As I said, if you put your dislike of Musk to one side.. It’s a verifiable fact now that government agencies are directly trying to influence elections and shape political narratives. Before it was a “conspiracy theory”. Do you honestly not see why this is big news?
The media have been colluding with the political establishment for centuries. The U.K. has had a partisan, right wing press for as long as I can remember, and I’m quite old. The Sun and The Daily Mail in particular manipulate the prejudices and fears of working and middle class people, with the blatant intention of getting them to vote against their own self interests.
I agree, but actively monitoring, censoring and banning social media content is a whole step up from this imo
But why no comments on all the monitoring , censoring and banning of social media content going on under Elon’s watch? Surely the principle is still the same regardless of the content or context? He banned someone recently for breaking a rule that hadn’t even been introduced at that time (resulting in them getting reinstated). It may have been an unpleasant character but that still isn’t above board. Especially for a free speech absolutist
Deleted my twitter account today. The suggested RW assholes that the app suddenly thought I 'might like to follow' or the dodgy crypto DMs or the bullshite misogyny 'based on my retweets' is at a whole new level. Musk can get f$*#%d.
Well for a start, Elon has bought Twitter. He can enforce whatever policies he likes as it’s a private entity. (As much as I disagree with his decisions). That is an entirely different issue than a supposedly democratic government & the international espionage communities acting as an authoritarian dictatorships and using the media as a weapon against its own people. Like I said, I think this is a massive issue. One that should worry people a lot more than it has. When you combine this behaviour with the Canadian government banning the anti-lockdown protestors bank accounts and then mix in the forthcoming central bank digital currencies, the West is well on its way to replicating China’s social credit system. Governments are setting precedents for enormous overreach. Potentially very scary to be honest. The western world is nowhere near as free as people think. The possibilities for total government control are there.
Flew back to Spain, this morning, and walked into arrivals to be met by a woman directing the foot traffic left or right, depending on EU or British passport. The British queue was quite long but I unashamedly dodged it by showing the woman (in hope) my Spanish resident card and was allowed to go through the EU route, despite being a British passport holder. This probably saved me about 20 minutes of waiting time as there wasn’t a queue at the EU desks. My residents card actually trumped my passport as the Border police officer didn’t even look at the passport, despite me handing it to him. This actually means that I do have a Brexit bonus, as I will generally be flying in with a plane full of Brits, but not have to queue with them.
When I went to Prague last year, I stepped out of the Other Passports queue and up to the EU desk, where there was no queue. Got waved through no problem. Probably depends where you go, I’ve heard a few stories about Spanish (and French) customs officials making things difficult for Brits. Sending anything through the post to France is a headache, never seems to be a problem elsewhere in Europe.
Same for us at most EU airports and on the Eurostar. Oh the blessings of brexit. Not at Schipol though the latest generation of scanners are being installed which meant a queue for non Dutch passports. The system is being expanded to suit all biometric documents in the new year.
Those without EU documents have to have their passports stamped and scanned at Dutch entry points, I think that applies in most EU countries. I had to make customs declaration sending a package from the Netherlands listing contents their weight and value. Ordering from UK suppliers since brexit is a nightmare with paperwork and costs. No meat or dairy products causing more brexitears from me.
I don’t need to have my passport stamped anymore, because of the residency card. Having said that, it probably only applies to Spain and I might have to be stamped at other EU destinations.
Same for us, no stamping. I'm pretty sure that applies throughout the EU, no need to present your passport if you have EU residence.
James O’Brien with a few home truths about Steve Barclay, the Tories in general and a couple of right wing papers.
The whole passport issue perplexes me. I was sad to see the purple EU passports disappear and anyone who travels abroad will be aware of the benefits. It is a shame that a good proportion of those people who voted for Brexit are unlikely to be the ones who travel to Europe. However, on my two visits to Qatar this year, I found that it took me a while to go through the first time but on my second visit I was waived through. When I visited the first time, the bloke in front of me came from Pakistan and it took an age for him to go through which made me grateful I had a British passport. My impression if that a British passport would be more advantagous in Africa and Asia as opposed to being disadvantage in Europe. I think that the media has been pretty poor at holding those politicians who campaigned for Brexit to account. The BBC appears anti-Brexit and I think that it's more liberal leanings probably mean that some of the more right-wing individuals will be slightly distrusting. However, the BBC can only report the reality and whilst I would have to say that I find Channel Four's news coverage to be more robust, people must be starting to realise that Brexit has had no advantages whatsoever. The only thing beneficial is that we have not been involved when the EU gets things wrong but you might argue that the presence of the Brits in the EU would have ensured this happened less often! I wish that some journalist would do a root and branch assessment of Brexit and then hold those politicians sponsible to account. By the same token, I think Labour also need to be interrogated on their stance. They know that they will lose voters if they campaign to re-join the EU and Starmer simply argues that he wants to fulfill the wishes of those people who voted Leave. That simply implies to me that he is happy to drive the car over the cliff leaving the SNP and the fringe and irrelevant Liberals as Pro-Eu. Starmer is seriously under-whelming in my opinion but it is also worthwhile reflecting that Corbyn would probably have been elected if he could have found a credible response to Brexit. The fact that he could never do this fatally undermined him at a time when, otherwise, there was a real appetite for his brand of politics in this country. Had he been elected I think he would have created waves across Europe which would have seen a general shift in the EU towards the Left. I was always surprised how highly he was thought of in France. the worse missed opportunity for the UK since Labour rejected Tony Benn as leader. What I do feel is ironic is that the most effective and coherent leader of any of the political parties in the UK is the one that is looking for her own country to become independent. I really dislike her but think she is an incredible politician being both modern and correct in so many instances. A large part of the problem for the English is that she is usually right in what she says yet it has a double edge to it insofar that it is coated in an Anti-English covering albeit impossible to argue against the case she presents. I cannot help but thinkin just how much better off we would be if she was Prime Minister of the UK . As things stand, I think Scottish independence may be desirable yet I cannot see a Westminster government handling that any better than Brexit. Even if Scotland gets independence, I think Westminster will administer it poorly regardless of who is in power despite the good intentions of the SNP. If the people who dealt with Brexit are involved, they will make it difficult for an independent Scotland
I do not think many of the politicians in Westminster are worthy of any respect, let alone Sturgeon. To say that people here are clamouring for Corbyn’s politics is quite simply wrong. He was absolutely destroyed at the ballot box. Unfortunately many of the problems Brexit was supposed to solve were real and are getting worse. I feel sorry for the state of this failing country. But it is just that - a failing country…and none of the politicians are doing even the slightest thing to solve any of them. They are too busy waving rainbow flags and virtue signalling about the World Cup and climate change from their private jets.
