“I write about the politics of the heart and the soul more than I talk about the politics of politics,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t write these observational songs.” blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/09/h...

📣 CSOH is Hiring! We’re expanding our global research team and hiring three researchers across Europe/North America, Southeast Asia and South Asia to support our work on digital harms, extremism, and influence operations. Applications are now open. More details: www.csohate.org/work-with-us/

This is so wonderful. Recommend reading the nearly 4000 year old customer complaint out loud to yourself or whoever is sat nearest you.

Right to bear arms not attitudes. '...the US president called for restrictions to ensure visitors to the US “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”.' www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"We are concerned that, should this situation be allowed to continue without resolution, there is the real and increasingly likely potential that young British citizens will die in prison, having never even been convicted of an offence." www.bbc.com/news/article...

Beneath the #Wiltshire Medieval hilltop town of Malmesbury lies a 9ha Iron Age hillfort Here looking east: Now (© Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard) and then (© Athelstan Museum) A wee thread for #HillfortsWednesday 🧵👇

9000 children. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

"I refuse to fight. I refuse to kill others." Just attended a Peace Pledge Union event where we heard from Russians risking everything after refusing to fight and to kill for the Russian regime.

What a find & what a thing. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

A seasonal reminder that you can order our titles from our website; orders are despatched within 24 hours (last dates for Christmas orders: UK: 17 Dec. Sheffield: 23 Dec). Recent hardbacks inc. Steve Ely's 'Eely' and Angelina D'Roza's 'The Blue Hour'. Order here: longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

🆕 The #UnitedAgainstTorture Consortium new ‘Guidance Note on Addressing the Misuse of Police Weapons in Protests’ provides practical tools for monitors to assist in identifying, documenting, and challenging such misuse in a protest context. 🔗 Download the guide: bit.ly/49ZlZBS

The Home Office continues to use language that its own data refutes

I understand those sharing that their grandparents migrated here with very little & the children and grandchildren ended up doing highly valued jobs. I also hope we don't just value one another according to income or job. There are so many other ways people contribute to society and communities.

So, other than skilled NHS work, only making lots of money or earning lots of money counts as contributing to society?

"Tunisians took to the streets on Saturday for a third straight week to protest against President Kais Saied's expanding crackdown on the opposition, critics and NGOs, urging the release of political prisoners." www.reuters.com/world/africa...

NEW: www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

There are so many heartbreakingly awful desires in this article it's hard to choose one to share. www.thenational.scot/news/2567530...

And I say again … how will they enforce this?!? Do trans women have two heads? Will there be people there to ‘denounce’ anyone who - subjectively - ‘looks a bit too much like a ‘fella’’?!? The sheer crassness of it …

"...policy paper lays bare Trump support for Europe’s far right." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

#Tanzania I led a joint communication sent to the Tanzanian Government to raise deep concern about widespread human rights violations following the 29 October elections.

"The number of overseas nurses and midwives coming to the UK is collapsing, figures reveal, with rising racism and changes to immigration rules blamed for the fall." www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Yinke Bankola says he was 9 when the sixth form Dulwich school prefect Nigel Farage, aged 17, asked him where he was from, then told him "that's the way back to Africa". www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

"Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory...We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness." (2025, p.26). www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

A useful reflection for those interested in or facilitating conversations about this.

Much more of the detail in "Noise and nuance" from @britishfuture.bsky.social www.britishfuture.org/publication/...

Reform are still a vocal minority on immigration - in a different place to the median voter; the other parties voters are closer than Reform to where the public are

"I said yes, it would be nice to have a space where people could sit and spend time with the books, to browse one book and then another, without an obligation to spend money, without a word spoken. We then realised that we were talking about a library." longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/ships-log

"Through such an integrated regime – anchored in precautionary principles, ecological science, and cultural respect – the Arctic Ocean can remain not only a repository of biodiversity but also a space for peace, collaboration, and sustainable development." commons.wmu.se/lib_reports/...

Starting momentarily: Trump attends peace agreement signing ceremony with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at the US Institute of Peace building in DC (which the administration is now calling—without a hint of irony—the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.) You can watch here:

Thinking of USIP connected peacebuilders (whose thinking and practice I've drawn on), dealing with how this must feel. Among everything else. thehill.com/homenews/adm...

Fascinating, surprising, cautiously hopeful. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Indonesia and Thailand floods death toll passes 600 with hundreds still missing

I was trying to track down the source of Gramsci's "time of monsters" quote and found that it's a "mistranslation" (ie he just made it up) by Slavoj Zizek. Gramsci's line clearly translates as "morbid symptoms" instead. Mad that you can just rewrite a famous quote and get it widely accepted.

Vows of disobedience. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

We now get Home Office press releases about immigration nearly every day. Interesting to note the language. They obviously want to be seen to be taking action, but “illegal migrants” are not the same as “asylum seekers”

Former US military lawyers speak out: "The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both." Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes 1/2

Guardian also reporting that asylum seekers are being “banned” from doing something they were being forced to do, it apparently being compulsory to help the Home Office blame refugees for its own errors

Okay, here we go. Health & care staff are no longer allowed a Covid booster, but they're still expected to look after COVID+ patients. NHS/govt is reneging on its duty of care. Staff will become unwell, and patients too will suffer. You know what to do 👇✍️ petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

"Small sounds have loud echoes." www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Background on "remigration" in great replacement theory, European far right, etc, and State Dept plans to create an Office of Remigration from earlier this year:

‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse

Exclusive: Hegseth ordered everyone killed in the first alleged drug boat strike on Sept. 2, prompting a second hit to finish off survivors in the water in a mission led by SEAL Team 6. Ordering no quarter could legally perilous www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

In 1971, 1 in 3 NHS doctors were overseas born Given the avg patient age, those born in the 1890s were quite likely to meet a migrant doctor Whatever some commentators born in the 60s/70s/80s say, most ppl (incl their grandparents) regularly & positively interacted w/migrants their entire lives

"The writers and their protagonists are in conversation with the past, with the land, with the polarising and sometimes toxic nature of national identity." www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

Don't miss your chance to join our team and work towards ending the housing crisis! Deadline for applications is midnight on Sunday. Find out more and apply: neweconomics.org/about/work-w...

Thanks to @sioldridge.bsky.social @nickoldridge.bsky.social & the team for their monumental efforts in pulling together yesterday’s National Emergency Briefing www.nebriefing.org on climate change. Thanks also go to those MPs, journalists & others who attended. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong. We are thinking of every family waiting for news, mourning loved ones, or holding onto hope for those still missing. To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.

"'It is now too late for non-radical futures.' Calls for clarity and imagination." This and much more in the comprehensive and rich thread below from Paul Parker @quaker.org.uk when attending the @nebriefing.bsky.social on climate and nature crisis.

With every outright racist things he says I think back to his former students and colleagues at a pretty diverse university who had to work with someone who clearly did not respect or value them.

"Thirty asylum seekers currently in detention in the UK have gone on hunger strike in protest against their imminent removal to France under the Home Office’s controversial “one in, one out” scheme." www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...