‘Follow the money.’ That was George W. Bush’s directive to the US Treasury after 9/11. Choking off al-Qaida’s finances proved complicated — but what happened next went far beyond that. Episode 5 of our new podcast series ‘Aftershock’ is available now: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Milton uses the word a couple of times for Satan's seductive but ultimately hollow and deceitful speech. Most notably when tempting Eve in PL IX -- 'so glozed the tempter...'

Top analysis as ever, and as a bonus, an outstanding new (to me) word for Wes Streeting

I wrote about the current state of things for the last @lrb.co.uk of the year. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The BBC is in crisis, again. In the latest episode of On Politics, @lewisgoodall.com and @dannyhinduk.bsky.social join @piercepenniless.bsky.social to discuss whether the BBC is capable of surviving in the digital era. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

The BBC is in crisis, again. In the latest episode of On Politics, @lewisgoodall.com and @dannyhinduk.bsky.social join @piercepenniless.bsky.social to discuss whether the BBC is capable of surviving in the digital era. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

‘It is possible a large block of former Pink Tide voters are just defecting to the new option, right? These are swing voters in the largest possible sense.’ On the pod, Tony Wood, Camila Vergara and @piercepenniless.bsky.social discuss the Latin American right. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Weber: "He who seeks the salvation of the soul, of his own and of others, should not seek it along the avenue of politics..." (Temperamentally, I prefer politicians who fear they may be bad to those who are certain they are good; many I otherwise share views with tend to incline otherwise.)

I don't really mind setting an upper bound on the scheme but... (1) WHY is the government spending any time on this tiny thing? (2) why not reform the scheme to broaden it to allow 0% loans for bike purchase more widely? (3) you should want to stimulate demand for storefront bike shops!

Pink Tide governments inspired the left worldwide. Now strongmen, crypto scammers & sharp-toothed ultra-rightists are taking their place. What happened? Tony Wood & Camila Vergara joined me on @lrb.co.uk ON POLITICS to talk about the long ebb of the marea rosa. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

New @lrb.co.uk ON POLITICS: I speak with @danielagabor.bsky.social & Andy Haldane on bond markets, gilt vigilantes, and the role of Britain's central bank. Instructive and hugely illuminating conversation on finance, democracy, & how we get out of the doom loop. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Why are governments are so afraid of ‘bond vigilantes’? Should the Bank of England remain independent? What room for manoeuvre does Rachel Reeves have? For On Politics this week, James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) talks to Andy Haldane and Daniela Gabor. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

New @lrb.co.uk ON POLITICS: I speak with @danielagabor.bsky.social & Andy Haldane on bond markets, gilt vigilantes, and the role of Britain's central bank. Instructive and hugely illuminating conversation on finance, democracy, & how we get out of the doom loop. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

I was delighted to speak to Alan Finlayson for the @lrb.co.uk's On Politics. We take on the digital right (and online left), the champions of inegalitarianism, print and social democracy, Farage as influencer and... whether the internet is just right-wing.

Few of the challenges to progressive politics are really new. But the massive change in the means of communication, and what that does to politics (which has to be conducted through it), really is new and difficult. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘One of the questions that has hung over this whole conversation is about the void at the centre of the Labour party.’ — James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on his new On Politics podcast. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

‘It took the Tories ten years to reach this degree of perpetual crisis; Labour has managed it in fourteen months.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

After the revolution, comrades, James Butler will present 'In Our Time'. This will do for now

‘Keir Starmer is in trouble.’ New on the blog: James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Labour’s problems. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Really cool to be on the first episode of this new series, talking about the (unfortunately, sad) state of the Labour government:

Launching today: James Butler’s (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) new podcast series ‘On Politics’ goes beyond the headlines and push notifications to get at the real forces transforming our politics here and abroad. Listen and subscribe now. Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

Wrote about the implosion of 'phase two' Starmer's government: the Mandelson affair (volume 3), the cratering numbers, the changing political system, the spectre of Farage and the resurgent right. @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

'Welcome to my last four years.' A search for accountability and a full, detailed explanation for Martha's death . . . www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

should a brown man be mayor? We asked a eugenicist

Truly wonderful, numinous place.

Qs about NYT running Nazi-sourced smear of Mamdani: - why agree to Nazi pseudonym? (he's been named elsewhere) - college application was unsuccessful: what's the relevance? - Mamdani obviously tried to fit Ugandan Asian into US-style checkbox list (inc write-in): where's the scandal?

“…anyone who is young and foolish enough to say that … the government should listen to them, is committing a very serious offence for which they could be prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned as a terrorist. It's not their right to protest that is the issue here. It's the right of freedom of speech.”

I'm sure I saw Nun With a Drum Machine play a Horse Hospital gig in the mid-'00s

Speaking personally, I'm glad bits of the British left have woken up from their despairing slumber, but relitigating the end of Corbynism or attempting to cargo-cult its beginnings would both be disasters. As would a figurehead who's been bounced into the role.

I did not think I would find myself being thankful for the existence of Peter Hain, but life is strange. He calls proscription "intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong."

China Mieville coined the term "social sadism" to describe the combination of voyeurism and punitive glee which characterised the UK's anti-welfare cultural feeding frenzy post-'08. It applies here, too.

Not many people who could join in such a discussion so fulsomely and knowledgeably, but @piercepenniless.bsky.social is clearly one of them!

China Mieville coined the term "social sadism" to describe the combination of voyeurism and punitive glee which characterised the UK's anti-welfare cultural feeding frenzy post-'08. It applies here, too.

I'm not saying I live in the coolest place in London, but it's definitely up there. I try never to take it for granted.

Wonderful news out of NYC this morning.

It's not the business of the Commissioner to be "shocked and frustrated" at people exercising their right to protest. Meaningless to claim to defend that right while also baselessly claiming that "most people" believe a protest against proscription "goes beyond" it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Someone on Twitter posted that they had run into Philip Glass at their lower Manhattan polling place, saying nice things about Mamdani. The campaign put this up as a quote-tweet within the hour.

I really can’t get over this. If you step back from how politically charged this issue is, the BBC is essentially saying “we can’t broadcast a film meticulously documenting attacks on medics, because it might be perceived as biased against the perpetrator of those attacks”. That’s patently absurd.

Having met Goodhart, it would also surprise me if he were able to get through even a short exchange without saying something madly, throbbingly racist.

Contra Reed, it actually *is* and *should be* shocking that an MP doesn't know that the Supreme Court issues reasoned judgments, because an MP is not a 'lay person'. It betrays a total lack of understanding of the constitutional system they are part of and, importantly, have the power to alter.

The American Years of Lead are going to be really horrible and really weird.

Yourcenar was also a wonderful essayist. Someone should reissue her collection 'The Dark Brain of Piranesi'.

X increasingly functions as a fascisation machine -- consciously so on the part of far-right actors -- which is why it's not ideal that most MPs and political staffers are addicted to it.

Madness. What will stop this rogue state? Israeli claims this is a pre-emptive strike are propagandistic nonsense: it is inescapably a crime of aggression, a core crime of international law, once called "the supreme international crime".

Cicero *is* a great writer, although it is hard to escape the impression he was also an extremely annoying guy.

Wonder which category... www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Foxes are the tutelary spirits of London. They've lived in King's Cross rather longer than Google.

I've been thinking about this Pasolini editorial a lot recently. 'What is this coup? I know.' It's a very brilliant piece on being an intellectual in a state where everything is conducted in murk and shadow and conspiracy, where everyone knows and nobody says. www.corriere.it/speciali/pas...

😂