Harry

@harrywills.bsky.social

QPR, Baltimore Ravens. Youth worker and writer. Free Palestine, free Congo, free Sudan. Solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. Views mine etc

I really think the big Potter problem is that most people who aren’t terminally online genuinely don’t know how active and influential Rowling is in pursuit of her bigoted agenda. They think we’re just angry about her views, rather than her actions. I think it’s important to tell people.

How many more times will the British public fall for a centrist Labour leader promising workable, progressive policies before taking office, only to turn around once in Number 10 and say "psych! we're not doing any of that, we're doing austerity and neoliberalism instead!"?

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social · last wk.

Is politics for profit or the people? “The public won’t forgive us [Labour] if we miss this chance” - even those within Labour can see it's shocking that Burnham is rowing back on another key promise. Democracy should not be for sale www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The treatment of Jason Arday was massively out of proportion to his faults. People who have committed terrible crimes have received less scrutiny, yet I don't believe anything he did or said even crossed the threshold of criminality. How many of us would have survived what he was put through? 🧵

If you ever find yourself wondering how things like the Epstein story happened, consider the mid-level newspaper editor who admitted in a public judicial inquiry that he destroyed a woman’s life and drove her to suicide to try and impress Piers Morgan.

I sometimes worry I go a bit too hard with my resentment of British newspaper journalists as a class, but then I am reminded of stuff like this and am reaffirmed in my belief that we simply do not loathe them enough.

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:
The Inquiry brought up the case of Denholm Elliott's daughter -
PAUL McMULLAN:
Oh, yeah -
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
- which is one case that you truly do regret.
PAUL McMULLAN:
I do, yeah. After Denholm died, she hit rock bottom, was allegedly doing methadone. And although she had, you know, the half-million-pound flat that Denholm had bought her, she didn't have any money to get her ten-pound bag in the morning. So she'd get up and go begging at the tube station.
Here was a young girl crying out to be helped, and she met a police officer who didn't help her but rang up the News of the World and asked for money because he couldn't believe that this is the same girl who'd walked down the red carpet behind Eddie Murphy with Denholm Elliott, you know.BROOKE GLADSTONE:
And you offered her 50 pounds -
PAUL MCMULLAN:
Yeah.
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
- if she would come to your place and have sex. So you led her into prostitution, which she wasn't in that space for.
PAUL McMULLAN:
No, indeed. But she was in such a bad place that someone offering her 50 pounds for sex. I mean, that's five bags.BROOKE GLADSTONE:
So how do you justify that? Yes, she was a drug addict, yes, she was begging. Why push her that extra step? Why take pictures of her topless?
PAUL McMULLAN:
I was keen. It was in my first year. I wanted to impress Piers Morgan, who was my boss at the time, and just wanted to say, not only have I caught this girl begging, but l've got pictures of her topless and I've got her offering me sex for 50 quid. How great am I?
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
This is a pretty dehumanizing enterprise, not just for Jennifer Elliott, but for you, yourself.
PAUL McMULLAN:
Yeah, that's why I feel terrible about it, not just 'cause she killed herself afterwards, but I, I actually liked her as a person.

This is a very worrying story. Ecuadorian fishermen are being attacked and killed, and the perpetrators seem to be either the U.S. military engaged in clandestine operations or an American mercenary company working for Bukele or another Central American country.

Far out in the Pacific Ocean, Ecuadorean fishermen have been attacked by unidentified “gringos” using drones, survivors say, spurring a mystery over whether the American military, the armed forces of another country or private military contractors were behind the strikes.

One fishing boat has been lost at sea since January, the U.N. says, with eight people still missing and presumed dead. The survivors of two other vessels said they came under attack in March by English-speaking assailants wearing matching uniforms with American flag patches, but without any clear insignia to link them to an official government force.

Some of the surviving fishermen said they had been hauled out of the water, questioned and then handed over to El Salvador’s navy before being released. The Pentagon has denied involvement, as has the U.S. Coast Guard.

Survivors have also said that a plane followed and seemingly surveilled them before the strikes.

The New York Times analyzed flight data and found that a maritime patrol plane — based out of a military base in El Salvador — flew in the direction of all three boats in the days before they were attacked. The pilots onboard spoke English with American accents, according to air traffic control communication recordings.
Christiaan Triebert@trbrtc.bsky.social · 3w ago

Read full story on @nytimes.com, with Maria Abi-Habib, @rileymellen.bsky.social, José María León Cabrera, @erschm.bsky.social and Gabriel Labrador: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/w...

somewhere tangentially in this stupid ass discourse I saw quite a few people state that people with darker skin tones don't need to use sunscreen because their skin naturally protects itself, and that is not only untrue but an actively harmful mindset to have

From Camden to NBA champion 🏀 London’s own OG returned to Camden to help celebrate our new investment in Argyle Square court. Together with The National Basketball Players Association, we’re creating better places to play and inspiring the next generation of Londoners to shoot for the top.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, stands in an outdoor basketball court alongside OG Anunoby and a large group of adults and young people

The illegal war in Iran should do a lot more than "concern" Andy Burnham. And if he's not holding back - when is he going to tell Donald Trump that the UK wants nothing to do with this war and to ban the US military from UK soil?

Burnham also said he had 'concern' about the president starting the conflict with Iran and he "wouldn't hold back from saying what I think is right."What was their crime - BBC visits Iran school where strike killed 120 children

Do not give the time midday to any political leader, party, MP or media pundit, spokesperson or anchor who says we need more fossil fuel investment. Phase fossil fuel use out from today and listen to Zack Polanski if you can’t make your own mind up from all the wildfires and heat waves.

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social · last mo.

Terrifying to see wildfires raging through Scotland. The climate crisis isn't a distant threat - it's right here and right now. How many warning signs and alarm bells until Andy Burnham takes action to end oil and gas drilling?

Person trying to put out wildfires in Scotland

Much of the German mainstream is (finally) panicking that the AfD may indeed be, from top to bottom, the new Nazi party. It is grimly fascinating that they are still portrayed as ”a few bad apples” whereas all the apples are bad. Every single one.

Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · last mo.

The editor in chief of The Economist referring here to the AfD’s leader as a “perfectly thoughtful person“ instead of what she truly is - a driver and enabler of German fascism - is a huge part of the problem.

Wes Streeting has been made Defence Secretary. In his released correspondence with Peter Mandelson, he said: “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes.” Journalists should ask him: 1) Does he stand by that? 2) What legal obligations does the UK therefore have?

Badenoch just said, on national TV, that UK's carbon emissions have gone up "in total" because of the 2008 Climate Change Act. They have, in fact, declined by more than half. Did #Kuenssberg break in to point this basic fact out? Of course not

The questioning here is so vapid, and they react to the idea of a public health approach to drugs like he's coming out with some mad shit that should barely be entertained Prohibition doesn't stop people taking drugs, it just fuels crime and drives people to more risky behaviours. We can do better!

Farrukh@implausibleblog.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Ranvir Singh, "Are you still as a party in favour of legalising drugs, and how would that benefit society?" Zack Polanski, "Yes we are. The war on drugs is failing. It's pushing people with addiction to drugs into back alleys, that's fuelling gangs able to sell these drugs"