If you're someone living outside of the UK who wants a primer on what Keir Starmer's deal was, why he was so unpopular, and so on, Sinan is one of the most thoughtful and thorough chroniclers of our incredibly cruel and stupid epoch of British politics, and I highly recommend their work.

Sinan Kose@thesinankose.bsky.social · last wk.

It's finally here, I'm ending the Starmer trilogy and it was a blast to make. This time I'm trying to work out whether the 2+ years of feckless, useless, bigoted government had a point to it? And if so what it was. youtu.be/tKw1PGRDLvQ

current discourse feels like

NEW | Since the Telegraph decided to use my name in vain… FROM A LEFT-WING AGITATOR WITH A BOOK TO FLOG brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/from-a-lef...

From a Left-Wing agitator with a book to flog

This edition is a bit meta. Consider it a sequel to yesterday's Rod Liddle obituary.

brokenbottleboy.substack.com

It is staggeringly reprehensible and reckless to continue this insulting bullshit at a time when the global far right have advanced so far that *the leader of the Conservative Party* is defending recruitment of a convicted neo-Nazi, on the grounds he is an expert on antiracism and anti-extremism.

If Rafael Behr had spent even 30 seconds on Bonehill-Paine’s old website he would not be either falling for or have the gumption to deliberately propagate this lie that B-P was pragmatically pro Corbyn. The vilest antisemitism was the main focus but lots of very extreme content against ‘the left’

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 10h ago

Me: (a smart columnist, looking at claims made by an ex-Tory neo-Nazi booted out of the party for crimes, now standing as a Tory councillor whole doing a rehabilitation tour parroting the agreed media line in his new “anti-extremism” gig) This is extremely convincing stuff, and very worrying.

A notable feature of the neo-fash is how they invert the paradox of intolerance. If Popper argued to cultivate & protect a tolerant society we have to be intolerant of intolerance, the neo-fash cry bullies argue we have to be intolerant of tolerance to cultivate & protect an intolerant society

This project has guidance for organisations and individuals for dealing with the new segregation regime in the UK. Includes a list of venues that promise to be safe. goodweeplace.com

Britain, where the national equality body is a boobyhatch jam-packed with wingnut cranks who fervently believe their job is creating weapons for police to hammer minorities that the press hates and wants to harm.

"BAE executives need new Jaguars"

Terminally von der Leyen@ciaran.operationglad.io · yesterday

"we should build an army by creating a society no one would want to defend"

important to remember this is not new information and was known at the time. a choice was made to conflate Berger's dispute with her local party and the serious crimes she was a victim of, and that's on the part of journalists as well as Berger herself.

Kate@rebelraising.bsky.social · 23h ago

So Luciana Berger was abused by a fascist who is now a Tory candidate despite his criminal conviction over it, but at the time she allowed everyone to think that the whole thing was about "the antisemitic Labour left"?

I'll say this much, Nazis ending up in a "main stream" political party feels like the direct consequence of taking Corbyn s Labour down. I'm not even vaguely surprised, if anything I feel depressingly vindicated.

Anyway. Having read the judge’s sentencing remarks, I think I can guess why the cops gave her that bodyguard. Here’s what the British public were told was happening, at astonishing volume and intensity.

This is all horrific stuff, and I invite you to go back to 2018/19 and reread her columns, newspaper interviews and podcast appearances talking about it, and then decide who it sounds like it was, that had been doing all this.

LOL rattled them.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 13h ago

I was wondering why I’d got 19 clickthroughs from The Daily Telegraph…

It’s horrible and bleak but it’s also grimly funny that, even as the press have decisively chosen to reimpose Labour vs the Tories as a more manageable system, the Tory leader is underlining that she is so disastrously stupid, she’s incapable of being normal and not embarrassing everybody involved.

Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened

Conservative leader tells press she stands by decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for local election in Somerset

theguardian.com

Here's a piece from me about the decision against Sex Matters on Friday, and its wider implications 👇

Good Law Project@goodlawproject.org · yesterday

Anti-trans activists lost twice in one day, after the High Court rejected a challenge to police guidance. @jessothomson.co.uk argues that the ruling raises important questions for trans human rights: https://goodlaw.social/0kp3

NEW | A corrective to the gushing tributes… LIDDLE TO BE CELEBRATED An honest obituary for Rod Liddle, dead at 66, dead inside for many years before that. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/liddle-to-...

Liddle to be celebrated

An honest obituary for Rod Liddle, dead at 66, dead inside for many years before that.

brokenbottleboy.substack.com

Like, whenever one of my coworkers died, exactly zero colleagues said they were great because they went out of their way to be a repellent prick all the time. Should perhaps have questions about a profession in which that is so clearly viewed as a great virtue?

Haters focusing on Liddle's violence toward his pregnant partner, his galloping racism, or his repeated defences of paedophilia, should remember to mention he was also one of the worst writers to ever do it. A calorie-free hack of the first water. Just absolute dogshit, back to front.

Liberals, liberals, liberals. Actually no, it's very good to enjoy bad people dying, at the very least it's important to be clear about how they were in life. It'll not redress the spite and stochastic violence these fuckers whip up, but it's better than nothing.

If you pay attention long enough, you start to notice who gets charity and the benefit of the doubt for their personal problems and issues, and who gets roaring abuse from all of the lads for vastly less serious infractions.

Yeah, absolutely nailed on a fucking nonce.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 2d ago

I will remember Rod Liddle for the fact that the lawyer who checked my book before publication had no issue with me writing that Liddle couldn’t be a teacher because he’d have had sex with the students. Why? Because Liddle wrote it in a national magazine.

Sure, but it was never a question of whether she was right or wrong. All the MPs and the press knew very well she was correct, because they see it all the time. The point was that some insolent upstart tree-hugger had no business running her big yapping mouth, where the public can hear. The end.

I don't think people are ready for this kind of joke yet.

Very much this, and also a mile wide streak of revenge. While the press and the powerful were the ultimate audience, I want to remind people of the utter glee Labour took in putting down the left. The most petty and vicious campaign I've seen in some time, and a resounding success.

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 3d ago

They weren’t afraid of the press, lads. They jumped through one hoop after another with ever-dumber and nastier displays of crudely to impress them, because they believe the press are correct and they wanted to win them over.

How fucking good is this too? I hope this kid keeps it up.

Alexa Lily@alexalily.bsky.social · 4d ago

browsing the 2026 Young Artists' Summer Show and getting emotional

What if capitalist social relations forced us into false binaries we wouldn’t have to choose between if we actually sought to change the system itself?! What then?! Also, don’t make Covid the ‘Brexit of Education’. It’s been a long time since educational success led to social mobility.

Consider: has there been an organic upsurge in public affection for Kemi Badenoch? There has not: the Times has finally decided they will stick with the Tories. They are now going to brute-force the idea that the public cry out for Kemi, just as they have brute-forced so many equally dumb ideas.

Now this is the bit that gets me, I think my younger children did suffer repercussions for lockdown, and there's been fuck all solution put forward to these issues. Instead it's all "well the poor kids suffered, we should just have let rip". The concern doesn't extend to practical solutions.

LeoCrusher@leocrusher.bsky.social · 3d ago

The option of investing significant resources to further support the kids after the pandemic was over never seemed to get raised, did it?