Joe Biden: this Democrat president-elect will have a majority in the House of Representatives and a de facto majority in the Senate. Will he use it to enact the gun controls that the United States desperately need?
It seems to me that the fever over the Capitol riot in the United States is ignoring a very important fact.
I’ve made a short video and I would appreciate it if you would watch it:
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Rampant: the Covid-19 virus is once again on the loose across the UK because the Tories haven’t just lost control; they’ve deliberately thrown it away.
Let’s be honest: Covid-19 infections in the UK are skyrocketing again and there’s nothing the Tory government can do about it.
Monday (September 7) was the second day running that nearly 3,000 new infections were recorded – and remember, that’s only among people who have been tested and the number of tests available are limited. Allow me to demonstrate:
Professor Gabriel Scally, a member of the Independent Sage group and a former NHS regional director of public health for the south-west, reckons that government ministers have “lost control of the virus”.
“It’s no longer small outbreaks they can stamp on,” he told The Guardian. “It’s become endemic in our poorest communities and this is the result. It’s extraordinarily worrying when schools are opening and universities are going to be going back.”
But it should be obvious that the Tories haven’t got any control at all.
They might have had some when the lockdown was in force but those days are long gone. It seems increasingly likely that lockdown was only imposed to keep on the right side of public opinion and the real plan was “herd immunity”.
This is the idea that if enough of us develop antibodies to the disease, its effect will be negligible. But “herd immunity” requires a majority of the population to be vaccinated against a disease and there is no vaccine.
Allowing a majority to become infected merely increases the likelihood of unnecessary deaths.
The number of infections started rising as soon as the first lockdown relaxations happened and it seems to This Writer that the exponential rise now may be partially due to schools returning…
241 UK Schools now CV19+
• 113 England • 87 Scotland • 25 N. Ireland • 16 Wales
Source: A database compiled from NHS Websites, School Websites & Newspaper reports.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Boris Johnson: if he really is taking more control – away from chief medical officers – it’s only so he can make this gesture to everybody who has fought off Covid-19 so far.
Take a look at the tweet directly below – and the response by Another Angry Voice:
Good question. According to the Telegraph article…
A shake-up in Downing Street will see the Government’s entire approach to the pandemic run by two centrally-run committees, covering strategy and operational delivery.
Tory MPs said the changes could weaken the influence of chief adviser Dominic Cummings – who was heavily criticised for a 260-mile trip during lockdown – and allow Mr Johnson to tighten his grip on the fight against the pandemic.
… it appears to have been Dominic Cummings.
But isn’t that just scapegoating – blaming the aide who is out of favour with the public? Not only that – we don’t know that the claim has any accuracy at all but, now it has been made, for all we know Cummings can carry on as normal while we assume he’s been consigned to less commanding roles.
It would be hard to blame anybody, even Johnson, for wanting a bit of distance from recent disasters, though.
Consider Test and Trace – the scheme that was criticised as a risk to people’s privacy before it was rolled out:
Revealed: Covid test and trace data in England leaked to Channel 4 News https://t.co/4tVwLOu9jU
Channel 4 wasn’t the only recipient of the leaked information; the Daily Mirror had it too:
It will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that a leaked report has revealed that just 1,749 people have been contacted by the government's much heralded track and trace system in the first four days since it was launched. https://t.co/53cOv13PZM
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) June 2, 2020
So much for data security under the Conservatives!
Then there’s this:
There must be criminal prosecutions or we might as well all give up. https://t.co/WSSISUx8Z5
So more than 25,000 Covid-19 patients were released from hospitals to care homes that did not have the facilities to isolate them.
It’s a miracle only 20,000 of them died!
Or is that yet another statistical… mistake… of the kind for which the Johnson government has become justly infamous?
Meanwhile, the total number of excess Covid-19 deaths was revealed to have given the UK the worst death rate in the world, proportionate to the size of its population, from May 22. It was suspected but now it was proved:
Against this backdrop, it was revealed that Johnson wanted to lower the Covid-19 alert level – but all four UK chief medical officers vetoed his demand:
UPDATE: all four UK Chief Medical Officers agreed that Covid Alert Level should remain at 4 at their meeting last Thursday, against the PM’s expressed “hopes” it would be lowered. More on #bbcnewsSixhttps://t.co/zbNKsAtZsE
If Starmer was saying Johnson taking a firmer grip should reduce the risk of a second wave of Covid infections, the evidence suggests he is bitterly mistaken.
