Roger Casement: “A nation is a very complex thing. It never does consist; it never has consisted solely of men of one blood or one single race – it is like a river, rising in the hills with many sources, many converging streams, that become one great stream.” (1905)

It's always so awkward when someone asks "Do you have a family?" Because the answer to the question they are asking is no, I don't have children But I was asked the question at my aunt's house, filled with three other aunts, three uncles, five cousins and two second cousins so yeah I have a family

Yesterday was hard. We said goodbye to my uncle, my Mum's closest brother (of 4) The service was difficult because there was a photo of him at the front where he looked so much like Mum and Grandma I could barely look at it. The last time I saw many of the family was at my Mum's own funeral. Tough.

When Yvette Cooper brought in the Palestine Action ban - she did it knowing full well it would destabilise and undermine peace in N. Ireland too. Palestine solidarity has ALWAYS been stronger in the nationalist / Roman Catholic communities. So UK Gov directing action against demonstrators... [1/2]

It's so funny when people say to me "Why don't you have a stall at X (extremely well known and busy event)?" and the answer is "Because it costs two grand" There's no particular reason they should know how much it costs but that's almost always why. You have to sell a lot of stuff to justify that

I had a lovely long interview this evening on Bolton FM about the shop and #fairtrade and the only stipulation was not to swear or say anything political and I have no idea how you talk about fair trade without it being political but I think I did ok #Fairbruary www.boltonfm.com/listen-again...

As Chair of Fairtrade Lancashire I have relatively few jobs, but today was time for the biggest one. The Fairtrade Lancashire Schools Conference has been going for about a decade and today was the 7th. We had 51 primary schools apply for 20 places, each school sends four Year 6 students and 1 adult

There are 550,000 new University students in the UK every year. Amazon alone could fund 200,000 of them if it paid taxes in the UK. This is how we funded higher education, the billionaires and their companies paid tax. Now they don't and you pay for the rest of your life.

Fairtrade came away with 50% of the best chocolate picks in the Taste Test for Dark Chocolate by Katy McGuinness in the Irish Independent yesterday - or 4 out of 8 bars being Fairtrade! Aldi - Green & Blacks - M&S - Lidl That’s very #Fairbruary 👇

Watched the new Muppet Show on Disney+ Turns out I love it as much as 53 as I did when I was 6 sitting excitedly waiting for the title sequence at teatime Which was a lot, even though I had no clue who any of the special guests were Fingers crossed it gets a series

Enough is enough. The House of Lords is a rolling scandal - sign @electoralreform.bsky.social‬'s call to demand change. It takes 30 seconds. action.electoral-reform.org.uk/page/186062/...

Quick piece of advice based on a couple of recent interactions. If you buy something online and what arrives isn't what you're expecting, cock up is much more likely than conspiracy and asking politely whether a mistake has been made will get you further than angrily insisting on a refund

Best thing about this week's House of Games is Patrick Grant sporting a range of leisurewear presumably from his social enterprise Community Clothing (based in Blackburn)

Two pieces of culture that left a profound impact on me in the last week Book: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi TB: The Secret of Me on Channel 4 Both very different stories of how marginalized communities are manipulated and lied to by powerful elites making them question their own identity & history

You always get great questions from primary school kids and today's sparked a conversation about wealth and colonialism Year 4 student asked why the people in Ghana are so poor, which is a reasonable question more adults in Europe should ask So I asked my own question Who's the richest man ever

When I was Co-ordinator for Fairtrade Yorkshire I got a bee in my bonnet about Veganuary and how great it would be to have a fair trade version. Fairtrade Fortnight always focused on the Fairtrade mark leaving the wider fair trade movement and products pushed out. www.fairbruary.com

Mandelson's oft misquoted line about being intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich "as long as they pay their taxes" Perhaps it was misquoted so often he himself forgot he said it

Alarm bells are ringing in the Horn of Africa. Farms are no longer yielding, pests are spreading, and tropical diseases are emerging. Climate change is real, and it’s destroying lives. #ClimateCrisis #GlobalAction

Got my next mammogram appointment through the post this morning. It's so much more efficient to just send someone a time, date and place and say "Contact us if you can't make it. See you then" rather than "Please contact us to make an appointment". We're all about the line of least resistance

Y'all aren't talking enough about the first Black astronaut preparing to fly a historic mission around the Moon next week. Put some respect on Artemis II Pilot Victor Glover's name.

Just realized I won't get paid on the 15th of next month for the first time in 5 years My first monthly payday in March 2021 came after a year of lockdown and 12 years of self employment. What I earned that month equated to what I had earned the whole previous year I cried tears of relief

I'm sorry if you ring a business and ask to speak to "Mrs Owner" I am definitely not going to take you seriously

Matt Goodwin walking into his first Manchester electoral event.

