"Epstein class" is terrific not simply because several of them are directly tied to Epstein's crimes, but because it strikes at the corruption, immorality and impunity of that entire circle.

Quite glad that the big story in British politics is whether Andy Burnham will apply to stand in a by-election and not people being gunned down by state militias.

Solidarity with Minnesotans resisting this barbarity.

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the increasingly violent scenes of government thuggery and murder in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.

Man of the people this fella

Everyone remember that thing 20 years ago, when UKIP said they were getting people to infiltrate the Tories in order to manipulate policies?
Are we now seeing them returning to the mother ship?
#Jenrick #Reform #Arseholes

Life really does come at you fast when you're Liz Truss

There was certainly something recently which monopolised all public debate and paralysed all policy initiative in the UK for the better part of a decade, and I dont think it was trans rights.

Shocked by Epstein’s birthday book? That culture was everywhere before feminism | Rebecca Solnit Feminism exposed the ubiquity of child abuse, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence – and helped fight that culture

‘I was there. I kept the receipts. I remember how normalized the sexual exploitation of teenage girls and even tweens by adult men was, how it showed up in movies, in the tales of rock stars and “baby groupies”’

Powerful piece from @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Encountering the fascists outside Waterloo iandunt.substack.com/p/encounteri...

Absolutely

Horrible

This government needs to grow a spine, a stomach, and a sense of moral purpose right now. Yes, I know that is vanishingly unlikely.

The crumbling seaside palaces at the centre of Britain’s asylum crisis [FREE TO READ] How one hotelier built an empire from beloved community assets — and a government struggling to cope with a surge in migration

FT mag piece from me: Spent a long time looking into the Britannia hotel chain, beneficiaries of a vast amount of taxpayer money via the asylum system

on.ft.com/47HEE46

Labour should be aggressively attacking this kind of dangerous anti-science conspiracism

In all of this talk of deportation I always want to ask:

Then what?

You’ve scooped up nurses, doctors, teaching assistants, security guards, field labourers. Husbands. Wives. You’ve packed them off to camp.

Now what? Who next?

i dno, maybe time to let it go

It takes courage to say this in public. Some still convinced Brexit's not been done properly.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Yes many now see they've been lied to by Nige The Grifter & Co. about the benefits of leaving but they still vote Reform so ...

Opinion: Migrant workers prop up the UK’s social care system. Now… Labour’s crackdown will break a promise made to workers like me – and leave the system in disrepair

everyone's said pretty much all there is to be said on the 'island of strangers'/'incalculable damage' stuff, so just sharing this by a migrant care worker on how it feels to hear yourself discussed like this while looking after people's loved ones www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025...

Slightly amended so I can fit this here: I am writing to you as an immigrant who chose to make the UK my home. As someone who is now also a British citizen. And as a German-born historian who understands where the complete normalisation of the far right can end. I write to say: For shame! I first came to the UK in the 1990s for a visit with my grandmother. Objectively, much was backwards here. No mixer taps in the bathroom; awful ‘bread’; and strings had to be pulled to switch on lights. But however I felt about this, my own string had been pulled: I loved this Cool Britannia. It was quite possibly then that I decided that the UK was to be my home. When I arrived to settle here permanently, I made a choice: to contribute my skills, my knowledge—all I have to offer—to this country rather than another one. I am deeply disgusted by your comment today that immigration has done ‘incalculable damage’ to the country. This is the language of the far right. It is insulting, hateful & will fuel xenophobia. And it is just wrong. Migration is a normal part of the human existence. None of us would be where we are without it. Open your fridge and you will see migration. Immigrants help make the UK tick every single day, whether we clean toilets in our hospitals or provide care for the elderly; whether we empty our bins or carry out cancer research. We are mothers, sons-in-law, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbours and colleagues. I ask you not tell me that you do not mean me. I know that you do not—at least not primarily—mean a white woman from Europe who has a PhD. But who do you mean? And, much more importantly, who do you think those racists who were engaged in riots on our streets last summer think you mean? Anti-immigration narratives have defined UK policymaking for the best part of two decades. And fundamentally so. They were the key driver in delivering Brexit, for example, and, as such, have directly limited the rights and opportunities of British citizens.

This obsessive focus on immigration as the ‘problem’—that is the real problem. And it is consistently delivering poor outcomes for the UK. Instead of tackling this, you are choosing to consolidate it, sowing divisions along the way. You may point me to polling and tell me that this is what voters want. Do they? I am not surprised at all that over 50% of voters might say they want to see immigration reduced if that is the question they are being asked. What we need to know is what they would answer to the question: “Would you like to see immigration reduced? What this would mean for you and your local community is XYZ.” That is not how surveys can ask questions, but governments absolutely can choose to make policy using such a more informed position. Prime Minister, you continue to talk a lot about making the tough choices. But let’s be clear: setting immigrants up as the ‘other’, as a scapegoat—describing us as a threat ‘pulling the country apart’, a ‘squalid chapter’, a risk that might make the UK an ‘island of strangers’—these are not tough choices at all. These are the easy choices. They are the choices that populists make who have no solutions to the real problems a country faces. What I would like to know, Prime Minister, is what you will do when your policies lead to the implosion of the UK’s Higher Education sector. What you will tell communities when they can no longer provide any care for the elderly. The policies you announced today will not solve anything at all. They will have exclusively negative impacts. For those immediately affected; for our communities; and for our economy. Being pro-immigration—it is progressive, yes, but the much more crucial point is that it is also the most pro-UK policy approach that any politician in the country can pursue. And you are choosing to do the opposite. This, Prime Minister, is the real damage—and it will be very calculable indeed. Tanja Bueltmann

My letter to the Prime Minister. #immigration

I bought it today and thought it was good value. There was much more content in each section than has been the norm in recent years.

owning a small business in 2025…

This breaks down how tariffs work in a really useful way—how the increased costs cascade, for starters, but also how uncertainty and animosity puts grit in the wheels.

The only available pro-Trump response to this—and one I expect we will start to see very soon on Fox and elsewhere—is to go full ad hominem on small business owners: "Maybe they're not so good at business if they can't adapt / What kind of person sells board games?" etc

You can totally see how this mf bankrupted a casino.

Sadly there was no way of realising this until now

Being a historian, people ask me if I think the US is living through Germany 1933.

I answer no, analogies are always imperfect but to me it feels more like Russia 1999: a blatant theft of state assets and liberals in a fugue state, refusing to believe the arc of progress is bending against them.

Absolutely. By

The Rotting of the Conservative Mind Britain's Tories bend the knee to Donald Trump and disgrace themselves

The Rotting of the Conservative Mind: the Tory party bends the knee to Donald Trump.
A disgrace and one for which they deserve to be judged. open.substack.com/pub/alexmass...

The irony of the 'anti' globalists is now being openly globalist. Though every non batshit person knew Maga was a global movement.