Merry Christmas. www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/25/t...

This one behind a paywall. www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/21/w...

Many Europeans are now cancelling trips altogether amid growing talk of having to surrender years of digital history before entering the so-called Land of the Free. www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/17/m...

Many Europeans are now cancelling trips altogether amid growing talk of having to surrender years of digital history before entering the so-called Land of the Free. www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/17/m...

"Social media swirls with wild claims that he is being fed slow-acting poison. Further unverified posts allege dementia and liver damage, but these are denied. However, his health raises the question of whether he will ever return to political life." [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

"For some, Khan is a potentially anti-imperialist, anti-elite-populist..For others, he represents a neoliberal, populist leadership that uses leftist words without delivering any kind of social justice or change. Many are ambivalent about him even when recognising his mass appeal." – Peter Bach

The persistent rumours that imprisoned Pakistani politician Imran Khan is dead have been crackling away like Lahore firecrackers these past few weeks. www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/12/k...

"...it turns out that not knowing much about politics is sometimes indistinguishable from knowing a lot. Which is not to say we should opt out of politics. It’s just that our understanding of it is invariably limited." A(nother) political perspective from Peter Bach, @lyst.bsky.social

As Groucho Marx put it: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/10/w...

"Four unanswered applications for visas and film permits in a troubled East African country later, and me and my team have got nowhere. I compare ourselves to a vehicle stuck in the sand with the wheels spinning and no forward motion." Peter Bach @lyst.bsky.social at his rousing best on...a lot.

"The wolves are still at the door; that’s a matter of course. But I continue buying into the idea that if we can just keep things flowing, depth charges at the ready, obstacles are swept away." Bach, again. [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

The Ashes are governed by a playbook thicker than a cricket bat. Ukraine’s reality is defined by rule-breaking—treaties torn up, borders violated, norms smashed. #TheAshes #Ukraine #Cricket #cricketforall www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/01/a...

"The music seemed timeless. Soon I was floating out on the floor, feeling the syncopated horns and strings, galvanising my thinning muscles. I was still the old modernist, making moves I didn’t know I still had in me." A.J. Lees regains his Northern Soul in Blackpool. @thearsonista.bsky.social

The weather was desultory as I walked from Wimbledon Station to the Communication Workers Union headquarters at 150 The Broadway. I was supposed to be filming a conflict in East Africa, but my visa still hadn’t materialised. www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/26/w...

Retreats to Iceland... "History burns as quickly as a cigarette paper. People don’t even buy art anymore. Whatever happened to art as sanctuary—art as the antithesis of meanness?" – Peter Bach, a.k.a. @lyst.bsky.social [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

Icelandic people maintain a strong attachment to their history. We once spent time there with a former Interior and Justice minister who told us his weekly history group had finally reached the third century. He was very excited about this. www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/19/y...

"Greenland gives Denmark its major seabed claims in the Arctic Ocean, a legal and geological smørrebrød layered with what diplomats call “resource and sovereignty implications.” Don’t underestimate this. Further phrases like “continental shelf” hide very real power politics." – Peter Bach

My great-great-grandfather, Jens Bach, sat for decades in the Danish parliament, travelling regularly from Thisted in northern Jutland to Copenhagen. This was two islands and a heroic commute away. In his day, too, Greenland came up often. www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/14/3...

...the most stiflingly straitlaced, Oxbridge-groomed professionals you’ll find—studiously unimaginative, obsessively proper, exuding all the charisma of a school prefect on downers. But when it comes to reporting facts, I’d take any one of them over the president of the United States. – Peter Bach

Now that the long-anticipated attempt to dismantle the BBC is nearly complete, I will try not to overstate its importance—it aired two of my documentaries, albeit for a pittance. www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/13/w...

“It’s the last big card he has to play,” says my friend. “My guess is he makes a referendum part of his next manifesto. But he can’t play it too early—or too late.” www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/06/s...

No wonder “Das Crazy” was voted German Youth Word of the Year at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair. Counselling centres for conscientious objectors are reporting an increasing number of visits from worried parents. www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/29/d...