Johnson taking over is far more likely to speed up that second wave’s arrival – and boost it to overwhelming size.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Show of defiance: Johnny Mercer reckons he can exploit Theresa May’s weakness to demand action on a single issue. What if large numbers of Conservatives follow suit?
There’s not really much point in withdrawing support from the government over everything but Brexit when Brexit is all that’s left on the agenda.
Still, Johnny Mercer’s decision to make a stand – no matter how weak – on the prosecution of British servicemen over historical allegations demonstrates very clearly Theresa May’s loss of authority.
She has no Parliamentary majority now; her alliance with the DUP has been used up and it will cost another vast amount of public money to renew it, if she even thinks that would be worthwhile.
Some Conservative MPs have quit to join Change UK and one is facing the loss of his seat after being convicted of expenses fraud.
Now Mr Mercer has made a show of resistance.
Will others – who may be in a position to do more damage – do the same?
Conservative MP Johnny Mercer says he has withdrawn his support for the government over the historical prosecution of British servicemen.
A former Army officer, Mr Mercer called on Theresa May in a letter to end the “macabre spectacle of elderly veterans being dragged back to Northern Ireland” to face possible prosecution.
In his letter to the prime minister, the Plymouth Moor View MP said he found investigations into historic allegations surrounding ex-services personnel “personally offensive”
He said he was not to prepared to vote for Government legislation – except on Brexit – until the Government took “clear and concrete steps” to end the “abhorrent process”.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Conservatives do not care about racism; they care about winning.
That is why racist Rosemary Carroll has been reinstated into the Conservative Party: It gives that party a majority on Pendle Council, after the local elections on Thursday (May 3).
Ms Carroll’s membership of the Conservatives had been suspended after she was revealed to have tweeted a racist attempt at humour. She is pictured above, alongside the so-called joke.
And Theresa May has the brass neck to tell Tories in Barnet that they won because Labour has allowed a form of racism – anti-Semitism – to go unchallenged.
Is that in contrast to Mrs May’s own enthusiastic encouragement of it, then?
Anti-racist group Hope Not Hate has launched a petition demanding the reinstatement of Ms Carroll’s suspension, and a proper investigation into her behaviour.
The organisation’s Nick Lowles, in an email, stated: “The timing of Councillor Carroll’s reinstatement clearly shows it was motivated by political arithmetic. This is an appallingly cynical move for short-term political gain and will lead many people to question the commitment of Pendle Conservatives to challenging racism.
“We’re calling on Tory Chair Brandon Lewis to step in now. Her behaviour was outrageous before the Tories needed her vote to win power, and her behaviour is still unacceptable now.
“If the Tories are serious about demonstrating they will stand up to racism in their own ranks, they will suspend and properly investigate Councillor Carroll, now.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Richard Thaler: His theory has allowed the UK’s Conservative-led governments to victimise thousands of vulnerable jobseekers.
It is a travesty that the Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to a man whose theories were used by the Conservative-led Coalition government of 2010-15 to manipulate unemployed people into inappropriate work.
Richard Thaler’s ‘nudge’ theory acknowledged that people frequently make bad decisions in their lives, thus contradicting one of the central tenets of economics – that people will always act rationally for their own good.
The theory suggests that the way choices are phrased or presented – the ‘choice architecture’ can be framed so that it nudges people towards the most beneficial outcome without restricting their personal freedom.
That is not what has happened. Look at the Coalition’s Behavioural Insights Unit, an organisation originally attached to the Cabinet Office, that used the theory to ‘nudge’ people towards decisions that benefited the Conservative Party and not the individuals concerned.
The best example of this is the fake questionnaire put out by the Department for Work and Pensions to manipulate jobseekers into doing what the Department wanted, rather than what was in their own best interests.
In theory, Thaler may have had a point. In practice, the UK government turned it into attempted mind control.
As the Skwawkbox article in the link above states, the questionnaire was rigged to suggest people had strengths that their answers did not bear out: “Untold numbers of people running around trying to use ‘strengths’ that actually have nothing to do with their actual personality – all under the threat of losing their income if they fail to comply.”
