Firms with no history of supplying the products they were paid for, a business linked to Brexit lobbyists, and a dormant company were among the beneficiaries.
I say this too often; but this sums the Tories up. At the very best this is gross negligence by this government during a national and international crisis. At it’s worse this is using this crisis for nepotism, to line the pockets of their rich friends, Tory and Brexit supporters and selling off parts of the NHS supply chain.
What makes this worse is they were ignoring and rejecting offers from established PPE suppliers to manufacture millions of bits of kit, in the UK (so helping the UK economy) and companies offering to do it at a fraction of the current costs, even offering to do it and make zero profit.
People died because of this whilst they conservatives and their friends made millions. It’s beyond disgusting, it’s beyond even negligent: it’s criminal.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/192842688863342/Read more…
The official decision to open the Arctic wildlife refuge comes at a time when few in the industry are expected to take a risk on unexplored properties.
Just another sign that Trump cares about money over everything else; including wildlife, national parks and your life.
Don’t be drawn in by his rhetoric, his lies.
From a none US citizen to all my friends, family and everyone reading this that is, please save your wonderful country from this madman’s narcissistic and systematic dismantling and destruction.
Do the right thing this November, vote him out.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/192386212242323/Read more…
Exclusive: Growth of new Patriotic Alternative group suggests ‘shift towards more openly racial politics’
Report shows far right nationalist are becoming more open and extreme in their views.
This is really happening along with far right conspiracy theories.
It’s even happening for people who were just right of centre.
I have seen it with people I know and family members who once held rather grounded views now posting, reposting memes and articles with questionable content and from suspect sources whilst appearing to believe every word.
Say what you like about the far right nationalist but they are doing a far better job of stoking up reaction and getting those that would be traditionally be sat on the fence to fall to the right.
On the left we spend too much time fighting amongst ourselves and trying to cancel out the voice of those that aren’t quite left enough. They don’t do that on the right. They encourage them to keep moving towards them.
And unless we get our shot together we are going to lose a lot more of those fence sitters to the political right.
Now my politics is left of centre. I have always been open and honest about that. And I am proud of it. I think the far left can be as dangerous and damaging as the far right. If we are to move forward in this world we need to allow true bipartisan debate and discussion to thrive.
But I know being on the left that the Far Left would vilify and try to cancel me out for even saying that.
The problem is that the right are weaponising this “Cancel Culture” and censorship to entice those getting sick of it over to their way of thinking. And they are doing it in very subtle ways (sometimes) using behavioral psychology 101 techniques. And ultimately using the far left to drive the far right recruitment effort.
It’s time the left got more strategic in our thinking and campaigning. We need to be winning hearts and minds not pushing them off the fence.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/192043725609905/Read more…
The government’s authoritarian posturing ignores the facts about asylum seekers coming to Britain, says author Daniel Trilling
Don’t be fooled by the right wing and political rhetoric around migrants crossing the channel. It’s not an invasion and it hasn’t stepped up, its merely the fact that the means of transportation has had to change in the current closing of boarders with less wagons crossing the channel.
“An invasion is what happens when a state uses military force to violently enter another country. It does not look at all like the recent images of small groups of people, many from countries that have themselves been invaded or bombed, crossing an international border in search of asylum. And yet the rhetoric of invasion has returned to British politics amid a growing moral panic over people crossing the Channel in small boats.”
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/190435425770735/Read more…
The success of The Daily Wire, the website run by right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, on Facebook is mind-boggling. The site has a small staff and primarily aggregates content from Twitter and other news outlets. Typically, its articles are very short, usually less than 500 words, and contain no original...
Part of the secret of the success of right wing media such as Ben Shaprio's daily news was exposed in this article. And it's still going on. Facebook seems to allow people, even if spreading fear and hate, to break their rules as and when it suits them. Which is basically when they are making lots of money off it.
"Here is how it works. Most of the content on the five pages in this network consists of links to MadWorldNews.com and TadHaps.com, two websites owned by the Pepples. These sites identify incendiary stories — that are frequently months or years old — that prey on prejudice and fear. The sites then rewrite the stories with no indication that the story is old. This generates a "new" link that is able to thrive in Facebook's algorithm.
For example, TadHaps.com published a story on June 19, 2020, with the headline "Family Displays ‘Southern Pride’ Sign, Stranger Confronts Them With Gun." The article describes how a man named Mark Wilson was standing on the side of the road with his family, waving Confederate flags. According to Wilson, a man drove up and pointed a gun at him and other family members. The man then drove away without harming anyone.
