
If you accept for a moment that they’ve been given all the votes that they seem to have been given, why would people vote like that? For the obviously retrograde and the dangerous?
Well ask yourself what’s changed. In the last 15 years or so, but especially the last 10, Social Media have become available and increasingly heavily used. That’s given those who previously didn’t have a voice the opportunity to find their voice. Not only have they found it, but realised that it can be spread around the world. It’s then amplified by sharing and comments by like minded people. That doesn’t mean it’s the right voice, nor does it mean it’s a correct analysis. But the proponents ‘think’ that it is. So what follows?
What follows is that the bigoted, uneducated, prejudiced and intellectually challenged have found that they can spread their ‘opinions’ – often gained by accepting with gullibility what they’re told to think by the newspapers they choose to read – far and wide. They then think that their opinions are worth more than they are. Social media amplify those opinions and recipients believe that they’re majority opinions so, like sheep, adopt them as their own!
And Political Parties of dubious morality (are there any other kind?) haven’t been slow to notice this and have deliberately muddied the social media waters accordingly for their own ends, thereby adding to the amplification and the wrong thinking. And so they’re complicit in it all and need to be held to account for that reason alone.
That’s one explanation anyway, in the face of the otherwise inexplicable and downright perverse . . . .
____
So what do you think happened? Ian is right about government and the media’s unrelentingly ruthless lies, dishonesty and disinformation strategies in the run up to the election and the sheer gullibility of the working class, who have apparently voted for more of the same retrogressive policies that have made their lives more difficult and precarious over the last decade.
In my next article in this series I’m exploring how social psychology may play a part in the rise in populism – a political approach that strives (on the surface, at least) to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups, nationalism and authoritarianism, especially in societies where people experience high levels of socioeconomic inequality. Unfortunately, many people often mistake authoritarian leaders for ‘strong’ ones.
They’re not. Authoritarians are invariably all mouth, lots of slogans and no democracy.
The despised elite has ignored the public in the UK for the last decade has just been returned to office by the same public, as if people expect that voting for more of the same will somehow yield different results and benefit them personally, this time. Unless people really thought the elite was not this particular elite who are not a fundamental part of the establishment…
The electorate has absolutely no grounds whatsoever for the belief that things will improve, and there is plenty of evidence over the past ten years which shows how the Conservatives have not got working class interests at heart.
It seems that many people were quite happy to forego both an interest based and evidence-based decision on how to vote in 2019.
Educational attainment and voting preferences in the last general election.
Politics and Insight’s independent, measured, authoritative reporting has never been so vital, or in the public interest. These are turbulent, decade-defining times. Whatever lies ahead for us all, I will be with you – investigating, disentangling, analysing and scrutinising, as I have done for the last 9 years.
More people, like you, are reading and supporting independent, investigative and in particular, public interest journalism, than ever before.
I don’t make any money from my research and writing, and want to ensure my work remains accessible to all.
I have engaged with the most critical issues of our time – the often devastating impact of almost a decade of Conservative policies, widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, I believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity and the norms of democracy at its heart.
My editorial independence means I set my own agenda and present my own research and analyisis. My work is absolutely free from commercial and political interference and not influenced one iota by billionaire media barons. I have worked hard to give a voice to those less heard, I have explored where others turn away, and always rigorously challenge those in power, holding them to account.
My first step to fight back this year is to join the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) as soon as I can afford to. It is an essential protection, now.
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Disinformation and propaganda can take many forms—from the use of false images, misleading headlines, to social media techniques that create an impression of consensus – that the ‘majority’ understands an issue in a certain way (also called ‘bandwaggon technique’). Polling can be misused, for example, to create an illusion of agreement in a population, and to draw on the conformity tendency or ‘herd mentality’ of the public.
Media agenda setting and framing of events may also contribute to the bandwaggon effect, and even subtle cues such as a broadcast presenter’s attitude and language towards election candidates can also influence voters.
For example, the many times we have heard the phrase “… let Jeremy Corbyn in” from broadcast media over the course of this election sends out a message that a Labour government would not be the norm, or the ‘preferred’ outcome of an election. The phrase also references and amplifies Theresa May’s chilling authoritarian comment that the Tories would “never allow [Jeremy Corbyn to be elected as Prime Minister] that to happen”. That is the intended subtext.
Sometimes, journalists quite openly reveal their own clear biases. This blatant lack of impartiality contravenes the UK’s norms of democracy and dismally fails to uphold public interest.
And here we have a BBC reporter exposing the agenda by way of a Freudian slip and saying “If Boris Johnson gets the victory he SO DESERVES”! pic.twitter.com/XAEPAAbYNA
The comments, attitudes, gestures and facial expressions of presenters may also send out cues about party leaders deemed ‘suitability’ for office. Boris Johnson’s avoidance of difficult interviews was not because of cowardice. It was a tactical measure to avoid scrutiny, and to avoid being seen in a negative light. The interviews he did participate in were friendlier than other party leaders. Johnson had an easier time of it, by and large, during the election campaign.
The PM having a friendly selfie moment on This Morning
Johnson was somehow unable to find time to be interviewed by BBC1’s Conservative but nonetheless formidable Andrew Neil. He had no problem squeezing in a breezy and fawning chat with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on ITV.
Can’t imagine why. Informative to see what ‘rigorous scrutiny’ from the British media looks like, however.
The media’s complicity in a strategic disinformation campaign
The case of Jack Williment-Barr, the four-year-old boy (pictured above) who was forced to sleep on a hospital floor as he waited in A&E, has brought public focus on the state of the chronically underfunded NHS just days before the election. The story appeared in the Daily Mirror. But it has also put focus on the other key trend of the election campaign: false and misleading claims that have circulated on social media and been amplified significantly by the mainstream press.
The image of Jack lying on a pile of coats has been at the centre of two major controversial disinformation campaigns. Jack’s story and the shocking image that highlighted the shocking state of the NHS have now been subjected to dishonest political re-edits, twice over. It is inconceivable that these re-edits have originated from anywhere other than the Conservative headquarters.
First, journalists who claimed to have been briefed by ‘senior Conservatives’ misreported that Matt Hancock’s adviser had been punched by one of 100 activists who arrived after the health secretary came to the hospital in an attempt to deal with the ongoing story. It turned out that there was no such punch, and that the adviser had simply accidently walked into the hand of one of the very small number of protesters who were at the hospital. He was pointing at something.
Hancock visited the hospital as a ‘damage management’ exercise following Boris Johnson’s earlier refusal to look at a photo of Jack on the floor of the hospital presented to him by Joe Pike, an ITV journalist. He took the phone from Pike, to avoid a difficult discussion about the government’s chronic underfunding of the NHS.
Tried to show @BorisJohnson the picture of Jack Williment-Barr. The 4-year-old with suspected pneumonia forced to lie on a pile of coats on the floor of a Leeds hospital.
In the second re-edit, thousands of people shared a story that claimed to prove the photo of Jack was ‘staged’ by ‘Labour activists’, and that his mother had placed him on the floor specifically to take a photo. Once again, the claim was false; once again, it was amplified across social media by key journalists and political editors before any of them had bothered checking the provenance of the claim, or the facts of the case from the hospital itself.
None of this was true.
So Hancock was sent to Leeds General Infirmary, where the original photograph was taken. “Health Secretary has been despatched to Leeds to try to sort this out after PM’s awkward reaction earlier,” the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg tweeted.
Soon after he arrived, reports came from many of the country’s leading political journalists that Hancock’s aide had been attacked. Reports including ITV political editor Robert Peston, Laura Kuenssberg and others. This certainly looked like a very well co-ordinated disinformation campaign.
There were also reports that claimed “100 activists” had arrived and that their journey had been “paid for by the Labour Party.”
Some indicated that they had been told the news by Conservatives, and later indicated that the claims had been checked with “multiple sources.”
That will be just Matt Hancock, then.
It very quickly became clear that all of those claims were false. A video of the incident appeared shortly after that made very clear that there were only a few activists, and that the punch had not actually happened at all.
A few protesters (maybe 5) shouted at you… and then one of your minders walked into a protester hand, because he wasn’t looking where he’s going..
