"Even if Trump declares unilateral victory in the Gulf, Iran would still have more influence than him over US inflation. Iran's regime has stumbled on a weapon that can induce Taco." Me on Trump's declining fortunes at home & abroad. as.ft.com/r/c336f5ca-a...

My today's Substack: Yuri Andropov: A man who could have become another Deng Xiaoping...or not A review of Zhores Medvedev’s “Andropov” branko2f7.substack.com/p/yuri-andro...

I just signed a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social petition: THE MEMBERS' CHARTER. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/th...

Edward Luce, FT: "At this point, were Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for being allowed to develop nuclear weapons, nobody could be sure Trump would turn it down. If Iran made him the inaugural winner of the Cyrus the Great peace prize, those odds would improve."

NEW | Hmm… I wonder what inspired this young person to write such a vehement anti-NHS column… THE TELEGRAPH SCHOOL FOR JUNIOR CONTRARIANS Listen carefully and you'll hear a new set of controversialist columnists starting to hatch. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-telegr...

new article out! The Redemption of Saint Max: Stirner's Critique of Marx In: Marx and the Critique of Humanism. ed. Andres Saenz de Sicilia (Bloomsbury, 2026) philarchive.org/rec/BLUTRO-13

British Journalist UNCOVERS Israel's BIGGEST LIE

An excellent article on how the blockade of the Gulf States affects not just oil and gas, but the products that they now produce from the industries based upon them, like plastics and fertilizer going primarily to East Asia.

“In the meantime, brutal disappointment is our fate, as so much writing garlanded with praise upon publication stands revealed as shockingly feeble, even venal, confirming that our time had been darkening for decades before Donald Trump took power.” — Pankaj Mishra harpers.org/archive/2026...

NEW | On a predictable preemptive shoeing… THE BBC’S NEW DIRECTOR GENERAL IS ALREADY UNDER FIRE AND HE HASN’T EVEN BEEN OFFICIALLY APPOINTED Former Google exec Matt Brittin has riled up The Times and Daily Telegraph before he's even done anything. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-bbcs-n...

NEW | On the latest chapter of the same old story… THE NICK TIMOTHY TRAP It's the same strategy every time: Make a provocative (and racist) statement, trigger a 'debate', and push the discourse further to the far right. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-nick-t...

How Trump DESTROYED World Economy for Israel’s Iran War

The Second Death of Jürgen Habermas open.substack.com/pub/redmole/...

The media is gaslighting the public on Starmer and Iran - The media present Starmer as staying out of Trump’s war — but we’re already deeply involved in a conflict that sees the US and Israel kill civilians on a huge scale, argues IAN SINCLAIR morningstaronline.co.uk/article/medi...

"They may once, two decades ago, have been useful to a violently adventurist, rightist administration going to war – but no more. The right no longer caters to, nor needs, its liberal outriders. They hang on out of habit." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

NEW | On not making it easy for your opponents… GAIL’S, THE GUARDIAN, AND A PROXY WAR IN THE PRESS A clumsy column about north London bakeries and the Israel-Gaza war has made it easy for the paper's critics. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/gails-the-...

War in Iran, chaos in the Gulf, repression in the west: and the thread that binds them all is Palestine | Nesrine Malik #palestine #theguardian

A wonderful and explosive short essay.

Civilians slaughtered, nations destroyed, oil fields ablaze: ‘This is the price the region is paying for one man’s ego, another man’s messianic vision, and the impotence of a Europe that just stands by and watches.’

While obviously killing all the little girls is worse, I'm pretty infuriated by this, too: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/w...

NEW | A rare positive edition of the newsletter… IN PRAISE OF JEREMY BOWEN His Today programme monologue on Trump, war in Iran, and the history of the Middle East was exactly how the BBC should be reporting on the world. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/in-praise-...

The war that began on February 28 can realistically be deemed to be the formal opening of World War III because what is at issue are the terms on which the entire world will be able to buy oil and gas.

Two veteran journalists made a documentary about Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals, but the BBC later refused to air it. This week on Reveal, we team up with @kcrw.com to investigate why and what it says about the future of journalism:

NEW | THE DARK HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH’S NEW OWNER Analysis in the British press focuses on Axel Springer's attitude to Brexit but a closer look suggests its worldview is just Right for the Telegraph's existing editorial approach brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-dark-h...

‘The Islamic Republic is likely to emerge transformed or weakened in ways not yet visible. But the notion that it would simply dissolve under pressure was always fanciful.’ Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi on the US’s war on Iran, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

The Grounds of Planning PART II: @abenanav.bsky.social on Utopia, Socialism, and Rationality criticaltheoryinberlin.de/podcast/podc...

In the 19thC Engels described the suffering of the working class for which the bourgeoisie was responsible as social murder. The austerity policies of recent times are a continuation of the same responsibility. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The profitability of pharmaceutical companies supported by the US government is attempting to take priority over the health needs of UK citizens.

NEW | ‘The Green Menace': The Daily Mail's newest scary stories for Middle England Ahead of the Gorton and Denton by-election, the paper's working hard to cast the Green Party as mad, bad, and dangerous to know. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-green-...

NEW | A look at how newspapers polish Donald Trump’s babbling as he makes the case for his latest war… US WAR ON IRAN: A TALE OF TWO TRUMP INTERVIEWS brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/us-war-on-...

1/. The C4 documentary series Dirty Business (www.channel4.com/programmes/d...) is an example, although and extreme one because water is a monopoly; of the suffering caused by the privatization of public functions; and the excessive faith in markets as a solution to social failures.

There's now a UK parliament petition to sign too... #DirtyWater #DirtyBusiness petition.parliament.uk/petitions/75...

Wrote up the by-election, the Green victory and the conferences for Labour at the @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

This is so good

I’m pretty sure this is an AI-generated news story about my newsletter saying I’ll never use AI to write it. nationaltoday.com/us/oh/clevel...

“This is not normal politics. It is democratic decay unfolding in real time.” I’ve written for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social about the Josh Simons / Labour Together scandal, and what it tells us about the degeneration of British democracy. tribunemag.co.uk/2026/02/smea...

Excellent piece by @sarahoconnorft.ft.com. TBH, Covid should have done much to cure us of this when we learnt how much we all depend on people whose very real skills are stigmatized as lesser

NEW | Oh, so *now* dirty tricks are bad… BEFORE LABOUR TOGETHER TRIED TO SMEAR SUNDAY TIMES JOURNALISTS, IT WAS A VITAL SOURCE FOR THEM The real problem is that the Starmtroopers turned their dirty tricks on Murdoch's men. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/before-lab...

NEW | On Wes Streeting’s late-in-the-day denunciation of Mandelson… WES STREETING’S MARIAH CAREY METHOD Just how stupid does the cabinet minister think we are as he denies the extent of his relationship with Peter Mandelson? Very. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/wes-street...

"The recent emphasis on Keir Starmer's "decency" might appear odd even if you only had a passing acquaintance with his track record of duplicity and spite, not to mention his readiness to sack others to save his own skin." More ... fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2026/02/this...

A review of Christoph Schuringa's A Social History of Analytic Philosophy marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/2251...

THIS is why Ghislaine Maxwell refused to testify

An excellent and accurate portrayal.

I just signed a petition on Your Party's Members' Oversight Committee: transparency and accountability, not secret oversight. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/me...

‘Peter Mandelson is a case study for the way the Westminster ecosystem protects its own. Protecting the system, and the powerful men who feel entitled to benefit from it, matters more than protecting the people it harms.’ New from @judeinlondon.com: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...