How many of these statements do you think apply to the UK government?

Since being returned to power in May, the Conservative government has reformed welfare, falsified benefit claimant statements, U-turned on accepting Syrian refugees, pushed a 'Snooper's Charter' despite lack of public support, and announced it wishes to abolish the Freedom of Information Act.

That all sounds a little scary.

With that in mind, below are a few statements in a swipeable quiz form.

How many do you think apply to the UK government?

You might be wondering why we chose these statements - we’ve paraphrased them (we had a 40 character limit, apologies) from Umberto Eco's (see note below) 1995 essay Eternal Fascism*, which describes general properties of fascist governments.

Fascism is a term that is hard to define and has been thrown about offhandedly for decades.

The question is; do you now still think those you swiped right for still apply to the UK government?

(Picture: Getty)

We're obviously not seriously suggesting the UK is a fascist state. On Freedom House's index the UK is described as 'Free' with top scores in freedom, civil liberties and political rights ratings.

However, democratic process and accountability is always a good thing, and democracies can always be improved.

In 2014, Karin Karlekar, the project director of the World Press Freedom Index, after the UK took a tumble in the rankings, said:

In every region of the world last year, we found both governments and private actors attacking reporters, blocking their physical access to newsworthy events, censoring content, and ordering politically motivated firings of journalists.

*Eco is a philosopher, novelist, professor of semiotics and honorary fellow of Oxford University.

More:We asked some students what freedom of speech means to them

More:The government wants to abolish the Freedom of Information Act. Here's why that's a terrible idea