Then, the same evening, the second misleading narrative took hold. A flurry of tweets began, boosting two stories that were eerily written using the same wording.
The first and most prominent disinformation item claimed to be sourced from a senior nurse who worked at the hospital, though it got the name of it wrong. It said that the photo had been staged by Jack’s mother, and that he immediately got back on a trolley after it was taken.
The second, which appeared to start slightly later, was credited to a “paediatric nurse.” It used a range of seeming medical jargon to definitively suggest that “no child would be treated in such a way,” and that therefore the image was either fake or misleading.
In both cases, a flurry of accounts took the text of the tweet and re-shared it, oddly, as if it was their own comment. It also made its way onto Twitter, where it was similarly shared without context.
Taken together, the story was shared tens of thousands of times onto different social media sites. Many have suggested that bots have been used.
The original viral post on a medical secretary’s Facebook account said, “I am a nurse myself” and cited a “good friend of mine” at Leeds General. It claimed the boy in the photo “was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and then uploaded it to media outlets”. The post dismissed the pictures of the ill boy as “another Momentum propaganda story”, despite the fact the hospital had already apologised for his treatment.
She later claimed her account had been hacked.
It didn’t matter that the hospital had confirmed the incident happened and apologised to the family, or that the nurses who supposedly served as the source for either story were anonymous and almost certainly not real. The story was shared as if it was fact and was amplified by Conservative MPs and senior journalists.
In some cases, those people have taken down those tweets. But worryingly, others are still live, and still being interacted with by readers.
Neither of the claims are remotely factual. Again, the hospital involved has confirmed that the incident happened, and that the event the photograph shows is real.
Responsible and publicly trusted reporters, such as Kuenssberg and Peston have a fundamental duty to make sure the comments they are putting out in the public domain have been verified and fact checked.
The hospital statement had already summed it the situation up – the hospital admitted there was no bed, the expectations of the family fell woefully short of the high standards of the NHS and as such an apology was issued.
The standards of journalism fell woefully short of the high expectations of the UK media. Throughout the election campaign, it’s clearly evident that the mainstream media has demonstrated that we cannot trust it to deliver impartial commentaries or fact checked news.
However, the BBC did address the despicable misinformation campaign, but not during peak viewing hours:
Laura Kuenssberg: “the postal votes, of course, have already arrived. The parties, they’re not meant to look at them, but they do kind of get a hint. And, on both sides, people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking very grim for Labour…”.
The Electoral Commission says: 1.9 Ballot papers will be kept face down throughout a postal vote opening session. Anyone attending an opening session must not attempt to see how individual ballot papers have been marked. It follows therefore that keeping a tally of how ballot papers have been marked is not allowed.
1.10 In addition, anyone attending a postal vote opening must not attempt to look at identifying marks or numbers on ballot papers, disclose how any particular ballot paper has been marked or pass on any such information gained from the session. Anyone found guilty of breaching these requirements can face an unlimited fine, or may be imprisoned for up to six months.”
In a statement on Twitter, the watchdog said: ‘It may be an offence to communicate any information obtained at postal vote opening sessions, including about votes cast, before a poll has closed. ‘Anyone with information to suggest this has happened should report it immediately to the police.’
Kuenssberg told viewers on Wednesday – with just hours to go before the polling stations opened – that while parties were not supposed to look at voting papers when they were verified – but not counted – at opening sessions, they did “get a hint” of how they were doing and it was not looking good for Labour.
Her comments, however, came across as a statement of fact, rather than a hint.
She said: “The forecast is that it’s going to bewet and coldtomorrow. The postal votes, of course, have already arrived. The parties – they’re not meant to look at it, but they do kind of get a hint – and on both sides people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the country.
“Of course, postal voters tend to skew to elderly voters and people who vote early … but the kind of younger generation who we know skew much more to the Labour party, you might expect to turn out to the polls tomorrow. But in this winter election, turnout is just another one of these factors that we just can’t predict.”
Kuenssberg’s remarks, made during an interview on the BBC’s Politics Live programme, was widely shared on social media on the final day of an election campaign that has seen unprecedented criticism of the media. It led to suggestions that she could potentially have breached the Representation of the People Act, which prevents the reporting of how people voted until after polls close.
A spokesperson for the broadcaster made clear they did not believe there were any issues with the on-air comments. “The BBC does not believe it, or its political editor, has breached electoral law,” they said.
Ballot papers are kept face down while votes are opened and it is forbidden to attempt to see how ballots have been marked or to keep a count. Postal votes are not counted until 10pm on the day of the election.
The broadcasting regulator Ofcom has strict electoral rules around broadcasting or publishing the results of votes or opinion polls on election day before 10pm over concerns that doing so could influence voters’ decisions.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Waltham Forest council in east London has been scrambling to deliver postal votes that should have been out by last Friday, after an administrative error delayed the process.
The problem affected 1,470 voters in three constituencies, including Chingford and Woodford Green, which Iain Duncan Smith won for the Conservatives with a majority of 2,438 at the last election and which is a key target for Labour.
The council could not say how many voters were affected in each constituency but said all but one form had now been delivered.
It said 1,364 forms had been hand-delivered by the end of Monday and 105 more had been couriered to voters outside London on Tuesday and Wednesday.
A council spokesman said the borough had dealt with 27,993 postal votes for this election. He apologised for the error and said the Electoral Commission had been notified.
He added: “Completed postal votes will get to us if they are posted by last post on Wednesday 11 December. They can also be handed to staff at any polling station in the constituency on the day of the general election.”
Given the context of this error, it’s very easy to see why many people have a growing concern that this election may be rigged.
The fake narratives and lies in the Conservatives’ and Liberal democrats’ social media campaigns
Almost all of the Conservative Party’s recent Facebook adverts promote claims labelled as misleading or untrue by one of the platform’s third-party fact-checking partners, a First Draft investigation has found.
Nearly 90% of the ads posted in the first days of December push figures already challenged by Full Fact, the UK’s leading fact-checking organisation. The non-partisan, independent charity works with the tech giant to assess posts which have been reported as misleading or false by users in the UK.
Facebook recently announcedthat posts from political organisations and political adverts are exempt from fact-checking, meaning parties and candidates can promote inaccurate claims without scrutiny.
Online ads have become a controversial central theme of elections, where parties can reach voters with micro-targeted messages that are ‘psychographically tailored’ according to the data held on individuals, concerning their postcode, hobbies, site and online buying preferences and other private information collected by data analysts, but these categories are not in public view in the Ad Library. (See:The government hired several murky companies plying the same methods as Cambridge Analytica in their election campaign.)
The so-called “dark ads” have emerged as a method of advertising that utilises data obtained by the likes of Facebook and Google, among other platforms to ‘customise’ and tailor messages in political campaigns.
They can be served directly to users of Facebook and via Google’s widely used double-click technology which serves ads to millions of websites, including political ads.
It should not be left to US internet companies to safeguard UK elections. Our election laws are decades out of date, and our next Parliament should take urgent steps to secure the accountability and transparency we need to protect our democracy.
Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact, told First Draft: “Full Fact plays an independent role in Facebook’s Third Party Fact Checking programme, which doesn’t currently cover ads or content from political figures or parties.
“But Full Fact continues to regularly scrutinise claims by all political parties, including manifestos and debates during this election campaign.”
The Conservatives massively stepped up their ad campaign on Facebook, running almost 7,000 ads and spending more than £50,000 between November 27 and December 3, according to the latest figures from Facebook’s Ad Library.
First Draft accessed the Facebook Ad Library API to download all 6,749 ads from the Conservative Party between December 1 and December 4. Some 88% (5,952) of the most widely promoted ads featured claims about the NHS, income tax cuts, and the Labour Party which had already been labelled misleading or untrue by Full Fact.
Not every ad includes the misleading claim directly in its image or caption. At least 54% (3,646) of the total ads served link to a webpage carrying the misleading claims.
When ITV News asked senior Conservative Michael Gove about the ads, he said: “I’m not aware of any adverts that we publish that have been misleading.”
