https://twitter.com/NatashaC/status/1587398803484807169?s=20&t=JOyj3myczE0SCkgKfmpC6A
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But what about the cheese?!?
Hancockās latest stunt crosses over into some form of performance art. Of all the things to lose the whip for, considering what he has done and not done.
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Sounds like Matt Hancock would rather eat dingoās dangly bits than swallow the bollocks that the government is currently coming up with.
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How is he going to cope with being separated from the love of his life. The one he broke covid rules and gave a job in the Department of Health to because he couldnāt bear to be apart from her.
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From the BBC:
āAndy Drummond, deputy chairman of the West Suffolk Conservative Association, said he was looking forward to seeing Mr Hancock āeating a kangarooās penisā.ā
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I do not entirely agree with using the term Fascism.
I neither see the militaristic cult nor the proposition to create fascist economic model (State corporatism). I also see no signs of the Tories wanting to destroy parliamentarian democracy and implement dictatorship.
Arguably there is Neo-Fascist (which is a weaker and more fluent term) ideas and language coming from the Tory Far Right though, and Braverman is using neo-fascist populist language you might argue. The American neo-fascists are closer to real fascism I would argue, since they refuse to submit to democracy unless they themselves win and they have leaders who propagate grand lies concerning elections.
Lastly, xenophobia and using xenophobia for political ploys is not fascism in itself. Xenophobia, and using it, is however a component in fascism, but there are many others to.
Edit: I donāt mean to be obnoxious or quarrelsome and hope you donāt think that.
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For a long time I was unsure of why poorer people would vote for the conservatives and their policies, which seem to be quite counter to their well being and or long term prosperity. A number of board members have commented on this in a slightly different context in the US thread but I couldnāt quite crystallise the information.
I recently came across a passage in a book Iām reading (the first one Iāve read in a long, long timeā¦ āThe Poverty Safariā) that potentially provides a simple (though not the only) explanation, at least one that I could grasp. Basically, it comes down to the perceived competition of perceived finite resources, such as benefits, access to basic amenities, education and health care.
The gist of it is as follows:
- There are many poor people and areas in the UK that are caught in a continuous cycle of poverty.
- Poverty creates an environment where there is broad disenfranchisement from the normal levers in society that could elevate the poor people from poverty.
- At some point, there an influx of other poor people (foreigners for example).
- In a relatively short period of time this leads to the perception that they have come in to take our resource - benefits, access to health care, education and so onā¦
- This perception quickly turns into political capital, ripe for misuse, i.e. messaging to the effect of, the NHS is at breaking point, benefits need to be cut, education is failing and so on. The narrative that it is these other people that have come in and are eating up our countryās resource is then easy to sell.
None of this of course gets tothe question of how to solve poverty. Neither the right nor the left have effectively dealt with institutionalised poverty.
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Never, and Iād agree with a lot of what you say. Iād also not argue that the Tories would wholesale adopt the whole package of 1930s style fascism, not least because the idea of state corporatism is really not the Tories thing at all. There is the small fact that the world has changed a lot since the 30s, and capital and corporations are thought of in very different ways, and fascist rhetoric is inevitably going to feel different.
But I would argue that of the behaviours that characterise fascism, the Tory party are certainly uncomfortably knee deep in many of them.
Iād say you can put great big ticks next toā¦
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using an oppressed race or social group as a scapegoat for national failings.
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adopting the language of fascist rhetoric in whipping up fears (invasion, plagues, swarms)
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Belief in social orders and hierarchy. That some people are better than others, not just around race but also class and background
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suppression of opposition and dissent. The attacks on our rights to protest are a really scary sign of what is to come. Likewise the Tories attitude to our democratic functions are also deeply concerning.
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There is also a worrying drift toward autocracy, with certain figures within the party believing and acting as if they are above the law, or that laws do not apply.
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I agree that the fringe wing can be associated with many of the components and generally agree with your points that they are using many famous components that your find inside fascist ideology.
Particularly you note increasing authoritarianism and ideological belief in hierarchy and established social orders with limited mobility, which are also very important as you note. And of course xenophobic dogtail whistling and in some cases, actual xenophobic beliefs.
Basically I agree in essence even though I would not use the word Fascism (even if you remove the economics there must, I think, be a personalit cult, or at least a kultus around hirearchy, as well as a very high degree of militarism to be called fascism for the term to have a lot of meaning) . I am more comfortable with neo-Fascism myself. But sure, many would not care about the differences I admit.
Can I just call them a pack of shitcunts?
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Well, you will need to define your terms.
ā¦
I can understand that. And I totally get the reluctance to use āthe wordā. But I think itās still important to mindful what Facism 2022 looks like, and it obviously doesnāt look like the German Army goose-stepping into France. I think it looks a bit like this. But perhaps your use of āNeo-Facismā is more appropriate.
On the addition points, in terms of a āpersonality cultā I think you can make a case that the adoration that Johnson still gets, in spite of him making an absolute skip-fire of everything he does, is somewhat cultish. He is excused and forgiven the most egregious failures of competence and character, in a way that Iāve never seen another leader.
And while we donāt have a threat of militarism (yet), we certainly have the absurd nationalism that often runs alongside it. The idea prevalent in the Tory party, that Britannia is an exception to the rules, whether thatās trade or diplomacy, economics or whatever. The rest of the world will bend to our will. See Brexit, as your example of that.
I think my light bulb moment was when three high court judges, having ruled - correctly - that parliament had to have the final say on any Brexit deal, had their names and photos printed on the front of the Daily Mail with the headline āEnemies of the Peopleā. That was the moment when I thought āFuck. This has actually happened in my countryā.
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Mairi Black is onto them already
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I do not disagree with anything you have said. As @cynicaloldgit mentioned, racism isnāt limited to white people.
My Girlfriend is Black African, her friends are mainly African, additionally, we have friends of different races, cultures, beliefs, sexuality, etc. I have at times heard been subjected to comments/banter/uneducated statements that are discriminative against me/my demographic.
Anyhow, I have digressed.
In the interest of debate. Illegal immigration to the UK has been a constant over the last decade(s). Figures on (known) boat crossings are increasing, why are people paying smugglers monies for a hellish journey, where there is no guarantee of success and with a high risk of death. Why, when already in a European country are so many looking to continue to the UK?