David Sowerby

🇬🇧 Looking for hope through common sense and reason, but not finding much of either.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@Bazzer1979 @PaulEmbery He tried to lie and manipulate his way to great things. IMO, just because he is not very good at it does not mean he should avoid the consequences of his own actions.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@UKLabour You seems to have forgotten a principle. Innocent until proven guilty. The onus is on you not him.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@afneil And just abut everything that makes solar and wind is mined out of the ground, and mostly not recycled. So the "renewable" tag is hardly accurate

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@dshensmith But that's not what Rupert said. He just opened "negotiations* with demands that "must be met".

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@CharlotteCGill It should be extraordinary, but we just had a Labour MP blame Reform UK and GB News for an Islamist attack in Berlin.

I am not quite sure what qualifies now as "ordinary"

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

There is I believe a name for the approach you describe:

"Accusation in a Mirror"

Attributing your own motives, intentions, or actions to your opponents. It serves as deflection, obfuscation, and sometimes preemptive justification for your own behavior. By accusing the other side first, you:

- Shift scrutiny away from yourself.
- Create confusion or false equivalence ("both sides do it").
- Rally your supporters by framing the conflict as self-defense.
- Poison the well against counter-criticism.

Examples come from various sources, but has probably, IMO, been part of human behaviour for a very long time:

- It is referenced apparently in a Rwandan propaganda manual (drawing on earlier ideas, including from Goebbels-era tactics),
- The UN Office on Genocide Prevention recognizes "mirror politics" as a strategy that fabricates divisions by accusing others of what you are doing or intend to do.

Your observations are IMO accurate, but no accident

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@UKLabour It's true I have hope ... that it does not last too long

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@Andy_Melville @EssexPR Achievements? Try taking out the ones which say "will" achieve something, or just set up another quango with no evidence of benefit. Not many left after that.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@Fox_Claire The great thing about free speech is that it lets us know who the idiots are.

Maybe that tells us something about those who object to free speech

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@GuidoFawkes Two faces of the same Establishment

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@GuidoFawkes Well on the bright side - it will be a fast motion car crash instead of the slow motion car crash we are in now. So the pain is shorter.

Think I might be clutching at straws here.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@HousewifePolish @ZiaYusufUK @SkyNews And Net Zero

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@tonguei66408226 @IsabelOakeshott And it would also demonstrate the point. The rest are all just part of the establishment. Are you pro-establishment?

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@LordCharles111 @10DowningStreet Got it. I was a bit slow on that one🤦‍♀️

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@Keir_Starmer To be fair you have been away a lot so I suppose you can be excused for having no idea what it is really like.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@LeeAndersonMP_ I mis-read that. I thought you meant "duck next time you see me" 🤔

I was trying to work out what you were doing with the bacon sarnie. I blame the heat. Or age. Or both.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

I watched the news conference on this ...

Aside from the overwhelming sadness it evoked, I am left wondering ...

1) does the public sector have any accountability for anything? [There are 6.19 million employed directly (ONS)]

2) what is the difference between "independent" and "unaccountable"? I am thinking here for example of the CQC.

[Alicia Kearns MP @aliciakearns]

The Ockenden Maternity Review into Nottingham has been published.

[David Sowerby @dxsowerby]

@GBNUpdates @GBNEWS @WillKingston @Caiwilsh @Emma_A_Webb @DrHoenderkamp @trelowe High 5