{"id":56319,"date":"2021-04-03T07:34:17","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T06:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=56319"},"modified":"2021-04-03T07:34:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T06:34:17","slug":"fourteen-out-of-fourteen-as-the-government-completes-its-fascist-scorecard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/04\/03\/fourteen-out-of-fourteen-as-the-government-completes-its-fascist-scorecard\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourteen out of fourteen as the government completes its fascist scorecard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 20 March <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/03\/20\/for-his-long-might-i-be-able-to-say-that-we-have-a-fascist-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I wrote this on this blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In 2003 historian Laurence W. Britt\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hartford-hwp.com\/archives\/27\/076.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suggested<\/a>\u00a0that there were 14 characteristics to fascist regimes. They were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Powerful and continuing nationalism<\/li>\n<li>Disdain for human rights<\/li>\n<li>Identification of enemies as a unifying cause<\/li>\n<li>Supremacy of the military<\/li>\n<li>Rampant sexism<\/li>\n<li>Controlled mass media<\/li>\n<li>Obsession with national security<\/li>\n<li>Religion and government intertwined<\/li>\n<li>Corporate power protected<\/li>\n<li>Labour power suppressed<\/li>\n<li>Disdain for intellectuals &amp; the arts<\/li>\n<li>Obsession with crime &amp; punishment<\/li>\n<li>Rampant cronyism &amp; corruption<\/li>\n<li>Fraudulent elections<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of these I used to say that only supremacy of the military and an intertwining with religion were absent from the UK, and I dismissed the latter as no longer being of any popular relevance.<\/p>\n<p>Given recent announcements on defence spending and nuclear weapons I am not now sure that the supremacy of the military over other claims on the public purse can be dismissed any more.<\/p>\n<p>If that is the case then thirteen out of the now fourteen relevant criteria are now met by the current UK government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then yesterday Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi tweeted this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dhG0dpSgpj\">pic.twitter.com\/dhG0dpSgpj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nadhimzahawi\/status\/1377914792170684416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The set is complete.<\/p>\n<p>Religion has been appropriated by the Tories.<\/p>\n<p>Fourteen out of fourteen.<\/p>\n<p>Worry.<\/p>\n<p>And at the same time be horrified that he thought this in any way appropriate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 20 March I wrote this on this blog: In 2003 historian Laurence W. Britt\u00a0suggested\u00a0that there were 14 characteristics to fascist regimes. They were: Powerful<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/04\/03\/fourteen-out-of-fourteen-as-the-government-completes-its-fascist-scorecard\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}