ICYMI

Based on sign-ups, the new Corbyn-Sultana party may soon have the largest membership base of any political party in the country. Read Tom Blackburn on the new left-wing party.

The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”

Starmer and McSweeney are zealots and they're killing that party

Wrote this for Tribune on the new left party, its prospects, tasks and challenges:

Wrote this for Tribune on the new left party, its prospects, tasks and challenges:

Robustly listening to Joy Division to signal my commitment to lawful speech while shaking my head to show I disapprove on the grounds of taste

I wrote this on Tony Benn's life, ideas, career and legacy to mark his centenary:

I wrote this on Tony Benn's life, ideas, career and legacy to mark his centenary:

I have to say, if you need proof that there is absolutely no basis for ever allying with liberals, all you need to do is read this thread. The levels of mutual hatred between the left and the centre are *staggering* and only getting more intense with every day.

It really is the world's town square

Worth your time: “Leaving the means of production firmly in private hands was precisely what enabled capital to unpick Labourist reforms when a crisis of sufficient magnitude presented the opportunity.”

Profoundly repulsive

It's been 15 years since Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land was first published, so I wrote this for New Socialist on how the book still stands up (not well) newsocialist.org.uk/the-last-soc...

An update on what we've published this week, featuring Lauren Taylor & @tomblackburn.bsky.social, some other recent pieces, featuring @garethwatkins.bsky.social & Ravachol Mutt, and some brief thoughts on @redpeppermag.bsky.social www.patreon.com/posts/124433...

It's been 15 years since Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land was first published, so I wrote this for New Socialist on how the book still stands up (not well) newsocialist.org.uk/the-last-soc...

ok sorry . my lawyer has advised me to say that drinking israeli diarrhea is good actually no matter how many kindergartners they murked

Starmer taking money away from the sick, elderly and disabled so he can hand it over to ultra-reactionary American military-industrial companies with links to the Trump administration. Look forward to seeing liberal journalists describe this as a Masterful Gambit

Review coming soonish

Pointless discussing this on the other place (unless you want to be bombarded by statue pfp Nazis) but I've always thought reactionaries hate Brutalism's functions - as public housing, universities etc - more than its aesthetic, and that it has the temerity to be unapologetic and strident about them

I've reviewed Brigitte Studer's masterful recent history of the Comintern and the "professional revolutionaries" who dedicated their lives to its service, 'Travellers Of The World Revolution' (@versobooks.bsky.social) for @jacobinmag.bsky.social. jacobin.com/2025/02/comi...

LinkedIn 🤢🤢

Every member of the Cabinet has some kind of competition going on for who can be the most reactionary and regressive.

Social murder in a red rosette

🤷‍♂️

Union leaders getting ready to back Streeting for the Labour leadership

👉 NEW- Israeli General given special immunity for secret trip to Britain By @john-mcevoy.bsky.social After Declassified exposed an Israeli army delegation in London, the UK govt confirms the officers were given diplomatic immunity from arrest for war crimes www.declassifieduk.org/israeli-gene...

No sympathy for Starmer, but they really are a rancid bunch of backstabbers. It baffles me that anyone can expect anything good to come from people like this. But they all truly deserve each other

A good and concise summary from Prabhat Patnaik

I am truly loving it

You’re laughing? AI stock is crashing weeks after Keir Starmer said they can have our entire GDP to make a calculator that identifies potholes and you’re laughing?

Wonder how far they'd have to fall before they moved to depose Starmer. Hope they all take lumps out of each other when it happens

A couple of new arrivals

I can think of one thing Blair could do that would swiftly lift the mood of the entire country

The dig at 'sectarian voting blocs' gives the game away as to what this is really about for Jenrick (a fanatical Zionist). He is still seething that anyone should see Palestinians as worthy of solidarity and basic humanity

This stuff is so funny. The Boer and the other tech oligarchs care purely about money. If you're an ordinary working stiff, they hate you and think you exist purely to serve them, or you can drop dead. If you don't instinctively see these people as class enemies, you have the mind of a medieval serf

The year when radicalized Staatsräson freaks—virtually the entire media and politics A-list—shredded the already-thin veneer of German liberal normalcy. Every day, crazed ravings in defense of genocide, with total impunity. A fitting capstone, this diary. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Some books from 2024 I particularly enjoyed:

A spectre is haunting Britain

"US imperial policy, globally, is to break up countries that cannot be swallowed whole and remove all meaningful sovereignty in order to assert economic and political hegemony... Democracy and human rights have little to do with any of this. It’s a global gamble." newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

I can't get over this tbh. 100+ Labour MPs turning out to show solidarity with Israel in the midst of its genocide, the evidence of which is plastered all over social media every day (also stuffing themselves with a free lunch as Israel starves Palestinians). They are beyond despicable

I reviewed 'The Party is Always Right', Aidan Beatty's biography/history of Gerry Healy and the Workers Revolutionary Party, for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social: tribunemag.co.uk/2024/12/the-...

I reviewed 'The Party is Always Right', Aidan Beatty's biography/history of Gerry Healy and the Workers Revolutionary Party, for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social: tribunemag.co.uk/2024/12/the-...

Some tune open.spotify.com/track/7CivBO...

The tree is up

A Tory-Reform non-aggression pact at the next election and Labour are done. Their sole strategy to counter this will be turning themselves into a bargain-bin Reform tribute act, but it won't work

“Suggesting that we can have a socialist politics that ignores the wreckage America unleashes abroad and its refractions at home—from a fraying social safety net to a militarization of daily life—is not only immoral, but naive and misguided.”

They are all horrible, self-serving, venal people - the most callous of the sharp-elbowed professional-managerial class - who actively get off on inflicting misery on those they deem the undeserving poor

Keeping a watchful eye on proceedings