Tory MP has hissy fit at Suella Braverman being called ‘extreme right wing’
Is this cognitive dissonance at its worst?
Cognitive dissonance – as I’m sure most people know – is the condition of holding two opposing beliefs and attitudes simultaneously.
From his behaviour, we can conclude that Tory Tom Hunt holds very similar political views to those of Suella Braverman.
From his words, we may conclude that he does not understand that those views are held by people in the extreme right wing of his party.
His outburst on the BBC’s Politics Live on Monday derives from this incongruity, as Maximilien Robespierre explains:
Robespierre also draws attention to the inconsistencies in Hunt’s own words: surveys of the UK population are supposed to show that they support Braverman, meaning people have spoken up to say this – but it is also the “silent majority” who support her. Which is it, then?
And of course Hunt is wrong in the premise on which he bases his indignation. Labour’s Steve Reed wasn’t saying that Braverman belongs to the extreme right wing of politics; just to the extreme right wing of the Conservative Party.
In that, Reed was correct. Hunt was pushing a false, straw man argument by trying to suggest that Reed was saying one thing when in fact he was saying the other.
He probably thought he was being clever but came across as precisely the opposite.
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