Seána

“We cannot say that the United States’ actions are against international law, but we condemn Iran’s retaliatory actions as against international law,” is neither a coherent nor a compelling position.

I think you can worry about American Islamophobia without minimizing American antisemitism. People literally shoot up synagogues in this country, it’s not an imaginary problem or a matter of microaggressions against bourgeois knowledge workers, which is how I see fellow leftists describing it

Yeah we're going to kill the government officials, also we're going to kill the opposition, also we're going to kill the retired politicians, also we're going to bomb a school of children.

But what if I like the insane carry on of needing a degree and a masters in ‘booking a train’ in England to be able to navigate the right sites and get the cheapest train ticket to get somewhere? What if then?

Iranians celebrating at Belfast city hall with some men holding a US flag and Israeli flags

In order to understand UK politics in 2026 you must realise that a plumber & plasterer doesn't represent the interests of the working class because she is left-wing but a wealthy broadcaster & former academic does represent the interests of the working class because he is right-wing. Hope this helps

That hopeless feeling flattens you, but my young one and I met a woman in ~mid-70s out for a walk (our dogs were socialising) and she’s entered an activist phase of her life. She got in to Croke Park yesterday. “I have time and I have nothing to lose”.
It’s something.

I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds.

I support neither imperialism or dictatorship.

Sahar Delijani said it best:

The US killing one and hundred fifty school children in a single attack on Iran has apparently been universally decided to be a non story by the Western press. Not front page news, not in the highlights, instantly memory holed. Profession and institutions worse than worthless.

Four guests on @rte.ie Brendan O'Connor show. All accepted, even celebrated, the US-Israeli illegal bombing of Iran. No mention of the hundreds killed. Discussion moved straight to potential for regime change. This is how US violence and erosion of international law is normalised.

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

Why are you devastating me at bedtime?

Starmer is the biggest neon lights bright example of the cab rank rule in action, the cases you take on be it worthy human rights cases or no, are not a reflection of your values or decency

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

“This is the first time since the Islamic revolution that Isreal have had the opportunity to deal with Iran once and for all” Clive Myrie, BBC radio 4.

Just jaw dropping

This 'correction' from @lewisgoodall.com regarding accusations from Reform and the Conservatives that the Greens engaged in sectarianism, deserves to be widely read.

#c4news

You’re right - not one even mid performance. The scene where Pete is getting ready to say mass and lays out the plan is just so good - crazy good. Miriam Margolyes is so good too

Spectator headline "The Green party is playing with fire in Gorton" by Ed West.

Dunno Ed, if I had to pick a party in Gorton that's "playing with fire" I think I might take a closer look at the Blood and Soil chaps micro-parsing who gets to call themselves English and flirting with Great Replacement Theory, not the nice Greens lady encouraging brown people to vote.

I know it’s legal but there are loads of voting day carryon that as you say, can and does happen because the alternative is not democratic

Curious if it’s common elsewhere that on the last few hours of election day, reps from parties standing go door to door targeting people that they know haven’t voted, asking them if they have and offering to arrange for a lift to go to vote, is a thing elsewhere- because I find it very weird here

Another Pride and Prejudice adaptation coming. I’m a 1995 gal, but others are good for different reasons, this new one will no doubt be good too. But in terms of adaptations of classics, there will never be a film of Romeo and Juliette with a better Mercutio than Harold Perrineau.
Ever ever *ever*

We just don't cover white demographics in this same way, Matt Goodwin ran a very explicitly blood and soil nationalist campaign, his party are talking about "Judeo-Christian" culture, I don't think Labour would have called it out like this, had he won, even though it's far more clearly religious.

It's not good that every single major party has simultaneously decided to adopt this line. It is both unserious, the Greens got 40% in a seat with at most a 30% Muslim population, and continues to marginalise Muslim voters as an other that is controlled instead of making rational choices.

There’s a pair of twins called Dolce and Gabana scooting about Belfast somewhere- must be late teens now.

Listening to the analysis of this election and it reminds me of every time a Sinn Fein win a new seat here - it’s always that they’ve “taken” the seat, not “won”, it’s always framed as an analysis of why someone lost and what it means for them, because, an interloper, an ‘other’ has ‘taken’ it

Labour coms are having a very tricky morning explaining things - I am too, to a for year old who won’t believe that narwhals do exist but unicorns don’t. I’m at the “it just is” stage of explaining

The out and out racism of pretending that Muslims are not working class either, that they are just entirely other, not part of established civic dynamics

Bad Loss For Goodwin.

Even his name is a lie.

Absolutely. Reported on immediately too

One casualty of the racialisation of class: people fail to recognise that most Bangladeshi and Pakistani people in Britain are working class

That they have the highest rates of poverty

And that historically economic and related factors have been the key driver of their voting behavior