The state of the 2,000 Palestinians released as part of Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal has cast a renewed spotlight on the abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and how it has worsened in the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack on.ft.com/4hBxyAY

Indeed. I'd actually go further than this and say that the real problem is that people treat the piecemeal de-escalation in one theatre of occupied Palestine as tantamount to a ceasefire in all parts. There has never been a comprehensive ceasefire for Palestinians. What I wrote in The Nation:

"In short, Labour is toast – and it knows it. Ministers and advisers are already looking beyond government to the well-paid, cushy corporate positions they all want to take up when they leave office." Great article from @graceblakeley.substack.com www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-de...

"Politics in Wales is getting very nasty and there are people who are desperate to shut down opposition and legitimate scrutiny of their views. We can not let them win." #R4Today

This is utterly horrendous and yet another example of the lawlessness of X, where our government, our leading politicians, our media and our public services all still hold court. That there is seemingly no remedy for victims of this like Sunder is a damning indictment of regulatory failure.

Wales generally has a left of centre political identity. This is how Caerphilly voted. Reform may win a lot of seats in Wales, but it will be so hard for them to ever form a Government as most ppl don't agree with them. This is why proportional systems are so much better.

My latest newsletter with all the analysis from a historic Caerphilly byelection willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/plaid-smas...

We're facing a political emergency: a high likelihood of an shamelessly authoritarian government in 2029. So we urgently need this basic safeguard: a codified constitution. This week's column explains what we're missing and why it's so important. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Why do proven liars get the keys to the City of London?

Senior Labour figures have expressed dismay at the Party's "cowardly" and "incompetent" response to Tory shadow minister Katie Lam calling for legal migrants to "go home". "What’s the point of us saying we’re anti-racist when we fail to call out racism," said one MP.

I find it interesting how Paul Mason appears to have gone from how to fight fascism to how to defend fascist football thugs.

Remember Aberfan.

I have written to Lisa Nandy, following her grossly misleading comments over the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban. This is about a group of fans with a history of racism and violence. It is not about banning Jewish people - and any attempt to conflate the two is shameful.

My god, the sheer relief of reading a piece by someone who knows something about this football match and didn't just learn to spell Maccabi two days ago www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

If you are engaging with the discussion on Aston Villa v Maccabi TA and its wider implications, do read this substack by Owen Jones. It's really informative, particularly the later sections. I learnt a few things which are worth knowing. open.substack.com/pub/owenjone...

Good thread on how a big part of the problem of British politics is big media figures with no real interest in being across the details.

[I am not going to comment on who should be allowed to attend a football match in Birmingham, but I do find it deeply depressing that there is more media attention on that than on the inhuman atrocities being committed by an ally of the UK with which we have a free trade agreement]

At least 135 Palestinian bodies mutilated by the Israeli army returned to Gaza. Yet there is infinitely more outrage over racist Israeli football hooligans being barred from Birmingham's streets. The world has been turned on its head.

The Tony Blair Institute is heavily backed by Larry Ellison & was “involved in plans to create a new ‘Trump Riviera.’” That vision “envisages creating a ‘blockchain registry for land’ to underpin the construction of up to 8 ‘AI-powered, smart planned cities on the inner side of the Gaza Ring.“ …1/

Those backing the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans visiting Birmingham were smeared as antisemites. Then Tel Aviv police banned the city's derby after riots. This whole saga is defined by lies and smears. Here's the truth 👇 www.owenjones.news/p/maccabi-te...

How about Aston Villa F.C. refuse to play Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C. on November 6th? Would you in good conscience play against a team who have served in the IDF?

I've spent my life arguing against all football fans being tarred with the same brush, but to not even acknowledge that Maccabi Tel Aviv's far-right fans posed a threat to public order, and Birmingham's Muslims in particular, is next-level racist gaslighting

For Danny Finkelstein, the systematic and deliberate massacres of civilians, and the use of mass starvation as a weapon, is the fault of Hamas and some unnamed individuals - as opposed to him and his fellow apologists. archive.ph/CaNZH

Finkelstein has still not apologised for accusing me, and other Jews who criticised Israel's atrocities, of being "antisemitic trolls", nor indeed has he withdrawn this absurd and morally bankrupt claim.

Not even one day www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...

