I have to say the centrist political conversation about climate on here is deafening.
The mysterious fire starter has been starting fires again amidst an unprecedented heatwave which has seen temperatures touch 35C in every month in the UK for FOUR MONTHS now. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cm...
New Forest fire that spread from van now size of 140 football pitches
A van caught fire on the A31 in the New Forest and the flames have spread to the nearby heathland.
bbc.co.uk
It's really quite instructive how a racist radio presenter can get sacked by TalkTV and then just rock up - seamlessly - on YouTube with a massive audience, funding for production and all the rest of it. I just can't help but believe that this is funded work. www.youtube.com/@themikegrah...
The Mike Graham Show - The Home of Common Sense
The Mike Graham Show is Britain’s biggest breakfast show on YouTube. Veteran broadcaster and Fleet Street journalist Mike examines the state of the nation and the world every weekday morning from 7am ...
youtube.com
I worry that this Binface and other eyebrow wiggling political acts are telling us very bad things about middle-class political engagement. I fear people have had their minds rotted by HIGNFY and this is now the extent of what we can expect from the chattering classes.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · yesterdayPilot pulls off Count Binface stunt for Clacton byelection
The Tories recruited a plainly unreformed Neo Nazi as an antiracism and anti-extremism advisor. Because there are no serious consequences for this beyond a bit of media class bitching, their leader is in the paper today consolidating her win and turning it against the government. Well done, all.
Polymarket speculating about whether AOC will run for President by... Er by discussing whether she's going to fr Eze her eggs. It's such a weird time to be alive.
This is the fundamental challenge at the moment for our democracies. There is not currently a majority for the far-right, but we are letting them influence policy anyway.
Professor Daniele Albertazzi@dralbertazziuk.bsky.social · 2d agoThis highlights a broader European dynamic—from Vannacci in Italy to Reform in the UK: extreme right parties don't need huge parliamentary representation to wield immense leverage. By threatening a larger party's right flank, they can dictate national agendas from the sidelines.
Just bored of this "I've been cancelled" playbook that people like Gervais use to market EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT they try to sell. It's pure marketing masquerading as high brow bollocks. He's done it so many times now. He literally thinks everyone is a mark.
Why is Wes talking about “legitimate concerns” in the context of a fascist mob attacking people in their homes
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 3d agoITV Anglia quote Defence Secretary Wes Streeting on Friday saying "no excuse for violence and thuggery" + making a distinction between "people who have legitimate concerns who know how to voice them" and "violent racist thugs" www.itv.com/news/anglia/...
Increasingly, when I think about Twitter, I think about this quote, allegedly by Karl Rove: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality" When you look at the racist pogroms in Belfast or Thetford, or the thuggery of Nowak case in Southampton, it's hard to say Rove is wrong.
It's really instructive that the BBC tries very hard not to link climate change and heatwaves and will also quite happily elide the difference between attempted pogrom and a protest.
Polymarket is the ultimate expression of a society's talent, industriousness and ability to build and produce turned pathologically decadent. It's a futures market for hedge fund staffers. There's a lot of very rich, smart people who see it as an rentier opportunity.
The continued political silence over the spread of these anti-migrant, anti-refugee pogroms in the UK is a disgrace. This one has been going on for three nights in a row now and the Home Secretary and Prime Minister haven't said a single word about it www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Norfolk police arrest two men after officers injured during unrest over asylum plans
Homes of people believed to be asylum seekers attacked during two nights of violence in Thetford
theguardian.com
"The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy". As long as the protest is not about Palestine, climate or any other issue that major lobbyists want to shut down. If you're protesting about asylum seekers, on the other hand, your concerns are legitimate, and we're making policy in response.
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 4d agoThis is a really inadequate Home Office statement in these circumstancds It empathises with this protest as expressing legitimate concerns, singles out violence against police, and simply fails to say "violence threatening asylum seekers, migrants & other minorities is shocking + wrong"
This policy is capitalising on a sense of unfairness around housing (which colleagues of mine have found in their research) BUT, it's directing that anger at the wrong people. Britain’s housing shortage isn’t caused by migrants in social housing 1/🧵
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 4d agoTories vow to ban foreign nationals from accessing UK social housing ft.trib.al/mNBUbvB
This by Adam Tooze is worth a listen. Not least his reminder that it was the millions of deaths caused by fossil fuel pollution and the threat this posed to the future of the Chinese Communist Party, that forced China to start decarbonising. www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
Film: Adam Tooze · Electrostates, Petrostates and the New Cold War
lrb.co.uk
This is an attempted lynching, which will be treated with much less seriousness then pensioners holding up Palestine Action placards.
The Times and Sunday Times@thetimes.com · 4d ago🔺 BREAKING: Police officers evacuated five men from a house in Norfolk after a mob of 100 people attempted to force their way into three properties which they claimed housed asylum seekers
Does austerity meet the Makerfield Test? Do cuts to government departments meet the Makerfield Test? Which cuts?
This sounds suspiciously similar to Rachel Reeves' approach in her 1st few months as chancellor. It will be political suicide for Burnham if they make the same mistakes as Reeves. No-one paid to engage with this stuff denies the UK's fiscal situation is dire >> www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
John Healey and Andy Burnham urge ministers to stick to spending limits in joint Budget memo
The Chancellor said the Budget on 28 October would “meet our fiscal rules” and give families "stability" to plan for the future.
bbc.co.uk
This is really good by Zoe Williams on Rod Liddle. Gets at who Liddle was, and what he represents as a kind of social relation? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I knew Rod Liddle and hated what he became. He would have wanted me to say so | Zoe Williams
A man who prized blunt speaking has been selectively eulogised. There’s a balance between decency and honesty: I’m sad he caused such harm, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams
theguardian.com
Idea: Put data centres in areas that flood more frequently as a consequence of climate change. Make the tech companies also pay the costs of flood defences in those areas hit hardest by fossil fuel driven climate change: flood areas basically.
Ex-PM Starmer said, in response to Raise the Colours terrorising people, ‘I am supporter of flags’, ‘I’m very encouraging of flags. I think they’re patriotic and I think they’re a great symbol of our nation’ and his family had ‘got St George’s flag in our flat’ www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
Cllr Dr Alex Powell@apowelllaw.bsky.social · 6d agoThe campaign of harassment and intimidation Raise the Colours have undertaken against council staff, contractors, and members of the public as reported by the Clarion today is shocking if not surprising. Excellent reporting. oxfordclarion.uk/the-clarion-...
Love this by my mate @sofiejenkinson.bsky.social - She pulls no punches on the pervasive Westminster myth that working class people don't care about climate change labourlist.org/2026/08/work...
'Working class communities deserve a bold climate plan from Labour' - LabourList
Labour has always proudly protected, championed and supported working class communities and should do so once more when it comes to climate.
labourlist.org
Are we really actually blaming the left for destruction of the centre right now? Is that what we are doing again? The centre right destroyed itself. No one made them go mental.
"we should build an army by creating a society no one would want to defend"
Interesting to see climate / the environment increasingly salient for Brits this year, as we melt under unprecedented conditions. Currently neck and neck with crime as a front of mind issue for the public. yougov.com/en-gb/tracke...
The Rod Liddle biography suggests a certain post-1968 'type' who was just idiotically drawn to norm-breaching, moving via adolescent rebellion, punk, revolutionary socialism, and eventually ending up at racism, because by the 21st century that was the most efficient transgression still on offer