Nice throwaway comment from Adam Tooze on new Postscripts podcast: 'Hegemony doesn't just consist of offering people treats and telling them good stories. It consists in breaking your enemies.' 🎯
Tom Mills
@tommills.bsky.social
Public sociologist & socialist. Interested in elites, knowledge & communication. Author of 'The BBC: Myth of a Public Service'.
Good read. Really like Tim Mitchell's stuff & will def get to this soon. Glad to hear Capital as Power paradigm being acknowledged. newleftreview.org/issues/ii159...
Jack Copley, Rentier Regimes, NLR 159, May–June 2026
Jack Copley on Timothy Mitchell, The Alibi of Capital. Capital re-conceptualized as terraforming expropriation of the future.
newleftreview.org
Thought long & hard about this & have decided, no. It is not.
Why have Iranians seen Britain as a threat to their sovereignty? It's a total mystery. Just a bit mad I guess.
Tom Mills@tommills.bsky.social · 2w agoAmol Rajan: ‘There is a long history here if you go back to the Revolution of ’79, even 20 years before that, or 25 years before that to Mohammad Mosaddegh... Britain was often seen by very powerful Iranians as a nasty piece of work that had a toxic influence on their history.’
Got to hand it to BBC Today. Managed to do an item on the threat to the UK from Iran that for once mentioned Mosaddegh, yet still failed to mention that Britain & the US overthrew him & installed a dictator.
Bari Weiss looking to headhunt Justin Webb? What could possibly have attracted her to the Today presenter who injects right wing talking points into every interview and who cannot help but obsess about trans people?
Capitalist Power in Post-War Croydon. New post in which I discuss the network of business people & local politicians behind Croydon's concrete building boom. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
Capitalist Power in Post-War Croydon. New post in which I discuss the network of business people & local politicians behind Croydon's concrete building boom. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
New post on 'Society From the Top Down' in which I address the important question: Is Croydon shit, and if so who's to blame?
Policy planning network affiliations of the Biden administration. Full article: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Burnham backsliding already
Cat Hobbs@cathobbs.bsky.social · 2mo agoI'm actually furious that Andy Burnham is being promoted as anti establishment when he's already saying no to public OWNERSHIP of Thames Water 16 million so-called "customers" instantly let down Take it back Andy, commit to public ownership weownit.org.uk/act-now/sign...
So if i understand the PM correctly he's going to unite a country that largely despises him & get on with a job no one wants him to do. Very good. 👍
Don't think this argument works. Seeing capitalism as a system based in the practices of capitalists (profit seeking in this case), or in slavery & colonialism, doesn't necessitate an individualistic or moralistic critique. newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
Dylan Riley, No Substitute — Sidecar
Capitalists vs capitalism.
newleftreview.org
You probably follow me for sardonic remarks about British politics. But did you know I have a website called 'Society from the Top' down where I post about elites, politics & computational social science? tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
Society From the Top Down
tamills1981.github.io
THE ASSET CLASS is the Guardian’s Book of the Day! Thank you to Caroline Knowles for this lovely review, and for describing it as “bang on the money” 🔥 www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
The Asset Class by Hettie O’Brien review – the hidden hand of private equity
From utilities to care homes, how capital’s most rapacious form yet is taking over the public realm
theguardian.com
Paul Sweezy is probably best known as the co-author with Paul Baran of 'Monopoly Capital', & for his earlier single authored book, 'The Theory of Capitalist Development'. But... Sweezy was [also] a pioneering scholar of the US ruling class.' tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
Paul Sweezy’s Corporate Interest Groups Revisited – Society From the Top Down
tamills1981.github.io
New post on 'Society From the Top Down' in which I revisit work by Marxist economist Paul Sweezy on corporate interest groups, comparing his results to those of a community detection algorithm. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
New post on 'Society From the Top Down' in which I revisit work by Marxist economist Paul Sweezy on corporate interest groups, comparing his results to those of a community detection algorithm. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
A lot of people feel profoundly disillusioned & angry with the BBC over its awful reporting on Gaza - & a myriad of other things. They are simply switching off & couldn't care less about the BBC's fate. I totally get it. But this is bad politics.🧵
Still remember first time I heard the word 'woke' on the Today programme. Immediately knew it signalled the beginning of years of unabated horseshit from our media class.
Happy Thatcher Death Day to all who celebrate www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...
The death of a class warrior: Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
Thatcher did not seek to win over 'hearts and minds'. Rather she attacked the social bases of collective thought and action, making building any alternative unimaginable. Throughout the long span of h...
opendemocracy.net
New post on 'Society from the Top Down' comparing media use amongst the public & MPs. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
New post on 'Society from the Top Down' comparing media use amongst the public & MPs. tamills1981.github.io/society-from...
'US heavy bombers are expected to reach UK bases at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands and Fairford in Gloucestershire in the next few days' www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
Britain not ruling out future strikes on Iran missile sites, officials indicate
‘We just don’t know what will happen,’ western officials say, as UK bases prepare for arrival of US heavy bombers
theguardian.com
Today @mediareformuk.bsky.social launches its Alternative Green Paper; a compilation of proposals for radical BBC reform from civil society, campaign groups, media experts & members of the public. www.mediareform.org.uk/bbc-alternat...
Media Reform Coalition
Media Reform coordinates the work of advocacy groups campaigning to protect the public interest in light of the Leveson Inquiry and Communications Review.
mediareform.org.uk
Just Nick Robinson casually asking a guest on BBC Today if protests against the war 'should be allowed to go ahead' or 'ought to be banned in this country'.