Beggars belief they even dropped the policy / name when they came to power. All because Angela Rayner didn't want to be associated with a policy advocated by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. And now...? Just so stupid share.google/dPO6maRVgDU0...

"You don’t fight the politics of violence by quibbling with the details. You stamp it into a million pieces! You draw a f*cking line!" If Keir Starmer won’t even make a moral case against deporting our friends and neighbours, then what is the point of him?

Civilitycraft is our modern witchcraft: we conjure bad manners to explain democratic breakdown, the way failed crops were once blamed on witches. But politics isn’t haunted by rudeness: it’s broken by rules and power. www.waleed-shahid.com/p/our-crisis...

"Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.” Bowing down to a bully never works. And we can’t become numb to this corruption in plain sight.

Farage absolutely certain that no-one can touch him in UK media or politics.

White people can move the needle if they want. Y'all got Jimmy Kimmel back on the air boycotting, you can throw some of that expendable income to support the vulnerable through mutual aid, you can make some moves against fascism instead of performatively bemoaning what you think doesn't affect you.

No serious progressive politics in this moment can be built on on this stupid idea that progressives must babysit the feelings and anger of the far right.

Listen to this brilliant speech by Ayeisha Thomas Smith from the New Economy Organisers Network about what the left needs to do to win. open.spotify.com/episode/3Hzv...

If successive Israeli governments always intended to impose their own final settlement on the Palestinians by violence, whether slowly or quickly, then what would we say successive British governments and media outlets have been doing for decades by insisting that the precise opposite was true?

I recently tried to convince Stephen Bush that profiteering was the driving factor behind the recent inflationary spike. Of course he knows better, but never produced a scintilla of evidence to back up his haughty dismissals. So I decided when I had the time to gather some of the evidence. 1/

Gemini is absolutely terrible and this is part of the reason Google is going to go busy imo.

I was confused by the headline so I read the story. Yes, by ‘worst’ he means ‘best’.

The correct policy

Starmer needs a shoot from the hip minister with license to go on TV in response to Reform and say: "Yeah, this is Nigel's latest attempt to copy Donald Trump. "He's like a little Mussolini, always at the beck and call of the White House bully." Brits hate Trump and Farage is easily rattled.

If you, like me, are the parent of a neuro-atypical child dreading this autism press conference, please remember: These are the people hurting our kids. Not us. They are the ones stigmatizing and pathologizing them. They are the ones peddling untested science. And we should be very, very angry.

Still don't know who Jimmy Kimmel is

If you keep having to explain you've "got a plan" to say more progressive things, you're losing. "Progressive things" should speak for themselves, they should be the background noise that keep a progressive government on the front foot and the far right in a reactive crouch. It's comms 101.

There are an awful lot of media outlets in the UK where you can directly compare their attitude to Corbyn and the need to hold him to account, nail down the reality of his policy proposals - and their soft glove attitude to Farage.

Israelis need to understand there are consequences for the genocide being committed in their name. The EU is Israel's biggest trading partner and it will come as a shock for Israeli citizens to find themselves facing barriers from European allies. share.google/FZk4I7eP6Nbg...

I mean, I agree. But even push backs are not enough. Why is Labour - or anything other than Polanski - unwilling or unable to set THEIR OWN terms of debate on this issue? Explaining is losing.

Fantastic to see @libdems.org.uk @libdemdaisy.bsky.social announce they are adopting IPPR's policy for a tax on bank windfall profits. A targeted levy would rectify the bungled implementation of quantitative easing & provide funds for cost of living policies. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If you're always on the backfoot reacting to rightwing ideas, maybe think about what you can be doing to set terms of debate instead. Progressives from Labour down have forgotten that it's not enough to critique the right, you have to make themcritique you. As Reagan said "explaining's losing."

This was obviously wildly irresponsible at the time, and now everyone who did that is so badly compromised by having done so that they can’t speak plainly about what has been happening in Britain.

It’s as simple as: it was insanely destructive to insist that fascists are mostly correct, while recruiting far right cranks to *scream* at the public that anti-racism and equality campaigners are hateful traitors and maybe even terrorists. Just to help Sensible Moderates to get what they want!

This is best understood by recognising that this isn’t because *the public* have been wildly radicalising themselves to the far right for well over a decade. It’s politicians and media figures who have been roasting their own brains and egging each other on, with results that are all around us.