The Starmer Project -A Journey to the Right exposes Starmer’s campaign for the leadership in 2020 on a promise to continue Corbyn's policies if elected leader but purged the left from the party leadership upon gaining power.

Paul Holden’s new book “The Fraud” offers the most damning portrayal yet of a political project at once proudly Machiavellian but entirely devoid of moral and intellectual substance. www.declassifieduk.org/how-keir-sta...

Israeli leaders screamed their genocidal intent at the top of their lungs all the way through. No crime in history has been so confessed to as it actually happened. But almost all Western media outlets suppressed this. Kudos to @scotnational.bsky.social for not being one of them.

Those Govts and corporations complicit in aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza, you’re ignoring that Israel is engaged in indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and not as you claim fighting a military in a war “The beginning of all wisdom is to correctly name things” m.youtube.com/watch?v=zFoH...

no words

Utterly beholden to lobbyists, staggeringly ignorant and dismissive of the natural world: Rachel Reeves might not look or sound like Donald Trump, but she is behaving very much like him. This government is even more of an ecological hazard than the Tories were. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

There are some people whom the media has decided are "leading intellectuals", regardless of the views of their academic colleagues. Invariably they are people who justify - or at the very least do not challenge - economic power. Steven Pinker is a stand-out example. www.monbiot.com/2018/03/09/c...

Nothing from Starmer or Mahmood about this today bsky.app/profile/drbe...

Stop conflating the Jewish people with Israel's genocide. Those who present opposition to Israeli war crimes as attacks on the Jewish people aren't just deeply cynical - they are dangerously irresponsible.

The Kushner-Blair Gaza plan is a moral atrocity – and a policy catastrophe | Josh Paul

My family came here 50 years ago. They've worked, paid taxes, raised families, been good citizens. My many colleagues and friends who were either born elsewhere, or their parents were, the same. It's so offensive to be told you're here on sufferance.

Not main issue, but genuinely hilarious to see Syed happily asserting that "mass immigration that turned into an open-borders experiment" is somehow an "experiment in socialism." Syed presumably understood the basics of economics/political economy once. Now lazy, kneejerk, anti-intellectual slop.

this is excellent by @peteroborne : government should not be run by political advisors, who know and care nothing about good policy, principles , integrity, just “winning” open.substack.com/pub/bylinesu...

"Like so many of these so-called think tanks, the Tony Blair Institute dances to the tune of its funders" Was so great to talk about Blair, Larry Ellison, Keir Stamer and corporate capture with @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/george-mon...

Labour looking at Reform's racist policies and saying "we"ll have some of that". These aren't just discriminatory, by making migrants meet higher standards than the average person, they automatically treat migrants as if they are criminals on community service. #r4today www.bbc.com/news/article...

"By any sensible definition, 'racist' is a word you can't apply to someone who doesn't want Romanians living next door." Says Fraser Nelson, who happily published Taki's Nazi fandom, racist liar Liddle, and white nationalist Douglas Murray. Beyond satire. frasernelson.substack.com/p/who-thinks...

A month ago, the famine in Gaza, deliberately created by the Israeli government, was officially confirmed by UN agencies. Since then, there has been an eerie silence in the media here, with far fewer reports than there were before. But it hasn't ended. On the contrary, it has intensified.

Trump Still Polling Well With Working-Class American Pedophiles

It’s come to this: Keir Starmer is now just the warm-up act for Nigel Farage | Aditya Chakrabortty

Queen

I see American is lynching again.

Big Pharma is throwing its toys out of the pram — and Wes Streeting is caught in the crossfire Wes Streeting is up to his neck in big pharma shenanigans and donations. My article is free to read on Substack, please subscribe and share! Thank you❤️ open.substack.com/pub/european...

Dartmoor is now a part of The Plymouth and South Devon Freeport. The Dartmoor National Park wasn’t even aware of the fact it was incorporated in the freeport zone

Yet again, the Guardian fails to mention that Dartmoor is inside a 75km deregulated Special Economic Zone which also houses a Freeport. 100% of Dartmoor's area is within the Freeport/SEZ outer boundary. Sewage spilt for 49,000 hours from 62 Dartmoor sites in 2024. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Far right organisers in this country consistently side with foreign billionaires over our democratic institutions. They are not patriots. They are quislings.