Daily Archives: February 25, 2021

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening has spoken out about the Fox shows decision in 2020 to stop white actors voicing characters from other ethnic backgrounds.

Days after it was confirmed that Simpsons vet Harry Shearer had been replaced by voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson in the role of Dr. Julius Hibbert, Groening told the BBC: Times change, but I actually didnt have a problem with the way we were doing it. All of our actors play dozens of characters each; it was never designed to exclude anyone.

Its similar in tone to howThe Simpsons initially handled the controversy in 2017, when questions were raised about Hank Azaria playing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.Some months later, an episode featured Lisa breaking the fourth wall to declare: Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?

The Simpsons Voice Actor Hank Azaria Reveals His Journey Away From The Apu Character

Asked if he regretted how it was handled, Groening said: At a certain point it doesnt matter what you say. Youre going to be attacked by whoever, you know? Were not going out of our way to comfort bigots. On the other hand, if you do any kind of gesture and people perceive a weakness, youll be criticized.

The cartoonist, who is currently working on Netflix series Disenchantment, added that hes glad things are changing. Were trying to make it better, he said. Bigotry and racism are still an incredible problem and its good to finally go for more equality and representation.

The Simpsons: The New Voice Of Hank Azarias Carl Is Revealed

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The Simpsons Creator Matt Groening Says He Didnt Have A Problem With White Actors Voicing Non-White Characters - Deadline

Photo: Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump speaking at a 2019 event hosted by Turning Point USA. Credit Gage Skidmore

After more than three decades assaulting airwaves and television screens with his vicious right-wing rhetoric, Rush Limbaugh, the bigoted and imperialist radio personality, died last week from a year-long battle with lung cancer. With his death comes the potential end to the most popular radio show in the United States, which since its debut in 1988 has served as a catalyst for the creation of the far-right media landscape that we see today.

Limbaugh, during a February 2020 broadcast, announced his diagnosis of lung cancer to his 15 million listeners. He then revealed in October, again on his show, that the cancer had become a terminal illness before dying at age 70 to the very disease that he falsely claimed had no link to his decades of cigarette smoking.

Limbaughs denial of the risk of smoking, however, is far from the worst position he has taken over the decades he spent on the air. His presence as a talk show host set the standard for many of the far-right pundits we see today. The strength of personalities like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, and even the more ridiculous Alex Jones, owe their success to the framework set forth by The Rush Limbaugh Show. Limbaugh rose to prominence at a time when all of these personalities, and FOX News-adjacent media more generally, did not exist.

Prior to the rise of online radio leading to a more diverse range of programming available to us today, Limbaugh occupied an even more exclusive direct line to millions of people. He permeated the information sphere in a way that you could not simply choose to log off or unplug from. His TV show, which ran from 1992 to 1996, made his perspective even more commonplace.

He joined the stage in the era of the shock-jock radio host, with his popularity second only to that of Howard Stern. The obvious difference between the two, however, was the explicitly political nature of Limbaughs program. Limbaugh spewed vitriol for years most notably by perpetuating racist stereotypes about Black people and immigrants, promoting anti-LGBTQ views, mocking the global AIDS crisis and popularizing the term feminazi.

His bigoted rhetoric was not without political backing either. Limbaugh found himself a supporter of essentially any conservative policy adopted in the United States and took a global imperialist stance to match. He was a vocal supporter of the Iraq War and U.S. military intervention overseas. He rejected science and empirical data when it came to the climate crisis. He was a staunch critic of the Green New Deal.

The late 2000s saw Limbaugh ramp up on conspiracy theories, tying the incoming Obama administration to the rise of ISIS. This trend would continue on throughout President Obamas two terms, sowing distrust in not only the administration but the mainstream media landscape as a whole. While the corporate media deserves to be harshly criticized, Limbaugh sought to organize that opposition around the preposterous claim that it promotes left wing politics. This line of attack can be seen widely today, for instance in cries of fake news and the spread of misinformation online among supporters of Donald Trump. The foundations were set by the right wing conspiracies parroted by Limbaugh.

The reactionary media stars of today including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, and more recently Tomi Lahren or Candice Owens, all pull pages from Limbaughs playbook. The politically incorrect, bigoted views that galvanizes the far right can be seen, albeit in varied amounts, in these commentators today.

