The problem isn’t just Shabana Mahmood. It’s the whole department she represents. open.substack.com/pub/abolishw...

3/ For more on why communities should have the powers to own rivers, woods and moors, have a read of @tomchance.bsky.social's excellent letter here: www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve... And here's a piece I wrote on this: www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

2/ Big thanks to @simonforstroud.bsky.social for tabling amendments 107 and 108 & to the 9 MPs who have so far added their support! These would extend the Community Right to Buy to environmental assets, provided the land isn't earmarked for development: publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbi...

Let communities own rivers, woods & moors! Excellent to see @simonforstroud.bsky.social has tabled amendments 107 & 108 to the Devolution Bill to strengthen Community Right to Buy laws in this way. We need more Labour MPs to support this - email yours: www.reclaimourmoors.uk/write-to-you... 1/

Let communities own rivers, woods and moors! Write to your MP about the upcoming Community Right to Buy laws. See our template letter here - www.reclaimourmoors.uk/write-to-you... "Approaching Hartington via Sheen, Derbyshire" by Caff, released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0.

Housing is a right not a market for profiteering and exploitation Join a tenants union: londonrentersunion.org www.livingrent.org sheffieldtu.org.uk tenantsunion.org.uk acorntheunion.org.uk Victorian terraced housing photo by Ruth Sharville / CC BY-SA 2.0 / www.geograph.org.uk/profile/11141

Folk often ask me what I would do by way of land reform legislation. Have a read of this blog to find out. It seems pointless to do much further detailed work since there is so little appetite for such measures andywightman.scot/2023/12/land...

#OtD 1 Nov 1963 Black tenants began a rent strike in Harlem, NYC. By January, about 2000 tenants were withholding rent. The strike caused the city to create a rat eradication program, legalize rent strikes, and pass laws to improve housing conditions stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7712...

3/ For more on why communities should have the powers to own environmental assets, read my blog here: www.powertochange.org.uk/evidence-and...

2/ If you have a Labour MP, please write to them using this template letter created by @reclaimourmoors.bsky.social - tell Ministers to strengthen the Community Right to Buy so that communities can own environmental assets like rivers, woods & peat bogs: www.reclaimourmoors.uk/write-to-you...

'Communities must have the right to own environmental assets' Great letter from @tomchance.bsky.social of the Community Land Trust Network to @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social, asking her to amend the Devolution Bill to strengthen Community Right to Buy: www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/news-and-eve...

NEW: Whitehall bosses slammed for being trustees of a charity accused of facilitating "corporate capture" by arms companies, oil giants and privatisers: open.substack.com/pub/abolishw... - by me

As if big business didn’t have enough power in Whitehall, they need charitable help to get more. Meet the charity that gives arms dealers & oil companies special access to government.   Great report @adamramsay.bsky.social and thks for the quote abolishwestminster.substack.com/p/whitehall-...

And kudos to @riveractionuk.bsky.social for bringing the complaint.

This’d be a canny move: raise the threshold at which inheritance tax applies to farmland from £1m to £5m (£10m for couples), ensuring it applies only to huge estates - but then remove the proposed discount (so IHT at 40%, not 20%) Would call the big landowners’ bluff news.sky.com/story/damage...

Thanks Sheffield, that was a super fun evening!

Was really happy to see @threeacresacow.bsky.social at the Crucible this evening. Some things you take for granted as being just the way things are, but seeing the history of enclosure, shows how recently we had common rights to land. Also a great crowd and some lovely communal singing 😁

@threeacresacow.bsky.social thanks for a great evening. Fully re-energised

Just back from seeing @threeacresacow.bsky.social at the Crucible in Sheffield. Honestly a lovely, educational and empowering show. See it if you can!

#OtD 10 or 19 Oct 1609 pioneering English revolutionary Gerrard Winstanley was born. He was a farmworker and the primary theoretician of the Diggers, or True Levellers, during the English Civil War who took over enclosed lands and farmed them stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8239...

Sheep and the lucrative wool trade was the driving force behind people being forced from their land during medieval times in Britain. Thomas More's Utopia has a few things to say about this in 1516... 1/3

Wish I could say I was shocked, but here's the Labour government constraining the right to peaceful protest again... 'You can protest but only according to our rules. The rules are: you're not allowed to use any of the tactics that make protest effective.'

We loved 'Three Acres And A Cow' at the Wesley Church in Chester last Thursday. Thank you @threeacresacow.bsky.social and @cynefinmusic.bsky.social for a fantastic evening 👏

Lovely time in Liverpool last night! Thanks so much to Ullet Road Church, Squash Liverpool, all our volunteers, and @cynefinmusic.bsky.social for bringing powerful Welsh songs to the show.

