This is not a comment on tax, but the fact that successive governments have simply decided to raise min wage rather than fixing structural issues with our economy as a way of alleviating people's burdens, and that has led to something that looks suspiciously like wage compression.

Not to open oneself up to accusations of being right-wing, but a minimum wage of nearly £30,000 a year and a higher rate tax bracket of £50,000 does look a little off

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · yesterday

Healey poised to increase adult minimum wage in UK Budget ft.trib.al/NZ6vrC3

bring me your brazilian fascists, your boer south africans, your saudi princes

What year is it

These Soros conspiracies are at least implicitly antisemitic, but they also reflect such an impoverished view of human life. They cannot imagine that anyone might feel strongly enough about their community to protest without being paid to do it. www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/new...

Trump baselessly blames billionaire George Soros after being heckled at rally

independent.co.uk

The new Cold War will finish when one side hits at least 100 unique creatures and declares victory.

Washington 🤝 Moscow: collecting weird little goblin-like international fascist failson specimens like Pokemon.

Big news from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain: Employees at Rockstar Games in the UK will hold a union vote next month, just as they release Grand Theft Auto VI

Amazing how many Labour MPs do not understand this quite basic point.

Christabel Cooper@christabelcoops.bsky.social · 18h ago

Really worth noting that even in Red Wall constituencies which backed Leave, most *Labour* voters back rejoining the EU. Over 90% of Labour considerers back rejoin - opposition to EU membership is mainly coming from non-Labour voters in these seats. Was on Times Radio yesterday making this point.

Without his passport?

George Pearkes@peark.es · 17h ago

Aw nuts *BOLSONARO EN ROUTE TO THE US, FOLHA REPORTS CITING ALLIES

Extremely funny to go "I can't believe the Poles didn't insitute reforms that would have upset Moscow" with a header image of What Happens When You Upset Moscow

Jacobin@jacobinmag.bsky.social · 21h ago

In October 1956, a protest movement in Poland brought a reform-minded communist leadership to power. Unlike Hungary, Poland managed to avoid Soviet intervention, but the opportunity to democratize its political and economic structures was missed.

2035 X: Why G*y Furries are an islamic plot to pollute our Aryan Wolf seed 2035 Bluesky: Damn i can't believe we got hating furries in the third national divorce 2035 Threads: Can anyone visualise an apple or has it been too long since you could buy one?

I'm back (sort of). It's been one of the most miserable weeks in my life. But friends helped me pull through and served as inspiration for me to write this. Hope you all like it!

Letters, Lice, and Livy: Friendship, Hope and Fortuna in Machiavelli’s Exile | Kris

I assert, indeed, once more that it is very true, according to what we see in all the histories, that men are able to assist Fortune but not

patreon.com

I for one, am shocked that the guy who runs a channel called "The Young Turks" might be racist

Katherine Alejandra Cross@quinnae.com · yesterday

Yeah, this is really bad. It's good that El-Sayed distanced himself from it, but I am in awe at how Cenk's left-wing PAC managed to combine antisemitism with transphobia and pitch it as *supporting* the Democrat in this race.

Obviously this is racist and gross, but it's also shockingly historically illiterate? No one who has taken a single high school world history course would deny that Arab culture has produced incredible science and literature. This is why we need basic humanities education.

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · yesterday

RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."

Yes, actually. America has earned this

David BASTARDspan@davidbix.com · 2d ago

what no

So much to say about Brazil, not least of which is the role that Erika Hilton, a Black trans leader and most voted woman politician in Brazil, played in mobilizing folks for Lula. She was behind the critical, concrete, economic promise of shorter work-week. theprint.in/feature/erik...

Who is Erika Hilton? Black trans politician was one of Lula’s loudest campaigners

Erika Hilton’s electoral triumph comes amid a hostile environment. Brazil has the highest number of reported murders of transgender people in the world, with 80 recorded in 2025.

theprint.in

Right after coming out proposing to ban trans healthcare across the country, Turek put out a major ad talking about being denied healthcare. Is a slap in the face. He doesn't even view us as people.

Imo a politician could be quite successful if they just said 'yeah i like the good life, i think everyone should get a chance of the nicer things in life'

“The right to picnic with family on the weekend, to buy a few picky bits from M&S, have a handful of olives with some posh chees, and to a glass of cold Madri,” - my manifesto

Genuinely a thing Lula regularly does as we're in learn from Lula mode today. People will sometimes attack him for EG, wearing nice suits, and his response will be 'everyone deserves to be able to wear nice clothes'

Why does everyone who suggests this seem to believe they are the first ones to have invented the idea of ending a war via negotiated settlement?

The Times and Sunday Times@thetimes.com · 2d ago

Ignore the ‘not-an-inch’ brigade; whatever they say, Ukrainians would trade territory for a cast-iron security guarantee

Matthew Parris and Jeremy Corbyn both seem to share the belief that war is *not* an extension of politics by other means, but simply a behaviour nations and leaders engage in because they haven't countenanced the idea of a diplomatic solution

On #MirabaiJayanti, we remember a poet-saint whose devotion to Krishna became a radical claim to spiritual freedom. Mirabai challenged limits imposed by society, leaving a legacy in which bhakti could become both devotion and resistance Read more: buff.ly/HVeO5ha

Mirabai Jayanti: Life, Poetry, Merta Temple & Legacy — Hindus for Human Rights

Who was Mirabai? Explore the life, poetry and spiritual legacy of the 16th-century Krishna devotee, her connection to Merta and the Meera Bai Temple, and why her message of devotion, dignity and…

buff.ly

"Leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee Which stated that the people Had squandered the confidence of the government And could only win it back By redoubled work. Would it not in that case Be simpler for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?" -Bertolt Brecht

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3d ago

Trump says if Republicans lose the election it is voters’ fault

Seems bonkers to me that whenever tax loopholes or traps, business rates, even tax avoidance/evasion are brought up, the immediate political reaction is to pledge to fix that single issue rather than look at the wider clusterfuck of a system.

David Higham@oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2d ago

We’re long overdue a Chancellor who takes tax reform seriously

oh shit oh fuck

This thing where a random backbench congressman unilaterally declared himself campaign manager *between rounds* and got a Mamdani level social media game going for a Luddite 80 year old 3 term president within 3 weeks and saved democracy is one of the wildest things I’ve ever heard

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 2d ago

Excellent piece this: