A welcome - and long overdue - step. But while it’s necessary, it’s deeply insufficient - and must be accompanied by urgent action to help bring an end to the genocide in Gaza, including boycotts, sanctions and an end to all arms sales to Israel.

In addition to Katie's point, what these takes all miss is a lot of people on the centre and left...haven't actually left X. Continues to be startlingly to me how many people just don't *notice* the degradation of their media environment.

another excellent piece from @davidallengreen.bsky.social on support for Palestine Action not being 'terrorism' www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

Decline in Bluesky usage (likes and posts) seems to have stopped in mid-August. Now rising again a bit. Might just be due to a busy time for news but encouraging.

On Corbyn/Sultana bustup: wrote this for @bylinetimes.bsky.social two weeks ago. Neither have read Raymond Williams as Farage looms A colossal opportunity needs a culture shift [email protected], @leninology.bsky.social & cited @owenjones.bsky.social (rest for subscribers, a snip!)

I explain here why I’ve finally left X for good. It’s like a perverted version of the Miranda rule “Anything you say WILL be held against you.” So, in Trump’s America, it’s increasingly advisable to stay silent.

This is short and great by @carolinelucas.bsky.social even tho it quotes me.. Why We Need to Talk About Englishness subscribe.bylinetimes.com/edition/78/w...

What's going on here...

It's not just policy, values or demographics that shape voters choices, but how they see their nation, its people, in whose interests it is run, and how it should be governed. We need a story of our nations that unites rather than divides us.

Regent Street

👇 Great piece by @lucasamin.bsky.social highlighting the 'revolving door' between the 🪖 Ministry of Defence and the 💥 arms companies that compete for its business. Here's our executive director @suehawley.bsky.social's quote:

Our new magazine, Equator, is officially out in the world — and here @equatormag.bsky.social Sign up for preview emails, donate, and get tickets to our launch event in London: equator.org

This is exciting. I was expecting to add maybe 4 or 5 titles to my list. But there are loads (see responses). We're seeing a renaissance of proper local journalism, not among the big companies, which mostly remain dire, but among independent publications founded by local people. Hope lies here ⬇️

As I say, it really does demonstrate why political leadership on racism matters - a non-trivial chunk of people will follow where leaders of their big party move. Heath and Wilson proved that in 1968, and Starmer and Badenoch are proving it in 2025.

On the button from @benburgis.bsky.social and Meagan Day in Jacobin jacobin.com/2025/09/char...

So shocked Conor Gearty has died He was a fearless lawyer, teacher and writer He was also one of the wittiest, smartest people you’d ever meet. It was an honour to call him a friend I will miss him, terribly. Thoughts with his family, in London and Longford www.matrixlaw.co.uk/news/profess...

This is a warning to take note of. The Trumpite reaction to Kirk's assassination is to call for more violence. Nazi Martyr Horst Wessel open.substack.com/pub/heidicud...

His killing was a tragedy, and we should say so. But let's not go so far as to airbrush out his spreading of antisemitism, Islamophobia and disinformation: this is not "practicing politics the right way".

This morning’s whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy by civility-obsessed liberals isn’t just offensive to anyone targeted by Kirk (ask anyone on the ‘professor watchlist’) but dangerous. 1/2

If this is accurate, the foreign funding rules have been broken and the Electoral Commission should force the Conservatives to pay back the £2.6 million. The only thing that will teach these people if hitting them in the pocket The rest is all window dressing www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I suggest that BBC Verify should assess the extent of such posting. They will exist anecdotally, but Webb risks loosely and falsely suggesting a platform norm that seems v unlikely

A thing social media has enabled is that you can respond to an unimaginable horror about which you feel powerless (the continuing spread of political violence) with something manageable (smearing everyone on a small social site that you dislike).

Charlie Kirk called me a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘prostitute’ and demanded I be deported. Nothing, *nothing*, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don’t know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can *never* be the response to political disagreements.

Justin Webb just referred on Today to "platforms like Bluesky, where you can see the celebration of the killing" of Charlie Kirk. What I'm seeing on here is overwhelming condemnation; despair at the violence of US politics; alarm at where this might go; & calls for equal horror at other shootings.

📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else! www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

Donations used to be £50,000 a decade ago, now they are in the £millions. Democracy in England is an auction house. @petergeoghegan.bsky.social tells Parliament. At least we can listen! Will they?? www.youtube.com/watch?v=hckx...

Just to confirm. Since the full scale war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has sanctioned: 5 Guardian journalists 3 BBC journalists 2 Telegraph journalists 2 FT journalists 1 Times journalist 6 Byline Times/TV journalists That makes us the most targeted UK media outlet

RIP

I’d like to see more work done to preserve the site of the ancient palace of the Roman Emperors so that many more generations can visit and enjoy it. Which is why I, like many others #SupportPalatineAction

This isn’t Moscow or Beijing. It’s Chicago. Masked federal agents grabbed U.S. citizens protesting ICE and threw them into an unmarked van. “Who are you? Where are you taking them?” people shouted. “You are kidnapping them!” What has America become?

Elon Musk has *personally*posted in favour of the racist remigration agenda of the maximalist racist abusing the Home Secretary with this on X & endlessly posting racist harassment on X This should be a story. It should be a scandal. Musk should have to account for this, in person, in parliament

This is fascism. Never forget and never forgive the so-called “normie Republicans” who enabled this monster, fully aware of how dangerous he was, all for their own political and personal gain.

Elon Musk is using Tommy Robinson and others further right still to create pressure on parties and institutions to dissolve all of the boundaries between the respectable and the racist right. Those who believe that boundary still matters are much quieter and less active

Farage needs to be exposed for the grifter he is. It will be an uphill battle based on the financial backers & media he has in place.

Go for the Matador not the Cape - lessons here for England. www.thenation.com/article/poli...

🔴Kemi Badenoch’s ‘Free Speech’ Conservatives Ban Byline Times From Party Conference The ban on covering the party’s annual gathering came despite Badenoch’s repeated commitment to “fight” for free speech and a free press bylinetimes.com/2025/09/04/k...

The Rayner resignation demonstrates the difference between British and US political culture, where rampant kleptomaniac corruption worth billions is oing as unchecked as breaches of the law and constitution

Honking endorsement for Farage, Johnson et la, without a moment’s reflection that 10 years of UKIPified Tory govt created the mess they’re railing about — booming benefits bills, bond market routs, immigration surges, trade slump and investment slumps. Bring back Boris and Nadine! That’ll fix it. 🙈

Adam Bienkov of @bylinetimes.bsky.social has been banned from the Tory Party conference after ten years of exposing what goes on under the hood. Viva Byline Times!

Sanctioned six times by the Kremlin, banned from both Reform and Conservative Party Conferences… what better time to support @bylinetimes.bsky.social by subscribing to our monthly newspaper 👉 subscribe.bylinetimes.com/editions/

worth thinking about

Yes! Jamie rocks

Arrest Stephen Miller: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

This is a fascinating book which I've just finished. Among it many achievements @leaypi.bsky.social manages to make the fate of the Ottoman empire part of our own history, the role of images... how to imagine what it was like for our grandparents an amazing, original read.