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.

Pritzker: To the members of the press who are assembled here today and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story.

This is just getting ridiculous. Nothing that has happened (or is reported below the headline to have happened) this weekend remotely justifies talk of an explosion or mass protests. The media are confecting a crisis, and, in some sections of it, hoping to provoke one. 1/3

It is clearly the case that asylum protests were smaller this weekend than the small over-hyped protests on August 8th, and smaller than in the second half of July. No broadcast outlet has accurately conveyed that + asked why: they have explicitly stated and inferred growing protests

A politician allying with the flags movement is cheerleading this: 'shirtless men paint red crosses on the white walls of flats above a row of shops in Basildon, Essex ... racial slurs are heard being shouted as a woman wearing a head scarf walks past with a child' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

we used to build household shrines to Going On The Computer and it's no coincidence that as we abandoned these we started straying further from god's light

Kingdom Come wasn't Ballard's best novel but I feel like it was his most directly prescient

Not enjoying the LinkedInification of journalism. Oh for a time when self-aggrandisement was an editorial turnoff!

People calling for a DOGE campaign here seem always to forget we’ve already had one. It was named the Coalition government 2010-2015.

Sometimes I come to from digital revery and think: wow, this is actually the president of the united states!

Told you so

Think this is the major takeaway, tbh.

In France in 2014 they did a fake weather report to show what a normal summer would look like in 2050. It came back often in conversation recently.

Capitalist Vigilantism www.theguardian.com/business/202...

As asylum seekers are engulfed by slurs and lies, our leaders shrug. Truly, this is shameful | Frances Ryan

'It was clear to him that something in the organisation was badly wrong – but he did not suspect that he would soon be in fear of his life.' Riveting/depressing long read about a whistleblower's fight against MoD corruption in Saudi Arabia - by David Pegg www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Reposting this from LinkedIn news.sky.com/story/if-the...

Lovely piece on Adam Buxton, and the empathy of his broadcasting style. “I grew up in a house with parents who I didn’t agree with politically, but that didn’t stop me loving them. The problem now is that people are very prepared to think the worst of anyone." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Discovered today that not everyone considers this nine year old viral tweet a seminal text in the field of social media studies but I do

Great read on Starmer's confusing trajectory by @trillingual.bsky.social. A standout snippet among many: 'He eschews ideology – “there’s no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be. I will make decisions one after the other,” Starmer reportedly told colleagues while leader of the opposition'

The Starmer Spesh: almost doing the right thing, but caveating it into oblivion, managing to displease all sides

Trump’s Caddie magically drops a ball for him not in the deep stuff ⛳️

A thoughtful read on the rise in cremations where friends and family aren't present by @timburrows.bsky.social, part of a shifting relationship with death ritual that includes, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the work of @wayswithweirds.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...