Our first ad of the general election starts airing tomorrow: “Things Can Change.”

Mysteries, ghost stories, and a hungry creek: Kathleen Jennings' dark fantasy Honeyeater is a sublime Australian Gothic 🍃 reactormag.com/book-review-...

There's a lot of speculation about what Trump can & can't do against the left with his new executive orders. To cut thru it, I spoke with FBI counterterrorism veteran turned whistleblower Terry Albury about how he & his old colleagues use the powers they have – and what the average citizen should do

"... if Starmer wants to leverage his record in government in his offensive against Reform, his achievements are like so many imaginary battalions pushed around a map."

The "Deal of the Millennium" After the "Deal of the Century" Trump’s new plan is even less realistic than the one he unveiled five years ago. gilbert-achcar.net/deal-of-the-...

Manchester's building boom is sometimes called a miracle. Instead, it's created a city of renters and a huge building safety crisis. The last instalment of my high rise trilogy looks at one block emptied two years ago where residents are yet to return: peteapps.substack.com/p/a-modern-h...

Streeting rules out VAT on private healthcare. Govt levies VAT on private school fees. Why not on healthcare? Billions can be raised. Private sector freeloads on NHS trained staff, doesn't pay for training. Makes excessive profits from NHS contracts.

A Global View on China - event in London on Saturday October 4th, featuring Wang Hui, Rebecca Karl, Pun Ngai and Tariq Ali, hosted by Verso Books: www.eventbrite.com/e/verso-book...

Labour rescinded my conference pass over an unspecified "breach of the event code of conduct". 10 minutes later, @owenjones.bsky.social received a similar email. This is a terrifying, authoritarian crackdown on press freedom.

Just catching up on September's Grand Sumo and the final day was a corker! Onosato vs Hoshoryu. Hoshoryu won the round to make the score evens and so it was a tie breaker, which Onosato then won! Great #Sumo!

The next #Islington People's Forum will be on the theme of "Erosion of Our Civil Liberties" 📅Wed 8th October 6pm Archway Methodist Hall📅 Join the debate, and get involved in campaigns. In addition you will also receive your regular update from Jeremy Corbyn MP, and get a chance to ask questions.

W. M. Akers 's Strange Times has just dropped, and it is suitably weird.

On the day that commences my 50th year on this planet (and the 40th of playing RPGs), I start my list of my favourite 101 RPGs that I've played. It's in order. So we begin with my least favourite RPG of all time. Drumroll...

It’s International Coffee Day.

Really powerful Gaza protest outside the Labour conference in Liverpool. Over 20k kids have been killed in Gaza and protesters placed red stained blankets to look like babies were placed on barriers at the entrance. A sign read: “20k dead kids. None had guns.”

Here’s this week’s cartoon for @sport.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/football/pic...

I guess "markets are good" will always pass muster at the FT, but half a century of pro-market govt is what has left the UK economy in a low growth funk, not some mild scepticism about markets among some Labour backbenchers. ft.com/content/2fa3...

This is not the crime-ridden part of Chicago. That's the tourist and shopping district on the Magnificent Mile. It's about as dangerous as Disneyland or the beach. This is about intimidating a normally law-abiding public.

In order to back the Starmer project to the hilt, the Guardian has reluctantly decided that multiculturalism must die and who better to argue for that than the permanently blithe Gaby Hinsliff.

Then @jackdulhanty.bsky.social was in Withington, investigating the sad death of Paul Jackson, a homeless man who had a cardiac arrest outside a Sainsbury’s. Described by readers as “a perfect insight into what 'homelessness' actually means." manchestermill.co.uk/a-death-on-t...

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

The London Minute ⏰ Tuesday 30 September 2025 open.substack.com/pub/londonmi...

The Edinburgh Minute ⏰ Tuesday 30 September 2025 edinburghminute.substack.com/p/edinburgh-...

The Glasgow Wrap 🗞️ Tuesday 30 September 2025 open.substack.com/pub/theglasg...

#Politics #ReformUK #Britain

He shows up on Fox and at rallies, but he still works best in the dark, the aide who wants power, not applause. Miller isn’t Trump’s sidekick. He’s the brain. #Trumpocene #Politics

“It is understood to be the largest leveraged buyout in history”

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another deserves all the hype it’s getting. Run, don’t walk, to this thrilling, hilarious, moving, and all too prescient portrait of American radicals on the run from right-wing authoritarians.

Private equity is taking over animal clinics to raise prices and close down practices where workers demand better wages.

Munchkin Digital, by @direwolfdigital.bsky.social, is on sale! Now through October 6, you can kick down virtual doors and battle cyber versions of the Plutonium Dragon and the Potted Plant for 40% off. Visit Steam today and start grabbing the loot for just $8.99! bit.ly/munchkin-steam #playsjgames

"Farage must have spent the day pinching himself."

Looking forward to this podcast series!

Coming soonish from Subterranean Press - the first collection of my short fiction in about a decade - here's the cover (by @alisonsampson.bsky.social ) and table of contents for your delectation.

The right stuffed: timely Anti-Nazi League history offers an essential lesson - www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/the-...

Since the Grenfell Tower, 419 purpose-built blocks of flats have been emptied of residents after a prohibition notice from the fire service. Often this process is traumatic (and expensive) for those involved. Could we do it better? www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/deca...

Can't think of many better illustrations of how badly we have botched housing policy than the fact that our bill for housing homeless families (£2.8bn pa) is now higher than the money we spend each year on new affordable housing (£2.3bn) www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/english...

"Ending the housing crisis requires attacking one of the foundations of neoliberal capitalism: the idea that we are all little, budding capitalists just waiting for the opportunity to invest in financial markets." graceblakeley.substack.com/p/building-m...

Video: Labour MP's controversial 'grassroots' conference speech sponsored by Murdoch lobbyist Torsten Bell was criticised for calling Lib Dem leader 'fat man in wetsuit' - but the real scandal is corporate influence over his speech www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/20...

In the last decade billionaires have gained enough wealth to end poverty 22 times over, just tax them you absolute numpty Keir

The wild rumours circulating at Labour’s conference probably, we don’t know, we can’t get in buff.ly/8jEPNNP

Classic Blair. He is now proposing himself as the Empire's Regent of Gaza. A war criminal himself, he demands a five year appointment to run the site of Israel's genocide on behalf of Donald Trump in the finest tradition of White Settler Colonial projects www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Guardian previews Stephen King's appreciation of the writing of Daphne du Maurier in his introduction to a new book of her stories. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee

Since privatization, shareholders of water, rail, bus, energy and mail have received £200bn in dividends. Plus £bns more through intrgragroup transactions. In public ownership this would have gone into infrastructure and lower bills, alleviated poverty. Govts still don't curb profiteering.

New. For months, the Russian army has secretly recruited hundreds, if not thousands, of jobless migrant workers in Qatar to fight on the frontline against Ukraine. By @samindrakunti.bsky.social and @bobbyperu.bsky.social josimarfootball.com/2025/09/25/t...

“If you look back over the past decade, it’s almost impossible to name small or medium-sized US companies that started from scratch and succeeded primarily with hardware. On the other hand, you find that Chinese companies are innovating and iterating new generations of technology at a faster pace.”

The London Minute ⏰ Monday 29 September 2025 open.substack.com/pub/londonmi...

The Glasgow Wrap 🗞️ Monday 29 September 2025 open.substack.com/pub/theglasg...