The big tech companies are reversing the intellectual and political gains of the Enlightenment and returning us to a New Dark Ages of ignorance, rage and superstition - it's the most important story of our time jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

Farage’s ally, taking bribes from Russia

1/11 Why is Elon Musk pushing for civil war in the US and Europe? This thread breaks down how Musk is using his platform, wealth, and influence to amplify far-right movements, incite political violence, and undermine democracy—across continents

Good post; excellent debate in the comments

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

On the same day in the Telegraph:

Shocked by this, both by the AA’s lack of care and measly £150 compensation and the Guardian seemingly thinking £150 compensation is good enough. For a car effectively stolen and trashed for six months www.theguardian.com/money/2025/a...

Norway’s $1.9 trillion sovereign wealth fund has divested from 11 Israeli companies and is terminating all contracts with external managers in Israel following public outcry over its investments linked to the war in Gaza. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

While women attack female celebrities online, the patriarchy marches on. 🍿 Faye Curran: How Pamela Anderson broke modern feminism

Historical case, but barely so. We still don’t take violence against women and girls seriously #misogyny

“At the start of 1933, Germany was a liberal democracy with a president, a parliament including an upper and lower house, an independent judiciary and all the inbuilt checks and balances of a functioning democracy. By July of that year, it was a dictatorship”

UK opinion on Gaza war (YouGov, July 2025) 18% support Israel’s actions in Gaza, 55% oppose 81% of those who oppose say it’s a genocide Large margins in favour of: - trade embargoes (48% to 20%) - financial sanctions on individuals (52% to 19%) - suspending arms exports to Israel (57% to 18%)

The UK state pension, worst in the world.

This quote also bizaarly suggests the being in the ECHR ‘shackles our prosperity’

Fascist Fashion .... #PlanetTaco 🌮

This really is not getting the attention it should. The Tories' latest proposal is to exclude *any household that includes any foreign national from any benefit*. And when asked about it, they keep citing small boat crossings - a minute fraction of migration - to justify it. ~AA

ok, somebody needs to rank the top 10 Great British Grifts of, say, the past 20 years.

Just received news that 27 people have been arrested in Parliament Square under the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding signs saying "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action". This is real police state behaviour.

✊ On this day in 1928, the Representation of the People Act became law — giving women electoral equality with men. Every woman over 21 could now vote, no longer judged by property or marital status.

Susan Hall, the 2024 Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined Rupert Lowe's movement, which promises: • Deport 2m people • Push for foreign nationals who speak poor English or "fail to integrate" to "go home" • "Restore Christian principles • "Carpet-bomb the cancer of wokery" • Death penalty

Genuinely astonished how godawful this Labour Government is. Also saddened and angry. They could have done this so differently, and competently, to diminish support for Reform. Instead they’re feeding it

1. Starmer was warned and warned that his benefits cuts were not just cruel and unfair, but a political disaster. He dismissed the warnings, even this week, as no more than "noises off". Now, as the disaster materialises, he's desperately backtracking. Here's an idea: how about listening? 🧵

Brexit ‘project fear’ prediction of £40 billion a year loss of tax income are pretty accurate, says economist with European research org bit.ly/3TCRPe8

Netanyahu has spent the better part of two decades trying to strong arm the United States into an unprovoked war against Iran and finally found a president stupid enough to do it for him. Unbelievable.

If that’s true, the same is true for Katz or Netanyahu after so many hospital strikes in Gaza

Is it true? Something weird happened. Trump's reaction to winning was...well...weird. Muted. Lacking in the usual hours of bluster. I know nothing of the tech issues here. Maybe others do..?

We do not need new roads; we need better transport options. Think of what could be done with £9.2bn, which is to be spent on just 14 miles of road! It could transform bus services and/or cycling and pedestrian infrastructure across Britain. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I will always, always hold @dieworkwear.bsky.social in higher esteem than the greedy ghouls destroying America from the White House

Wild story: a quality manager who warned about the shoddy construction of Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes was particularly concerned about the ones sent to Air India in 2014. That's when the Air India jet that crashed today was sent. prospect.org/economy/2025...

I’ve always preferred using Firefox to chrome 🙂 @mozilla.org

🧵 Several people have raised questions about what I meant by "deservedly so" when referring to the decline of institutional trust. It's a fair question, so I want to explain that, because it sits at the heart of my work on how democracies collapse when their epistemic foundations rot.

Its time for change in Jobcentres, but how do we do it? My new paper proposes a vision for Jobcentre reform. The central idea is to introduce case workers, who would be service users’ main point of contact and offer ongoing pastoral and practical support 🧵 www.citizensadvice.org.uk/policy/publi...

Putin is pure evil.

I failed to post this last week, but it’s one of the best op-eds you’ll read all year. Two politicians with *wildly* different orientations but a common thread of belief in the nature of citizenship and nationality. (They’re also 100% right obvs.) on.ft.com/3GS1rPl

Let's talk about these two department store owners: brother and sister Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld. From Newark, New Jersey. They are random people, basically. But in the late 1920s, with fascism taking over Europe, they made a choice that profoundly changed the world: 🧵

Starmer's language was deplorable. It was grotesquely offensive, accusing people who have brought their gifts to this country of doing "incalculable" "damage"; & politically foolish, in endorsing Farage's claims of an establishment conspiracy. But bad analogies with Powell miss the key problem. 🧵

Ashamed of Starmer channeling Enoch Powell with ‘island of strangers’ but then I am probably a ‘citizen of nowhere’

This is like reading one of those horrific VAW miscarriages of justice from 30 years ago www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Unworkable? Definitely. Bigoted? No. Years have been wasted on chanting TWAW, not thinking of non-gendered facilities

'Sadly, a significant contribution to the prevention of sensible, two-way discussion of this sensitive issue was Stonewall’s 2015 decision to adopt an approach of “no debate” – online, on public platforms and in the broadcast media.' 💯🎯💯 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Thinking of this again, given shrill responses to the Supreme Court judgement last week. So many people whose values I usually agree with have such a blind spot.

Bertrand Russell on Fascism - “first they fascinate the fools - then they muzzle the intelligent” ….

This: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

57% of Britons would rather have the EU as a close trading partner than the US, amid suggestion that closer alignment with Europe could endanger a trade deal with the US EU: 57% (+4 from 21 Jan) US: 16% (-5) yougov.co.uk/topics/econo...

🧵 Let's talk about hunger in the UK. Parents are skipping meals so their kids can eat. People are frightened about rising energy bills. We've even heard from people who are surviving on sugary tea for days because they don't have enough money for food. This isn't right.

This. Absolutely this.