The central Conservative Party press office have not responded to requests for comment.
A Facebook spokesperson told ITV News: “We don’t believe a private company like Facebook should censor politicians. Our approach is instead to introduce unprecedented levels of transparency so anyone can see every political advert and who it’s from.”
The misleading ads include:
A total of 5,132 ads push the claim that the Conservatives will build “40 new hospitals”, either in the caption, image or link. The claim was labelled as misleading by Full Fact on October 3, before the election started, which showed Boris Johnson’s government had actually announced plans to build six hospitals, not 40. A separate Full Fact articleaddressed the same claim in the Conservative manifesto but found the pledge had not been costed and would not be fully delivered in the forthcoming parliamentary session.
The claim that the NHS will receive an extra £34 billion — described as “the biggest increase in a generation” and “the biggest cash boost in history” — featured in the linkof two adsposted more than 1,705 times. It was also addressed by Full Fact, which stated: “if we account for inflation—the meaningful way to look at spending over time—the last time there was a larger spending increase on health in England was between 2004/05 and 2009/10.”
The claim that “Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister would mean £1.2 trillion in reckless spending that would hand an extra £2,400 tax bill to every hardworking taxpayer each year” is pushed 4,028 times within different ads. The figure was already marked as misleading as “the calculations and assumptions behind it have a number of flaws”, said Full Fact.
Moy, director of Full Fact, said: “This election candidates and campaigns on all sides are asking voters for their trust. Serious parties and politicians should not be recycling debunked claims or targeting individuals with bad information – we all deserve better than that.”
Facebook, however, expects that the public will somehow determine for themselves the truth of claims made in adverts. It’s a view that is evidently shared by the BBC regarding claims made in party manifestos.
The Lib Dems have also been accused of using misleading graphs in Facebook ads. First Draft found hundreds of Lib Dem Facebook ads use graphs to falsely claim they are the only party to beat Labour, the Conservatives or the SNP “in seats like yours”.
Facebook does not provide data on where the ads have been targeted but some Twitter users have complained that they have received ads which reflect voting pattern statistics that are inaccurate for their constituency.
At least 16.5% of the Lib Dems 7,295 ads since the campaign began feature such claims.
First Draft has not been able to find misleading claims in Facebook adverts from the Labour Party, which has promoted far fewer ads than the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats.
Fact Check say: “More than three quarters of the supposed “savings” come from just two large costs, rail season tickets and childcare, neither of which comes close to reflecting what an average family actually pays. In England, two fifths of families don’t pay anything for childcare; only 5% of people use a train more than three times a week.
However: “Some of the smaller figures seem fair estimates of savings that might come about if Labour’s policies were implemented, but they overstate the extra costs families have faced since 2010.”
And: “We haven’t seen the workings behind this figure, which Labour says is from a House of Commons Library analysis.”
There’s a world of difference between contested figures and deliberate intent to mislead the public, as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have set out to do.
The Tories’ ambition is a one party state
The Tories have been brazen in their contempt for democratic process and norms. For example, it has been plain from their increasing reliance on statutory instruments (SI) to sidestep debate and voting in the Commons, in order to push through controversial and unpopular draconian policies.
When the House of Lords overturned Osborne’s nasty raid on the working poor’s tax credits (itself enacted by statutory instrument, in case the Commons vote it down), he reacted with the oblique but unmistakable threat to flood the Lords with so many new Tory peers so that such a defiance of his authority could not be repeated.
The Conservatives’ utter contempt for both international and national human rights legislative frameworks is another worrying symptom of authoritarianism. The UK is the first state to have prompted investigation into how it upholds the human rights of disabled people. The inquiry report concluded that the government have systematically and gravely violated the human rights of disabled people via their punitive policies. The government continue to deny this, and in the meantime, the public has tended to look the other way while ill and disabled people die prematurely through neglect, loss of support and other austerity related cuts that were disproportionately targeted at one of the most vulnerable communities.
The way in which the Tories have treated marginalised communities has expressed clearly their traditional prejudices, leading to direct discrimination and oppressive policies, while those with the least need – the millionaires – have been lavished with tax cuts and other hand outs from our public funds.
The highly controversial welfare ‘reforms’ were hammered through the scrutiny stage into legislative process by Cameron’s claim to an archaic Commons proviso: ‘financial privilege’. The public are still waiting to see the risk register following the Health and Social Care bill, despite the government being ordered to place it in the public domain by the Information Commissioner and the court.
Then there was Johnson’s illegal prorogation of Parliament- normally a standard procedure in the calendar of Parliament, but the prerogative was clearly used for controversial political objectives by the PM.
The prorogation was an improper and unlawful attempt to evade parliamentary scrutiny of Johnson’s Brexit plans in advance of the UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019; individuals and groups who opposed the prorogation included opposition MPs, UK constitutional law scholars, and John Major, the former Conservative Prime Minister. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, called the decision a “constitutional outrage”.
Page 48 of the Conservative manifesto
Stefan Enchelmaier, Professor of European Law at the University of Oxford, “almost missed” the mention of the Human Rights Act (HRA) in the Conservative manifesto. Probably, most people have. That is probably the point.
Buried on page 48, the 2019 manifesto contains a single mention of the party’s pledge to “update” the 1998 HRA, which brings the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law. It doesn’t specify what the ‘update’ will look like, or when it will happen (beyond “after Brexit,” which isn’t much of a clue). The language is euphemistic and vague, indicating that the ‘update’ will “ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, our vital national security and effective government.” This is not a pledge intended to draw attention.
The attempt at hiding this pledge marks a change. David Cameron’s 2015 manifesto, which also promised the infamous “in-out referendum,” committed—five times over; three in bold—to “scrap” the Human Rights Act (HRA) and introduce a British Bill of fRights. This pledge came despite the failure of the 2010 coalition’s especially set-up Bill of Rights Commission to agree on its content, and by the end of 2015, there was still no British Bill of Rights. In December 2016, it was announced that HRA repeal was delayed until after Brexit; and the 2017 Tory manifesto pledged to remain signed up to the ECHR “for the duration of this parliament.” For now, that is.
During this time, some prominent Conservatives politicised the HRA as “Labour’s.” Others, such as Dominic Grieve defended it.
This is a bit strange given it passed with overwhelming cross-party support in 1998.
Furthermore, the ECHR itself was shaped to a considerable degree by Winston Churchill and Tory lawyer David Maxwell-Fyfe . More recently, the Conservatives have used a narrative of the legal sovereignty issue into the Brexit debate, BUT leaving the EU does not entail leaving the ECHR. They are two different organisations completely.
Tory statements on human rights have often been inflammatory, like Cameron saying he felt “physically sick” at the thought of prisoners’ right to vote. Then there were the lies that were used to portray human rights in a negative light – like the “pet cat” Theresa May said prevented a deportation (in reality, Judge Gleeson had found that the deportee was in a stable relationship, and was therefore allowed to stay under the HRA, and that the couple also kept a cat).
Helen Mountfield, barrister, legal scholar and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford said: “There has really been a populist misrepresentation of what the law is.” She is suggesting that politicians and the populist press have in part intentionally fuelled the perception that the HRA is “a rogue’s charter.”
It’s noteworthy that the Conservatives’ new promise to “update” the HRA is hidden away in a paragraph that,rather worryingly, promises other sorts of constitutional review, including looking at “the relationship between the government, parliament and the courts.” Basically the Tories want to place themselves above the law. It’s usually one of the first acts of a despotic regime when they gain office. Amending existing human rights laws is another
The Tories are being intentionally unclear so that later they can do what they want. Given their past record, we can say that they mean to ‘weaken’ the commitments that we have to the ECHR. Some of Cameron’s plans entailed making human rights ‘relevant’ and relative. It would be down to a minister to decide if a case would be heard, the decision would be on an individual basis. This profoundly undermines the universality of human rights.If only some rights are upheld, it flies in the face of the fundamental principle that everyone has the same fundamental rights
The Tory proposal is likely address when, where and by whom those rights can be enjoyed and who can be held to account for their violation. It won’t be the government.