This is very weird because there are literally no details in this scandal which were not reported at the time. McSweeney said that the donations had to be covered up because the donor was scared of anti-semitic trolls, the donor said "never heard of that, it sounds like a mistake" and that was it.

There's far too much critique of the far right on here and not enough thinking about how to explain language and 11-years-old can understand, what these people intend to do if they get power.

How do you enforce this policy? Concentration camps. Is that what you want in your neighborhood? Whole suburbs, under martial law, with soldiers, keeping families in pens ahead of their expulsion? And how will you actually expel them? At gun point? share.google/wQKuFQ77GNeM...

It is not our job to baby sit the feelings of fascists.

A crowd finder of union jack flags saying "tax the super rich" www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/fair-tax-u...

comment masquerading as a news headline

Paris, got a 4am grime and nasty bass UKG set at a party!!! Avec @awtodd.bsky.social

The biggest problem in UK society is how we mistake a private education for excellence. Privately educated still have ‘vice-like grip’ on most powerful UK jobs | Social mobility | The Guardian share.google/DIJHF0LMB3im...

Appeasing an unreliable and dangerous US president is the politics of surrendering to authoritarianism. Anyone who claims the smart thing to do is to try to lie down in front of this president, to refuse to criticize him, is a fool and will be judged as such by history.

You can claim that British state power is a historic force for good in the world. Or you can insist that it is right and proper for Britain to grovel to the greatest malevolence seen on the international stage since the mid-twentieth century. But you can't do both and expect to be taken seriously.

What a bunch of jokers

The Your Party fiasco is an utter tragedy. I don't personally believe it was ever an outfit worth signing up to, but others I know do. And people who believe in that project deserve better than this. A joke and, frankly, a disgrace.

You know, whilst I get that the rise of the right is a shock. I also think you can ruminate on stuff too much. I'd rather see people - particularly centrists - do proactive things. I'm a bit bored with the sage explanations. The point is to change the world, not ruminate about it.

Community 👫  The Williams renewed their season ticket to Man United, inadvertently servicing the club’s enormous debt. The club is owned by Britain’s richest billionaire. If their cat, Lavender, gets sick, they must pay thousands to a private equity-backed veterinary chain.

Working life 📝 Jessica’s parents struggle to afford essentials. Their rising bills fund profits — around £416 of their energy bill is taken as profit by private energy companies. Energy firms paid out £70.7bn in dividends (2010-25) & water firms paid out £85bn since 1989.

Young Adulthood 🎓 Jessica’s cousin goes to university. Her tuition is £9,535/yr. She rents with Unite Students — who made £213m profit in 2024. She graduates with £43,700 in student debt. When visiting friends, she pays rail fares that have risen by 40%+ since privatisation.

School 🏫 The Williams’ local school is now run by a Multi-Academy Trust. They’re less accountable to parents & pay teachers less. Meanwhile, foster care & SEND are increasingly outsourced to private equity-backed firms, charging councils up to 3x more than local authorities.

Early Years 👧 As a child in England, Jessica’s childcare will be among the most expensive in the world. By 2021, 70% of group-based nursery places were run for profit, many backed by large investment firms. All while 18% of staff aged 23+ earned below the National Living Wage.

Birth 👶 Jessica Williams is born in an NHS hospital built under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal. Over 30 years, PFI contracts will cost the public 6x more than if the hospitals were built with public funds. The public pays investors back at very high interest rates.

As part of our new project — Who Owns Britain? — we explore the life of the Williams family in Britain, revealing an invisible web of ownership and extraction in a visual essay.  Let’s start at the beginning.

In Britain, every time you... — turn on a tap — flip a light switch — board a train or bus — post a letter — drop your child at nursery ... you take part in a system designed to extract wealth & concentrate power. 🧵 From cradle to grave, this is how a failed experiment has shaped your life.

Privatisation is a failed experiment. It's time to End the Rip Off. @cmmonwealth.bsky.social

Privatisation is a failed experiment. It's time to "End the Rip Off". Really happy to see this project, that I helped to message and frame, launch. The message is simple, even if the technicalities seem complex 🧵 >> www.common-wealth.org/interactive/...

I’m so grateful for today’s endorsement from Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. It’s been an honor to serve in the majority conference he leads in Albany and I look forward to the important work we can accomplish together for the people of New York City.

The trouble is that Haldane's "growth strategy" for the UK as a whole is the same "crude deregulationism" that forms the basis of Reevesonomics. So what is this extra support for deprived areas going to be?...(1/3) www.theguardian.com/politics/202...