Hilary Beckles has written convincingly about reparations in ‘Britain’s Black Debt’. Along with ‘The Big Payback’ by Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder, these explorations, explanations, these *exhortations*, are essential for anyone seeking an understanding of Britain and its global footprint.

The British are so far behind the curve. There must be atonement for the crime of enslavement for reconciliation between victimised peoples and the beneficiaries of enrichment. It is a necessary precondition for mending the mind of a common humanity. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

if you would like to read about early modern hammocks, it's publication day for the article the brilliant @marcynorton.bsky.social and I wrote about them! (open access) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Back in my home port, fleetingly, so to speak. Nowhere else in the world makes me feel time, place, emotion, *so* keenly. I am very lucky to have such a solid touchstone in my life. It looks out to sea and like the world itself, I strongly believe it belongs to all of us. #belonging #sharetheworld

“These people, and their bleak and ridiculous ideas, need to be defeated. The year ahead will see if we are pulled further into this vortex of absurdity, endless ‘restoration’, hyper-nostalgia and deranged Christian Populism in the desperate search for a mythical past, or attempt to step forward.”

The life of Frederic Madden, in his words, 200 years after the events described. Transcribed from his journal by students @ies-sas.bsky.social. Released daily in 2026.👇 madden1826.com

The slightest hint of racial justice sends these people into a tizzy. New archbishop urged to scrap £100m fund over slavery links www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

Ffs. It’s not hard to be reasonable and ethical operators in society. I have loved using Majestic Wines over the years but I do not hesitate a decision to bin them until / if they do better and break with the poisonous GB News racket.

Stone Age Wages, indeed... Still no complete catalogue or fair wages, so I'm glad to see @christianalgar.bsky.social and his BL colleagues getting some attention... www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

Excellent summary of the miserable mismanagement of the British Library: dosh for the execs, dregs for the workers. Oh, and a series of CEOs with no library background, and -- no chief librarian? Why yes! That sounds like a brilliant set of priorities. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

so former Prime Ministers *can* be convicted and imprisoned? How.... intriguing....

Hmm. What do people think of Sortition (selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery)? Yes, we are dominated by a conformist, establishment-biased class, but we have also been psycho-politically bomabarded and indoctrinated by reactionary anti-knowledge and prejudice. 😬🫣

High time the legacies of T.J. Wise’s activities are given attention and scrutiny. A great deal to learn still about an immense book world ‘blooper’ with failings amongst the trade, collectors and custodians at institutions. Looking forward to this, it’s been a bit taboo.

This paper reopens the case, considering: firstly, how new evidence demonstrates the complicity of Wise’s regular binder, Riviere and Son; and, secondly, what the discarded remnants of Wise’s hospital stock reveals about his bibliographical tastes and priorities.

In 1956 it was revealed that Thomas James Wise, a former President of the Bibliographical Society, had stolen more than two hundred leaves from the British Museum to ‘perfect’ early playbooks, both for his own collection and for sale to clients in Britain and America.

The Society’s second meeting of the 2025/2026 season will take place on Tuesday, 16 December 2025, at 5.30 p.m., at the Society of Antiquaries, London, and online via Zoom. Dr Joseph Hone will speak on ‘T. J. Wise’s Book Hospital: A Further Study in Theft and Sophistication’.

Good. The British Library really has enough on its plate right now.

Very good reporting on the situation at the British Library by Claudia Cockerell in The Evening Standard. Appreciate the time and care taken to investigate and explain it all. I believe Library workers on the ground are prompting much-needed culture change there. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

This is fucking mental. This is Thatcher anti-Irish level - FROM THE BRITISH ‘LABOUR’ PARTY - and is getting paltry media coverage. Conscientious, peaceable people will die. And the U.K. State thinks it can condemn them with impunity. This is a hill we will fight on. Labour Party is a huge enemy.

"attempts to politicise it" Wonder what that means 🙄

look at this fucking loser

+50 UK MPs have urged the government to urgently intervene over the health of #PalestineAction activists on hunger strike in British prisons. Jeremy Corbyn: I asked the minister if he would do the bare minimum & meet their lawyers. His response? “No. MPs laughed along." youtu.be/ZA5nnZPM2SU?...

👉 NEW -- Cameron was urged to meet ICC prosecutor days before 'threatening' him by Dania Akkad Exclusive: Foreign Office staff tried to convince David Cameron to support the ICC and meet Karim Khan shortly before heated phone call reported between them www.declassifieduk.org/cameron-was-...