So ‘nudge’ theory was used to lie to vulnerable people, and to threaten them with destitution if they did not do as the Tories demanded.
And for this, the Nobel committee has given Richard Thaler a prize?
A demand for an apology would be better – along with financial restitution for all those whose lives have been blighted – or ended – by the implementation of his theory by genocidal politicians.
Richard Thaler has won the Nobel economics prize for his contributions to behavioural economics.
He championed the concept of “nudging” people, through subtle changes in government policy, to do things that are in their long-term self-interest, such as saving for a pension.
“Richard Thaler’s contributions have built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decision-making, said the Nobel committee.
“His empirical findings and theoretical insights have been instrumental in creating the new and rapidly expanding field of behavioural economics, which has had a profound impact on many areas of economic research and policy.”
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Google has ‘a terrible problem’ with its search algorithm being manipulated by the far right, said data scientist Cathy O’Neil [Image: Yui Mok/PA].
Bizarrely, this manipulation by right-wing hate-propagandists could have a beneficial effect – Google may end up employing human editors to ensure the company evades any… legal entanglements.
But the issue of fake news is huge. Tom Watson may have made a fool of himself, attacking The Canary for no very good reason, but there is a serious point here.
If right-wing manipulators are spreading disinformation, they are to be countered – or people will make political decisions based on this nonsense and who knows where we’ll end up?
The article states that Jonathan Albright, assistant professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, said right wing websites had launched a new “information war”, and were winning.
His research has shown that fake news and information is a far bigger structural problem than had been previously realised. He has mapped a “vast satellite system that is encroaching on the mainstream news system”.
Websites propagating extreme right wing propaganda have thrown out thousands of hyperlinks that connect to each other and to mainstream news sources, such as YouTube and Facebook, and he says they “are growing in strength and influence every day”.
How do we fight this?
Google must urgently review its search ranking system because of “compelling” evidence that it is being “manipulated and controlled” by rightwing propagandists, leading academics have said, after the Observer reported that hate sites are now dominating searches on Muslims, Jews, Hitler and women.
Cathy O’Neil, a data scientist and the author of Weapons on Math Destruction, said that unless Google acknowledged responsibility for the problem, it would be a “co-conspirator” with the propagandists. “This is the end for Google pretending to be a neutral platform,” she said. “It clearly has a terrible problem here and it has to own and acknowledge that.
“It simply can’t go on pretending that it has no editorial responsibilities when it is delivering these kinds of results. It is simply not defensible for it go on claiming ‘plausible deniability’. It has clearly become a conduit for rightwing hate sites and it must urgently take action.”
Google had removed the lines suggesting that Jews and black people are evil and that blacks “commit more crimes”, but it is still suggesting Muslims were “bad” and that Islam “should be destroyed”. While Facebook has faced criticism in the wake of revelations about how the site had become a conduit for fake news, the problem facing Google is potentially even more intractable.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
The DWP closely monitors media output, and compiles a “sentiment of articles” chart every month to make sure that they receive positive coverage.
Ministers have been doing their best to pretend that they never do anything wrong – and have then done their best to hide the fact that this is what they’re doing.
Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know about the DWP?
Officers for the Department claimed that the information was “commercially sensitive”, of all things.
That just leads one to ask why. What commercial contracts would this information prejudice?
Clearly the Information Commissioner was not convinced by whatever argument the DWP produced, because we have our information now.
This Blog is one of the social media sources that offers almost exclusively negative coverage of the Department for Work and Pensions, and it is interesting to note how the DWP treated one of my biggest stories.
In August 2015 the DWP “proactively briefed” the media about the long-awaited statistics which showed the amount of ESA claimants who had died after being found fit for work.
I had no way of knowing this at the time, but this action was successful in ‘spiking’ coverage in the FT (whose editors should have known better), the Express (this is more understandable) and on ITV.
The DWP’s commentary stated that the most critical initial coverage of the statistics misrepresented their details. This was because the DWP had done its best to present them in a manner that would be misunderstood. Still, it was able to secure corrections in the Grauniad and the Mirror which weakened the story.
We are left with a clear message: The DWP is more concerned with distorting the facts – or preventing them from being known at all – than with the facts themselves.
