Knighthood for Geoff Barrow

Any journalists interesting in covering/following can DM here or contact me at pdkmitchell at gmail dot com. The most recent BBC and ITV coverage is here (CW: violence, femicide, suicide): www.bbc.com/news/article... www.itv.com/news/tyne-te...

I'm in Nairobi this week for the opening of the inquest into my sister Kate's death here, almost four years ago, which is still very much unsolved. The case has been beset by obstructions and evasions; it's taken us a long time to get this far and there may be more to come.

"The problem isn’t that we have a deliberately biased BBC, it’s that we have a BBC that has been consciously reduced in its scope and bullied into dumbing down and retreating." @stephenkb.bsky.social's newsletter today

For as many years as anyone been counting two or more inmates been mistakenly released from British prisons most weeks. Record does not make it acceptable. System needs to be fixed. It does leave me asking why BBC now gripped by end-of-civilisation hysteria heard on Radio 4 Today programme.

New Labour leader's first day in office next summer after spending all of May and June channeling Zohran Mamdani:

Faschismus

When has such a baldly factual statement felt so thrilling?

So much of Labour’s comms is just weird and confusing at this point. Surely it’s really, really easy to decide to offer congratulations/support to a wildly popular left-wing candidate who has just pulled off a historic electoral victory

Notable in today's YouGov that the centre/left bloc - Lab/Green/LD/SNP are on 54%. With Reform/Tories on 43%. That's the biggest differential in a long time. I think useful to track blocs given instability between parties at the moment.

Coming Soon: Tom Skinner says "a-BOSH" to Nigel

My latest working theory about the fact Starmer *simply can never look directly at the camera* is it is a hangover from his much-reported obsessive infatuation with 1980s post-punk bands such as Orange Juice

It is way past time for the UK government & the BBC to get off X & for Musk to be treated as a threat to national security. The world's richest man is using his site to promote civil war, ethnic violence & the overthrow of an elected government. You won't win him over with another conference on AI

“Physically, you’re bigger: your shape has changed. But the space is the same. The memories are the same.” I Interviewed Dev Hynes about moving back to Ilford when his mum got sick & how it inspired the incredible album Essex Honey www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

“Physically, you’re bigger: your shape has changed. But the space is the same. The memories are the same.” I Interviewed Dev Hynes about moving back to Ilford when his mum got sick & how it inspired the incredible album Essex Honey www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘The normalisation effect’ German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas - study www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

How has the government got itself into the position of standing up for Israeli football hooligans, while criminalising peaceful supporters of Palestine Action?

The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

Our Terry Waite

This *ought* to be massive news, I found Corbyn's views on Russia deeply iffy but not to the extent of treachery and he was absolutely hounded by the media over it, I suspect this top pal of Farage being in Putin's pocket will be roundly ignored, however.

Netanyahu: "Would a country committing genocide plead with the civilian population that it is supposedly targeting to get out of harms way? Did the Nazis ask the Jews to leave? Of course not" Actually, encouraging Jews to emigrate is exactly what the Nazis did 1933-39. Ignorant of Jewish history.

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Imagine being these world leaders and experienced diplomats and just having to sit there and listen to this maniac talking absolute dangerous bollocks for hours. It’s sometimes hard to believe this is real life.

spokesperson for Sadiq Khan: “We are not going to dignify his appalling and bigoted comments with a response. “London is the greatest city in the world, safer than major US cities, and we’re delighted to welcome the record number of US citizens moving here.”

Excited to announce the first London screening of We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher, a film I have been helping with this past year. I'm in conversation with Andy Beckett (who features in the fim) afterwards. 30 October, Good Shepherd Studios, Leytonstone: www.tickettailor.com/events/weflo...

This is a wonderful *Proustian* thread about everyone's fave humanist hymn – and the news that "Autumn Days" was once cancelled is just so very fun

“Since President Trump took office, 15 people have died in immigration detention, 10 of those deaths occurred between January and June … The senators say that is the highest rate in the first six months of any year publicly available.”

Excited to announce the first London screening of We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher, a film I have been helping with this past year. I'm in conversation with Andy Beckett (who features in the fim) afterwards. 30 October, Good Shepherd Studios, Leytonstone: www.tickettailor.com/events/weflo...

Momentous news that will reverberate far beyond Egypt: A presidential pardon for Alaa Abd el-Fattah. His family worked for years for this moment: His mother went on a hunger strike that very nearly killed her to secure her son's freedom. His sister camped outside the British foreign office.

I heard you fight fascism by simply saying: 'Sir! Your deportation numbers! They simply do not stack up!'

Just to illustrate how much worse it's got, I have received more abuse over the past year and a bit - including death threats and a large volume of antisemitism - for what I write than in the previous 15 years of covering migration and the far right put together.

It's like someone tried to do Gilbert and George with AI

100% pure Gove commission

Of all the former Tory ministers I'd have had down as a Weimar fantasist, it would have been Gove tbf

I'm old enough to remember US libertarians condemning the UK for much less than what he is now proposing. It was six months ago!

I agree with @sundersays.bsky.social et al that economic conditions don't 'create' racist movements - but a longterm downturn in salary (& rising property costs and resulting degradation of local infrastructure/architecture) set the conditions of 'ressentiment' on which Robinson & Farage thrive

I feel like more people need to be educated on the effects of cocaine on a person's face

Watched this last night on Luke's recommendation and it was a great example of how to do a doc on a serious topic aimed at a youth audience that isn't dumbed-down.

This, from The Londoner yesterday, also features people on the march who claim not to be racists. Though the things they say prove otherwise

Written by a doctor at St Thomas' Hospital, London after the Tommy Robinson march on 13/9.

The Economist on BBC dumbing down: Newscast issues a “geek alert” before interviewing such apparently recherché figures as trade experts. In Our Time, by contrast, unapologetically offered an entire episode on David Ricardo, a 19th-century economist...

The Labour party's ridiculous attempt to lick the arse of its enemies is responsible for all this. Out of their depth even as second-raters, and as committed as the Tories to Get In At All Costs Then Don't Know What To Do politics.

Had a few conversations recently that make me think, for the first time in ages, there are some exciting things happening in media. This is one of the highlights: Equator, a new magazine set up by Nesrine Malik, Pankaj Mishra, Jonathan Shainin and others. Sign up for info here: www.equator.org

If the UK government doesn’t respond strongly to this, then the consequences will be grave.

There is a serious failure in UK govt, politics & media to take sufficiently seriously what Musk said & meant with "fight back or die" = Violence (interethnic civil war) is inevitable so pre-emptive violence - vs migrants, minorities & political opponents - is necessary to avoid existential erasure

Infidels MC was set up by US military veterans of the Iraq war in 2006 and members see themselves as modern Crusaders... "Putting the Infidels biker club in charge of delivering humanitarian aid in Gaza is like putting the KKK in charge of delivering humanitarian aid in Sudan"

From this week’s Beano.