Whatever the eventual shape of the HRA, the systematic attacks on it are symptomatic of a troubling trend: populist attempts to undermine the perceived legitimacy of the rule of law.
The “Enemies of the People” headline used by the Daily Mail after the case on triggering Article 50 in 2017 demonstrates the government are fine with attacking the independent Judiciary. So this is about destroying the mechanisms of government accountability and operating within the law. It is an attack on our institutions, and the dignity and wellbeing of citizens.
We’ve already seen the government’s utter contempt for the human rights of disabled people and some ethnic communities. Their manifesto promises to confiscate the belongings of Roma, Gypsies and travellers, and to move them from their homes.
The Tories are far worse than ‘anti-progressive.’ They are brutal, cruel authoritarian eugenicists. It’s written between the lines of their narratives of ‘deserving and undeserving’ it’s embedded in their the myth of meritocracy. It drips from their disdain for a public they think can’t spell Pinocchio, or aren’t ‘clever’ enough to escape a burning multi-storey building. They think they are better than others and that gives them the right to rule. On their own terms.
That’s not a democracy, by the way.
Nor is the government’s almost total control over our mainstream media, who no longer serve the public interest.
Update following the election result: Politics and Insight’s independent, measured, authoritative reporting has never been so vital, or in the public interest. These are turbulent, decade-defining times. Whatever lies ahead for us all, I will be with you – investigating, disentangling, analysing and scrutinising, as I have done for the last 9 years.
More people, like you, are reading and supporting independent, investigative and in particular, public interest journalism, than ever before.
I don’t make any money from my research and writing, and want to ensure my work remains accessible to all.
I have engaged with the most critical issues of our time – the often devastating impact of almost a decade of Conservative policies, widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, I believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity and the norms of democracy at its heart.
My editorial independence means I set my own agenda and present my own research and analyisis. My work is absolutely free from commercial and political interference and not influenced one iota by billionaire media barons. I have worked hard to give a voice to those less heard, I have explored where others turn away, and always rigorously challenge those in power.
This morning I came across this on Twitter:
John Mann@LordJohnMann
I can this morning announce that as government advisor on antisemitism that I will be instigating an investigation this January into the role of the Canary and other websites in the growth of antisemitism in the United Kingdom. https://twitter.com/supergutman/status/1205296902301990912 …
Marlon Solomon@supergutman
Who’d have guessed that Mendoza – one of the people most responsible for toxifying the British left with racially charged conspiracy theories about Jews – would blame a Jew before anyone else.
Whoever takes control of Labour, from whatever faction, please fuck these people off.
Independent journalists are now facing a threat from an authoritarian government, who have successfully managed to distort our mainstream media.
I did expect this promise of a purge on left leaning sites if Boris Johnson was returned to office, but not quite so soon after the event. It’s a case of vote Tory on Thursday, get fascism by Saturday.
John Mann isn’t by a long stretch the only so-called moderate ex-Labour neoliberal extremist whipping up McCarthyist hysteria and hate. But he has been strategically placed for a while by the Conservatives to destroy independent sites like mine. He’s a particularly nasty individual.
My first step to fight back in the coming year is to join the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). It is an essential protection, now.
It’s not cheap, especially for someone like me, as I’ve no income from my work. I pay WordPress to keep adverts off my site, too. But I am one of those people who often has to make daily choices about whether to eat or keep warm. I am disabled because of an illness called lupus. Like many others in similar circumstances, I am now living in fear for our future under a government that has already systematically and gravely violated the human rights of disabled people, which has resulted in fear, suffering, harm and all too often, premature death.
I hope you will consider supporting me today, or whenever you can. As independent writers, we will all need your support to keep delivering quality research and journalism that’s open and independent.
Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable and helps keep me going.
First, there was a genuine story. A small child was left on the ground in a hospital in Leeds. Nobody disputes this fact. This is the same pattern that has happened throughout the Campaign: some verifiable fact becomes the anchor for a huge press story about the fact. The fact is never denied. But the story around the story becomes the story and obscures the fact. The fact is that a small child was left on the ground in a hospital in Leeds.
The fact is that Matt Hancock lives in his West Suffolk parliamentary constituency. Sheree Jenner, the Secretary of Doctor Alistair NL Hepburn exists. Doctor Hepburn has a Private Practice and has appeared in press release with Theresa May in Suffolk. The same Suffolk as Matt Hancock is a Member of Parliament for. Again these are facts. They do not explain how Sheree Jenner-Hepburn was invented.
Sheree Hepburn was given an award alongside with Doctor Hepburn, in 2013, by The National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society. They appeared in the Worthing Herald with Theresa May. Sheree Hepburn exists. Sheree Hepburn, Phlebotomist, The Barn Surgery, Ferring exists. Alongside Doctor Clare Farrer – GP, the Barn Surgery. This, still, does not bring anybody any closer to knowing how Sheree Jenner-Hepburn was invented.
It is possible that the Secretary of Doctor Hepburn and the Phlebotomist are the same person. It is also possible that the names were put together. A fake identity. Which is the kind of thing that Leveson heard about from Facebook Director Lord Allan in 2012. It was the kind of thing that the then Culture Secretary Matt Hancock was exposed to on a daily basis.
Matt Hancock quoted a 2016 report by Sir Joseph Pilling that concluded IPSO had “largely complied with Leveson’s recommendations and that was part of the case for no Leveson Two. Hancock declared the Government-led public inquiry into press regulation found two thirds of direct respondents were against reopening the Leveson Inquiry versus one eighth who were in favour. The inquiry received some 174,000 respondents – both direct and indirect – on the matter of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. Section 40 would have forced newspapers not signed up to a Royal Charter regulator to pay both sides’ legal fees in privacy and libel battles, win or lose. Matt Hancock said commencing it would “exacerbate the problems the press face rather than solve them”. The Government decided not to commence Section 40 – despite having passed the law.
What relevance does that have to Sheree Jenner-Hepburn? Quite simply, Sheree Jenner-Hepburn would have been liable for the story told. Here comes the genius part: Matt Hancock was at the centre of the process. Matt Hancock understands the implications and processes around the existence of faked identities such as Sheree Jenner-Hepburn. The concerning process of two real identities being merged and used for Journalistic ends amounts to digital identity fraud. Like a deepfake image but with people.
Matt Hancock is no stranger to the possibilities of digital wrongdoing. In 2018 Matt Hancock he, apparently, endorsed a mobile phone health app marketed by subscription health service company Babylon. Justin Madders wrote to Theresa May accusing Hancock of repeatedly endorsing Babylon’s digital products contrary to ministerial guidelines: that ministers should not “normally accept invitations to act as patrons of, or otherwise offer support to, pressure groups or organisations dependent in whole or in part on government funding”. Matt Hancock also launched his own smartphone app in 2018. Privacy rights group Big Brother Watch found the app collect its users’ photographs, friend details, check-ins, and contact information. While he had previously said the NHS would face “no privatisation on my watch”, Matt Hancock criticised in April 2019 for allowing 21 NHS contracts worth £127m to be tendered before supporting the illegal prorogation of Parliament as Cabinet Minister to Boris Johnson.
None of this explains how Sheree Jenner-Hepburn was invented. To understand that, you simply need to read the message communicated. First, Sheree Jenner-Hepburn is ambiguous and nebulous. She is a senior nurse, a Urology Nurse, a Phlebotomist, in Leeds or in perhaps Suffolk. She is, it seems everywhere and nowhere, somebody and nobody. Which is a significant problem with online identities: knowing what they are for.
Identity online has a purely functional aspect that does not exist in real life. Some people will create a user identity for, say, a discount offers site. They give a unique email that they never use, because they do not want to deal with the endless spam from the discount offers site. This is a purely functional user identity. A throwaway. Once it has achieved the objective it is discarded. Which is the kind of behaviour of Sheree Jenner-Hepburn.