It does not matter to Conservative ministers that their policies have killed thousands of people.
They just want to make sure nobody finds out about it.
Following a 13 month battle, the DWP have finally been forced to release secret documents illustrating the tactics they use to control and manipulate the media.
The documents reveal that the DWP monitors and analyses both mainstream and social media to reduce and manage negative coverage.
And even more worryingly, the documents show the DWP have managed to kill hundreds of stories by making sure that they are not reported.
Almost every month since March 2014 the DWP communications team has produced “Media Evaluation Reports” detailing the ways and methods that the DWP controls negative stories about them in the media.
The reports give valuable insight into a department that is unhealthily focused on the press coverage [it receives].
The fact that they have managed to kill so many stories that they don’t approve of raises serious questions as to how the department is exercising its influence over the free press.
The role of journalism is to bring people the truth behind the DWP’s rhetoric, not to act as the chief mouthpiece for it.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
It’s funny, the way even high-profile figures can get the wrong end of the stick.
Paul McCartney, for example, has warned the Conservative Party that it could lose the support of the UK electorate if a free vote next week results in the re-legalisation of fox hunting.
Perhaps someone should remind him that the Conservatives have a wafer-thin majority of just 12 MPs; six by-elections and they’re impotent.
In fact, even with this vote they are playing dirty. Knowing that a free vote to repeal the Hunting Act will not win enough support, David Cameron and his friends have worked out that they could restore hunting by bringing the law in England and Wales in line with that in Scotland. The SNP’s 56 MPs would not be able to vote against this in good faith, and will probably abstain, leaving the Tories with a majority of around 50 (believe it or not, there are Conservatives who oppose hunting).
Cameron absolutely cannot rely on the support of the electorate: His party won only 24.3 per cent of the available vote at the general election in May, making his government one of the least democratic in our history. And polls have consistently shown that a clear majority of the British people want the barbaric practice of hunting foxes with hounds to remain illegal – more than 50 per cent of us.
Macca, 73, has spent decades campaigning for animal rights. He said: “The vast majority of us will be against them [the Conservatives] if hunting is reintroduced. It is cruel and unnecessary and will lose them support from ordinary people and animal lovers like myself.”
“Inexcusable”
Fellow musician Brian May has been far more outspoken; he accused supporters of next week’s vote of being “a bunch of lying bastards” on the BBC’s Newsnight programme last Thursday.
Some mouthpiece for the hunt-supporting Countryside Alliance had been on, spouting the usual tripe: “This is about addressing exemptions in the Act, which were agreed by both sides when the Act was going through, for pest control reasons, for catching a diseased or wounded animal or something like that.”
Dr May responded: “It’s a very underhand act I’m afraid, because Cameron for years has promised a free vote – a fair fight on the repeal of the Hunting Act.
“He has now realised that this probably won’t end up with what he wants so this whole thing has been put together by circumventing the normal democratic process.
“So you introduce a little modification to an Act but this modification actually disables the whole Hunting Act and effectively this is repeal under a new name. I think this is a very Machiavellian and rather inexcusable way of behaving.
“I believe it’s a pretence. I think you’re a bunch of lying bastards.”
Here he is saying it, at around 5 minutes, 40 seconds in:
Other notable celebrity opponents include Ricky Gervais, who tweeted:
In fact, it seems the mouthpiece from the Countryside Alliance has shown us the way forward.
This Writer cannot imagine why a wounded animal would need to be “removed” by a hunting pack; in the wild, the law of natural selection would probably see that it is “removed” without human interference.
And if this is about pest control – removing a diseased animal so it cannot spread an infection – then it should be necessary for the hunters to prove any fox was diseased before they set the dogs after it.
This leads to a further question about epidemic: If hounds are sent after a diseased fox, won’t they catch and spread the illness themselves?
Perhaps the Tories – and their Countryside Alliance co-conspirators – should be made to answer these questions before any change in the law is considered.
If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Chris Leslie, who is a landlord himself, said the party’s policy of limiting the speed of rent increases for tenants had upset people seeking to profit from housing by implying that fast rises were exploitative.
If you have enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
![Google has ‘a terrible problem’ with its search algorithm being manipulated by the far right, said data scientist Cathy O’Neil [Image: Yui Mok/PA].](https://i0.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161206-Google.png)
