To think there is some kind of weird push towards the far right?

Yes - that does not contradict what I said.

Trump was banned from Twitter by Twitter who were a private company that didn't want his views on their platform and was re-instated by Musk as soon as he bought it.

Absolutely no different to the 100's people that have been banned from X since for posting things that Musk disagrees with.

Which part of what I said was defending it?

I didn't say that anyone should be cancelled did I?

I simply pointed out that those who the 'right' would say were 'cancelled' were not fired or taken off air due to pressure from government departments, nor were they threatened with federal prosecution.

How is that defending anything?

WRT Kimmel and free speech. He shouldn't have been dropped (it was officially pressure due to the distribution company dropping the show rather than direct from Trump, but clearly Trump's words will have had a bearing on that).

I think his words were misleading and hypocritical, but the bar to be fired needs to be higher than that, especially for a chat show host dealing in political commentary and satire. I hope that after the ten minutes of gloating on this, we can all agree that the phrase "freedom of speech doesn't equal freedom from consequences" can be consigned to the dustbin of history.

I find that scrolling past or blocking websites works for my preference for watching silly hound videos!

However, I’m also curious where this push comes from, as I don’t believe that it’s as bad as reported!

You’re doing a good job defending cancel culture while claiming you don’t agree with it.

Don't you remember Trump being banned from Twitter?

Funny how the right argue for free speech until someone says something they don't like too.

I don't agree with cancel culture at all - but all of the people who were 'cancelled' in recent years, were sacked or boycotted by a huge outcry from the public or because private companies didn't agree with the views expressed or want the negative publicity.

Not a single right wing commentator or celebrity has lost their job as a result of a left wing government department putting pressure on their employer, as the FCC has done with Jimmy Kimmel. Not a single member of the public who has been in the headlines for outrageous behaviour and subsequently lost their jobs, was threatened with prosecution by a secretary of state.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences, but it does mean freedom from government interference.

What would you have said if the Biden administration had forced Fox news to sack any of its presenters?

Sure, some were sacked, but it was down to pressure from advertisers, not the FCC!

Don't change the goal posts - defend your point.

Yes, the concept of public services funded through taxation is technically a left leaning concept. Although in reality, it would probably be better classed as centrist view as moderates on the right also agree with how education is funded in its current form.

If it was truly socialist, there would be no private schools or grammar schools and it would receive much more funding than it does currently.

But you did not make a philisophical or ideological comment about where education sits or should sit on the socialist - neo-liberal capitalist dichotomy.

You said, in response to the suggestion that critical thinking should be taught in schools ( and I quote):

"The left already control most, if not all, of the education system from age 3 to 23"

The use of the word 'already' in that context implies that you think critical thinking is a bad thing, pushed by left.

The assertion that 'the left' somehow control education is simply not true.

Those who have power whether through election, appointment or influence control education - they control how much funding schools get, they control the national curriculum and what is taught in schools, they control how the quality of education is assessed and they control the public narrative around how teachers are perceived.

Those who have held that power for the majority of the past 45 years have not been 'the left'. The people in key appointed positions (Ofsted, Regional Schools Commissioners) are not from 'the left' and the people who currently have the most influence on both government and public opinion are not on 'the left'.

YABU. The UK is under attack from the American far right via Reform and social media. It’s terrifying how many Mumsnet right wingers have crawled out of the woodwork since the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

No-one is complaining about educating people, it's what they are being taught that's the problem.

isn't it glorious about Kimmel?

Amusing really how the left began doing this, encouraging the cancellation of people often for the most minor of perceived offences, but they don’t like the taste of their own medicine. Funny that! Happy to dish it out but certainly can’t take it.

Also made me laugh seeing a video posted by guy crying hysterically, saying he’d lost his job after posting on X that Charlie Kirk deserved what he got. The hypocrisy and double standards are incredible. He lost his job for his opinions; Charlie lost his life for his.

Exactly and even the Daily Mail are calling it a far right march.

Londoners could say the same about the thousands of people who come here every year.

No I won't. Because if you march with Tommy Robinson then people will judge you by the company you keep.

I think the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel in the US should really warn us about what's to come if we are somehow naive enough to fall for the far right's lies about free speech. Americans were not prepared for what's happening right now- although how they could bring Trump back is beyond me. We don't have that excuse because we can see in real time what's awaiting us just by looking Stateside.

I think its uncontroverisal to say the British education sector leans left wing.
People to the left of median centre ground politics are slightly more likely to work in the public sector, inclusing education, and those to the right are more likely to work in the private sector. Therefore whatever the government of the day, in schools, universities, education unions, and the DofE at all levels including leadership you have a cohort where average views are left of centre and that naturally should affect policy.

Because Corbyn is supported by Russia too.
Russia got their fingers into both the far right and the far left going back decades. Apart from a lull perhaps right after the fall of the Berlin wall, that's always been the case - and it's well documented historically. Naive to think it would be any different now.

