To feel so upset about the government censorship?

[Utterlydisillusioned]

This has just appeared in my news feed and I feel so upset and disillusioned. I was a labour voter, thinking we voted the bad guys out but I'm now really scared about what we've let in...what on earth have we done...? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/17/education-secretary-bridget-phillipson-private-school-tax-r/

Not here to argue the merits/demerits of whichever party is in power but can assure you having worked in civil service communications over many govt administrations that this is definitely routine, has absolutely been done on this scale, and certainly this openly. You just wouldnt have seen papers like the Telegraph making a story of it.

My Ex MP deleted all the time - he was useless and didn’t like us calling him out. don’t see the problem.

Posters on here have very short memories of what an utter shitshow the last 14 years have been. I agree, thank goodness the adults are in government again.

I guess it's up to us and how passive we choose to be. I bitterly regret my vote and won't be passive if I have a chance to speak up now

The adults who censor free speech too...? As you claim? What's good about it?

Oh dear 😂

I cant f*ing stand Labour but she can censor her facebook page all she wants and I dont see a problem.

Take your lead from the best ….

Same.

Yes.

This thread is ridiculous! No one could comment at all on my previous Tory MP's Facebook page!

Absolutely nothing! He'd post photos of himself opening the local fete & you couldn't even comment on that!

Posting on Facebook is not free speech!

It's an accusation - the article even says that.

There is no proof.

And it's The Torygraph. What did you expect?

O don't even open their articles now after day 1 where they had about 7 different headlines about how they were raising taxes and a load of other bollocks they didn't do.

I'm paying my highest tax ever and it wasn't under a Labour government they were raised to this level.

Do I think they are going to be brilliant? No idea. They've had 6 weeks in power and it's summer shutdown (although that was delayed a bit by the rioting twats in the streets).

But after 14 years of the Tory's running the country down I'll give them more than 6 weeks before I judge them.

Honestly, we are 6 weeks in and I wish the Tories would come back, warts n all

Hell no. Good riddance to them and their stoking up hate and division.

Censoring free speech sounds very like China 🇨🇳
Far left and far Right are just cheeks on the same arse.

So similar as to be almost the same.

Communist /Fascist Both horrible dictatorships.

I follow her page and I have seen the comments. A number of them actually. They were not bad at all, they were simply challenging her policies, as democracy should allow. I can now see, following this article, that all of them are not there. I find it incredibly disturbing. I voted labour but no, this is not what I voted for. Censorship was not in their manifesto

Tories promised 40 hospitals, 20k policeman, stopping the boats, 350 million a week extra after Brexit blah blah.

@invisiblecat I agree it's a mess but the policies that Labour are proposing aren't going to get the much needed teachers or better state schools.

That's why people are commenting. Concerned parents from both private and state. It would take years to provide extra 6500 teachers. In the meantime hundreds of thousands of children will suffer. Both in state and private.

Scared of what? Nothing has gone wrong.

My old Tory MP used to routinely delete comments he didn’t want to answer, respond very rudely to perfectly polite communication in a very condescending and contemptuous manner, and then eventually blocked all constituents that didn’t agree with him so he was in his self - created echo chamber. A throughly unpleasant man who got his arse handed to him at the election. Things like that just aren’t reported if they concern the Tories.

Were heading for a dictatorship.

cant do this cant do that! Keep your opinions to yourself if you know whats good for you!

Well I’ve seen the screenshots of many of the comments that were deleted. The Telegraph were the paper that decide to run with the story, other papers were contacted.

Can someone explain to me what Labour have done that reveals them to be "far left" in the six weeks that they've been in government? (Note that "harsh sentences for violent criminals" is not generally considered far left, even if the government did have influence over individual sentencing decisions, which they don't.)

People seem to be losing their minds.

The private school tax policy was in the manifesto, was openly discussed and having won the election, Labour will be implementing it.

Unlike the two-child benefit cap or the endlessly punitive benefit sanctions under the last government , no-one is going to be sent into poverty because of it.

As to those who think there's going to be some revolution, don't make me laugh. Most of us are quite happy to see people openly inciting racial hatred going off to jail and certainly aren't going to the barricades in defence of private school parents horrified that their kids might have to go the same schools as the vast majority!!

I can't get too worked about this. It's fairly regular practice for comms teams to delete any inappropriate comments from Facebook pages they run. If it was some sort of nass deletion across of critical comments across the whole of Facebook, then yes, that would be censorship and would be sinister.

Personally I think it is better to respond to criticism rather than delete it. But we don't know what the comments said. Maybe they were offensive or inaccurate. There are lots of reasons why comments get deleted. Also, Facebook doesn't always display all comments.

@Pedallleur That's kinda proving my point. Labour will be expected to deliver. They won't. Things won't be better. Then it's all starts again with the Tories over promising.

If BP doesn't want to hear concerns from people who don't support her policies then don't allow comments. To deliberately censor what people can read regarding education for children written by their own parents is wrong.

No, look how many unhappy people there are already.