When you see the use of Sheree Jenner-Hepburn, you see that the sole purpose is to give authenticity to a single story. It gives a node in the social graph of Facebook to hang a story onto. Which then allows the story to be rapidly shared. The story is a well composed piece of text:
“Very interesting. A good friend of mine is a senior nursing sister at Leeds Hospital- the boy shown on the floor by the media was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and uploaded it to media outlets before he climbed back into his trolley. He was on a hospital trolley in the paediatric A&E having been seen within 20 minutes. I am a nurse myself and am so pissed off with fake news, yes the NHS is a mess mainly caused by people misusing it and lack of elderly care. Think of the nurses and Doctors who are doing their jobs instead of constantly slagging them off. another Momentum Propaganda story. Disgraceful.”
Interestingly, a Deep Learning Algorithm was used to check the text. It is characterised as 24.5% Lawsuit. Which firmly places it into the kind of language Conservative Party and Brexit Party Activists have been using. It has a sentence structure that classifies as 30% Press Release. Which suggests it is a text designed for reuse and remixing. It has a sentiment of 90.5% negativity. Which suggests it is a criticism of someone or other. The Deep Learning Algorithm also points out that every sentence is an “opinion unit”. Which means this was not a casual post but the posting of someone literate enough to edit carefully. A Journalist or English Graduate. The analysis also suggests this is 100% not urgent – which seems at odds with the Lawsuit characterisation. The Keywords extracted from the text are also revealing:
The keywords are not about the fact that first, there was a genuine story. A small child was left on the ground in a hospital in Leeds. The keywords are about “friendship”,
“nurses”, “media”, “fake news”, and “propaganda”. As if someone needed to create a story.
The Deep Learning Algorithm classified it as 74% Bad Movie with 38.4% profanity. Which is not to say swearing – just that the language is so negative as to be abusive. The Deep Learning Algorithm did one final trick: it summarised the text as follows:
“A good friend of mine is a senior nursing sister at Leeds Hospital. The boy shown on the floor by the media was in fact put there by his mother who then took photos on her mobile phone and uploaded it to media outlets before he climbed back into his trolley.”
Which is the story that Sheree Jenner-Hepburn was invented to tell. Perhaps not that exact story, necessarily. But, like Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey, or Bella Swan in Twilight, the purely functional user identity serves the purpose of allowing someone to project themselves into the character. To fill out the gaps with their own sympathies and experiences. Which reflects in the way it is shared. People are sharing it to women.
Which achieves something miraculous for the Brexit Party and the Conservative Party. The characteristics of Sheree Jenner-Hepburn being everywhere and nowhere facilitates projection and empathy from the reader. Which reinforces and emphasises the final message of the story: ” another Momentum Propaganda story. Disgraceful.
It is the kind of propaganda that Big Data facilitates. There are several definite facts. There was a small child left on the floor in a Leeds Hospital. The story – the post by Sheree Jenner-Hepburn – leads away from that fact. It creates a little friend of a friend story that can be rapidly propagated. Even if it is debunked by someone saying that the Sheree Jenner-Hepburn social media account was hacked, the well crafted little novel will be shared by networks of “low follower” accounts. The actual story becomes a rumour. The tail end of the story is that Labour faked the story.
Which is exactly what the Conservative Party claimed. That Matt Hancock arrived at the Leeds Hospital only to be met by hundreds of Labour Activists who had been taken there by Taxi and who then assaulted a Special Adviser. This was the amplification of the story that follows on. Having got the Attention of the Audience the next step is to get the Interest. The Interest being in hundreds of Labour Supporters – Momentum according to the friend of a friend story – protesting at a Hospital. Which largely ignores the fact that hundreds of people arriving in Taxis would require at least forty taxis. You can only get five people in a Taxi and hundreds implies at least two hundred people which suggests forty taxis. That would have blocked up the entrance to the Hospital in a very visible way. There are 4946 Private Hire and Taxi Cabs in Leeds according to Leeds Council Website. So the number of taxis is not implausible just not practical. Where were they: Matt Hancock would have been delayed by that number of vehicles at a hospital. It is a simple logistical conclusion. The events would have been physically different if the story were to hold up.
Which is where the story unfolded. Because the video images from the Hospital did not show a gridlocked road. It showed a Ministerial Car and a Protection Officer who walked into a loudly shouting man on a bicycle. Which begs a question: did the Protection Officer not hear the loudly shouting man or were they simply to busy making sure the Minister was safely driving away. The story descends into farce. The Protection Officer was portrayed as a Special Adviser – and there is no reason to believe either description – who was assaulted. That would have taken the Interest and transformed it into Desire. The simple story progression from Attention to Interest to Desire to Action being a narrative driven marketing funnel. The problem was, that after all the investment of time someone pointed out this was not true. Which meant that Desire suddenly became discovering the underlying story. At which point Sheree Jenner-Hepburn needed to cease to exist.
Obligingly Sheree Jenner-Hepburn deleted her social media accounts almost immediately. Which does not end the identity. Now it is possible for Sheree Jenner-Hepburn to claim the account was hacked and that they were not responsible for the story. Which is a way to revitalise the authenticity of the identity. Now the Attention to Interest to Desire to Action funnel can be used to demand a crack down on vague malevolent entities who are attacking Conservatives. The alleged Assault at the Hospital, the Hacking, the whole story allows people – women in particular – to feel vulnerable and threatened because of a child. Which is a dog whistle technique: fear for children. Fear Assault. Fear Hackers. Fear.
All of this is “common sense”. Sheree Jenner-Hepburn appeals to “common sense”. Even if she does not exist. She is a marketing funnel which directs you towards the one impulse: to Act. To ask yourself “What would Sheree Jenner-Hepburn do?”. It might be more productive to ask what your mother would have done. Which would give you a much more grounded answer. One rooted in your own experience. An answer that is not about “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action” Marketing funnels but about what you know the world wants: Leveson Two and the continuation of the investigation into faking news for power and profit.
Picture: Yer Ma Votes Labour. Mikey Gannon.
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Vote Leave’s Leader has claimed that Labour would “rig” a second EU referendum to ensure that Remain won. Based on their experience of Referendum Fraud, the Leader of Vote Leave, Boris Johnson, alleged that “millions” of additional voters who could be expected to vote against Brexit would be added to the electoral roll for any rerun vote. Perhaps it is one time he speaks the truth: he does have form for Electoral Offences.
Speaking during a visit to a factory in Matlock, Derbyshire, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson denounced as “bizarre” putting Brexit to a public vote. Branding David Cameron and Theresa May with the accolade of being bizarre tories seems more appropriate to the Left rather than the Hard Right of Johnson and his Special Advisor, Cummings.
“We would have six months or a year for another referendum campaign on this weird deal he wants to do, and I think people will be outraged by the whole thing,” said Johnson. Which seems odd. We are approaching half a decade of chaos due to Mister Johnson’s Referendum. Untangling the mess cannot be bizarre unless the whole thing is a smoke screen for some ulterior scam.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson wants the Electorate, “To think it’s going to be rigged in some way by getting millions more voters who would be very likely to vote one way rather than the other”, with as much evidence as he had for 76 Million Turkish Citizens coming to the UK if Brexit did not happen within six months. Claims which helped to lead to the Leave EU campaign being fined for Electoral Offences.
As the leader of the Vote Leave Campaign, Boris Johnson faces prosecution for illegal overspending. Having failed to inform the Authorities in 2016, Johnson is now revealing the depth of his experience in Electoral Offences. By being honest now, he might well be seeking to plea bargain at a later date.
Running a legally binding Referendum instead of an advisory Referendum would, according to Boris Johnson, “cause a great deal of public disquiet” despite the legally binding nature of the proposed Referendum, Johnson claims, “I don’t think it’s the right way forward.” Johnson’s response to simple matters of Democracy are concerning.
The connection of Johnson to the controversial “Voter Services” firm Idox is not well known. The Idox experts advised on the Individual Voter Registration Scheme. Although it is unclear without a public enquiry, initial estimates suggest up to one in three Voters fell off the Electoral Register with the introduction of the Scheme. Director of Idox, former Conservative Minister Peter Lilley was not available for comment. The connection to Johnson is, like the connection to convicted Electoral Fraudster, Dame Shirley Porter, unexplained.
