Boris Johnson can’t tame the crackpot rebels because he’s one of them | Nick Cohen
Anyone who understands extremism knows populist movements spread like a virus. You stop them early or not at all. Yet at every stage of the growth of the backlash against public health, the bad faith of our compromised prime minister has prevented effective treatment.
To stick with the medical analogy, the World Health Organization says humans barely notice a virus when it's confined to animals in the initial phase. New extremist movements also grow in the dark. Half-mad men and women scuttle around the web, bawling out ideas so ludicrous serious people turn away. Covid had barely begun before David Icke and Piers Corbyn were simultaneously claiming it had been caused by 5G masts and was also a hoax" - without a thought for the contradiction.
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