The utter lack of reason and logic as well as any political judgement will be Labour's undoing as it keeps chasing Reform's tail and demonizing black and brown immigrants with its own version of thinly veiled racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. As if its own version is somehow morally superior.

In 2023/24, UK govt gave £78.2bn tax relief on pension contributions. 32% benefitted 29.2m basic rate (20%) taxpayers. 68% went to higher and additional rate (40% and 45%) tax payers. Equalizing tax relief at 20% to all, leaves govt £14.5bn spare to alleviate poverty.

The status of academic freedom in the world's largest democracy. Courtesy: @scholarsatrisk.bsky.social More details here: www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/fr...

Well done, Nadia Whittome. It is shameful that words that one would once expected to hear directed at a Tory Home Secretary are now being directed at a Labour Home Secretary.

thewire.in/world/magas-... - two figures stand out as unlikely architects of a new Right Wing Order: Charlie Kirk and Michael Anton @martindbbrown.bsky.social @msenn.bsky.social @mjbayly.bsky.social @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social @cmcknichols.bsky.social @charleskeener.bsky.social @thenation.com

New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009

on the topic of dick cheney, one thing i’ve always said is that you shouldn’t kill a million people

Trump's America, 2025.

Why I remain hopeful. Even as the older, wealthy Tories are moving enmasse to Reform, the young people are rejecting it outright.

what else would we expect the Financial Times to say? keep making the case for workers to be taxed more because the wealthy apparently do not take dividends or hoard up assets but only invest in the future.

I wrote about the history of business schools in India: message me if you would like to read and cannot access a copy: journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/... #management #India #B-school #history

Easier option was to ban firecrackers, or community firecrackers like the rest of the world, but the Sanatanis were offended that they weren't being allowed to celebrate Diwali; so we have gimmicks like this: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o... Except there are no rain clouds in Delhi winters.

Read some of the comments arguing it isn't antisemitism because unlike Aston Villa a particular religious/ethnic group isn't being singled out - except in that case too, football hooligans were singled out not a particular religious/ethnic group.

This is why I am proud of my MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Elites who run the world.

The paintings of Gazan Ahmed Muhanna, seen today on their last day in Copenhagen. Expediency drove Ahmed to use flattened cardboard boxes from World Food Program aid packages. Necessity proved to be a brilliant mother of invention.

What happens when there is no internet and what it takes to put it back on. www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

I mean yes this is funny, but the fact that these unconstitutional stormtroopers are so directionless that they literally stand around waiting for random nonwhite delivery guys to bike past them is just pathetic. No mandate, no mission, no clue. Just racism.

I was never really a fan of T20 anyway (it isn't cricket at all), but more importantly this is why I don't like to follow cricket anymore.

Big Oil has no problem funding people who say the Civil Rights Act was "huge mistake” or that Ketanji Brown Jackson was "a diversity hire" or that trans people are responsible for inflation. As long as “climate change is fake” is part of it, they don’t care about the rest.

What we knew all the flag waving all summer was going to lead to: nine year old girl shot at with an airgun in a racially aggravated assault. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... Come on, Yvette, tells us how you love your flags and buntings and tea cozies.

Yes, this. Lamp-posts in York now have flags which the council has refused to take down. It is much less about patriotism but more about the far-right declaring war, and Labour are refusing to speak up and do something about it.

It isn't very hard, is it?

Yes Yvette, what changed?

“…there is no way to advance this project without violating international law.”

The deepening inequality and the accumulation of wealth by a tiny percentage of the country's population comes together in this sharp song about the rich and the poor.

Life in ruins

The sea always provides some respite.

Now the climate change cannot be denied any longer; evidence of it is being erased altogether by the Trump administration. grist.org/language/tru... #climatechange

Shame on Starmer for removing the Labour whip from my MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell.

Yes! Many years ago, a senior scholar said the only critique they had of my doctoral thesis was that it was like I had taken a gun to shoot em- and en-dashes across the page. Not incorrectly placed, but just far too many of them!

Free free Palestine. 🍉🍉🍉

One of my favourite lines by Faiz says: sab taaj uchchale jaynege sab takht giraaye jaayenge. all crowns be tossed all thrones will be toppled

My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@[email protected], Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) have a new piece out: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/06/amer.... In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017. 🧵

DOGE's success is less in terms of what it set it out to do (cut supposed waste which didn't exist) & did/not achieve; but how it provided the framework and tools which are now deployed to harass everyone. It was about rooting out dissent. From Don Mohnihan is revealing on how RW ecosystem works.

The barbarity of Israeli settler colonialism has no limits whatsoever.

Funny but also so true.

Paid job for a budding activist as the administrator for our Glasgow UCU branch. You will have to work with me, alas, but union organizing is a great place to learn practical skills that you need for many kinds of social and political activism. Deadline June 5th.

This is good from Marina Hyde: "He arrived in Trump’s orbit as a somewhat mysterious man, widely regarded as a tech genius, and a titan of the age." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

While it is nice and right that universities outside the US are now offering doctoral and post-doc positions to students at elite Ivy League universities, not many came forward when universities in Gaza were bombed and its faculty and students killed. #Gaza #Palestine #ceasefire

Prabhat's excellent poem Broom 2:

It was a real pleasure to work on this, alongside co-editors @edgranter.bsky.social, ‪@odulbozkurt.bsky.social, Rachael Finn, Carolyn Hunter, @ninakivinen.bsky.social, @draykay.bsky.social and Brian Wierman. Also a great experience working with @elgarpublishing.bsky.social

Can someone please tell Starmer & co, instead of fighting Reform on its turf, it should focus on a progressive agenda: fighting climate change, women and trans rights, taxing rich to pay for welfare, not gutting it -- works. From @casmudde.bsky.social

If you still think there is a different political project going on here with Starmer, Reeves, and Cooper - think again.

And shame on The Guardian trying to pass it off as unintentional or at least unconscious. Really! Starmer's speech writers and he himself didn't know of Powell's speech.

The corporatization of social care relies on cheap, overseas workers employed on low wages and working in difficult conditions. Instead of fixing the system, Cooper is bent on becoming Reform-lite.

Instead of making the case for migration by outlining the value they add to the UK economy: as students, workers, professionals, etc. Cooper thinks it can compete with Reform by pandering to it, meanwhile Labour keeps alienating its voters away.

This is an excellent, global overview of populism, both in terms of not despairing about its scale but also understanding the role of elites in the making of the present. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

And maybe ask your libraries to buy a copy.