Keir Starmer's attempt to paint the Greens as extremists yet again reveals his intolerance of political difference. His instincts are illiberal and authoritarian.

Labour MP Ian Byrne: "The lines from the PM and Cabinet today essentially labelling the Green Party as extremist is appalling, desperate and frankly embarrassing. "It also makes very clear that the leadership has zero understanding of where it has been going wrong."

Labour MP Clive Lewis, "Keir Starmer is an interim PM" "We need a radical reset, fundamental change" "The tone of Starmer's Labour which I heard on the doorstep: you're not a Labour party I recognise, what happened to you" "Labour under Keir Starmer is like a pound shop Reform UK"

The small, brave band of MPs who represent the trampled, not the tramplers, has a very welcome new member. We should all ask ourselves why, in a supposed democracy, such representatives are so rare. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The richest man owns X. The second and third richest men control Google. The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post. And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?

SHE LIVES IN A HOUSE! SHE'S GOT HAIR! SHE EATS FOOD! THESE GREENS ARE ALL LIARS! etc., etc., etc. Now over to Richard Tice live from Dubai with his views on the cost of living crisis.

The fact that a working class person running on a ticket of unapologetically standing up for working people is as rare as hens' teeth tells you all you need to know. They are anomalies. The ones that slipped through the net. And the establishment will do anything in its power to drag them back down.

Now watch the billionaire media throw all the dirt it can at the Greens, who could thwart its dream of a Farage government.

Now there is hope! It's no longer a choice between grim and grimmer. We can vote for who we want and win. Anywhere. It's just one constituency, but the Green victory in Gorton and Denton is an electric shock to our political system.

This is massive, and disgraceful. No organisation called “Tactical Choice” appears to exist.

Dear @lucympowell.bsky.social, Why did you invent a fake tactical voting company to stop the Green Party beating Reform? I'm starting to think your letters haven't always been in good faith...

If Labour followed its own logic, it would now step aside and let the Greens walk home in this crucial by-election. It is hard to imagine how Starmer and co could have made a bigger fist of this - and of everything. My column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Broadly speaking, there are 2 political factions. Not Labour v Tory/Reform, Republicans v Democrats etc, but an economic elite, operating globally, versus all of us. Though they are small in number, through the power of the political, media and social media systems they control, they keep winning.

The Epstein files grant us a rare glimpse into the kind of machinations that must be happening all the time. As @bylinetimes.bsky.social reveals, Trump's fixer, Steve Bannon, helped Boris Johnson overthrow Theresa May. Blatant foreign interference in our politics. 🧵 bylinetimes.com/2026/02/16/b...

Just Daily Mail 'journalist' Sarah Vine comparing the UK's only Jewish leader of a political party to Adolf Hitler. #politicslive

One year and one week ago Matt Goodwin and George Monbiot were on #BBCQT. Matt Goodwin was being a Putin apologist and George Monbiot handed him his arse on a plate @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

You can list Keir Starmer's modest achievements all you like. But as he has actively alienated his own voters - on Gaza, protest rights, benefits, green policies, cruelty to immigrants etc - it makes no difference. It's not a mystery. When you tell people you hate them, they will hate you back.

A year ago, I was up against Matt Goodwin - now Reform UK's candidate in the crucial by-election this week - on Question Time. Here's what happened. www.thenational.scot/news/2493544...

US airstrikes on Iran would achieve only more death and terror. As ever, they would have nothing to do with the welfare of the Iranian people - who are already suffering greatly under government tyranny - and everything to do with Donald Trump's need for spectacle and distraction.

essay by a guy whose entire media career has been built on hippie punching wondering why more people aren't helping the hippies topple the fascists

What you have to understand is that Carbon Capture and Storage is driven not by environmental concerns but by fossil fuel industry demands. It provides both a new revenue stream (at our expense) and the mother of all greenwashing schemes. Whether it works or not (it doesn't) is entirely irrelevant.

You may have come across a piece about the ostensible plight of regenerative ranchers in Point Reyes in a lefty mag. It spends a lot of time on description and pathos and almost none on the actual environmental impacts of livestock. Read this too (or just instead): newrepublic.com/article/1637...

For years we've seen an ongoing genocide. It's been backed by right wing papers, the US President and by this Labour Government.

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social US corporate social media is a tool for data collection, propaganda and regime change, and the response of the American govt to China-owned TikTok ought to be taken as a warning to European govts.

Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling. If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A brilliant article that everyone commenting about Iran should read. The Iranian government is not your friend, and never will be, unless you happen to be a clerico-fascist enthusiast of mass torture and mass murder. But weirdly, many in the West who claim to be on the left seem to support it.

If you denounce the Iranian massacre of protesters, but not the Gaza genocide, you're wrong If you denounce the Gaza genocide, but not the Iranian massacre of protesters, you're wrong The very same applies to the US invasion of Iraq, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine It's called *consistency*.

Two things are simultaneously true: 1. The Iranian regime treats its people with extreme brutality and cruelty, and we should honour the citizens seeking to overthrow it. 2. A US attack on Iran would turn a crisis into a catastrophe.

Campism is politics for people who don't like to think too hard.

1. Pointing out that the Iranian regime's actions are horrific does not in any way subtract from the horror of the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza, or from other atrocities. There are, unfortunately, plenty here who seem to believe we should be partisan in our denunciations. They are wrong. 🧵

In case people have missed it, Josh Simons is the person currently tasked with pushing the Digital ID programme. Just in case you were assuming it’s a benign idea without creepy and concerning implications.

Utterly chilling insight into how Keir Starmer's team has been operating from the beginning. As others have been pointing out for years, the Labour Party and the country have been taken for a ride. There was a coup within the party, using a host of dirty tricks. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

So, so many people fell for the bullshit these guys were peddling. No one has recanted, apologized, vowed to change the way they do things, anything.

I wish it were true that "no one is above the law". But while the City of London acts as laundromat for the world's dirty money, as almost all fraud and waste crime go unprosecuted, as no one has gone to jail for the financial crash or the poisoning of our rivers, this is manifestly untrue.

Contrary to what some will tell you, it *is* actually possible – no, necessary – to call out atrocities by the Iranian, Israeli, Russian, US, and other fascist regimes. Those who'll do so purely when it's one lot or another are highly dodgy, to say the least.

Crucial article by @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on the dimensions of a major scandal. A public inquiry is essential. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Iranian regime takes brutality to a whole new level. It will commit any atrocity to maintain its hold on power. The citizens confronting it are among the bravest in the world.

The Talk

I've often wondered how Steven Pinker's amazingly sloppy research and baseless claims* have for so long received a free pass. I wonder whether it could have something to do with a. his connections with the rich and powerful; b. his claims often aligning with what they want to hear. *See next post.

add to that the pernicious and egregious tactic of lumping PA together with "Manic Murder Squad" and similar nutjobs... any Labour MP who voted against the government would have been pilloried as supporters of actual violent groups

Absolutely we should fear terrorism and seek to prevent it. But we should also fear those who use either real terrorism or bogus claims about terrorism to boost their own powers, restrict our freedoms and corrode our democracy. Both present major threats to public life.

Palestine Action have WON their judicial review in the High Court! A massive victory for free speech, freedom of association and the right to protest. A massive defeat for the draconian attempts by Keir Starmer's government to curtail our fundamental rights.

A great article by @jasonhickel.bsky.social and @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social. But I do wish we could all stop using the wolf as a metaphor for the worst kinds of human behaviour. Wolves are wonderful creatures, endlessly maligned - and also victims of capitalism. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This morning we will hear the result of the judicial review of the government's ban on Palestine Action, on the grounds that it's a "terrorist" organisation. An important moment, which could have a major influence on freedom of speech and association in this country.

Most of the media, most days: Morning: "Capitalism must go further! further! further!" Afternoon: "Oh my God, how did that happen?"

The baffling thing journalists (especially BBC) just seem to let Labour get away with "he lied during vetting" when Mandelson's deep and repeated corruption is on his fucking Wikipedia page. New Labour is dying with its architect. All his influence needs to be rooted out like dry rot.

It's disturbing to see how Gordon Brown has whitewashed his reasons for reappointing Mandelson, and his own role in eroding democracy. Mandelson's official business was similar to his unauthorised scheming with Epstein. Don't let them rewrite history. My column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“There is a reason why Mandelson kept returning to government, despite sackings for his over-enthusiastic relationships with plutocrats. He was brought in to do the dirty work. The governments in which he served could loudly claim to be doing something, while subtly and simultaneously undoing it.”

Peter Mandelson's official role in Gordon Brown's government was actually not that far away from his unauthorised dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. This week's column digs up some inconvenient truths and suggests the problem is much deeper than we're told. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...