First co-writing credit on a script - for Death in Westminster, a new narrative podcast series about the hidden flows of money that shape Britain. Presented by @kojokoram.bsky.social and @daliagebrial.bsky.social. Listen here! novaramedia.com/category/aud...

Labour's Rwanda policy. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word. IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it. Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Hello, I have a new book out in the spring with Picador and I would love it if you could help me spread the word. IF WE TOLERATE THIS draws on years of work, to help readers understand why British politics is hurtling rightwards and what to do about it. Pre-orders: uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Three pieces I wrote this year... 1. Is this fascism? An essay on the new global right www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

My piece on why Keir Starmer isn't turning out to be the human rights hero he talked himself up as is in the Long Read's best of 2025 - and in great company... www.theguardian.com/news/2025/de...

Wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian: "Since migration has become the cornerstone of the current authoritarian turn, it is precisely around migration that resistance needs to form." www.theguardian.com/world/commen...

For more than a decade, Tommy Robinson has been written off by his critics yet he keeps coming back. Now, he's trying to become the new face of Christmas. Today, @alexvont.bsky.social and @trillingual.bsky.social unpack why it keeps working and how to stop it. Listen: linktr.ee/bunker_pod

On this topic, I cannot recommend highly enough @trillingual.bsky.social's Starmer v Starmer profile. It is brilliantly put together, from title to final sentence. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Rich countries are turning their backs on people fleeing violence & repression, so no surprise they’re forced to use smugglers. Both having to flee at all & the means they use to do so are primarily problems for refugees themselves & no-one else. Nothing’s going to change till we recognise this.

NEW FREE EP! @trillingual.bsky.social on his @equatormag.bsky.social, “Inside the BBC’s Gaza Fiasco: How the world’s most trusted media organisation fell apart,” which reveals how the BBC may respond to President Trump's alleged defamation lawsuit. www.patreon.com/posts/new-ep...

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on the 75th anniversary of the ECHR - and how it is threatened by the vicious politics of resentment that Labour and the Tories have enabled/encouraged in the past 20 years. This to me is what lies beneath the asylum "debate". www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In 2023 @tom-clark.bsky.social got me to write a chapter for his book on UK poverty about how immigration limbo, which Labour wants more of, makes people destitute. It was the most distressing piece I've ever worked on. We sent a copy to every MP. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/society/6081...

For the @equatormag.bsky.social newsletter, I talked about how I reported my piece on the BBC and Gaza, and what's at stake in the current crisis. You can read/sign up below - Equator is a brilliant and necessary new magazine, so give it your support! www.equator.org/articles/ins...

This contribution to the volume of human misery is yet another policy from Labour based on a false premise, in this case that refugees are overly attracted to Britain. It will increase bureaucratic limbo, thus making worse the problem of "cohesion" it purports to solve. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

V pleased to be giving a public talk (two, in fact) at Ulster University later this month: "How did we get here? The rise of Britain's far right." Derry, 25 Nov: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-did-we... Belfast, 25 Nov: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-did-we... Please come along, or share with friends.

I spoke to two dozen BBC journalists, from frontline reporters to senior staff, about how the BBC came to symbolise the West's failure to prevent genocide in Gaza - and how the row over its coverage fed directly into its current meltdown. www.equator.org/articles/ins...

New: for @equatormag.bsky.social I spent months talking to BBC journalists, from front-line reporters to the former head of the World Service, about how the corporation came unstuck over Gaza. But as I was working on the story, it collided with something... bigger... www.equator.org/articles/ins...

Wrote about 'Resistance', Steve McQueen's exhibition on 20th century protest. Some wonderful photographs, and some difficult questions about how to tell this story in our current moment. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Piece on how the British right has managed to convince a significant minority that it would be in their interests to get rid of the European Convention on Human Rights. My suggestion: rather than capitulate, make human rights part of a wider politics of equality. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A first foray into podcast script-writing... helped make this series on what to do now that we're overshooting 1.5c global warming. Presented by Laurie Laybourn and produced by Planet B. More things soon I hope! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

The last time I went into a synagogue, I found out it had the Torah scroll rescued from what had once been my family's synagogue in Berlin, shortly before Kristallnacht. I was the first person in my family to see it in over 80 years.