And now, even with the absence of his on-air presence, Limbaugh leaves behind a media landscape in his own image. Right-wing extremism has taken a far more central place in American society. Limbaughs show has ultimately been a success in helping usher forth the Trump era of politics along with the violent and fascist trends that Trump has energized.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the fight against the far right has taken on even greater significance. Rush Limbaugh spent his life spreading ideas that have now coalesced in a major political current that menaces the rights of all working class and oppressed people. All those who oppose it need to wage the battle of ideas just as fiercely to defeat his vile ideology.

Read more:
Rush Limbaugh and the rise of the far right - Liberation

In the second episode of The Politically Incorrect Guide, Tom Woods and Michael Malice demolish widespread myths about the Great Depression and the New Deal. Tom and Michael explain how the New Deal worsened the very problems it aimed to solve, that capitalism didnt cause the Great Depression (the Federal Reserve did), and that World War II prolonged rather than ended the Great Depression.

The first season of The Politically Incorrect Guide includes ten episodes and will release throughout 2021. Each covers the undiscussed facts and stories about history, culture, and social movements, purged from todays mainstream education system. Tom Woods penned the very first book in the series, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, which was a New York Times bestseller.

Episode website

Learn more about Tom Woods at https://tomwoods.com/.Learn more about Michael Malice at https://michaelmalice.com/.

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal - Capital Research Center

Is the State a strict, bad-tempered parent who always wants to have things his or her way, simply to prove that it knows what is best for its children? Or should the State be an understanding and indulgent parent who allows its wards to grow up with freedom, and yes, make the occasional mistake, face the consequences, and learn from it? This is a choice every State has to make. And we citizens have no option but to fall in line with that choice, since we have given the State, as indeed we give our parents, that power over our lives.The ban on cryptocurrency has once again raised concerns about curbs on free choice. According to a recent news report, over one crore Indians hold digital assets worth Rs 10,000 crore, and they will make losses as a black market for cryptocurrency emerges. This has happened in the past as well, whenever we have banned anything.Take alcohol, for instance. All that bans have encouraged is bootlegging. And more deaths from illicit hooch. Take the ban on lotteries. Or casinos. Or, for that matter, betting on cricket. All illegal. All banned in many states. Yet today we are flooded by internet lotteries. Casinos have moved offshore. And betting on cricket is currently estimated at Rs 4 lakh crore - marginally less than our Defence budget.

Also, funnily, whats banned today may well be deemed perfectly legitimate tomorrow. Governments change. Ideas change. Notions of right and wrong also change. The mysterious Satoshi Nakamotos wondrous 2009 invention, the Bitcoin, may - bolstered by Elon Musks $1.5 billion buy a fortnight ago, and his announcement that Tesla car dealers will soon accept payment in this form - well emerge as a global currency. Its trading at Rs 35 lakh per bitcoin today. Does anyone want a RBI-backed cryptocurrency? Not really. It defeats the purpose for which it was invented: To celebrate the anonymity of blockchains mining it.Alcohol, on the other hand, is an old enemy of the State. Taxes and excise income from alcohol are huge (Rs 1.75 trillion in 2020), but it is still politically incorrect to acknowledge that. Bihars putative chief minister Nitish Kumar announced last week that prohibition remains a government policy and any employee caught drinking will be instantly sacked. Similarly, the gutkha and pan masala bans are farcical. Both remain freely available. The shops that sell them also sell loose cigarettes, another banned item.Censorship is not much different. But, luckily, nothing ever stays censored for long. Everything finds its way into the net. There was a time when censorship was worse than a ban. Take the Emergency years. Newspapers were published with missing headlines and empty spaces. Cartoons were dropped. (Governments have no sense of humour. Cartoonists are often arrested and we have just seen a stand-up comic, Munawar Faruqui, arrested before he even cracked a joke.) During the Emergency, the Censor Board wanted 51 cuts in a B-grade film called Kissa Kursi Ka. But that was not enough for Indira Gandhi, who got the master print picked up and burnt in the Maruti factory in Gurgaon. It was a silly decision because the film instantly acquired cult status and Amrit Nahata, its maker, became a hero.