It's not mentioned in TadHaps article, but the incident occurred five years ago, in 2015."
https://popular.info/p/the-dirty-secret-behind-ben-shapiros?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copyhttps://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/190196765794601/Read more…
Boris Johnson and the Vote Leave cabal holed up in Number 10 continue to churn out unrealistic promises and blatant lies. The Coronavirus cr...
What happened to the “Ring of steel” around care homes? Another sound bite from Boris’ unelected advisor that was meaningless but headline catching and ultimately; lies. This UK Government yet again shows itself to be, at best, neglectful, at worst, down right liars that have allowed and will continue to allow thousands of unnecessary deaths in care homes and from those working in and supporting them.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/188834515930826/Read more…
The European Union has denied funding to six Polish towns that declared themselves to be "LGBT-Free Zones."
And we left the EU? You know the one that stands up for human rights; namely LGBT rights in this instance.
And how does it do it? By withholding its funding? Yes funding thousands of towns and city’s, projects that improve people’s lives have benefited from? And we left? Really!
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/188449162636028/Read more…
Facebook knows a lot about you. There are some ways you can limit this
Concerned about privacy on and from Facebook. Facebook knows a lot about you. It tracks you on social network, online and offline. In this article they discuss some ways you can limit this.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/188047789342832/Read more…
MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's groundbreaking discovery that widespread bias is built into artificial intelligence and algorithms leads her to create the Algorithmic Justice League, and push for protective legislation in the U.S.
Film / documentary Coded Bias free to watch this weekend. A very important film looking at Bias of Algorithms, Machine Learning and Facial Recognition technology. #FacialRecognition #DataScience @AJLUnited @BigBrotherWatch @OpenRightsBrum @OpenRightsGroup https://www.ocmaexpand.org/events/cinema-orange-coded-bias
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/186099112871033/Read more…
World must act now to protect wildlife in order to stop future virus crises, say scientists
“The cost of preventing further pandemics over the next decade by protecting wildlife and forests would equate to just 2% of the estimated financial damage caused by Covid-19, according to a new analysis.
Two new viruses a year had spilled from their wildlife hosts into humans over the last century, the researchers said, with the growing destruction of nature meaning the risk today is higher than ever.”
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/186075919540019/Read more…
#HandsOffOurNHS
On Monday, the Tories voted against protecting our NHS from trade deals.
They betrayed us. They betrayed our NHS.
This petition calls on the House of Lords to amend the Trade Bill 👉 https://weownit.org.uk/lords-NHS-trade-bill-petition
Calling all UK citizens: please sign and share this to stop the NHS being sold off in trade agreements.
If there is one thing we can all surely agree on in the last few months is that our NHS and the dedication of the hard working nurses and doctors have been our saviors. They need higher wages, better working conditions and more respect from the government.
So forget whose asking you to sign the petition and whether you agree with his politics or not. Just do the right thing: be on the right side of history!
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/185693142911630/Read more…
Contracts worth billions have been handed out by a government willing to brazen out disgrace until outrage subsides, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
None of this should surprise us with the Tories but they need to be held to account “Under cover of the pandemic, the government has awarded contracts worth billions of pounds for equipment on which our lives depend, without competition or transparency. It has trampled on its own rules, operated secretly and made incomprehensible and – in some cases – highly questionable decisions.”
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/184161599731451/Read more…
The Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a series of covert cyber operations against Iran and other targets since winning a secret victory in 2018 when President Trump signed what amounts to a sweeping authorization for such activities, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge o...
The CIA’s new powers are not about hacking to collect intelligence. Instead, they open the way for the agency to launch offensive cyber operations with the aim of producing disruption — like cutting off electricity or compromising an intelligence operation by dumping documents online — as well as destruction, similar to the U.S.-Israeli 2009 Stuxnet attack, which destroyed centrifuges that Iran used to enrich uranium gas for its nuclear program.
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/184008119746799/Read more…
Plus: Misinformation around Black Lives Matter protests and an analysis of the most-shared COVID-19 misinformation in Europe.
Why do people share misinformation on social media? An interesting article here looking at this and some of the most widely shared misinformation in recent times
https://www.facebook.com/103626624451616/posts/183612179786393/Read more…