"What makes people make art? It isn’t sales, that’s for sure, as the London art world is in pretty bad shape here. Anyway, I suspect it’s something more interesting and remote than that—some kind of small desert shack between Bravery and Self-Soothing." – Peter Bach (@lyst.bsky.social)

I’ve studied the artist’s attention to detail for years. It has compelled me to look at things more closely than I suspect I would have done otherwise. To consider her eyesight in jeopardy was the mother of all distractions. www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/23/t...

Between Myth and Muzzle: Peter Bach, @lyst.bsky.social, on the erosion of traditional press freedom — and respect — in the US and UK. [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social] www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/07/b...

It’s easy enough to picture how a man in Kushner’s position might profit from peace. www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/13/t...

“You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson sneered in A Few Good Men. www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/07/b...

Evening, waxing gibbous.

Part 2 of a short on the unions in the UK: youtu.be/KjNRtHuof_g

“…algorithms flatten cinema into ‘content’. True cinema—eccentric, lilting, awkwardly human—seems to be gasping under this weight. But in that room, it felt immortal.” - Peter Bach, @lyst.bsky.social [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

Europe’s economy—mocked regularly by bullish Americans—is nine times larger than Russia’s. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/26/t...

“Orwell’s paradox lingers: for those in power, war can masquerade as peace. For those who endure it, war is only war — and peace remains out of reach.” - Peter Bach (@lyst.bsky.social) via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/24/t...

“All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal,” raged John Steinbeck. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/24/t...

The masque, then, ran its course. Windsor for pageantry, Chequers for diplomacy, London for protest, the City for contracts. A still-fizzing circuit is complete. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/19/k...

“The Ghanaian poet Awoonor once wrote, ‘What has been broken shall be woven, / the house shall stand, the feast shall be eaten.’…It is written for Ghanaians as if the words themselves a promise.” - Peter Bach @lyst.bsky.social [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

Ships queued patiently in 1992, their silhouettes more Conrad than Spearman, more Amma Darko than pulp fiction. One afternoon I saw Rawlings’ Lear jet against the blue sky. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/10/g...

Much to the relief of everyone, I am sure, I’ve been refraining of late from posting my articles here. This one, however, I will. It is something for the cineaste. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/01/a...

“Industry killers and demon disguises I see the hierarchies and I recognise it…” www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/22/u...

“To understand who speaks for the working class now requires understanding who was once silenced — and how.” - Peter Bach (@lyst.bsky.social)

At the root of this turbulence lies a more foundational question. New piece in UnHerd: unherd.com/2025/07/brit...

What’s urgently needed in Sudan are ceasefires and protected corridors. Civilians and aid must be shielded under international supervision. Humanitarian missions need protection. Assaults on aid convoys should be treated as war crimes. www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/17/s...

Across continents, cricket has been a stage for protest, resistance, and pride—a tool of exclusion, and later, of course, unity. In much of the postcolonial world, it’s not just a sport: it’s memory, defiance, identity. www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/10/w...

This story keeps giving—which is why we keep returning. In the end, this isn’t just about postmen or parcels. It’s about what a country lets go of, and who’s left holding the letter when no one’s left to deliver it. www.counterpunch.org/2025/07/03/t...

How I enjoyed visiting the now late great Sandy Gall at the ITN building and drinking whisky with him before he went on air and I would eventually go to Afghanistan. My condolences to his family.

“Every strike echoes—in neo-natal wards without power, in schools flattened by miscalculation, in aforementioned breadlines turned bloodbaths. The language of ‘proportionality’ and ‘deterrence’ cannot translate the sound of a child calling for their dead.” - Peter Bach, @lyst.bsky.social

To understand this escalation, we have to return to 1953—the year the British and the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s elected government and install the Shah. www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/26/t...

In an age where economic insecurity trumps—forgive the pun—ideology, Farage sees an opening. He’s long mastered grievance politics and now bets that worker dissatisfaction could further fuel his irrefutable rise. www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/19/r...