A short thread on digital ID (cards) just to bear in mind. There are a few myths that I keep hearing about this idea that need clarifying/debunking. 1/10

'Don't you know, town is a powder keg' www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjr... #FallFriday

📣 Update: Coventry City Council — the first UK council to appoint US tech company Palantir to roll out AI — is now reviewing the contract following protests from staff and councillors. Read more🔗 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Like so many other asylum and migration charities, we have become increasingly alarmed in recent months by the growth of the far right and their sentiments, and the ‘protests’ outside hotels housing people seeking asylum. 🧵1/3

People’s homes are being stormed by far-right groups. The govt. Is saying nothing about how violence like this will not be tolerated. Where is Starmer’s “law and order” now? They’ve no control and we are moments away from someone being killed. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

#FallFriday "We're always portrayed as scruffy and things like that, but fashion-wise we're always about three years ahead of everybody." The Fall on Snub TV in 1990 youtu.be/mbdNNF-W-uI

that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move

There are humane alternatives to using hotels to accomodate asylum seekers, but the politicians refuse to consider solutions that have been successfully used in the past. www.migrantsorganise.org/asylum-accom...

By making people wait ten years to get settlement, this Government is holding people back and holding our communities down. That’s why we’re fighting to Scrap the Barriers. Now’s the time to speak up. Now’s the time to push back. 📋 Sign the petition now. act.praxis.org.uk/scrap-the-ba...

What today's headlines won't tell you... We are living in a time of unparalleled instability and conflict - there are currently more active conflicts globally than any time since WW2. Small boats are one of the ONLY means to reach the UK for people who are fleeing war and persecution. 1/2

So, how to sanitise this? Legitimate concerns about Britain's failure to capitulate to Adolf Hitler? The cancellation of the Reich's quest for Lebensraum: so much for the tolerant left? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

🔴FIGHT THE TARGETING OF PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVISM - THALES, STOP ARMING ISRAEL COMMUNITY DEMO🔴 🗓 Monday 28th July ⏰5 - 6 PM 📍 Thales - Cheadle Heath site, Oakhurst Drive, SK3 0XB 🔗 instagram.com/p/DMVNmtoN6Iy/

But it precisely the politicians who decide to supply weapons to some bad guys and sanction others. Moral relativism is absolutely bound up with the political. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A woman wore a dress 16 years ago — when she was a teenager — so she’s not entitled to political principles that The Times dislikes.

Absolutely dystopian juxtaposition from the Guardian front page. Difficult to understand how anyone of decency and conscience can defend this government at this point. Just sheer moral degeneracy to arm a state that does this and arrest people for objecting. Wtf are we doing as a country?

“Under the Terrorism Act it is a criminal offence to carry or display items that may arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation such as Palestine Action.” Kent police's interpretation of the ban on PA. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

🚨We have published a NEW REPORT sharing the experiences of children from our All4One youth group who were wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office. These children arrived in the UK alone seeking asylum, were declared “significantly over 18” at the border and sent alone to adult asylum hotels.

The old colonial machine is still doing a job for global capital. 'Of 222,000 people in employment in Brunei, around 24,000 are employees of or contractors for [Shell]. Around one in every 200 people in Brunei is a British soldier. These numbers are not coincidental.'

If Theresa May brought out an aftershave of her own panic then Starmer would be wearing it.

Israel continues to murder Gazan medical staff with impunity. #GazaDoctorsUnderAttack www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

From the very same paragraph in Orwell's essay: "England has got to be true to herself. She is not being true to herself while the refugees who have sought our shores are penned up in concentration camps, and company directors work out subtle schemes to dodge their Excess Profits Tax."

The 'real' River Flit, Flitwick, Beds.

This from Keir Starmer is a de facto endorsement of Trump's illegal aggression against Iran. Talk of Starmer's deep commitment to international law belongs in the same garbage can as talk of Trump's deep aversion to foreign military entanglements www.bbc.com/news/article...