Frequent internet shutdowns, be it in Kashmir or on the outskirts of New Delhi where the farmers are agitating, have brought no glory to India, only unwanted global attention. The State, of course, may not see it in that light. No State does. It is not about democracy or fascism; its about power. The wielding of power. If you allow the State to wield that much power over you, it will. You can do nothing about it till you decide to make that complete break, as children often do with their parents. Not because their parents are bad people but because their need for freedom becomes, at some point, more important.In India, we tend to mostly believe that children are always wrong. And that parents are the epitome of all virtue. Bollywood has stereotyped the mother as a long-suffering parent beavering away on the sewing machine, and the father as this struggling bread-earner, always misunderstood. Our myths and fables perpetuate this notion as well. And reluctant parents have no option but to live up to this absurdly noble image of what they should be-- instead of living their lives as they want to. Children, too, are expected to abandon all their freedoms to be the ideal offspring.The result? More broken families. More psychoses.The truth is, freedom is not dangerous. It liberates us. It does not draw us away from each other. Freedom is when parents and children live together with mutual love and respect. Where they support each other to take risks, make mistakes and discover life together.Its the same with the State and its citizens. They must learn to live with each others follies. Repression is not the answer. Bans and censorship are not the only way to exercise authority or teach people the difference between right and wrong.Many banned books are classics today. Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses is a must read. Gucciones Caligula is cult. Stanley Kubricks Clockwork Orange is included among the 10 great films of all time. James Joyces Ulysses is syllabus for students of literature. No one considers Anais Nins The Winter of Artifice as pornography any more. The use of marijuana is being increasingly legitimised across the world. New generations are discovering new virtues in stuff we were once forced to shun.The world is opening up. Its time we did as well.Pritish Nandy writes an incisive fortnightly diagnosis of the state of our imperfect democracy(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own)From the same author:

Continued here:
Why India should stop being a nanny state and ban the ban - Times of India

VICTORIA -- A Vancouver Island senior is six figures richer after parting with a rare Rolex wristwatch that was once instrumental in his brief but successful career as an octopus wrestler.

The Rolex Explorer, circa 1953, sold at a New York auction house last month for US$126,000 ($158,000 Canadian).

The man who sold it is Bill Hook, 89, of Qualicum Beach, B.C.

After dropping out of high school at 15, Hook became one of the first scuba divers in British Columbia.

He would later wear the Rolex while competing in spearfishing and octopus-wrestling competitions in Victoria and Seattle.

A January 1966 issue of Vue magazine featuring Bill Hook and his octopus-wrestling adventures in Victoria, B.C.

When it comes to catching and wrestling a giant Pacific octopus, accurate timing and team co-ordination is everything.

"You go out and dive down and look at the rocks and if you could see some crab shells out in front, you had an octopus den," Hook told CTV News on Monday.

"When it came out, the one who found it gets first chance at catching it. Then when you catch it, you can get your arms around it and it will have its arms around you, and you swim to the surface, he explained. "They did that in Victoria for years. Its politically incorrect today. But people dont realize we have the largest octopus in the world here."

The watch was a gift from Hooks first wife, who bought it for him in Switzerland.

Appropriate to its name, the Explorer timepiece accompanied Hook on several adventures through Europe, Australia and Africa, including to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Bill Hook (right) and his brother Allan after a spearfishing competition.

In 1980, Hooks wife "walked out" on him and the watch became a crucial accessory in his dating life. "I mostly wore it out tomcatting," he says.

Forty years later, with his "tomcatting" days behind him, Hook told a friend about the Rolex Explorer over coffee.

"He nearly jumped out of his chair," Hook recalled.

The friend told the owner of a Victoria watch shop about Hooks timepiece.

"Its a very rare Rolex Explorer from right at the beginning of when they made them," said Jonathan Mossop, owner of Meticulous Watches.

Rolex released the Explorer watch shortly after climbers Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary achieved global renown for summiting Mount Everest, sparking sudden interest in high-performance sports watches.

"Rolex was taking advantage of that interest in the market for explorers," Mossop said. "And since Bill was the original owner of this watch, that gives the watch legitimacy to collectors."