Will try to have something more constructive to say eventually but this is unbelievably spiteful and stupid. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Once again, if you're interested in how and why a leading human rights barrister can end up suggesting the UK might water down its commitment to such protections as the absolute ban on torture in article 3 of the Human Rights Act, ECHR, etc...

Labour's current position is that it's racist to make life much harder for people who have immigrated to the UK legally, but also that it will make life a little bit harder for people who have immigrated to the UK legally. The morality of that aside, what is the message here to the Reform-curious?

Just to illustrate how much worse it's got, I have received more abuse over the past year and a bit - including death threats and a large volume of antisemitism - for what I write than in the previous 15 years of covering migration and the far right put together.

Last year I wrote for @lrb.co.uk about the families of Majella O'Hare, a young girl killed by a British soldier, and Tony Harrison, a British soldier killed by the IRA, who were campaigning together against the Legacy Act - and the vested interests supporting it. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

If you want to know what the UK government's position is on its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to its support for Israel, here's what it argued in court this summer.

Had a few conversations recently that make me think, for the first time in ages, there are some exciting things happening in media. This is one of the highlights: Equator, a new magazine set up by Nesrine Malik, Pankaj Mishra, Jonathan Shainin and others. Sign up for info here: www.equator.org

Regardless of whether Reform's deportation plan "works", if they get a chance to try it - like the Tories' Rwanda policy, or Trump's deportations - it will ostentatiously torment thousands of people and further engrain racism in British politics. It must be opposed on that basis.

I wrote this with the aim that it would be a durable piece, relevant every time there's a flare-up of far right violence or as far right ideas make further advances into the mainstream. Hope people find it useful.

My long read on Keir Starmer and human rights - for which a I spoke to dozens of current and former colleagues, campaigners and legal experts - is now a podcast. www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...

I wrote this to explain how we reached this point, in the hope it would be a resource for people arguing with friends and family, people with questions, perhaps even people thinking of joining a protest. Do share with anyone who might find it useful. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Adding this very good @trillingual.bsky.social article from a few years back on this very subject: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

If you are looking for something to read this weekend...

Wonderful Arvo Pärt prom last night.

"The worst is still preventable." This sets out clearly how. That has to be the priority. But on a personal level I find the denials put out by the Israeli government and its advocates here in the UK (just look at what's on X) sickening.

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

It's parakeets vs pigeons round our way.

Lovely to receive a copy of the book my friend and occasional ad-hoc photographer @amarichi.bsky.social made with her students at the Academie van Bouwkunst in Amsterdam. More about her work at www.maribastashevski.com.

Interesting (and by "interesting" I mean 😡) how for each long-form piece I write I have to design a new method from scratch for handling, sifting and assembling the material.

I shall reread Neither Settler nor Native in celebration.

Great piece by @will-davies.bsky.social on TikTok, "clustered publics" and their role in far-right resentment. (I've found this shift profoundly challenging to respond to as a journalist. Ignore it and trust what I write reaches readers anyway? Dive in? Something else?) www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Current escapism.

Request: what are some inspiring/useful examples of advice to young journalists, particularly to journalists from non-elite backgrounds?

The tattered, faded-pink flag flying from the turret of Arding and Hobbs makes it look as if Clapham Junction has seen a failed insurrection.

Action shot.

The real political correctness here is that nobody wants to admit running things fairly and efficiently would likely result in giving more people asylum - unless you abandon parts of the Refugee Convention. The right wants the latter, and trying to fudge the issue makes it a more likely outcome imo.

If you're going to reheat a Blair-era policy you probably need to explain why, last time around, it was so badly run it ended up wrongly deporting thousands of people, some very likely to their deaths, and how you might avoid that this time. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...