Mr Johnson’s shocking confession is similar to that of his senior aide Dominic Cummings. Cummings suggested that Jeremy Corbyn would join Nicola Sturgeon in a hung parliament to “cheat” a third referendum. The decade long Hung Parliament of Cameron-May-Johnson is a testament to the control that Parliamentary deadlock gives to the Government. The Liberal-Democrat-Conservative (Condem) and the Conservative-DUP (Condem-up) Coalitions have allowed a decade of control over controversial policies that have resulted in the death of 130,000 people denied benefits. By promoting Hung Parliaments, Johnson would benefit by remaining in Government.
In a blogpost, the former Vote Leave Supremo wrote: “If this Corbyn-Sturgeon alliance takes control, their official policy is to give millions of EU citizens the vote in the second referendum.” It is unclear if the Vote Leave Supremo sees the extension of the Franchise as a way to end the paralysis of extremist Coalitions or if the Supremo is publically catastrophising about the collapse of Party Membership. It is even unclear if the Supremo is Dominic Cummings or Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
The Supremo remarked, “They don’t plan to lose again and they’ve literally written into their manifesto that they will cheat the second referendum.” Which is, perhaps a Freudian slip about the notorious Article 48 on Page 48 of the Conservative Party. A policy that would allow Boris Johnson to overrule any court for any reason. It is this kind of hidden and obscured policy that has contributed to the resignation of Senior Diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall.
The resignation of Hall Hall comes as leaked internal documents show customs checks and controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are necessary for the “Get Brexit Done” policy. In her resignation Hall Hall described how the Government’s approach had made British Diplomats’ positions abroad untenable. Comments such as, “It makes our job to promote democracy and the rule of law that much harder, if we are not seen to be upholding these core values at home,” and, “behaviour towards our institutions, which, were it happening in another country, we would almost certainly as diplomats have received instructions to register our concern”. The “Get Brexit Done” policy is a prospectus for a failed state and an increasingly vocal international diplomatic community is voicing concern. Diplomats simply do not wish to represent failed states abroad.
Senior Member of Parliament Ian Lucas revealed that he has seen correspondence obtained during the parliamentary inquiry into disinformation and democracy which showed Dominic Cummings, told the Electoral Commission that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, knew of the overspend by the Vote Leave. A key event in the collapse of democratic accountability.
It has been confirmed that prosecutors have received a file of evidence from the Metropolitan Police that could lead to criminal charges against members of the Johnson and Cummings Campaign. After nearly 16 months of investigating Vote Leave, the Metropolitan Police handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service and sought “early investigative advice” on how to develop the Case. It could all vanish into a black hole. Especially if Article 48 on Page 48 becomes law.
Veteran MP Lucas, sat on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee inquiry into fake news and has revealed that correspondence raised serious questions over Johnson’s judgement: “Johnson and Gove both knew about the illegal payments to BeLeave.” The Parliamentary Enquiry revealed that “We finally forced the Electoral Commission to hand over its correspondence with Dominic Cummings.” What they discovered was shocking, “it’s there in black and white. It’s Cummings himself saying this.”
Picture: Caricature of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning who, on July 18, 1930, used Article §48 to adopt his tax program and dissolve the Reichstag. (Cover of Ulk (July 11, 1930))
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He says: “I am 58 years old, and for the first time in my life, I am frightened to be Jewish.
“We live in a time when racism is being normalized, when Nazis parade in the streets in Europe and America; Jew baiters like Hungary’s Orbanare treated as respectable players on the international scene, “white nationalist” propagandistSteve Bannon can openly coordinate scare-mongering tactics with Boris Johnson in London at the same time as in Pittsburg, murderers deluded by white nationalist propagandaare literally mowing Jews down with automatic weapons.
“How is it, then, that our political class has come to a consensus that the greatest threat to Britain’s Jewish community is a lifelong anti-racist accused of not being assiduous enough in disciplining party members who make offensive comments on the internet?”
He later says: “The problem is that exploiting Jewish issues in ways guaranteed to create rancor, panic, and resentment is itself a form of antisemitism. (This is true whether or not the architects are fully aware of what they’re doing.) It creates terror in the Jewish community. It deprives us of our strongest allies.”
That is the left.
You can read Graeber’s candid, excellent and thoughtful article in full here.
Graeber has also made this video:
this video is going up in a bunch of places but here's mine: my take on the AS controversy and why intentionally fanning the flames, as so many are doing, endangers Jewish people pic.twitter.com/yXgKrRBKvT
My work is unfunded and I don’t make any money from it. But you can support Politics and Insights and contribute by making a donation which will help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others.
Yesterday, I was the person who spent just two minutes researching Boris Johnson’s position and previous comments in the media on Osama Bin Laden. While researching, I found the Telegraph article that the Johnson wrote in 2001. The Conservatives have condemned Jeremy Corbyn’sstatement that Bin Laden should have faced a trial.
Grubby, nasty quote mining and giant unverifiable inductive leaps over the amoral void, by habitual hypocrits and liars. That sums up Conservative propaganda.
George Osborne, among other Conservatives, claimed a Labour Party led by Corbyn would “pose athreat to national security”because, he claimed, Corbyn “sympathises with terrorists”.
This claim has been made by the Tory party many times.
David Cameron has described Jeremy Corbyn a “security threat” and “terrorist sympathiser”. In the Corbyn interview from which Cameron quoted without context, the Labour leader had already described the New York bombings as a “tragedy”, and was explaining that the “tragedy” of Bin Laden’s death was that he was assassinated and did not face trial.
More recently, an unscrupulous and dishonest Boris Johnson accused Jeremy Corbyn of seeking to “legitimate the actions of terrorists” in his speech after the 2017 Manchester bombing,
However, in 2001, Boris Johnson said that he also supported Bin Laden facing a trial. Curiously, no-one has yet called him a terrorist sympathiser or a threat to national security. The media have slavishy amplified the Conservatives’ propaganda without any fact checking whatsoever.
I did some fact checking because I was sick of seeing the Conservatives’ deceitful and ruthless quote mining of Jeremy Corbyn’s comments, which are taken out of context then used to prop up outrageous political claims such as “Corbyn hates the UK”. The Tories are so full of this kind of unscrupulous, flimsy propaganda shit. They’ve got away with it for far too long. This is not the standard of political discourse and debate we should expect to see in a healthy democracy. The Tories have raced to the bottom of the pit marked “amoral”, dragging a mostly unresistant media with them.
I posted Boris Johnson’s Op-Ed article in the Daily Telegraphon December 13, 2001 – just three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks – on Twitter, to expose his sheer hypocrisy and dishonesty. It went viral.
Job done. Exposing lies and hypocrisy used to be the job of our paid journalists, but that is no longer the case here in the UK, with few notable exceptions.
RT have run an article on this issue. I don’t expect that the UK media will.
Another under-reported matter is that Boris Johnson called for the “break up” of the NHS back in 2002. The Prime Minister made the speech in 2002 while a backbench Tory MP, criticising Labour’s refusal to consider breaking up the NHS. It comes as Donald Trump flies into the UK amid concerns of a US trade deal which would damage the health service. Johnson has previously said that the government should examine “the experience of other countries that have a far better record of health care provision … because they do not rely exclusively on a top-down monopolistic health service of the kind we have in this country.”
That’s Tory-speak for privatisation. The so-called libertarian right wing see the NHS as the last bastion of a collectivist tradition that they want to eradicate completely from British society.
They loathe it because they see it as a form of decadence, and as antithetical to the fundamentalist principles of ‘competition; and the vulture capitalist’s right to make money out of anything – an idea that has driven more than four decades of neoliberal elitist ‘reform.’
Some of the Tories have direct connections to companies that want to make money out of NHS privatisation (see above). I wonder if that has some bearing on their view.
EXCL: New clip unearthed exclusively by The Red Roar shows Boris Johnson call for the break up of the “monolithic, monopolistic” NHS in 2002 speech. https://t.co/F9OsLfh6g9pic.twitter.com/vNLpMSCB2u
Boris Johnson probably didn’t want you to see this. Or perhaps he simply has a very poor long term memory.