Mossop facilitated the sale at Phillips auction house in New York, which described the watch as "truly breathtaking"and one of the finest Explorers ever to come on the market.

While the identity of the buyer is kept confidential, Mossop said it was bought by a man in the United States.

Hook said he plans to pass along the money he earned in the sale to his daughters family.

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Rolex watch owned by former Vancouver Island octopus wrestler nets over $150K at auction - CTV News VI

Superstore is beloved for many reasons and the biggest might be that it features some wonderful characters who audiences adore.

The announcedcancellation of NBC's Superstore came as a shock tothe cast and fans alike. Despite its popularity, the series will be coming to a permanent end at the conclusion of its sixth season. This came shortly after the departure of America Ferrera, who hopes to return for the series finale.

RELATED: Superstore: 10 Things We Want To Happen Before The Finale

Still, sixseasons is asolid run, and it gave viewers time to grow attached to the Cloud 9 employees. They all bring somethingunique to the big-box store,which differentiatesit from other workplace comedies. No matter how funny the entire ensemble can be, some characters are more popular among fans than others.

Carol isn't technically part of the main cast, but she causes so much chaos both in and outside the store that it's surprising she was never added. She constantly manipulates the other employees and even stole Sandra's boyfriendafter winning a coin toss.

Carol is condescending, rude, and the workers fearfor their lives when she's around. No one wants to be scheduled with her because of her tendency toturn ona person at the slightest inconvenience. Even if she's trying to be nice, Carol comes off as creepy.

Many viewers find Glenn's eternal optimism annoying.He ignores the company policy when it comes to religion, and he continually tries to push his faith and his old-world views on his co-workers.Once Glenn found out the store sold Plan-B, he bought all the pills to prevent a couple from using them.

Despite his incompetence, he manages all of the employees, which is part of the joke. At the end of the day, Glenn does have a good heart and he cares deeply about everyone. He's not unlikeable as much as he's exasperating.

Mateo's the rudest character of the ensemble. He's selfish, manipulative, and downright hostile when he wants to be. Mateo has no problem using his friends for his own personal gain. But his quips are often some of the funniest lines in the series, and that's worth a lot in a comedy.

RELATED: MBTI Of Superstore Characters

The plotlinewherehe wasdetainedby ICE for being undocumented was one of the most emotional moments of the show.He's not a pleasant presence in the store, butSuperstorewouldn't be the same without him around.

Originallya background character, Sandra was moved into the spotlight during the show's fifth season. She's thekind ofperson you never see coming as she starts off quiet and timid. She never goes after what she wants and she often lets others walk all over her.

It was difficult not to feel bad for her when she was onscreen. As the show went on, Sandra started to grow a backbone and she learned how to stand on her two feet. She's also the number one fan of Amy and Jonah's romance,and every great couple needs a cheerleader.

Garrett is one of the few people in the store with common sense. Heindulges the employees in their crazy schemesbecause he enjoys watching it blow up in their faces. Garrett is the character who most represents everyday retail workers and says the type of things people are thinking in real life.

He doesn't enjoy his job at Cloud 9, but he does enough to get by. Garrett doesn't let anyone take advantage of him, and he often calls out rude customers in the store.

Like Carol, Marcus isn't officially a part of the main cast. He started off as anunderdogbut quickly becomes one of, if not the, funniest characters in Superstore. He says everything with complete confidence, no matter how politically incorrect he may be.

RELATED: Superstore: The Store Employees, Ranked By Intelligence

Marcus' ignorance mixed with the actor's delivery,createsthe best one-liners in the show. His obsession with Jonah is particularly amusing to fans because he treatshim like his significant other rather thana fellow co-worker.

Most fans have somewhat turned against Amy and are up in arms abouther decision to go to California and leave Jonah behind.This plotwas a resultof America Ferrera's choice to depart the series,which forcedthe fan-favorite romance to come to a painful end.

Pushing the anger of their breakup aside, Amy Sosa is a phenomenal protagonist with several different layers to her character. While she wasn't the funniest inthe group, she could be completely unhinged when she wanted to be. Amy Sosa's arc and her quest to find her purpose add a level of depth to an otherwiselight-hearted show.

