Tom Six

The Meaning of Peter Mandelson Podcast Episode · Culture, Power, Politics » Podcast · 17/02/2026 · 1h 44m

Another excellent and clarifying rapid-response long view from Alan & Jem here… podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

Outrageous. I’m so sorry.

This is really excellent

Here's a counterpoint to this grim revival of climate eugenics at Essex (lots of other great research against populationism is available): journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Quite

The big man, Bertolt Brecht

Happy birthday to the big man, Bertolt Brecht! 🥳

‘Meat shield’ 😬😬😬

A Farewell to Morgan McSweeney What a fantastic week. Peter Mandelson toasted to charcoal, the government being forced to make public all communications about him, the pos...

"It is under his [McSweeney's] direction that the party's support has eroded to a historical nadir, to the point where Labour's actual liquidation is on the cards..." - @philbc3.bsky.social

There's one argument Starmer could make to save his skin - but he won't dare do it Jonathan Freedland Among those focusing on what the PM knew about Peter Mandelson are many who themselves knew plenty and chose to ignore it Fri 6 Feb 2026 16.23 GMT

The first is the one you could hear on phone-in shows all week and which has an immediate, easy appeal. It says, with a world-weariness that poses as wisdom: what has happened is no surprise because that's what they're all like. All politicians are in it for themselves. Sure, Mandelson was more blatant - grovelling to billionaires, hustling for big-money jobs and seats on the board when he was barely out of the ministerial door - but the rest are no different. Starmer himself recognises how widely that belief is held. He reportedly told his cabinet: "The public don't really see individuals in this scandal, they see politicians." That has to be fought. Partly because, as anyone who has spent much time with actual politicians knows, most are not like Mandelson. Plenty are weird; quite a few are consumed by ambition and the desire to climb the greasy pole. But so lacking in scruples that they would not only be best pals with a convicted child abuser but pass government secrets to him at the height of a global financial crisis? No, that is the exception, not the rule.

Wild stuff from Jonathan here, contingent as it is upon everyone agreeing to pretend they don’t know him and his mates fought for years to put the Peter Mandelson wing of the party back in charge, and that their core aim in all of their careers was to be much like Peter Mandelson.

‘No one Escapes’: thoughts on coloniality, peace and martyrdom after watching Khalid Abdalla’s Nowhere This review of Khalid Abdalla’s solo performance ’Nowhere’ draws on Stuart Hall’s account of globalization and diaspora to argue that it constitutes a deeply eloquent and ambivalent staging of the ...

Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been similarly dismayed by artistic responses - here even from PSC advocates… www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

PS Jude is @judeinlondon.com

Really impressed by the humility and clarity of this reading of @hamayel.bsky.social from @felicitycallard.bsky.social - qualities whose absence from scholarly responses to Palestinian resistance could hardly be more prominent. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This.

Furious clarity from Jude Wanga www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Calls for King Charles to formally apologise for slavery after research shows crown’s role Book The Crown’s Silence details how crown profited from and protected trade in enslaved African people for centuries

This isn’t about individuals but the Monarchy as an institution.

What is needed is not simply an apology but acknowledgment of this history and action to address its lasting legacy of racism and inequality.

Israel accepts health authorities’ Gaza death toll is broadly accurate, saying 70,000 have died Israeli military’s abrupt U-turn in accepting official figures comes after years of attacking data as ‘Hamas propaganda’

As they knew full well all along
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

IMO, someone should compile a clear video of the critical moments of this interaction, viewed from multiple angles: Pretti was filming from afar, he was approached by agents, he helped a woman who was pushed to the ground, he was attacked in the face with pepper spray, and then he was shot.

*What will it take* for the liberal press to stop it with this idiocy?

This is correct. ICE is there in the first place because of an evidence-free racist conspiracy theory promoted by a 23 Year old YouTube propagandist. They manufacture pretext.

This Isn’t the First Killing by ICE — and It Won’t Be the Last ICE shot a woman point-blank in Minneapolis. The agency’s raids and impunity were always going to lead to death.

Given ICE’s violent, impunity-drenched core, at a moment when the Trump regime is leaning heavily into a vision of dominance grounded in aggression and lawlessness, such a killing (certainly not ICE's first) was all but inevitable. @theintercept.com theintercept.com/2026/01/07/i...

A DHS agent has reportedly shot dead a legal observer in Minneapolis during an ICE raid, blocks from where George Floyd was murdered... /everyone/ should be banning these fascists

Bay of Pigs 2.0?

Understanding the relationship between Zionism and Fascism Despite the mutual admiration between Zionists and fascists, they are usually seen as separate political movements. However, when viewed through the lens of Western racism, colonialism, and imperialis...

Very clarifying read from Alana Lentin… mondoweiss.net/2025/12/unde...

Well knock me down with a feather

‘No one Escapes’: thoughts on coloniality, peace and martyrdom after watching Khalid Abdalla’s Nowhere This review of Khalid Abdalla’s solo performance ’Nowhere’ draws on Stuart Hall’s account of globalization and diaspora to argue that it constitutes a deeply eloquent and ambivalent staging of the ...

New from me in Studies in Theatre and Performance, a short piece about Khalid Abdalla’s Nowhere: identity, globalization, colonialism, Zionist normalization and martyrdom. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I’m old enough to remember when left podcasts had disclaimers before interviews with Roger Hallam.

You’re not missing anything, the ‘they’ who’ve been ‘shat on’ here are white people.

Want to be remembered as blessed with foresight? Just be a racist imperialist pen for hire and hope your pals in the state are on the winning side.

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