Boris Johnson was blocked from accessing state secrets as foreign secretary because Downing Street felt he was a security risk
The Conservatives have repeatedly claimed that HM’s opposition leader is a “risk to national security”, but don’t produce any evidence of this.
However, the party had to restrict Boris Johnson’s access to intelligence because he was such a liability:
Theresa May tried to restrict Boris Johnson’s access to secret intelligence when he was foreign secretary.
The then prime minister wanted Johnson not to be shown some secret intelligence when he was appointed in July 2016, BBC News reported.
Sources said Downing Street’s decision was based on a variety of factors, including a lack of trust in Johnson, and personal enmity between him and May
The report followed claims in 2017 that British spy chiefs were “wary” of sharing information with Johnson because they didn’t trust him.
Theresa May repeatedly withheld sensitive intelligence from Boris Johnson when he was foreign secretary, because they believed he would leak the information.
May wanted the then foreign secretary to not to be shown certain sensitive secret intelligence when he was appointed in July 2016, BBC News reported, citing multiple security sources.
Downing Street’s move is said to have worried security chiefs at the time because of the foreign secretary’s role in authorising sensitive operations.
Johnson was aware of Downing Street’s decision at the time and was “very unhappy about it,” it was reported.Sources close to Johnson insisted there was no row about information access and claimed he saw everything he needed to for his role.
Johnson first visited the headquarters of MI6, the government’s foreign intelligence service, as foreign secretary three months after his appointment when he was shown around by its chief Alex Younger.
Johnson praised the work of the security services and said: “Even from my relatively short period as foreign secretary I can testify to how vital the work they do is.”
But at the same time a row was taking place about whether Johnson should have access to all the intelligence produced by the UK’s spies, the BBC reported, despite the fact ministerial responsibility lay with Johnson for MI6 and GCHQ, another branch of the intelligence service.
The New Statesman reported at the time that multiple diplomats had doubts over Johnson’s personal style as foreign secretary.
A month previously, he had said the ISIS stronghold of Sirte, the Libyan city, could be “the next Dubai” once they “clear the dead bodies away.” It may be a sentence that would be appropriate down the pub with a few of the boys, but it isn’t a statement that reflects a prime minister of calibre.
Boris Johnson is not fit to be prime minister.
People like me have increasingly taken on the role of public interest journalism and research to fill the void, and most of us are unpaid.
I became too ill to work in 2010. I have lupus, which is progressive, and in my case, has many and complex symptoms. The illness has had a huge impact on my mobility, for example, and my immunity to infection. I rely on the state support that I paid into over my working life, but frequently struggle to get by, like far too many others.
I don’t like asking people for money. I rarely do, though like other independent writers, I have a donate button at the foot of most of my articles. I write first and foremost because I feel I must. We need reliable sources of information in an era of fake news and authoritarian state propaganda. Our mainstream media has badly let the UK public down. It does not hold the government to account, as a rule. This has seriously undermined the UK’s democracy.
However, if you feel you would like to support my site so I can keep on keeping on, you can always make a donation. The smallest amount is always valued. It helps me pay for my site, for a WordPress plan that doesn’t allow advertising, and my broadband bills. I also have to pay to access research sometimes.
I would also thank those who have made generous donations over the last few years to support my work and help me keep going.
My work is unfunded and I don’t make any money from it. But you can support Politics and Insights and contribute by making a donation which will help me continue to research and write informative, insightful and independent articles, and to provide support to others.
My son Jake asked me yesterday:”What is it with the Guardian’s existential insecurity and deep political cognitive dissonance? (Yep, he’s a philosophy student). He said “they’re all over the place. What’s that about?” He said that he expected the unintelligible mob-mouthing from the headlines of the right wing rags such as the Express and Sun, but felt the disease has spread to what he had previously considered the “reasonably reasonable media.”
He commented that even the Guardian and Independent have now succumbed to bouts of “febrile tutting, compulsive McCarthyist curtain twitching, spasmodic sneering and barnyard braying” at HM’s leader of the opposition The “mass hysteria, he says, has become a “shape-shifting reactionist wreck of contradiction, screeching mob mentality headlines, demanding ever- impossible, unreasonable standards of just one politician: Jeremy Corbyn.”
He thought I should gather together evidence of contradictions to highlight his point, but found someone had already done an outstanding job of that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Colin Millar’s extraordinary gallery of empirical evidence.
And yes, Jake’s observations are absolutely right.
There is a possibility Jeremy Corbyn will be Prime Minister of the UK by the end of next week. There is no better time to highlight how, no matter what Corbyn does or whatever position he takes, his critics will attack him – even if they totally contradict themselves (thread).
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers – Labour MPs compare him to Nigel Farage:
Corbyn is a threat to life as we know it (Brendan O’Neill):
spiked@spikedonline
“This week we have had a chilling insight into Corbyn’s authoritarianism. For a politician to make open threats against the press is deeply disturbing. He cares nothing for free speech or press freedom.”
Brendan O’Neill on the Corbynista threat to liberty
“There’s a great irony to the Czech spy story: Corbyn insists he wasn’t involved with the Stalinists and yet he has responded in a quite Stalinist way to this story.”
But conversely, Nick Cohen also believes Corbyn isn’t radically left-wing enough:
What Labour needs now is a takeover by real left-wing radicals | The Spectator
To say that the Labour party is in crisis because it is ‘too left-wing’ is to miss the point spectacularly. With eyes wide open, and all democratic…
Dan Hodges now, saying Corbyn is too keen for Brexit:
(((Dan Hodges)))
✔@DPJHodges
The reason Corbyn is adopting a more aggressively pro-Brexit stance is the same reason he’s aggressively rejecting the IHRA definition. He’s calculated he can take Labour Remainer votes for granted. They’ll sulk a bit, then say “but the food-banks”, and vote for him.
Colin adds: I don’t have soundcloud, but you can buy my book – detailing the best football rivalry you have never fully appreciated:amazon.co.uk/Frying-Pan-Spa…
Oh yeah, and you can vote Labour on 12 December to help fix this country.
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A leaked video reveals that the West Suffolk Conservative MP and Health Secretary, Matt Hancock was roundly mocked as outraged constituents objected loudly to his appalling comments to divert attention from his party’s lies. Hancock has been MP for West Suffolk since 2010.
Hancock raises scornful responses from constituents as he tries to reiterate the government’s lie about plans to employ 50,000 more nurses. He was shouted down.
Clearly rattled, Hancock then falls back on the worn out Tory default position – slander the opposition as a desperate diversion strategy.
No-one fell for it. Instead, the insufferable Hancock drowned out by an outraged audience until the microphone was finally taken away from him.
Probably an act of kindness for all concerned, under the circumstances.
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A letter to the Financial Timesfrom David G Blanchflower and others, with 163 economists as signatories:
The UK economy needs reform. For too long it has prioritised consumption over investment, short-term financial returns over long-term innovation, rising asset values over rising wages, and deficit reduction over the quality of public services.
The results are now plain. We have had 10 years of near zero productivity growth. Corporate investment has stagnated. Average earnings are still lower than in 2008. A gulf has arisen between London and the South East and the rest of the country. And public services are under intolerable strain — which the economic costs of a hard Brexit would only make worse. We now moreover face the urgent imperative of acting on the climate and environmental crisis.
Given private sector reluctance, what the UK economy needs is a serious injection of public investment, which can in turn leverage private finance attracted by the expectation of higher demand. Such investment needs to be directed into the large-scale and rapid decarbonisation of energy, transport, housing, industry and farming; the support of innovation- and export-oriented businesses; and public services. It is clear that this will require an active and green industrial strategy, aimed at improving productivity and spreading investment across the country.
Experience elsewhere (not least in Germany) suggests a National Investment Bank would greatly help. With long-term real interest rates now negative, it makes basic economic sense for the government to borrow for this, spreading the cost over the generations who will benefit from the assets. As the IMF has acknowledged, when interest payments are low and investment raises economic growth, public debt is sustainable.
At the same time, we need a serious attempt to raise wages and productivity. A higher minimum wage can help do this, alongside tighter regulation of the worst practices in the gig economy. Bringing workers on to company boards and giving them a stake in their companies, as most European countries do in some form, will also help. The UK’s outlier rate of corporation tax can clearly be raised, not least for the highly profitable digital companies.