It'shard to dislike Cheyenne. In the pilot, she's portrayedas an uneducated high school student who doesn't understand how the world works. Her growth throughout the series is incredible, and while she's still the sweetest character of the group, she refuses to let anyone take advantage of her.

Cheyenne works hard to provide for her daughter, even if she doesn't openly acknowledge it. She's become strong, independent, and she even earned the floor supervisor position because of her innovative ideas.

Out of all the characters, Dina is the most unique. She's strict, bossy,and she puts walls up to avoid getting hurt. Her co-workersbreak her down alittle more each episode, and viewers get a better picture of who Dina is at her core.Still, she has no problem being blunt.

If she doesn't like someone, she'll let them know. Dina even used her power as assistant manager to exert control overthe employees and ignite fear.But she's also the best friend anyone could ask for, and her loyalty to Amy is admirable.

It's no surprise that Jonah is the fan-favorite character. He hasenlightened views, he cares deeply about the people around him, and he's an all-around dork. The employees oftenspend their time poking fun at him, but Jonahtakes it like a champ. Despite his privileged upbringing, Jonahis passionate aboutworkers' rights.

He attends protests for"Raise the Wage," and inspires the mistreated employees of Cloud 9 to form a union. No matter how many times he's knocked down, Jonah always manages to get back up. If anyone deserves a happy ending, it's him.

NEXT: Superstore Characters Sorted Into Their Game Of Thrones Houses

Next How I Met Your Mother: 10 Times Robin Said Everything Fans Were Thinking

Rachel Foertsch is an aspiring screenwriter and lover of all things television. Previously a social media manager, Rachel is a current TV critic at TV Fanatic and a List Writer at ScreenRant.

The rest is here:
Superstore: The Main Characters, Ranked By Likability - Screen Rant

DESPITE the shocking devastation wrought on our country and its people over the last year,rollingopinion polls tell us that voting intentions are still wrapped up in the duopoly.

Yet the Conservatives lockdown policies have all but ruined this countryand agrotesquely ineffectual opposition statesonlythat it would have enforced these policies harder and faster than the Government.

Despite both Covid and lockdown, illegal immigration across the Channel has continued unabated. So have knife crime, wokery andcancel culture. Londons mayor seems more interested in destroying the capitals history thaninkeepinghis city safe and financially sound.

With both government and opposition in the ever-tightening grip of green lunacy, it begins to look as if there is no way out of this political vice.

The Reform Party has presented itself as the anti-lockdown party and challengers to the status quo, but has done little in the last months to live up to this role.

Nigel Farages attacks have been intermittent and ineffective he has previously asserted that full-time politics is not for him and Richard Tice has yet to make his mark.

The same goes for Reclaim, led by the charismatic Laurence Fox, whose admirable stance against the cancel culture will no doubt win supporters, butstillfails to address the fundamental issues that have brought us to where we are today.

The only party really trying to buck the trend is the Heritage Party, led by London Assembly member David Kurten, the only small c conservative party with policy ideas to match.

I recently had the opportunity to askMrKurten,a chemistry teacher for nearly 20 years before he got involved in politics,why hestarted it and what his aims were forthis new party. He told me:

I joined UKIP in 2012 because of growing concerns about loss of national sovereignty to the EU and political correctness. After the referendum, UKIP slowly collapsed and never became the strong, socially conservative party that I hoped it would.

With such a void in the UK political landscape for a socially conservative party which millions of people would support, I started the Heritage Party.I hope we will attract enough people to break the two-party system and restore sanity to our nation.

What makes your party different from Reclaim and the Reform Party?

We have a full socially conservative manifesto. We are not just a pressure group campaigning on a small number of bullet points about a single issue.

We stand for all the things that a conservative party should stand for which were long ago abandoned by the fake-Conservative Party: Defending our culture and heritage, national sovereignty, traditional family values, free and fair markets, free speech and liberty, and low immigration.

How important is it to see the country return to commonsense conservatism?

It is vital. The corrosion of our culture and society by Cultural Marxism or the long march through the Institutions is deep and destructive.

Almost all of our institutions in every area of life are infested with woke thinking. Such thinking sees society as institutionally unjust and needing social justice, which undermines individual responsibility and our fundamental freedoms.