It's beyond appalling that the Government are clearly happy to endorse this cruel treatment of people fighting to stem genocide in Gaza. And displays in sharp relief the British state’s role as brutal enforcer of capitalist interests in the middle east. www.middleeasteye.net/news/can-you...

One can avoid humiliations like this simply by spending 5 seconds thinking through the implications of one's views. The fact is that Biggar is an laughably unserious person, and would have remained in total obscurity if his views weren't useful to the political right. youtube.com/shorts/_grv4...

Making a list of #antifa films (loosely defined). Please feel free to add your own choices ... Dalton Trumbo was one of 10 screenwriters subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) regarding Communist propaganda in Hollywood. Blacklisted. #movies #film #cinema

The idea that Britain is prepared to fight a major war - militarily or domestically - strikes me as considerably crazier and more dangerous than any country of the others floating around, even in an era where the political class has quite clearly gone absolutely bananas across the board.

Meanwhile in the U.K., the largest statistical flex of terrorism is connnected to … fascism and white extremism. We just need to find their headquarters and keep building out their infrastructure, eh?!

‘In a letter seen by the BBC, the lawyers tell Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy that there is a "real and increasingly likely potential" their clients will die in prison as part of their protest’ #BBC #HungerStrike #Genocide www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The closest historical parallel to this kind of far right, treasonous poison in a mainstream stream British newspaper?

It’s massively true that working class people are being forced out of working in cultural sector jobs. No way could I remain in my job without a tolerant, supportive partner who enables me to ‘prance around with old books’ as I like to say. Without that understanding I would had to find another job.

A supposedly grassroots anti-migrant movement led by 'ordinary' women, which is backed by Reform and Conservative politicians and is regularly invited onto news channels to promote their views, is funded by a far-right group and has platformed a Neo-Nazi activist bylinetimes.com/2025/12/05/t...

“Somali-looking” man repeatedly begged ICE agents to check his digital passport ID as they tried to put him in a chokehold. They did not, and instead tackled him to the ground, and abducted him. They reportedly drove him 7 miles away before freeing him. Video: @LongTimeHistory via X

I fucking hate this ‘fruit machine’ approach to bills - this is suppose to be an ethical, green, energy supplier - and it’s like ‘Play Your Cards Right’. Twats.

Fran Heathcote walks the walk. A good Union leader. 🙏👊🖤 A third week of strikes at the British Library and the public awareness and scrutiny of the place is hugely welcome for dedicated workers who care deeply about what a (inter)national library *should* and *could* be. @pcsunion.bsky.social

Historiated and in Capitals: FAIR PAY!! NOW!! #rarebooks #typography #strike #fairpay

Babies. Great big fucking babies.

I couldn’t read a piece about the British Library strike published yesterday in the Daily Telegraph, because of paywall and, well, Daily Telegraph. But someone told me about Telegraph reader comments which included disparaging chastisement that library workers are ‘privileged’: Telegraph readers!😄😂

“Outside [the British Library] a railway worker stopped by the picket line and offered the strikers a ten-pound note. ‘That’s terrible,’ he said when he was told what was going on. ‘Hope you win.’” 🥹 Meanwhile the interim CEO says we “don’t live in a real world”?! 🙄 www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

What book feels like your brain? 🧠 We’re preparing a new theme for the Weston Library’s Space for Reading: Neurodiversity. Do you have a book that helps others understand different ways of thinking? Share your recommendation here: https://forms.office.com/e/bRHBxTXBSY

It's wild that there appears to be more current concern for the Lost Library of Alexandria than for the British Library. The BL's crisis exemplifies the accelerating destruction--through apathy as much as by design--of human knowledge & learning. I'm not even being dramatic.

Today, I did an interview on the picket line with a reporter from the the ‘Evening Standard’. I prefaced it with the fact that I left the ES (I worked in the cuttings archive and did research for the journos) 20 years ago to join the British Library: I *still* earn *much* less now than I did then.

As a regular reader, I am out on the picket line again today, supporting staff at the @britishlibrary.bsky.social who are JUST asking for decent pay

Reading Rooms at the British Library are closed *all week* because so many of its workers refuse to work for pitiful wages in a contemptuously authoritarian and obliviously managed environment. We need leaders who get it and are big enough to sort it out! It’s a mess and a disgrace. Lift it up!!