Despite easily being the most British fighting vehicle ever developed, the mock-Tudor AT-AT programme was sadly cancelled due to budgetary concerns

Congratulations Guy!

Thank you, @threeacresacow.bsky.social ! 1 of my fav songs of the late Alistair Hulett re Mary Barbour/ #Glasgow #Women #rent strike, 1915. I was honoured to meet, trade albums w Alistair ~20 yrs ago in Glasgow when we both played at a political song workshop

Fascinating resource of songs about land rights, mostly in the UK, but also in Ireland and North America (note Willie Dunn's Ballad of Crowfoot included here). Thank you, @threeacresacow.bsky.social !

Some succint and prudent thoughts on the current state of food and farming in the UK... covers inheritance, supermarkets, NFU, Brexit, taxation, meat consumption and more www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A superb article on community ownership of renewables and the wider land justice perspective - "Community energy generates 100x more wealth than corporate counterparts. Energy infrastructure, like political power needs to be radically decentralised." substack.com/home/post/p-...

Cheeky four date tour next month along northern part of English/Welsh border with the brilliant Owen Shiers from Gafael Tir and @cynefinmusic.bsky.social. Our shows will be a-moo-sing 🐮 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 threeacresandacow.co.uk/shows/

Last few tickets going soon for our biggest ever show to 950 people in Sheffield on 9th October. www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/three...

I’m just reading this too on holiday, 1/3 in I think it’s my favourite book of the year! A different way of seeing the world, beautiful writing as well as ideas

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

Al-Sharif killed in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack on tent housing journalists outside al-Shifa hospital.

32°C as a nightly low temperature in Shanghai, city of 30 million. Climate change hitting hard now.

“If drivers had to pay the full and true costs of motoring the only people who could afford to drive would be multi-millionaires.” My letter about the hidden costs of motoring is in the latest @privateeyenews.bsky.social

I prosecute and defend the most serious sexual offences in our courts. The overwhelming majority of offenders are British-born. Overwhelmingly the victim is someone known to them, either a partner or relative. Anybody purporting to care about protecting women might start there.

The more we discover, the worse it gets. Now we learn the water companies wrote the guidance ensuring sewage sludge is not tested for the vast majority of contaminants before being spread on farmland. They gave themselves a free licence to dump hazardous waste. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Back in court for day 2 of our Dartmoor legal challenge today....and a timely, excellent piece from @phoebeweston.bsky.social on overgrazing. Expert local opinion from the brilliant @tonydartmoor.bsky.social & @guyshrubsole.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Who owns the River Dart? 108 separate landowners, it turns out - with 11 miles of it owned by offshore companies! Great research by @lewis-winks.bsky.social which shows why the Government's 9 river walks policy won't work without a right of responsible access 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

LWA response to the 'Good Food Cycle' National Food Strategy 🍅 tinyurl.com/48m325w3

Tax wealth. I don't care if you do so via a new 'wealth tax' or by reforming existing taxes like Capital Gains Tax & Inheritance Tax (both are full of inconsistencies and loopholes.) It isn't just about the amount of money raised; it's also about fairness. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

When world-leading economists argue that the UK needs a wealth tax our Govt should listen. History tells us ambition is possible and preferable; that the UK can be world leading. Prime Minister be ambitious for our country - tax us, the super rich www.theguardian.com/business/202...

British doctor comes back from Gaza and confirms two things we knew: 1- the Israelis *specifically* confiscate formula feed to starve children 2- there is a clear pattern in gun shot wounds pointing to the fact that IDF soldiers are playing games hunting humans. www.instagram.com/reel/DMm03Kp...

Two major Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem & Physicians for Human Rights, officially declared Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing bombs targeting civilians, displacement, and deliberate starvation. The first time the Gaza genocide is called out from within Israeli society. #3E🧵

A really thorough piece about Starmer. As someone who regularly deals with MPs, I personally think Starmer the human rights lawyer is long gone in favour of Starmer the careerist politician. Under his watch Labour is abandoning human rights and international law. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

We’re told that the wealthy are society’s great entrepreneurs. Without them, we’re told, there would be no jobs, no business, no innovation, but that’s a myth. The rich aren’t entrepreneurs. They preserve, protect and hoard instead. It’s time to stop believing their PR. youtu.be/q_YTAPez4-c?...

HOME OFFICE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN OVER PALESTINE ACTION BAN EXPOSED @declassifiedUK has revealed that Home Office insinuations that Palestine Action supports violence and receives funding from Iran were refuted by its own internal assessments. In full: www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-how...