It started in universities, but has spread to the media, the police, the judiciary, schools, the main political parties and even businesses. Without a return to commonsense conservatism, the country will descend into woke totalitarianism which will burn down everything that came before, either metaphorically or literally.

In a country where the duopoly of the Labour Party and the Conservatives has ruled the roost for the best part of a century, how would you look to break their stranglehold on British politics? As a commenter, Ive read many excuses over the years, always the same fear of the system (First Past The Post), voting for the best of two terrible options, too many tribal voters. How can you cut through that with your party?

The FTPT system is what we have, so we have to build a party big enough and strong enough to win in that system.

It wont be easy, but there has never been more dissatisfaction with the red-blue duopoly, which increasingly looks like one big party with two different colours.

We are building a party with a strong grassroots that will engage both locally and nationally. Although we are still small, we are growing every day, and we hope to be big enough to stand candidates in every seat by the time of the next election, which is likely to be in 2024.

How can your message pierce through the celebrity of Laurence Fox and Nigel Farage?

The Heritage Party has had very little mention at all on the mainstream media, which tends to focus on celebrity, but we have had huge attention under the surface in the free speech media, both for the party, and for me as leader and a candidate for the London Mayor elections this May.

More and more people are switching off the mainstream media and getting news from Facebook groups and free speech outlets likeBreitbart,Life Site News, The Lightand of course,The Conservative Woman. Thats where we are!

The Reform Party is being viewed as the anti-lockdown party and Reclaim as anti-cancel culture. How do you want to present your party in forthcoming elections?

The Heritage Party is both of those things and more. Ive been fighting cancel culture and advocating for free speech for years before I started the Heritage Party, and Ive been against the lockdown from the very beginning, so its natural that we are the champions of free speech and liberty.

Well be fighting elections this year in London and selected local councils in England, so we will of course be campaigning on specific local issues. In London, we want to Make London Safe Again: We want to re-focus the police on catching real criminals rather than spending their time closing businesses or looking for politically incorrect posts on the internet.

We also want to Get London Moving Again, with an end to Tory/Labour road blockages which they say are green, but in reality are simply annoying to normal people who need to travel.

In local council elections, we will be campaigning to prevent rampant development, which is ruining our town centres with ugly tower blocks and turning prime agricultural land into solar farms or housing estates which do not benefit local people.

We want to prevent any more financial irresponsibility and appallingly risky property speculation, which has pushed some councils into hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt and led to increases in council tax.

As stated, I comment a lot online and many people have never heard of you or your party. How can you change that?

We are doing very well considering we started from nothing last summer! Our challenge now is to increase our presence and get known and noticed by more people. This is happening on social media and in the free speech media.

Were also building a grassroots of branches and we have a presence in almost every county in England as well as branches in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. People are now joining the party through contact with local members as well as seeing me or the Heritage Party online.

From what Ive read and heard, English culture, history and heritage isnt being taught in schools. How would you look to rectify that?

The National Curriculum has been dumbed down to such an extent that schools are no longer required to teach a full range of our history.

We will ensure the National Curricula for History and Literature include requirements to teach all of our history over the full period of a childs education, and ensure pupils learn about the most important works of literature. It is appalling that some schools are not even teaching Shakespeare. This needs to be rectified immediately.

There is more of a challenge to change the culture of education, which has succumbed to the radical nation-hating Left over many decades.

Many teachers are activists who disregard the requirement for political neutrality in the Education Act 1996 and openly advocate for Left-wing groups such as BLM.

They have acted to embed political ideology across the curriculum, but we will empower parents to remove their children from the main supplementary subjects in which political ideologies are thrust on to children against their wishes.

We will once again make Citizenship, PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) and RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) non-compulsory and restore parents rights to remove their children from these subjects. We will also require subjects like maths to be simply maths, rather than a Trojan horse for diversity.

If you won the upcoming London mayoral election, what would you do in your first 30 days?

Close down Sadiq Khans Diversity Commission and Online Hate Crime Hub.

Tear out all of Transport for Londons temporary StreetSpace schemes, road barriers and pop-up bicycle lanes.

