The light is on for Anne Howkins! @anneh23.bsky.social💡 “The Oxbow Parenthesis” is a gorgeous story about a young schoolgirl whose home life is capsizing. Check out Anne’s beautiful writing over at the site!

Farage, Johnson, Trump, Bolsonaro… different countries, same trick. Lies become performance, scandal becomes marketing. Accountability? Optional. The Bear looks on sadly

Pensions, productivity and the myth of the migrant “drain” – why Britain’s real crisis is ageing, not immigration. Another cracker from the Bear. @eastangliabylines.co.uk @bearlypolitics.co.uk

🔥 Where the US has serious problems, the UK is not far behind. One in four UK MPs have taken pro-Israel lobby funding, raising urgent questions about foreign influence and trust in British democracy.

My friend @nkrowe.bsky.social has written a rollicking novel - The Ophagy - and has been a kind, inspiring and encouraging support to @fossewaywriters.bsky.social for many years.

You've GOT to be kidding me! The Conservatives - who oversaw every single thing on this list - are trying to claim that only the Conservatives would "stop the madness" - that they created...? So incredulity aside, what about the list itself? Let's go Debunking! 1/34

ICYMI: Scientists received €735m in grants in 2024 after UK rejoined programme as associate member post-Brexit. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Quick reminder about the Fosseway Writers Flash competition. Closing date 16th August. 300 words on the theme of 'Envelope'. £50 first prize. fossewaywriters.wordpress.com/competitions/

It has taken medical science 200 years to advance humans to the point where people are so healthy and living so long that they can deny that science and medicine is what got us here.

Motherfucking wind farms…

And some News: those figures on fleeing millionaires everyone else has unquestioningly quoted? Based largely on LinkedIn locations and statistically unsound extrapolation on.ft.com/4fim7gw

We talk a lot about the systemic impacts of a broken economy - but we often miss the human cost. In the post below, I hear from you - how it’s impacting your life - and explore why this pressure feels so relentless right now.

fossewaywriters.wordpress.com/competitions/ Fosseway Writers flash competition now open for entries!

Your Prime Day reminder that half of Amazon warehouse workers struggle with food & housing costs. A third have had to rely on government assistance like SNAP — which is about to get cut. If Bezos can spend $50M on a wedding, Amazon can afford to treat its workers with dignity.

I spent months on this investigation and gathered docs from the UK courts, Land Registry and a French local authority, to show that Raynor and Moth Winn's story is not as they claim. @tortoisemedia.bsky.social @observeruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

And you never should have done so. Next steps that should already be underway: - Equalise Capital Gains with Income Tax - Replace Council Tax with a proper property-based system - Tax net wealth over £10 million It’s not radical. It’s overdue. Just get it done.

Trump strips Medicaid with a roar. Labour halves disability support with a nod. Same cruelty, different decibel.

We need a wealth tax not a “Britannia Card” Julia Davies - impact investor, entrepreneur, and member of Patriotic Millionaires UK – argues for a wealth tax, not billionaires’ patronage @westenglandbylines.co.uk westenglandbylines.co.uk/opinion/we-n...

AI is part of the fascist project to make us all stupider and more impoverished and dependent on the tech overlords, pass it on

Finally, an answer to the question what if a bird was also an ice cream sundae?

Sobering, important read. Particularly struck by: "Like Narnia, where it was once always winter and never Christmas, modern political culture is now akin to a carnival which will never become Lent." There is indeed a sense of 'never consequences' which runs through this like mercury.

If I wanted to be this hot and confused, I’d have stayed in South Africa. Here’s why your nan’s melted ice lolly in 1976 doesn’t invalidate decades of climate science:

Thank you for accepting my quiet little micro @natflashfictionday.bsky.social #nffd2025

I sent a little thing in! @natflashfictionday.bsky.social

My little FlashFlood story.

My story 'Wedding Breakfast' goes live at 19:25 (BST) on 14 June 2025. Thank you @natflashfictionday.bsky.social

This arrived today! Lovely to be rubbing shoulders with so many awesome writers. Many thanks to @natflashfictionday.bsky.social and everyone involved in getting this little jewel out in the world. Sorry to be missing the launch, but happy that Wedding Breakfast will be sailing in the flood!

Didn't mean it

The ‘Millionaire Exodus’ the UK Media Told You About Never Actually Happened The equivalent of 30 stories a day were published about an exodus of wealthy people that a new study finds was "non existent" bylinetimes.com/2025/06/10/t...

🚨NEW: @taxjusticeuk.bsky.social‬ reveals that reports of a “millionaire exodus” due to tax changes were false. Only 0.3% of UK millionaires moved to another country in 2024, but media headlines blew it out of proportion. No more excuses: tax the ultra-rich to fund our struggling public services.

To really understand the London Underground, you have to actually use it - something I suspect many of the commentators who have been having loud fannywobbles over the past few weeks rarely do.

Reform UK has uncovered the scandal of a “wasteful” £350m contract. Small problem: it’s not a contract. Or £350m. Or a scandal. Here’s how they got it completely wrong. 👇👇

When warnings of Insectageddon were issued a few years ago, there was widespread denial. Less so now. It's devastating. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Maybe worth having a read of this again... 🙌

By betraying his voters so comprehensively and so soon, Keir Starmer has done us a favour. He has given us 4 years to design the government we want. In this week's column I explain how it can be done. There's massive potential, but we need to start now. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

there are queens and then there's the woman who made sure the scathing songs about her ex were so iconic that his whole career would be defined by them happy birthday to human goddess stevie nicks ✨

A socially vulnerable mother in the United States writes of the dread caused by politicians regarding people like her as unworthy of support | TJ Morgan @tjmorgan.bsky.social

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business. You’re in organized crime.

Delighted to see my little story here!

“And yet most of the actual policy could have been presented with the opposite inflection. The emphasis could have been on Britain’s historical record of successfully integrating migrant communities and the vast economic and cultural contribution they have made.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright. Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

I’m one of those dodgy immigrants who came here on a spouse visa and got indefinite leave to remain after 12 months. The incalculable harm I have done to the UK includes dedicating my life to public service, educating thousands of British young people, and paying more tax than I’ll ever get back.

“If everyone had emitted like the bottom 50 percent of the global population, the world would have seen minimal additional warming since 1990.” from @theguardian.com via @climatedesk.org

There'll be lots of chats this week about how much the public want control of immigration, reduced numbers and integration. Fine. I don't think progressives have ever had the luxury of being blind to that. But that is not what this is about.

Starmer's anti-immigrant speech today wasn't just a moral and political embarrassment. It was also an intellectual embarrassment. inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

This is a very fair criticism of the prime minister from @samfr.bsky.social and therefore really quite devastating open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

Simply this.

Labour has chosen nativism over growth. inews.co.uk/opinion/star...

First swallows swooping above in a clear blue sky. Joyful.