As economists, and people who work in various fields of economic policy, we have looked closely at the economic prospectuses of the political parties. It seems clear to us that the Labour party has not only understood the deep problems we face, but has devised serious proposals for dealing with them.
We believe it deserves to form the next government. David G Blanchflower, Bruce V Rauner,
Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College; Professor of Economics. University of Stirling; former member, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee.
Victoria Chick Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London.
Lord Meghnad Desai Emeritus Professor of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Stephany Griffith-Jones Emeritus Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; Financial Markets Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University.
Simon Wren-Lewis Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. On behalf of 163 signatories.
The letter and a complete list of signatories is here.
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My name is Ajmal Masroor. I have been an Imam for almost 30 years and I write to you today as your brother in faith and humanity.
I proudly practice Islam in our multicultural and multi-faith country, without fear or prejudice, despite the rising levels of Islamophobia. I take a keen interest in politics and believe in actively influencing change, which is why I stood for Parliament twice – once in 2010 and again in 2018.
I believe people of faith must play an active role in all aspects of our society, including politics. As such, I welcome your letter to The Times, where you urge us to vote with our conscience. Both our Jewish and Islamic traditions place conscience at the core of our Godly life on this Earth. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reminding us of our innate, God-gifted tool: the conscience.
However, I vehemently disagree with the rest of your assertions, where you suggest that Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be our next Prime Minister. You blame Jeremy Corbyn personally for the antisemitic behaviour of Labour Party members. In my humble opinion, you have made a severe error of judgment in calling Jeremy Corbyn unfit to be our Prime Minister. Before I express why, do you believe that Boris Johnson is more fit to be our Prime Minister?
In the upcoming general election, we are limited in our choices. We know that the Liberal Democrats will never achieve enough support to win the election. We are left with a choice between the Conservative party and the Labour party. Under the Conservative party, our country has witnessed unprecedented levels of poverty, inequality, austerity, homelessness and division. The Conservative party has sold its soul to Nigel Farage’s UKIP, and now Brexit party. The true moderate and centre ground Conservative politicians have been pushed out or side-lined by the extremists within this party. If your assertion is that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour should not be supported, are you endorsing the Conservative party, that is deeply hostile to the multicultural and multi-faith fabric of our society? Inadvertently, are you telling the Jewish community to vote for a deeply Islamophobic party? Is this your idea of voting with our conscience?
We are men of faith, and you will agree that the practise of double standards in all faiths is abhorrent. When I read about your selective outrage – calling out the Labour party for its failure to stamp out antisemitism – while turning a blind eye to the Conservative party’s Islamophobia, I felt deeply disappointed. Antisemitism is evil and we should all stand against it with all our might. Islamophobia is also evil, and we should equally stand against it. I find it deeply hypocritical when people do not observe fairness and consistency when struggling against all kinds of evil. In Judaism, as in Islam, justice and fair dealings are considered closest to Godliness. Sadly, your letter did not display justice or fairness towards Jeremy Corbyn, and instead came across as a cheap attempt at political posturing.
If I was told to choose between a lying, philandering and narcissistic clown and a truthful, principled and humble socialist, my choice would be easy. I would never entrust the future of our country to the hands of a man who is an occupational liar. I would never ask the people of our country to vote for a man who makes a mockery of clean and principled politics. The only thing Boris Johnson is interested in is himself; not our country, and certainly not community cohesion.
Jeremy Corbyn has a forty year track record of selfless service to his constituency and the absolute interest of all people in our country. He has always been a genuine friend of the minorities, disadvantaged and vulnerable. Why would you suggest that he was unfit for the Prime Minister’s office?
What is Jeremy Corbyn’s actual crime that has led you to deeming him unfit for the job? Has Jeremy Corbyn personally been accused of antisemitism? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’! He has never been accused of antisemitism.
On the other hand, Boris Johnson has made many inflammatory and deeply offensive remarks about Islam and Muslim women, including citing Islam as the reason for backwardness, violence and economic degeneration within the Muslim communities. He has also likened Muslim women, who wear face covering, to “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”. In the week of his remark, anti-Muslim hate crime spiked by more than 300%. And he hasn’t stopped at the Muslim community alone. His opinion and remarks on minority communities has been abhorrent, including saying he was afraid of black men; that black people were “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”, and referred to gay men as “bum boys”. Is this the rhetoric you expect from the leader of our country?
I know the Labour party is accused of antisemitism, and the UK human rights commission is currently investigating it. I pray the investigation is thorough and where strands of antisemitism are identified, that they are promptly and swiftly removed and publicly admonished. But surely you would agree that the Conservative party should also be investigated for Islamophobia. Allegation alone is not enough for faith leaders like us to charge entire parties. Our claims must be substantiated, with credible evidence, and then we must wait for investigations to completed and for those findings to be made public. Both of our religious traditions have a rich, ethical parameter on how to deal with accusations, and how to challenge hatred. I am saddened to say that I believe you have violated this very principle by adding further fuel to an allegation; an act that is not only irresponsible but astoundingly dangerous in the middle of the most important election of our time.
I have always respected you as a man of faith and expected you to adhere to a higher standard of moral and ethical probity. I did not expect your high office to be compromised by spreading aspersions on Jeremy Corbyn. By doing so, you have become actively involved in what is essentially a smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, who has never been antisemitic in his life. The plain truth is that there are numerous accounts of Jeremy Corbyn championing all forms of campaigns to eradicate hate crime from our society, including standing up for the rights of our Jewish communities in and around the UK. He has equally championed the right of the Palestinians too. He has recognised failings within the party, taken responsibility for these, offered an apology and vowed to do better. He has been honest and upright, and as a man of faith, I would expect you to follow suit.
Your statement carries with it a grave dishonesty, and I am deeply disappointed by it. In a time of political and social crisis across the world, let us adhere to honesty first and foremost. And in this very spirit, let me ask you: have you called Jeremy Corbyn antisemitic because he has been critical of the Israeli government’s policy of occupation, expansion of illegal settlements and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people? Using your pulpit to broadcast the same message as those who have weaponised antisemitism is plainly irresponsible.
It beggar’s belief that you would find criticism of Israel or its political ideology of Zionism as antisemitism. No state or political ideology is beyond reproach. You falsely labelling Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite will not silence people, nor will it deter people from standing up against Israeli aggression and violence against the Palestinian people.
It pains me to know that as a man of faith first and foremost, you have been a clear supporter of the Israeli government’s aggression against the Palestinian people. In August 2014, you wrote that Israel had “understandably and justifiably defended her citizens” by taking disproportionate and indiscriminate military action in Gaza, killing innocent men, women and children. Israel continues its illegal policies of assassination, destruction of Palestinian homes, confiscation of Palestinian people’s land, occupation, collective punishment and keeps an iron fist around the Palestinian people’s right to freely move – even within their own areas. It has built the disgraceful apartheid wall and it steals water from the Palestinians and then sells it back to the Palestinians. You have remained silent about the state-sponsored injustices perpetrated by Israel, and now you are criticising Jeremy Corbyn of anti-Semitism for championing the rights of Palestinians.
You have been a supporter of Benyamin Netanyahu, who has been convicted on many corruption charges, including fraud, breach of trust and bribery. You have no moral authority to lecture us on how Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be the Prime Minister of our country. You have politicised your spiritual position to influence voters and I believe this is totally wrong. You are abusing your office to silence criticism of Israel, and that too is totally wrong. As a man of faith, you should know better.
If we believe that as men of faith, we should be leading our communities in the way of honesty and integrity, I would urge you to reconsider your position. Our people deserve better; we can and should be better.
A note of clarity: The Labour party is not being investigated “for antisemitism.” The inquiry is focused on the complaints procedure and processes the party uses in addressing allegations and complaints, to ensure they are effective. Other strands of the inquiry will also examine how the party has adopted recommendations, for example, in the Chakrabarty report, among others. This inquiry will take place within the framework of compliance with the Equality Act.
Kitty.
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