The BBC has pulled another documentary about Gaza. It spent weeks trying to find an excuse, found none, then pulled it anyway. Apparently 'broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality' - the weaseliest of all weasel words. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.” —Karl Marx

It's clear that the eVisa system is designed to aid immigration enforcement and push up deportation numbers, not to actually make the lives of overseas workers and students easier. www.computerweekly.com/news/3666253...

“We’ve been seeing complaints about the eVisa scheme since day one." Over a year later, it's more of the same: 🔴 System failures. 🔴 Job and benefit losses due to technical errors. 🔴 Extreme stress when migrants try to return to the UK. Read more ⬇️ www.computerweekly.com/news/3666253...

The UK government softened tax reforms on the super-rich because of a widely reported “exodus” of millionaires fleeing the UK. A new @taxjustice.net study shows that the "exodus" was a complete fiction 👀 Read more: taxjustice.net/press/millio... #BogusExodus #TaxTheSuperRich #TaxTheirBillions

Defence minister Luke Pollard refuses to tell parliament how many spy flights the RAF has conducted for Israel. We can tell him. It's over 500 👉 www.declassifieduk.org/britain-sent...

Researchers reveal that private firms have earned over £3.5bn from UK border security contracts since 2017. Available in EN, ES, PT-BR, DE, IT, AR and HI.

Please sign this petition calling on @mancitycouncil.bsky.social to end discrimination in its housing service and improve the provision it gives to all those sleeping rough on the city’s streets. www.change.org/p/end-homele...

“Can you imagine someone saying to me in 20 years’ time: ‘You never had children – why?’ And I say: ‘Well, because I didn’t make enough money for the UK government to approve my husband coming to my country with me‘” www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

1/12 I think it’s time to address a myth about the British Empire that’s cropping up a lot right now, the latest iteration in this especially ill-informed column. It’s the conviction that imperial policies of development lifted ‘millions out of poverty’. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

🚨 NEW: 80% of Keir Starmer's Cabinet represent constituencies with higher than average child poverty rates, new analysis from @lborouniversity.bsky.social for @endchildpoverty.bsky.social has found. Write to your MP to demand that they stand against rising child poverty: bit.ly/4k6PNhT

The End Child Poverty coalition, which we are part of, has published its annual report on child poverty figures at a local level. In two-thirds of constituencies, at least 1 in 4 kids are living in poverty.

My May 2025 Recent Reading is now live, in which I review these books: Interior, Linda Black, Shearsman Books, Fisher King, Thomas Meyer, Verge Books, Cancer, Tom Raworth, Carcanet, @carcanet.bsky.social #poetry ellipticalmovements.wordpress.com/2025/05/28/r...

"I see people every day who are really suffering with things like asthma... Housing really should be the foundation to health!" Medact Member and respiratory consultant ‪@drlaurajane.bsky.social‬ on Good Morning Britain saying why she took action at Whitehall to demand insulation now!

Namibia this week will hold its first national commemoration for victims of mass killings by German occupiers in the first genocide of the 20th century. Between 1904 and 1905. the Germans slaughtered 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people.

Kelvin Corcoran #smallpoemsunday

the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open

🚸A growing number of children are experiencing such levels of hardship that they are going without basic essentials. Ending the 2 child limit is the most cost effective way to get child poverty falling this parliament, and it’s also the right thing to do.

Disabled campaigners watching ‘in horror’ as trans people face toilet segregation

The civil war in Greece started with British-led forces opening fire on a Communist-led demonstration in Athens. It wasn't some internal Greek oopsie, it was international from the start.

Inside the ‘Israeli’ embassy’s secret party at the British Museum, where Jimmy Carr with Nigel Farage, Ian Austin, and Richard Tice, and Maria Eagle affirmed Britain’s commitment to arming genocide. newsocialist.org.uk/transmission...

Labour party now mimicking maga. Any positive action for marginalised groups is 'marxist'.

Mere Pseud Mag. Ed. youtube.com/watch?v=aXbo... #fallfriday Decadent sandwich quaff.

The Times blaming Malcolm X today

Following on from this timely article, it might be instructive to consider why the centre generally is more interested in appealing to those to its right than to its left. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A chance to question GM Mayor Andy Burnham about the state of the NHS in our region.