Kate Spowage

Astonishing advance by the Greens, astonishing implosion of Labour. When will Starmer's government get the message that it is destroying its base with deeply unpopular, rightwing policies?

By chasing Reform, it legitimises the far right while delegitimising itself.

100%! And the hype can't be separated from the insane speculation on it (if I had zeroes riding on the success of AI I might tell people it was the future, regardless of its shortcomings).

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

Don’t tax wealth Even the most sophisticated arguments in favour of doing so make no sense

The Economist claims wealth taxes don't work mainly because the rich end up fleeing. I invite the magazine to read rigorous academic research like Cristobal Young's book or Sam Friedman et al.'s work on this issue instead of spilling out ideological nonsense share.google/pV3cOUrhnDMd...

The explosiveness of the attack, also, is noteworthy. There's no warning given here - it's drawn less from the repertoire of professional policing and more from the fear-inducing tactics of unstable, abusive people in interpersonal relationships. 'Snapping' is all about keeping people on edge.

1. I've long contended that austerity doesn't save money. It merely transfers costs from one group (the very rich, who would otherwise pay more tax) to others. Last night was a powerful reminder of that. Before I go further, I should say I’m fine. Just a black eye, cuts & bruises, no serious harm. 🧵

Matthew McConaughey says he wants a private LLM, fed only with his books, notes, journals, and aspirations, so he can ask it questions and get answers based solely on that information, without any outside influence.

this exists it is called thinking

Naming it for Mitterrand serves a national story that is, at best, fuzzy on the details of colonial and postcolonial politics. But the library is full of decolonial and other counterhegemonic material. There's something about the limits of a toponymic critique there - important though it is.

Beyond “Fashoda Syndrome”: The Rwandan Civil War and the Politics of La Francophonie in Africa This article uses a case study to interrogate the politics of French in Africa. It examines French involvement in the Rwandan Civil War (1990–1994), and argues that by conceptualising institutions ...

Also, amid some great leftist art on display, the library is named for Président Mitterrand, who allegedly intervened on the side of the Akazu in Rwanda in 1994, probably for geostrategic reasons but supposedly to protect Francophonie in East Africa (bit.ly/BFS76). Strange, multivalent space...

They also have this genuinely excellent rendering of intellectual labour and it's subsumption to capital (but maybe now I am overdetermining things) 🤙 #CognitiveCapitalism

Working at the BNF in Paris, and came across this fabulous cartoon from L'Élongé (May 1968). Will show students on my new Language Policy & Politics module - De Gaulle, in a hospital bed, is schooled on French grammar by a nurse. A satire on conservativism and verbal hygiene perhaps? 🤔

‘We have to tell an alternative story’: Green leader Polanski chats to Nigel Farage’s constituents Visit to Clacton-on-Sea part of social media strategy that Zack Polanski feels can rebut Reform’s rhetoric

People are exhausted.

Our high streets, public spaces, whole communities left unloved.

Blaming migrants won’t fix this.

Tackling inequality will. Tax the super-rich. Fund public services.

#DrawTheLine

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Bingo. Westminster majoritarianism makes democratic backsliding not only easier to carry out but also harder to warn against, as I argued here. bsky.app/profile/leon...

If the fact that something is at the heart of government rhetoric means it should be a funding priority, future governments might well put anti-immigration, anti-lgbt, anti-green research on the agenda. Look at the history of racial science. Research priorities should be independent of government.

Worrying in lots of ways, including the suggestion that the talking points of political bodies should set the agenda for funding bodies. Growth and prosperity are falsely equated - growth can also impoverish people. Prosperity is about redistribution - not a word British governments are keen on.

Mediterranean wildfires are no accident This summer’s infernos expose how climate change, land neglect and disaster capitalism turn forests into fuel.

"These fires are neither isolated nor "natural" phenomena. They are expressions of a system in combustion, accelerated by climate change induced by our socioeconomic order and aggravated by land-use policies subordinated to accumulation, profit and growth." www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

Looks like we are now live-broadcasting Reform events on mass deportation plans on major TV channels including the BBC. We've just published a study showing that this type of coverage moves public opinion in an extreme direction & normalises those ideas further: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Labour won’t defend migration.

Too scared of Reform, too terrified to lead.

While they play dog whistle politics, inequality is the real problem.

Not small boats. But private jets.

Excellent ideology critique from Teen Vogue (yep), on a gender essentialist and fascist-adjacent trend that I am, mercifully, too offline to recognise. (Though I watched some videos after reading and yikes 😬)

JK Rowling tweeting got a boycott of M&S, stretching facts to the breaking point, and making the world a worse place for absolutely everyone.

The employee asked the girl and her mother if they needed help shopping. That’s it. That’s all. The misinformation, the insinuations (because the facts are inconveniently benign) are EXACTLY what was done to lesbians in the 80s. This is the product of hate and fear, not reality.

Radical stickers seen in Seattle, Washington

2 in 5 arrested over last summer’s riots had been reported for domestic abuse Police data indicates overlaps between public violent disorder and domestic violence and abuse

The far right terrorising asylum seekers in hotels love to spread the lie they’re worried about the risk of sexual assault. But here’s the truth: Two in five men arrested for last summer’s riots had been reported for domestic abuse. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The trans rights stitch-up: How the government plans to silence parliamentary debate on the most far-reaching restriction of minority rights in our lifetime open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

“You Feel Like Your Life is Over” The 92-page report, “‘You Feel Like Your Life is Over’: Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025,” documents that people detained at Krome North Service Proc...

A new report by Human Rights Watch and partner nonprofits released today confirms that migrants at the downtown Miami ICE facility were indeed shackled with hands tied behind their backs, forced to kneel, and made to eat from styrofoam plates “like dogs.”

New research published in @languageeducation.bsky.social, available open access here (tinyurl.com/bdf262jp) and a short thread on the work below. Many thanks to the reviewers & editors for their feedback and to @leverhulme.ac.uk for funding support.

The EHRC is meant to protect everyone’s rights. But internal documents reveal a different story: repeated meetings with anti-trans lobbyists, legal bias, and secret coordination. We filed the FOI. Here’s what we found.

tacc.org.uk/2025/07/01/f...

There's a lot to be said about identity, solidarity. But a simple place to start: the people who are willing to fight for their neighbors when their neighbors have different problems have a very, very good chance of having neighbors to fight with when you all share problems

Entirely on brand photo in the 90s diorama at the Computerspielemuseum Berlin, on the day Against the Game was published (🔗 👇)! Playing something linked to my upcoming project with Adrienne Mortimer and @openlibhums.bsky.social ... Any guesses!? 💥🚗|🩹🥺 #Dingbats 🐶

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...