Luca Trenta
@lucatrenta.bsky.social
Associate Professor in IR at @swanseauni_ppir Work on assassination, covert action, US foreign policy, secrecy. Host on the New Books Network. Author of The Brush Contact Substack.
@labouruk.bsky.social’s endless love affair with techno-fascism continues regardless of the change in leadership. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Approval of east London datacentre labelled ‘slap in the face’ for local democracy
Campaigners decry Angela Rayner’s backing for Brick Lane project that has only 11 affordable homes
theguardian.com
A nice write-up of the research conducted for my last @britishacademy.bsky.social Small Grant on selective disclosured and covert operations. Thanks to @lseusablog.bsky.social for covering it.
LSE US Politics and Policy blog - USAPP@lseusablog.bsky.social · last wk.Partisan conflict pushed Congress from supporting US covert operations in the 1950s to strong opposition in the 1980s find Kevin Fahey of @uniofnottingham.bsky.social, Doug Atkinson of @brighamyoungu.bsky.social, and @lucatrenta.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...
Last week, I sat down with Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall to discuss her book Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence. The episode is now available via @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. Here: newbooksnetwork.com/the-real-mis...
Claire Hubbard-Hall, "Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence" (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
Two stories on the @theguardian.com website today. As if the two were un related. Will the new UK government have more of a spine than the last?
The guy who wanted Palantir in the NHS is now in charge of defence. The guy who wanted more money for defence is now in charge of all the money. The woman with far-right policies and rhetoric on immigration stays in place. Paint me unimpressed.
After I while, I had some time to write a short piece for The Brush Contact. It combines a forgotten classic of dystopian fiction with my current research on brainwashing. Have a read here: open.substack.com/pub/thebrush...
Thoughts can be punished
Truth drugs, mind control, and other cruel fantasies
open.substack.com
If @labouruk.bsky.social has not learned the lesson that they should stop appeasing Trump and the far-right, then they are doomed regardless of who is in charge.
Celebrating people’s death is surely wrong. The same applies to lionising them just because they died.
Anyone I know could do some (paid) research for me at Cornell University Archives?
Just imagine the amount of dirt... www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Farage says he is resigning but will stand in ‘people v establishment’ byelection – UK politics live
The Reform UK leader says he will stand again in Clacton, saying the people of the constituency ‘should be the judges of my actions’
theguardian.com
Have you got any plans for Sunday the 2nd of August? No? Come to Bristol. I'll be discussing the history of the US government's involvement in assassination at the Loko Club as part of Pints of Knowledge. You can buy tickets here: www.tickettailor.com/events/pints...
Buy tickets – "From Poisoned Milkshakes to Precision Bombs: the Evolution of US Assassination Policy – LOCATION TBC
"From Poisoned Milkshakes to Precision Bombs: the Evolution of US Assassination Policy – LOCATION TBC, Sun 2 Aug 2026 - "From poisoned milkshakes to precision bombs: the evolution of US assassination ...
tickettailor.com
50yrs ago, the CIA published "Intelligence in the War of Independence" to rehabilitate the Agency's public image as it was being investigated for decades of misdeeds. In this post for @nsarchive.bsky.social I write a little history on this CIA publication.
“Exploiting the Bicentennial”: The Church Committee, the CIA, and the Politicization of the Revolutionary War
Washington, D.C., July 1, 2026 - A pamphlet published 50 years ago by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to celebrate the United States Bicentennial and highlight the role of secret intelligence op...
nsarchive.gwu.edu
One has to give it to far right parties everywhere, they are not suBT le about who pays their bills. And yet, people vote for these “patriots.” www.reuters.com/world/afd-le...
AfD leader vows to restore German-Russian ties as she eyes chancellery
Germany should end a boycott of Russian oil and gas to bolster its flagging economy, the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, Alice Weidel, told Reuters as she outlined the party's ambiti...
reuters.com
More despicable performative cruelty from @labouruk.bsky.social. Wonder if my MP still thinks that they are different from previous governments. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Asylum seekers to pay £10,000 towards living costs under new UK law
Means-tested scheme included in immigration and asylum bill condemned by charities for placing tax on refugees
theguardian.com
All the articles that stress the league position of Exeter while reporting on cuts, are simply replicating the neoliberal ranking-driven mentality that has contributed to putting all universities in this predicament in the first place. When it was lower ranking unis, complete silence.
Andy Brockman@andybrockman.bsky.social · last mo."The idea that people will be able to hold it together and deliver a term of teaching before they vanish off into the horizon, is bizarre, spiteful and naive as well.” The Times HE's punchy account of Exeter University's #BonfireOfTheHumanities & what one academic describes as "existential terror".
‘Remove home secretary Mahmood and rip up her asylum plans, says Alf Dubs.’ 100% and change all current rhetoric and policies on migration while you are at it. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Remove home secretary Mahmood and rip up her asylum plans, says Alf Dubs
Exclusive: Labour peer who fled Nazis as a child says Andy Burnham has chance to ‘correct mistakes’ on refugees
theguardian.com
Britain is more than halfway towards reaching Net Zero. Most people don't realise this, not least as the fossil-fuel fanatics want us to think achieving it is impossible. Via YouGov
The true triumph of neo-liberalism. Planet is burning, inequality has spiralled out of control, but the powerful have convinced the powerless to vote, live, and think against their own interests and wellbeing. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Nearly a quarter of voters in Europe now back far-right parties
Analysis by more than 150 political scientists finds proportion who back such parties has increased nearly fivefold since 1995
theguardian.com
This is happening across HE, in the name of centralisation, simplification, etc. with little regard for staff's and students' preferences.
Jo Wolff@jowolff.bsky.social · last mo.I don’t know the details but they may well targeting modules with lower registration, where a world expert gets to teach their research to a relatively small number of the keenest students. You know. Those modules that stick in the students’ minds for the rest of their lives.
There are some stupid arguments but the pretentious argument from very privileged (white) men that Brexit was about class and was the right choice, surely takes the cake. People were conned by a long campaign against experts and a more targeted campaign of lies.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · last mo.I stand by what I said 10 years ago. We were right to leave the European Union | Larry Elliott
Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity
The crime was to squander a historic majority with policies that represented continuity with Tories. ‘They will scratch their heads at a PM who paid the ultimate political price, even though few could point to the single, obvious political crime he had committed.’ www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...
The rise and fall of Keir Starmer: where did it all go wrong?
PM’s demise after landslide victory two years ago points to an increasingly volatile and impatient electorate
theguardian.com
Brexit, appeasing the far right, and tech-bro neoliberalism destroy another Prime Minister. Will see who’s next and whether they can bring any of the actual change Labour had promised during the campaign.
Comparing coverage of the Belfast and Edinburgh attacks, it seems that if politicians politicise and racialise a crime, then it will get far more attention than a crime that is in itself political and racist but doesn’t serve a political agenda. That’s not a good message
It's 2040. Net emigration is 2 million a year. The elderly are dying in the beds without care. The NHS is on the verge of collapse. Matthew Syed and Camilla Long write weekly columns about how the left won't talk about immigration.
There are some uncanny parallels between the Italian and the British political situation. Two new far-right parties have split with their already far-right counterparts. In both countries, Russia’s interference has a long history.
The Party that has fully aligned with far-right views on immigration, in a country in which immigration has plummeted, apparently does not want to listen to voters on immigration. This country will never recover until the narrative on immigration is chaged.
Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2mo agoLabour won by 20 points and net immigration is down by over 80% in two years. But sure write your column again.
