Mike

“Fascism” isn’t a slur for politics we don’t like. It’s a precise word with precise meaning. And in the face of what’s happening right now in America, it’s the most honest one we have.

I’ll lay it out as plainly as I can. 🧵

A soft focus illustration of a tiny fishing village, clearly based on Staithes in Yorkshire

Other work of the Ladybird book artists.
‘Yorkshire fishing village’
Reader’s Digest, 1972
Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Life in the Meadow

🐦‍⬛🍂If you'd like to support my writing and recuperation, then why not visit my little Etsy shop which has dozens of Shell County & Natural History posters for sale, Japanese prints and rare books - prices ranging from £15, with more items added every day! 🍂🐦‍⬛ etsy.com/shop/Sourisd...

Things are not really that bad: balancing the government’s books This government has become identified with a few bad mistakes. But the real balance of achievements points to a rather different picture

Labour made 76 key pledges. 15 delivered, 16 on track, 20 in progress. Only 9 “not kept.”

That’s not nothing. But media storms about a few issues dominate attention.

Stephen McNair reports

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds

open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

Donald Trump said "97% of news about me is bad, that's not Free Speech."

No it isn't.

Who are paying to write good stories about you?

I am in the party, and have been for years. I know his track record. Neither I nor you know how he will fare as leader, though. I hope he will prove to be every bit as inspirational and transformative as those who voted for him believe.

The jury's out as far as I am concerned. Let's wait and see how he, um, performs.

All my instincts centre on climate, while my politics are unabashedly socialist. I am terrified/horrified by Zack. I fear he is a performer - a populist - rather than a serious politician. I hope I’m wrong.

via Anthony Corella

BREAKING: Donald Trump requested London mayor Sadiq Khan be excluded from the state banquet because he is a “disaster on immigration”. As mayor, Khan has no powers over immigration, but what Trump meant to say was that Khan is brown and Muslim and he doesn’t like that x

"I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America."
- Dear Leader Trump, March 2025

"ABC & NBC give me 97% bad stories & should have their licenses revoked by the FCC. I would be totally in favor of that."
- Dear Leader Trump, August 2025

Tomorrow's front page 📰

Is sharing this image a crime?

Text reads: Google search bar: “how to clean a rescued pigeon” Al Overview Pigeons are usually clean, even wild ones. You can try these steps to clean a rescued pigeon: • Remove the label • Remove the head • Make a small incision in the wing and snap to join •Cut off the wing •Remove the legs • Clean the top bone

Oh.

That doesn’t seem right

Built in the 13th century. So that mosque stood for 800 years with every sort of person from every place and every religion in the world passing through Gaza century after century, only for it to be blown up by some shithead loser sitting behind a computer that we probably paid for.

Windsor UK today: anti-Trump protesters are telling Trump that he is not welcome in their country.

Trump's not even brought the real Melania with him, that's one of the inflatable ones

21st century Britain
where it's illegal to project an image on a wall
but not illegal to supply weapons to mass murdering genocidal psychopaths

17.00 FILM: SCONE WITH THE WIND Film with a name that only works successfully as punt around half of the UK. 21.00 GAME OF SCONES TV show with a name that only works successfully as a pun in the other half of the UK.

Do let us know if you say 'scone' or 'scone'

Trump: "Smart people don't like me"

His followers: *laughing hysterically* "I don't get it"

I'm not religious but when I was growing up in school assembly we had a lovely Padre whose message was Jesus was a love & peace man & we little ragamuffins had to treat each other with respect & kindness .I missed the bit where he was an ethno-nationalist gun rights advocate 😳

English Roundabouts   They’re making the roundabouts great again by painting the flag of St George to keep our circular road systems safe from the dark, satanic hordes. What do they want? Patriotic junctions! When do they want them? Before it’s too late. Good old-fashioned English roundabouts, as decreed by Alfred the Great. Behold the sacred intersection, this blessed plot, this septic isle. English roundabouts for English people, draped in red and white and bile. St George is cross, as well he may be – whipped-up hate, he’s seen before. Give way to the right, the road signs rage, and the far right most of all. Brian Bilston

Here’s a poem called ‘English Roundabouts’.

BREAKING: The police have confirmed they won't be charging any of the violent far-right rioters with terrorism because they only do that for grandmas in wheelchairs who hold up signs they don't like ♥️

Far right protest today:
29 - police officers injured
9 - protestors arrested

Proscribed group protests:
0 - police officers injured
1,600 - protestors arrested

We have Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper to thank for this absurd anomaly

Tommy Robinson’s march was a drunken, coked-up mess He claimed the world was watching, but most of London barely noticed - and much of what was on view was appalling

“A row of men lean against the metal shutters that keep them out of Westminster tube station, as they piss through the bars directly onto the steps on the other side. Nearby a furious man in his early 30s yells ‘bring the cocaine here now, mate’. It is not yet 2pm.”

The discourse is all around deradicalising young men and the crisis among young men.

The discourse would be much better targeted if it was about deradicalising boomers (and increasingly Gen Xers).

I literally can’t stand the rain.

The Far-Right protester is talking on livestream at the Unite the Kingdom protest just called for Keir Starmer to be shot.

“Keir Starmer needs to be assassinated.”

“Someone needs to shoot Keir Starmer.”