Re-focus the police on catching real criminals such as murderers, burglars, thugs and vandals, rather than wasting their time closing businesses and fining people for not wearing masks.

Stop the rollout of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) expansion and border charge for vehicles driving into London.

Many institutions across the country, if not all, have been indoctrinated by a form of cultural Marxism and common purpose. How would you eradicate that?

We need to repeal Harriet Harmans Equality Act and Tony Blairs Human Rights Act and return to the legal situation where people have equal rights to enjoy our fundamental freedoms and equal opportunities, rather than the law being used to attempt to enforce equality of outcome.

We must also repeal all anti-free speech laws and prevent hate speech laws coming in. Criminal penalties must be based on the objective actions of the defendant, rather than the subjective feelings of the complainant, such as perceived hostility.

Billions of pounds are spent in the state sector on diversity training, unconscious bias training and diversity and inclusion officers to comply with the Equality Act.

This is a huge waste of time and money. Well put an end to it all, so that people can simply get on with their jobs, rise up the ranks on the basis of their skills or talents, and stop having to spend hours a week worrying about whether they are diverse or inclusive enough to fend off a visit from their workplace Diversity Officer.

After reading your manifesto, I believe it can attract voters from all political stripes. Do you agree?

Yes, its simply what 30 years ago the vast majority of people would have said is common sense. It combines a pride in our heritage with financial responsibility, support for families and free speech and liberty.

Defining people as economically Left and Right is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The cultural dynamic is now as important as the economic, if not more so.

Both parties of the old duopoly are both now woke and authoritarian in cultural terms, and millions of people want an alternative which is patriotic, traditional and commonsense. The Heritage Party is here for them.

Over the last year, weve seen this country slip into the realms of fascism. The Government (and pro-lockdown allies) have embedded a system of control over a powerless people where now vaccination passports are being seriously discussed to grant freedom to those willing to take the vaccine while removing liberties for the sceptics. How can the country legally resist these changes?

I have said from the beginning that the lockdown measures were unnecessary and disproportionate. It is appalling that we now effectively live in a police state. The police should be catching real criminals, not closing down businesses.

The Heritage Party offers political resistance. We will immediately reverse any and all Covid regulations which undermine our freedom and outlaw vaccine passports, if we have the chance to do so.

When some people say that vaccination is the only way out of lockdown, what do you think about that? Dont you think that pressuring people to have this vaccine is Orwellian?

The lockdown is unnecessary and disproportionate to the effects of SARS-Cov-2. At least 99.7 per cent of people survive and recover from it. The average age of those who sadly die from the virus is 83 and most have a serious underlying health condition.

The idea that if everyone gets vaccinated we can then get out of lockdown is a false narrative that lulls people into accepting the lockdown.

The Government could and should end the lockdown and all Covid restrictions immediately. Instead, it has created prison hotels for people returning from Portugal and is suggesting restrictions will continue for many more months, and leaking proposals for even more Orwellian control measures like vaccine passports and double masking.

This is coercion on a national scale which is against the Nuremburg Code on informed consent. Nobody should be disadvantaged if they choose not to have an injection of a rushed, experimental vaccine, nor should they be threatened with any loss of rights or smeared as anti-vaxxers or Covid deniers for disagreeing with their repugnant policies.

Lastly, have you found your time as a London Assembly member fruitless or rewarding?

The London Assembly is in some ways frustrating. It has no real power, as in not a legislative body. Its function is to hold the London Mayor to account.

I have been on the London Assembly during the tenure of Sadiq Khan, who has been a terrible mayor, presiding over spiralling violent crime, the rollout of road blockages, and who has inculcated the equality, inclusion and diversity agenda into every area of policy.

On the other hand, I have had a platform to speak out against Cultural Marxism, the LGBT agenda, the green agenda, and Sadiq Khans frequent unseemly attacks on President Trump. I am very glad I have been there for the past five years to be able to do that.

I do hope that people read The Heritage Partys manifestoand look at joining up. Not only do we need a proper conservative party, but we need one that will be around for the long run rather than a short-term pressure group with little interest in the broad aims and no proper vision for the future.

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David Kurten: My Heritage Party is the only home for true conservatives - The Conservative Woman