Whatever happened to the millennial Drop The Debt campaign? African countries are still paying billions to repay loans - this time to China - while their transport and industrial infrastructure is in desperate need of investment and that investment has dried up.

I work in Greater Manchester and live in Lancashire where Reform control the county council The threat of Reform winning a Parliamentary byelection in Gorton and Denton is considerably less scary than them winning the Metro Mayoralty. The damage to vulnerable people could be immeasurable

Kemi Badenoch on #DesertIslandDiscs criticising the Nestle baby milk campaign without understanding it is actually peak Kemi Badenoch

Quick pronunciation tip for politicos in the runup to the byelection - Gorton and Denton is pronounced without recourse to the T sound.

The universe is telling me I need to knuckle down and finish my book. I started it a couple of years ago and got stuck on about 80% finished, things got busy and stressful. But due to circumstances beyond my control I've been forced into having some more time available so now I have no excuse.

As a campaigner for fair trade I've spent my life trying to get media coverage for events and campaigns, but one Facebook post by an MP and suddenly I'm inundated by reporters fascinated by our schools conference and whether our speaker list is politically motivated

When troubles come they come not in single spies but in battalions I'm having one of the worst weeks of my life And yet I feel oddly calm, because there's not a lot I can do. The readiness is all

Trump’s Greenland speech at the WEF except it’s the voice of Pingu

One of the things my autism finds most challenging is inconsistency. If something was ok last time why is it not ok now. I've been dragged into the middle of a (party) political row as part of a volunteer role and it boils down to me having done something that was fine before and somehow now isn't

I'm doing a fair trade assembly and stall at my old primary school which I left in 1984 and it's like being in a parallel universe. Everything is simultaneously familiar and strange. The kids are very well behaved and the school council (one child from each year) is going to help sell the goods

The way names come and go with the generations - Arthur Ferry sounds to my Gen X ears like a 1940s cheeky chappy comedian not a 23 year old tennis player

Please help spread the word on this, especially to those who may be feeling cold winds towards their research. We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

Talking to a young woman today about my history of campaigning. I usually date my history of boycotts to my refusing to buy Cape apples for my Dad as a teenager then realized I probably need to unpack the fact that Dad's apples were either bought for him by his wife or his 13 year old daughter.

Intellectually I know I must have watched many decades of John Higgins with hair, but now I'm so used to his current look. I can't remember or even imagine what that would be like #MastersSnooker #ClassOf92

I visited the most wonderful social enterprise today in Preston. Recycling Lives works with marginalized people, focusing on people with experience of the criminal justice system across Lancashire and into North Wales & Yorkshire. They're delivering projects to feed, house, upskill and rehabilitate

This reminds me of one of my favourite episodes of Cabin Pressure where Mr Birling is taken to what he thinks is Timbuktu but is in fact Italy cabin-pressure.fandom.com/wiki/Timbuktu

I know this is very much not the worst thing about the murder of Renee Good but as a British person watching The Traitors I keep being derailed by the knowledge that she was murdered by Jonathan Ross

I had been dreading yesterday's appointment with the immigration people. My husband's spousal visa expires in March so over the Christmas break we pulled together the 100 or so documents they need and uploaded them, paid about £4000 and made an appointment to verify them. The centre is in Salford

When people argue that renewable energy sources are too expensive, remember that we don’t invade countries to seize wind farms and there are no solar cartels. Fossil fuels have enormous geopolitical, public health, and climate externalities.

Can't believe it took me to the very end of Stranger Things before realising the kids are exactly my age #ClassOf89

Why did nobody tell me how easy it is to change a toilet seat? I will never put up with wobbly wonky disgusting loo seats again. I'm going through a spring cleaning phase so I also changed the shower curtain and it feels like we have a brand new bathroom. Small wins on dark days.

OK I was struggling to understand what the FIFA Peace Prize was for, which is a common problem with new prizes, but I see now it gives you a free pass to stage a war with a South American country of your choice At least he hasn't started a land war in Asia #Venezuela

6 month old kitten Jet has developed a vocalisation that sounds a bit like she's calling my name and it's really freaking me out

Thanks to Margaret Atwood I'm never not going to imagine anyone called Offord is the handmaid of someone called Ford

We have no heating or hot water and I am currently sitting indoors in a woolly hat and fingerless gloves eating parsnip soup like something out of Dickens.

There should be literally no circumstances, ever, where citizenship is can be revoked. If you literally sign up to fight for an opposing army in a war, then we should prosecute you for treason not revoke citizenship

We want the media and politicians to recognise that there is a large number of women who are supportive of the trans+ community. We call on them to report truthfully about the sources of violence against women and to address the systems that perpetuate harm. notinourname.org.uk/petition/not...