*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Signal-boosting #ToryBritain truths to the nation. Helping YOU be part of the fightback.
From Another Angry Voice: “It’s surely no coincidence that the two regions with by far the highest levels of public investment in infrastructure and public transport also have the biggest per capita surpluses, while the three most austerity-blighted regions with the lowest levels of investment are the ones with the worst per capita deficits.”
[Read column on Another Angry Voice…]
From Another Angry Voice: The mainstream media insist on presenting the anti-Semitism debate as if it’s a Labour-specific problem that’s getting worse under Jeremy Corbyn, when the actual evidence shows that anti-Semitic views are very much more common from Conservatives, and that rates of anti-Semitism have actually fallen dramatically amongst Labour supporters since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015.
Comparison of two YouGov surveys in 2015 and 2017 shows that rates of antiSemitism amongst Labour supporters has fallen dramatically, while the same polls show that anti-Semitism rates amongst Tory supporters is barely falling at all.
In 2015, 22% of Labour voters agreed with the statement that ‘Jews chase money more than other people’, whilst in 2017 the number of Labour voters agreeing with the statement had declined to 14%.
These results compare with 31% of Conservative voters who agreed with the statement that ‘Jews chase money more than other people’ in 2015, whilst in 2017 this had declined slightly to 27% who still agreed with the statement.
Tory supporters are almost twice as likely to agree with this anti-Semitic trope as Labour supporters, yet the mainstream press insist on portraying the anti-Semitism furore as if it’s a Labour-specific problem.
From Politics and Insights: A study has found that people with disabilities receiving jobseekers’ allowance are 26-53 per cent more likely to be sanctioned than people who are not disabled. According to the research, the main reason is a “culture of disabelief” among jobcentre staff, who fail to take sufficient account of the impact of people’s disabilities.
This implies that welfare conditionality has an inbuilt discrimination, as it disproportionately affects people according to their characteristics.
Ahead of the release of a Demos report by Ben Baumberg Geiger on the Work Capability Assessment on Tuesday, the headline findings on benefits conditionality were featured in the Observer: More than a million benefit sanctions imposed on disabled people since 2010.
From Another Angry Voice: “Every single time you hear someone from the political right trying to make out that Jeremy Corbyn is some kind of hard-left economic extremist (as if the Tories are economic moderates in comparison), you’ve got to remember that they’re trying to convince you that black is white.
“In reality Labour’s core economic policies under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership (public ownership of the rail industry, water companies, mail service, health service, police services & national grid + a National Investment Bank) are quite normal centre-left policies that are commonplace across the developed world.
“Not only are these policies commonplace across the developed world, they’re all incredibly popular with the public. Renationalisation of our core infrastructure and services has overwhelming public support.
“There is a constant right-wing political narrative that Jeremy Corbyn is a terrifying hard-left economic extremist which rarely ever gets challenged by the mainstream media. But the really crazy thing is that while mainstream media hacks continually allow right-wingers to smear Jeremy Corbyn and Labour as economic extremists when they’re not, they’re simultaneously letting the Tories get away with implementing one crackpot economic policy from the hard-right fringe after another.”
Jonas Fossli Gjersø writes on OpenDemocracy: “From his style to his policies Mr Corbyn would, in Norway, be an unremarkably mainstream, run-of-the-mill social-democrat. His policy-platform places him squarely in the Norwegian Labour Party from which the last leader is such a widely respected establishment figure that upon resignation he became the current Secretary-General of NATO.
“Yet, here in the United Kingdom a politician who makes similar policy-proposals, indeed those that form the very bedrock of the Nordic-model, is brandished as an extremist of the hard-left and a danger to society.
“So who is right? Is the Norwegian Labour movement some dangerous extremist group that unknowingly has occupied the furthest leftist fringe of the political spectrum? If so, a casual glance at the UN’s Human Development Index would suggest that Norway certainly has not suffered as a result of successive Labour-dominated governments. Or is it, perhaps, that the British media’s portrayal of Corbyn, and by extent his policies are somewhat exaggerated and verging on the realm of character assassination rather than objective analysis and journalism?
From The Jist: “51% of leading journalists educated and working in the UK in 2015 were privately educated, according to the social mobility think tank the Sutton Trust. Another 30% went to grammar schools while 19% went to comprehensives. Looking at the same group of people the Trust also found that 54% went to Oxford or Cambridge University.”
Three companies (Sun and Times owner News UK, Daily Mail publisher DMGT, and Daily Mirror owner Trinity Mirror) control 71% of the national newspaper market.
The anti-Corbyn bias and unwavering support of Theresa May amongst the right wing papers were arguably the sparks that caused the explosion in independent media over the past 18 months. Outlets like… EvolvePolitics and Another Angry Voice have sprung up to provide a counter narrative to the establishment media.
From Another Angry Voice: “We all knew perfectly well that the billionaire right-wing press barons and their lackeys in the Tory party would attempt to smear the hell out of Jeremy Corbyn during this election campaign.
“They hate his policies of standing up for ordinary people and repatriating vital British infrastructure and services out of the hands of multinational corporations and foreign government like China and Qatar.
“They hate his policies so much they’re absolutely fixated on trying to destroy his reputation with anything they’ve got, and his early involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process is seriously the best they can come up with, because they know it feeds into the anti-Irish bigotry that still unfortunately exists in Great Britain.
