Rest easy Steve Cropper. A history of modern music in six strings. 'We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.' youtu.be/nbBcXvKvB08?...

After the BCC decision to fly the Palestinian flag above city hall, briefly, the usual suspects are proclaiming the "culture war is now in full flow." Culture has very little to do with flags.

Obviously running a country is hard and requires greater state capacity than consecutive UK governments anticipated. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Can't help but feel that the word "foresaw" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I would have been more inclined to say, "willed".

Amid everything in this story that makes you despair: “The young man described how they were saved thanks to the intervention of two women who came on the scene and raised the alarm, leading to the alleged attackers to leave.” www.thejournal.ie/brittas-asyl...

Two more Tory defections to Reform.

Billy Bonds MBE www.kumb.com/story.php?id... #koyi #whufc

Billy Bonds

I suspect that UKHE's leaders will collaborate with or simply capitulate to a Reform government. Others will see it as the moment to move on, well remunerated. I wonder, will we look back and say that the hollowing out the university sector through marketisation made its capture by RefUK easy?

Cambridge University is engaging with Reform UK, anticipating Farage as PM. Other universities are no doubt thinking about that possible future also. It’s surely a terrifying prospect for staff: the senior leaders, so critical to shaping the sector’s present crisis, at the helm going into another.

Allison Morris: "The role of some politicians in failing to condemn — and even at times excuse the racial hatred that was directed at the Romanian community in June — is also something that should be noted." We have some foul, nasty politicians. www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

I regret to inform you that the Brits are, once again, and this will not surprise you in the least, At It.

If it is any comfort to you, you can be this hysterically stupid and still make a comfortable living in the UK.

My take-away from this is that "Ireland, awash with cash from a corporation tax bonanza paid by global firms with big operations in the country", is being told it should spend that money defending market assets, like cables under the Atlantic, rather than on housing and health.

When they say ‘higher education providers’ do they mean universities? When they say ‘exiting the market’ do they mean closing?

I’d like to learn more about this racism that isn’t hurtful or insulting.

Interesting thread. The final point is crucial. 👇

what a surprise, majority of fash "Ireland is full" posts on shitter are from outside Ireland

Why not?

I like Clive Lewis. Andy Burnham as PM would is preferable to Keir Starmer. But this all feels like too little too late. Labour set a course to hit an iceberg a while ago. Change the captain, sure. But there's a lot of the crew that need to walk the plank. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“Among the reasons cited by analysts for the Social Democrats’ decline in Copenhagen were voter fatigue over the prime minister’s hardline policies on issues such as integration and immigration”.

Oh.

The obituary on Elspeth King by our Custodian @sorchadallas.bsky.social will be in tomorrow’s @theguardian.com paper if anyone would like to read a physical version

The second best Northern Star behind the original

Spent a few life-affirming hours with Bernadette Devlin McAliskey today. Childhood, inter-generational trauma, Ireland-Palestine and how we can’t lose if we keep on keeping on. Truly an honour. Some of the highlights are available now here: www.patreon.com/posts/patron...

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that after the next general election the UK gets a coalition of Reform and whatever is left of Labour and the Tories, the central plank of which is ‘uniting the country’ around anti-immigration policies and reneging on human rights?

Shabana Mahmood warns Labour MPs ‘dark forces are stirring up anger’ over migration www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Labour seem to have decided that to beat Reform they have to get into a cruelty competition with them. But, and let me say this in all caps, YOU DON’T BEAT REFORM BY ENDORSING THEIR ANALYSIS.

The UK's political class has wrecked the institutional and civic life of the place. They thought notions of exceptionalism and superiority would be enough to hold a nation together. It wasn't This is what has torn the UK apart, Shabana. Not migrants.

When I was 16, I wrote the the British Labour Party and asked to join. Of course, living in the north of Ireland, I couldn't. But if I could time-travel, I'd go back and save my 16 year old the price of a stamp.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, says, 'illegal migration' is "tearing the country apart", as she prepares to unveil plans to make people granted asylum wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently. How will this policy bring the UK back together again?

The Bill Clinton/Donald Trump thing. Is it it true or some sort of metaphor?

Outstanding work over on X 👏 *doffs cap

The Times Higher Education giving a platform to reactionary voices to complain about there being too much "terminology relating to EDI" or "progressive discourse" in research projects at a time when fascism is at the door... What is there left to say? www.timeshighereducation.com/news/rise-ed...

“Almost a quarter of a million people living in the UK applied for an Irish passport last year, the highest number since the UK formally left the European Union. “More than half of applications, 53%, were from people living in Northern Ireland.” www.rte.ie/news/world/2...

This report is largely about Irish passport applications from people living in GB, but the continuing high number of new passport applications from NI is remarkable. There have been really profound identity shifts enabling huge numbers to formally assert being Irish: www.rte.ie/news/world/2...

Dundee Uni won ‘Entrepreneurial University of the Year’ in 2024… then its principal resigned amid a £30m deficit that exposed serious financial mismanagement THE awards are spin, branding & optics They don't align with what's happening behind the scenes

Had a chat on the Tortoise Shack with @philipoconnor.bsky.social about the political lurch to the anti-immigrant right and no punches were pulled. Are you listening, Matt Carthy? Full interview here: www.patreon.com/posts/patron...

Dan Hind: "...the BBC will only survive if the people who fund it are actively and directly involved in running it. An institution that began life as a private company and became a chartered corporation must now become a public service cooperative." substack.com/inbox/post/1...

The crisis at the BBC has been a long time coming and is the work of many hands, both within and political machinations without. It's not enough to simply defend the BBC from those who want to destroy it. We need a new democratic public media fit for the 21st century, and frankly, the BBC ain't it.

Instead of Keir Starmer… … how about we try Wes Streeting!

My new book, An Injury to All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class, will be published by Verso next year. It's now listed, which makes it feel that bit more official!

I saw Mackenzie on the BBC being interviewed about the resignations of Davie and Turness, and I just thought is there any one at the BBC with any sense? Imagine, inviting Kelvin fucking Mackenzie to talk about journalistic standards! www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpo...

BBC news once edited footage of Orgreave during the miners' strike in 1984-85 to give the erroneous impression that violence had been initiated by picketing miners, when in fact it was mounted police that had charged pickets. No one at the BBC resigned or lost their job because of this.

#OtD 10 Nov 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni indigenous author and activist, was hanged by the Nigerian state for resisting Royal Dutch Shell, alongside eight other Ogoni people. They had organised nonviolent resistance to destruction of Indigenous lands stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8237...