"Having silenced most institutional dissent within his first nine months, what could Trump accomplish in the next fourteen?" My column. www.ft.com/content/a284...

We said this was your party — and we meant it. We have just launched our membership. Join us and be a part of history: yourparty-membership.uk

NEW | on banging on about WW2 and making up news… BOBBY JENRICK VS. BERTOLT BRECHT Robert Jenrick and The Daily Telegraph are banging on about history teaching but their memories don't stretch as far as 2013. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/bobby-jenr...

I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

My Weekend FT big read. www.ft.com/content/f5df...

Through Israel and the ideology of Zionism, western elites reinvented their ugly, racist system of control and sold it as a ‘moral’ cause. Now the game is up. My latest here: www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza...

NEW | a look at how a ‘new’ think-tank got coverage… THE BBC, THE NHS, AND A ‘NEW’ THINK-TANK A case study in how vested interests rebrand themselves as "think-tanks". brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-bbc-th...

This piece is now free to read. @kmilb.bsky.social, @bertrussell.bsky.social and I argue that popular power and social property - rather than merely nationalisation - are important goals for working class struggles today. tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/the-...

"... Labour's defences against Polanski's eco-populism are so many chocolate fireguards. The Greens stand on the threshold of an historic opportunity, and every sign points towards their readiness to capitalise on it."

The wild thing is that McSweeney spent months and years explaining the plan was to fuck off the left, ignore the libs and build a crushing electoral bloc of Sensible Moderates and Reasonable Tories. And it was *instantly* clear the day after the election that this had not worked, nor would it ever.

managing collapse aeon.co/essays/the-g...

Four of Britain's six steel companies now need government support to stay in business. That's the 'superior efficiency of the private sector' for you.

Funnily enough, I've never seen a Daily Mail front page expressing outrage at the number of homes owned by Lord Rothermere

The Rolling Stones have toured the US just 15 times in their entire seven-decade career. Nigel Farage has been there ten times in the last year alone.

Britain has been multicultural for the last 2000 years. That's why we have the Roman alphabet, a Middle East religion, Arabic numerals, a Syrian patron saint, an aristocracy with French ancestry and a German royal family.

The people screwing you over arrive in Britain in private jets. Not small boats.

There's one thing that unites Lucy Connolly, Michelle Mone and Ghislaine Maxwell. It's the shared conviction that they've done nothing wrong.

The truth about 'excessive welfare spending ' is that half the budget goes on in-work benefits, subsidising employers who refuse to pay workers enough to live on. Time for a minimum wage of at least £15 an hour.

There's probably a reason why neither Murdoch nor Rothermere papers call out excessive billionaire influence in democratic politics, but I just can't think of it right now

Like Robert Jenrick, I'm concerned about my daughter having to live near sex offenders. Hopefully she'll be able to move out of Windsor soon enough.

Melvyn Bragg has decided to stand down as host of In Our Time, the BBC says.

This is gruelling, but really important. www.doubledown.news/watch/2025/s...

Where should the new Left Party draw its strength from? Owen Brown argues that community unionism can serve as a working-class base. prometheusjournal.org/2025/09/02/d...

spectrejournal.com/the-price-of... Hey y'all! This week we have Jordan Daniels reviewing @alybatt.bsky.social's Free Gifts ( @princetonupress.bsky.social ). Read the review! Read the book!

'Four other women': Has Netanyahu made slip-up in case against Karim Khan? - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/netanyahu-karim-khan-allegations-four-women-icc

Drawing on the likes of Leah Downey, Arjun Jayadev, Leon Wansleben & @geoffmann.bsky.social, I have a new piece in @nybooks.com on money, power, and central banking.

New blogpost: A Taxing Issue - "The obvious solutions to the Chancellor's problem are a land value tax and the extension of income tax to all unearned income, e.g. capital gains, dividends and inheritance. ... Neither has any chance of being adopted". fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2025/08/a-ta...

This is a delightful essay that subverts common historical assumptions on the rise and fall of 'civilisation'.

How western media helped turn Israel's genocide into 'fake news'. Read my latest article here: www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-...

When the dominant imperial power decides to play mafia politics then some states are successfully able to reject the tactic of 'make me an offer I can't refuse'.

The costs and benefits of a 4 day week for society.

But let’s look at all the good stuff British civil society has done since 1979, by which I mean: all of the social liberalism which the government and press are now actively and very aggressively repealing, for no good reason

Interesting, in that it involves the rediscovery or recreation of ancient skills and techniques which might come in useful if the worst comes to the worst.

NEW | On the laundering of some far-right branding… Despite what the papers say, 'Operation Raise the Colours' is far from organic Newspapers and broadcasters are playing dumb about the latest 'patriotic' movement. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/despite-wh...

A German constitutional court has declared that is constitutional to interpret the world but not to change it. harici.com.tr/en/german-co...

This is a decent review essay and I'm glad Plass is writing a companion overview essay on recent work on Marx's concept of freedom, but the pedant in me has to take issue with the way he frames it www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is a wonderful podcast that is effectively an introduction to early critical theory or the Frankfurt School.

As Frances Ryan says, this is a race to the bottom, and the only winners will be Jenrick and Farage

The BBC helped kill Anas al-Sharif. Its reporting will kill more journalists. Read my latest here: jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-bbc-he...

Right wing coup. Dissent must be suppressed. The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021: Govt can authorise agents to commit murder, torture, rape and phone-tapping with complete immunity because it is “in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom”.

The cultural memory of the Second World War has long been used to serve the interests of British conservatism. But now that the long post-war compact is over, has its meaning evaporated completely?

This is how the Sensible Moderates have always spoken about what Israel is, and what it has been doing all these years. “Israel is wrong-headed and harming itself”: comforting, helpful. “Its leaders are priming the populace to Do What Must Be Done”: very awkward indeed, suggests action is required.

It's a good job that Loyalists marching the streets of Belfast brandishing Ulster Volunteer Force flags don't carry Palestine Action placards, or people might think they were terrorist sympathisers

Holding a placard is not terrorism

The NHS, pensions and benefits are all routinely described as 'unsustainable'. But somehow that adjective is never applied to arms spending or bank bailouts.

The more depraved Israel’s actions, the more antisemitic it is to point out the truth. The painful reality is that, through Israel, the West can dress up boilerplate colonialism as a 'Jewish' project. Read my latest here: jonathancook.substack.com/p/how-the-bl...

This is an excellent article on the connections between opinion, media and social fact.

This is a great summary of the failings of public policy in the neo-liberal era.

"Organizations that employ Allison Pearson and Melanie Phillips probably aren't in the reality and rationality business at all. ... Media studies is a useful discipline." stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...