Kenan Malik

The Class Series | School of History, Classics & Archaeology | History Classics and Archaeology This series of events aims to amplify working-class voices and foreground working-class perspectives on the human past and current issues of interest to HCA staff and students. It features student-led...

And tomorrow I’m speaking in Edinburgh hca.ed.ac.uk/about-us/equ...

The Epstein files reveal more than depravity, they unmask... Peter Mandelson was part of a cabal that prized wealth and influence. For some, sex was the added bonus

“Beyond the misogyny and moral squalor, the files also provide a portrait of how power works to sustain itself.“ My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Photo of La Pedrera apartment block in Barcelona

Sunday photo

La Pedrera, Barcelona

BREAKING: McSweeney’s think tank paid PR firm to investigate journalists Labour Together put private investigators onto journalists writing about its funding. Starmer's right-hand man knew.

“A political think tank hiring a PR firm to investigate journalists” democracyforsale.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

The Epstein files reveal more than depravity, they unmask... Peter Mandelson was part of a cabal that prized wealth and influence. For some, sex was the added bonus

“Beyond the misogyny and moral squalor, the files also provide a portrait of how power works to sustain itself.“ My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Thank you

Photo of a rainstorm over Orford Ness

Sunday photo

Rainstorm over Orford Ness

Britain’s deprived areas need attention for their own sak... Numerous studies warn about pockets of deep poverty, but little is done by sitting governments until they feel under threat

This is a thoughtful write-up by @kenanmalik.bsky.social on the discourse around struggling areas. One of the arguments I made in my recent report is that government/politicians need to address material conditions *and* communicate how they care about people/places that feel overlooked/neglected.

Britain’s deprived areas need attention for their own sak... Numerous studies warn about pockets of deep poverty, but little is done by sitting governments until they feel under threat

“Much of the commentary reads as if improving high streets is not a good in itself, a measure important in enhancing people’s lives, but is primarily a means of undermining the Reform vote or staunching Labour’s decline.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves Britain’s high streets, study finds Decay of town centres a top issue among voters especially Reform UK supporters and is fuelling resentment against Westminster

Would be good if improving declining high streets was seen as a good in itself, important as a way of improving people’s lives, rather than primarily a means of preventing people from voting Reform or staunching Labour’s decline www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Drama at the opera as Royal Opera chief steps in for sick tenor Richard Hetherington forced to play Prince Calàf in Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot after French tenor Roberto Alagna taken ill

That ROH/Turnadot story has made it into the nationals, with the @guardian quoting my original tweets in their entirety 😳https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jan/28/drama-at-the-opera-as-royal-opera-chief-steps-in-for-sick-tenor

Apparently no longer, according to some responses

Perhaps. I don’t have any deep knowledge on this. But I would be interested in hearing from anyone who does.

Wondered about that. There are three different singers playing Calaf on different nights during this run. I assume there is no cover on the night once it has started. But I don’t know enough about the mechanics of opera production. Somebody else might.

Brilliant story!

So, disappointing, dramatic and a strangely appropriate ending all at the same time. And hugely brave and impressive of Hetherington to step in.

But he couldn’t sing the main arias or duets. So, they began Act III after Nessun Dorma. And ended before the final scenes, finishing at the point where Liu takes her life rather than reveal Calaf’s name. 2/

Drama at the opera tonight. During Turandot at Covent Garden, Roberto Alagna, playing Calaf, took ill and couldn’t come out for Act III. So, Richard Hetherington, ROH’s head of music, but not a trained opera singer, gamely stepped in, to sing from the side. 1/

The argument now seems to be “It’s your fault if you are shot dead attempting to hold a coercive state body to account”.

‘I’m part of this country’: Windrush man left homeless by Home Office inaction George Campbell, 69, slept in bus station as officials questioned his right to live in the UK after hospital stay

The continuing scandal of the Windrush scandal
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Thank you

Thank you.

The memorial is a simple set of bronze figures, bearing witness to the extermination of the local Jews. The figures are small, and easy to miss, but they are haunting in their sorrow and grief.

Grosse Hamburger Strasse was, before the Holocaust, one of the main streets in Berlin’s Jewish quarter. Where the memorial now stands was an old people’s home which the Nazis used as a detention centre for Jews being transported to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.

Sunday photo

Memorial to the Holocaust on Grosse Hamburger Strasse, Berlin

The New Right’s vision of community depends on obedience,... Rightwing pundits like Danny Kruger posit on the common good – but often the “good” is at the expense of the “common”

“Acknowledging the wisdom of the past should not lead us to seek refuge there.” My @theobserveruk.bsky.social column: observer.co.uk/news/columni...

I haven't seen the speech, but such intervention almost always hurt ordinary people more than regime

‘They want to kill us all’: fear replaces hope in Iran as... Cut off from the rest of the world, the tens of thousands of Iranians who protested against the regime are feeling the full force of its brutal crackdown

Impossible to verify any of the figures, but some of the numbers for casualties in the Iranian authorities’ crackdown on the protests (many now see 10,000 deaths as a conservative estimate) are quite extraordinary, and the stories too observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Photo of the reflection of the V&A building in the courtyard pool

Sunday photo

The V&A (reflected in the courtyard pool)

Thank you