“In this article I’m going to set the record straight by detailing 9 things that every voter should know about the Corbyn-IRA smear campaign.”
Blog article from Another Angry Voice: “The Tory Dementia Tax is surely one of the nastiest and most ill-conceived pieces of legislation to ever appear in a General Election manifesto.
“It just goes to show how arrogant and out of touch the Tory party are that they thought they could get away with announcing such a malicious scheme to asset strip elderly people for the ‘crime’ of developing dementia or serious physical disabilities in their old age after lifetimes of paying National Insurance and Council Tax to cover the cost of things like the NHS and social care.
“Setting the bar at £100,000 when the average property price in the UK is £215,000 is clearly a way of harvesting the wealth of middle income families.
“The poor won’t have to pay it because they won’t own their own homes. The very wealthy won’t have to pay it because they can pay for private care in their old age. So it’s just the middle who get asset stripped. The people who worked hard and saved to buy their own properties are the low-hanging fruit the Tories have identified. They’re the target this time.
“Dementia Tax is clearly an inheritance tax specifically to extract the wealth of middle income families as they get ill in their old age, so that the Tories can continue lavishing tax breaks on the super-rich and their corporate chums (like the £70 billion that the ongoing Tory corporation tax cuts are going to cost by 2020).
“Dementia Tax is a clear and demonstrable attack on the Tory party’s own core support.”
From Another Angry Voice: “I’m not asking you to believe what I write here (even though it’s all backed up with links to evidence). I’m not asking you to believe Jeremy Corbyn when he says that the NHS needs to be defended from the Tories with all of our might. I’m asking you to speak to someone you know who works in the NHS and ask them about a number of specific issues.
“Almost everyone knows someone who works for the NHS. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who works in the NHS. If you have to ask a mutual friend to introduce you to an NHS worker so you can chat about the issues facing the NHS, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind at all. They’d probably be very happy to meet someone who shows some actual interest in their work and working conditions. Read more
From Another Angry Voice: “Theresa May said that we should judge the Tory government on their record, so here’s a list of some of the things that any reasonably well informed citizen should know about the Tory record in government since 2010.”
From Another Angry Voice: “Let’s start with the facts: Huge swathes of the UK media are owned by radically right-wing billionaire sociopaths like Rupert Murdoch (The S*n, Times) Jonathan Harmsworth (Daily Mail, Metro) Richard Desmond (Express, Star) and the Barclay brothers (Telegraph, Spectator).
“These billionaires have immense power to manipulate public opinion and control the spectrum of political debate.
“Thus we have a public who actually believe that a cowardly self-serving opportunist who U-turns so often it’s impossible to guess which way she’ll be facing in the morning is somehow a “strong and stable” leader simply because they’ve been told it over and again by the media.
“It beggars belief.”
#ChangeTheDebate #GiveCorbynAFairChance #BBCbias
Posted by Stop the Tories Channel on Wednesday, April 26, 2017
From Another Angry Voice: A London School of Economics study into how Jeremy Corbyn is represented in the media found that only a paltry 11% of all newspaper articles about him bothered to accurately state a single one of his actual policies. In the Daily Mail and Daily Express that figure was 0%.
Given this lack of unbiased political coverage it’s not difficult to understand why so many people are so unfamiliar with Jeremy Corbyn’s actual policies, and tend to judge him as if politics is some kind of vapid personality contest.
#GiveCorbynAFairChance: A London School of Economics study into how Jeremy Corbyn is represented in the media found that…
Posted by Stop the Tories Channel on Tuesday, April 25, 2017
[Read full article on Another Angry Voice, featuring a summary of Corbyn’s real policies…]
Meme from Wear Red – Stand Up and Be Counted
From The World Turned Upside Down:
From The Daily Spectacle: Theresa May has asked you to judge the Conservatives on their record, so we happily compiled a list of Tory “achievements” for your ease of reading.
From Another Angry Voice: “A London School of Economics study into how Jeremy Corbyn is represented in the media found that only a paltry 11% of all newspaper articles about him bothered to accurately state a single one of his actual policies. In the hard-right Daily Mail and Express that figure was 0%.
“Given this lack of unbiased political coverage it’s not difficult to understand why so many people are so unfamiliar with Jeremy Corbyn’s actual policies, and tend to judge him as if politics is some kind of vapid personality contest.
“So here are some of the Jeremy Corbyn policies that the mainstream media really don’t want to tell you about, so you can judge for yourself whether you like them or not.”
From Another Angry Voice: “When the Tories were introducing their ideologically driven and hopelessly botched plan to privatise the UK rail network the Tory Transport Secretary John MacGregor claimed that passengers would benefit from reduced fares.
“Anyone who understood the basics of monopolies (captive markets) knew that MacGregor’s promises were fantastical nonsense. Once a monopoly service is handed to a private profit-seeking entity, prices are certain to rise because there’s no price competition in a captive market.
“Two decades after rail privatisation the average train fare has increased by 117% (24% adjusted for inflation). On some journeys fares have increased by well over 200%.
“Aside from the direct hit to passengers’ wallets, there’s also the fact that the private rail operators are being showered with £billions in direct and indirect taxpayer subsidies.
“Annual direct subsidies to the private rail franchises far exceed the entire cost of running the entire UK rail network back when it was run as a not-for-profit public service.”