The downing street Christmas parties are outrageous,
it's the prime minister laughing in our faces.
But while we've all been focused on that something
much, much bigger than that has been slipped past us
where the government is taking away our liberties
on an industrial scale.
You know those documentaries you've seen about a dictator's
rise to power and there's always a bit in the documentary
where you think why didn't they stop him?
they could have stopped him when there was still time.
That's the bit we're at.
We currently have a bill going through its final stages of
parliament the Police Bill which now contains measures
which would effectively shut down protest in this country.
We will be banned from locking on or indeed holding on
to anything in pursuit of protest.
One of the most important protest tactics around the world
used throughout history.
You can't interfere in any way with the construction
of any new major infrastructure so you can't protest
against a road being built an airport being expanded.
New stop and search powers which the police will be able
to deploy against anyone who they suspect might be carrying equipment for a protest
and indeed other powers where they can stop and search us without suspicion but even worse than
that is this power to ban named people from going to any kind of protest you put them on a list
and those people are then banned from all engagement with protest even from being able
to go on the internet and talk about protests anything like that you'll be banned even though
you've committed no crime our basic democratic liberties are being taken away from us so
obviously the media the establishment parliament they're all up in arms they're in uproar over this
in your dreams you could hear a pin drop almost no discussion at all of these massive
dictators powers parliament is almost silent on it labour party is almost silent on it the press
is censoring itself we don't need that next stage towards autocracy where government sense of the
press because it's already happening what's very interesting about this is that we have
a whole discourse of freedom on the right we have all these freedom warriors like julia hartley
brewer and lawrence fox and toby young and steve baker and oliver dowden and nadine doris all these
people who position themselves as being in favor of liberty not a squeak from any of them
about these massive truncations of our freedoms the only freedoms they care about are their own
it's not just a police bill which has been slipped past us where we've all been focusing elsewhere
it's also the nationality and borders bill an unbelievably oppressive piece of legislation
where it enables on a whim the government to take away your citizenship to take away your passport
and this could apply to up to five million people predominantly people of color it's enacted the
fantasy which people like the british national party and the national front used to entertain
decades ago it's actually turned it into policy and it's gone through with scarcely a scrap
of coverage again and again now the government is passing these massive history changing bills
and the media is looking elsewhere how can this be what's going on here what is this hypnosis
which we seem to be under media and government government and media the same figures go round
and round and they use all the skills and all the contacts which they accumulated as journalists
and deploy that cleverness on behalf of their new political masters allegra stratton is a classic
example of this she worked in newspapers and television before becoming the prime minister's
spokesperson she was the one who was caught laughing about that christmas party and had to
resign basically the fall guy for johnson because the favorite tory bloodsport is shooting the
messenger but she was indicative of this meshing of media and government if the media exists for a
purpose it is to hold power to account but the great majority of the media reinforces power
boris johnson is the most dangerous prime minister we've had in the entire democratic era he creates
this impression of being relaxed and funny and spontaneous and bumbling and incompetent
it's all calculated and he disarms people with this impression of bumbling incompetence but he's
absolutely ruthless when it comes to the pursuit of power and he senses weakness in our political
system like a shark smells blood and so he homes in and exploits that weakness to great effect if
there's one thing that the history of the past 100 years tells us it is beware of the clowns people
who seem ridiculous are the most dangerous people of all in politics we weren't sufficiently aware
of the dangers of the clowns and we elected one as prime minister the whole thrust of unaccountable
power is that you can do things that other people can't you don't have to abide by the
rules because you're powerful you're above all that it's the other people who do and so we have
this situation in this country where the prime minister and his cronies are mocking us as we
abide by the coveted rules they just ignore them and laugh in our faces and while they're doing so
they impose the most draconian legislation in living memory on the rest of us this is
how dictatorship works and we are sliding towards it at the moment the motive power of dictatorship
is that there's one rule for the elite and a completely different rule for the people
we need to use every tool at our disposal to resist this great power grab that's going on
the mainstream media has completely failed us on this issue it's failed to give it anything like
the coverage it requires and this is where the alternative media steps in so please
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