In a nutshell, right wing authoritarian nationalism, corporatism, usually highly militaristic and racist. Simplistic solutions touted for complex problems and extensive use of scapegoating, usually racial and/or cultural in nature. Fear-mongering about other races/cultures, which can be disguised as concerns about immigration and crime.

yes I agree. The media always has an agenda and the media has always been used to manipulate the voting public. Russia has had a long term aim of disrupting stable democratic countries. America is now fairly right wing dominated and it is influencing other countries to become more right wing. Most of the tech media is owned by those mega rich from or in USA so expect to see right wing propaganda. The right wing makes the rich richer and the poor poorer - those in power do not want to distribute their wealth or power - so they support the right. It is always going to be that way due to human nature and the pull of greed and power. The only thing that flexes is to what degree it is right wing vs more liberal or left. The right wing popularist approach is to stir up discontent and blame a particular group for all that folk are unhappy about. It was the same tactic of the nazi's and its the same tactic from Reform / Farage. Its nothing new its an well known tactic - but many just go along with it rather than seeing through it.

The thing that might push me towards the far-right is religion. The US far-right is very conservative Christian, but the UK far-right generally isn't.

I don't want religion in public life. I think Blair started off well as PM then as he became more powerful, he became more religious and got personally close to George W. Bush who was a born-again Christian. They ended up fucking up the whole Middle East because they thought they had the answers. I strongly suspect they believed that God gave them the answers.

Since then I've lived in two countries where Islam is the official religion and seen the good things about it, mostly the focus on community. I've also seen a side to Islam that made me realise it was genuinely as backward, regressive and illogical as its opponents had portrayed it. I was delighted to be able to come back to a country where we could say openly that this was all rubbish ... except that if the Labour government follows their stated policy to introduce a definition of Islamophobia that can be used in a legal context, pretty soon we won't be able to say it's all rubbish.

I went to a Christian school and I'm used to Christian nonsense so it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, and now we have equal marriage and the right to abortion it barely impacts anyone's life. I really do not want to have to pretend to respect Islamic nonsense and the desire of devout Muslims to have everyone live by their rules, and I fear that the far-right are the only bulwark against that.

That poster will clarify.
They are gullible because they want it to be true. A man comes along & weaves a tale of how awful their life is, whether it is or not, & tells them it because of the immigrants which it almost certainly isn't & Bingo! you've got a convert! Don't imagine that the convert will actually examine the story the the man tells them because they won't they'll pad it out with extra stories they find on Xitter & facebook.
I know a few of these guys. They've got solid well paid jobs & have somewhere nice to live, either their own house or social housing. They go on holidays. They've got two car h/holds because their wives/partners have got jobs too. Wtf have they got to be angry about? They don't like black/brown people, end of. The fact that they have absolutely no contact with them outside of the takeaway they buy on the way home or the luckless taxi driver who takes them home from the pub.
It's Refuk's only real policy & these kind of guys cream themselves at the idea that some poor bastard is going to have their miserable lives made even more wretched than they are for their entertainment. They don't think about what Refuk has in mind for public services, health or education & human rights (they're our human rights don't forget) I think a quick look at the shambles that they're making as Councils tells a story too. When it all goes wrong, Refuk will pick on another scapegoat & they'll fall for too because it will confirm their nasty little prejudices.
To those who think they can't be worse than Labour - darling, you know how grim the Tories were, how they lied to you about Brexit? It's the same people telling you the same old nonsense. And they will cause irreparable damage to this country, both it's fabric & it's reputation. At my age, I won't get to see much of it but I hope you all enjoy your Refuk paradise.

I don't think the words are 'largely understood' and thereby lies a big problem.

Both terms were started in the last century. In the Russian Revolution before the great war had ended, the Czar and his family were killed and the revolutionaries took over the country. Their intention was to make all people equal if the wealth was shared out. The problem was that there wasn't enough wealth to share out. Nor were there enough grand palaces to house the peasants and a new kind of poverty took over. No industrialists to give jobs, so people starved. No money to grow crops, so people starved. No fuel, so those that did not starve froze to death. It was supposed to be communism. It turned out to be worse than socialism.

Then came another war - the flu epidemic which killed more than the war did. Then another - the inflation, strikes, followed by the Wall Street crash. Those all led to unrest and Hitler made the most of it and his nazi party took over. Fascism led the way, and all the wickedness that entailed.

They were the extremes. The Marxism of socialism which became worse, and some called far left (of socialism) when they saw what Hitler was doing and the extremes of fascism, he was called far right.

In the middle were countries with a very strong sense of nationalism, the desperate need to stay independent, and Britain was foremost in that. The British fought for their lives under the union flag, the Scottish flag, the English flag and the Welsh dragon. It is what they did, and the French, Dutch, Polish et al fought with Britain to be released from the bondage of fascism.

So what now is far left and far right? Why have we demoralised the living whose forbears died in two world wars and are now likened to Hitler if they salute the union flag?

What is the matter with people who keep dredging up words over a century old in a desperate effort to oppose, insult, denigrade? Is it because they don't have enough vocabulary to explain what they mean, or is it a deliberate attempt to reenact ww2?

I applaud whoever said on the news today that the UN must stop using the word 'genocide' because it is watering down the meaning of the word which was used to describe the horrors of WW2 and fascism.

No one in the democratic west is guilty of being fascist in the meaning of the word 100 years ago. I think the word should be banned.

Npw. those working and passengers on ships are told they mustn't say 'man overboard', but 'person overboard' and while they are all falling about laughing, the poor s-- drowns!