Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Graeme Purves @gaspurves.bsky.social · 15h

My fingers are crossed, but I think we'll have a fight on our hands. Will environmental organisations like @scotlink.bsky.social, @scotwildlife.bsky.social, @n-t-s.bsky.social, @thecockburn.bsky.social @rspbscotland.bsky.social step up? 🤔

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Gill Steele @squirreltower.bsky.social · 16h

This isn’t happening in Scotland only because the SNP government holds power

“The bill will enable developers to bulldoze precious wild places, as long as they pay into a fund that may create alternative habitats or green spaces somewhere else. Irreplaceble ecosystems will be sold for cash.”

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 17h

Today's column is about the government's huge, unprecedented assault on nature ... and about the eerie, astonishing silence of the big nature groups. The RSPB, National Trust, Wildlife Trusts have 7.5m members between them. A vast force, completely unmobilised. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Wage war on nature to build new homes: that’s Labour’s offer, but it’s a con trick | George Monbiot

The government’s new planning bill is tearing down environmental protections to benefit developers. This nation of nature lovers won’t stand for it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

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(Wee G ) Wake Up Scotland @chaillich.bsky.social · 1d

Wake up Scotland it's time to Decide ✊🏻
Independence or fascism 👇

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 23h

Revealed: Leave.EU campaign met Russian officials as many as 11 times around Brexit

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018...

Revealed: Leave.EU campaign met Russian officials as many as 11 times

Founder Arron Banks was offered lucrative deals in talks with the ambassador

www.theguardian.com

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Gill Steele @squirreltower.bsky.social · 16h

Scotland retained (post-Brexit) EU derived environmental protection systems. In planning, Scotland still applies the precautionary principle & assesses/measures potential Environmental Impacts of new development

Vote Labour (or Reform) in 2026 to see the same crappy deregulation happen up here

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Graeme Purves @gaspurves.bsky.social · 16h

It won't be long before developers start demanding parity with England here, Gill. And there will be no shortage of politicians eager to oblige them.

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Richard Murphy @richardjmurphy.bsky.social · 16h

Britain’s property addiction: how politics has built a broken market youtu.be/PvkHfM9tsQg?...

Britain’s property addiction: how politics has built a broken market

YouTube video by Richard J Murphy

youtu.be

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Steve Carter @shieldaig.bsky.social · 17h

Standing by the appropriately named 'viewpoint'.

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This Is My Glasgow @thisismyglasgow.bsky.social · 2d

Every sign has a story behind it, and I suspect this one in Bowling, just to the west of Glasgow, might be more interesting than most.

#glasgow #bowling #A82 #roadsigns #weirdsigns #ignoresatnav #strangesigns #satnav #sign #signofthetimes #satnav

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Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · 16h

This is, sadly, untrue.

Lynx and other larger predators would certainly help with the deer problem, especially by making them avoid some areas, but by no means would they solve it: there are just far too many deer.

Even *after* predator reintroductions, culling will continue to be required.

David Wicks 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 @davidw456.bsky.social · 1d

Reintroduce lynx and we won't have to cull any dear.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 16h

“That’s what the planning system is for: to reconcile the need for development with other public needs.”

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 17h

Today's column is about the government's huge, unprecedented assault on nature ... and about the eerie, astonishing silence of the big nature groups. The RSPB, National Trust, Wildlife Trusts have 7.5m members between them. A vast force, completely unmobilised. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Wage war on nature to build new homes: that’s Labour’s offer, but it’s a con trick | George Monbiot

The government’s new planning bill is tearing down environmental protections to benefit developers. This nation of nature lovers won’t stand for it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

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Gavin Esler @gavinesler.bsky.social · 16h

Yes let’s trust idiots instead. That should work.

Barbara Sobel @barbarasobel.bsky.social · 23h

RFK Jr: We need to stop trusting the experts... Trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy, it's a feature of religion and totalitarianism.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 16h

They lie about the ECHR.
Just like they lied about Brexit. Claiming if we just got rid of that ‘European’ thing, we’d be free, we’d have control, all our problems solved…
It’s NOT TRUE.
We’d inflict more chaos on ourselves and torch our own human rights framework for NOTHING.
For liars.
Again.

Andrew Cutting @andrewcutting.coe.int · 1d

The European Convention on Human Rights is being misrepresented in the UK, says former Supreme Court President Lady Hale👇

🔗 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home... via @the-independent.com

“It seems so short-sighted. I’m sorry, I’m really, really worried about it.”

#ECHR #OurRightsAndFreedoms

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Graeme Purves @gaspurves.bsky.social · 16h

Quite remarkable. And unforgivable. ☹️

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 16h

Yet they've completely rolled over, withdrawing their opposition to the devastating Planning and Infrastructure Bill, in return for a handful of pathetic amendments that aren't worth the paper they're written on. Since then, the government has introduced further amendments, making it even worse.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 17h

Today's column is about the government's huge, unprecedented assault on nature ... and about the eerie, astonishing silence of the big nature groups. The RSPB, National Trust, Wildlife Trusts have 7.5m members between them. A vast force, completely unmobilised. 🧵
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Wage war on nature to build new homes: that’s Labour’s offer, but it’s a con trick | George Monbiot

The government’s new planning bill is tearing down environmental protections to benefit developers. This nation of nature lovers won’t stand for it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 1d

A leaked memo, a Maga-style hat and a trail of broken pledges – it’s Labour’s great housing betrayal | Aditya Chakrabortty

Ignore the bombast: Steve ‘build, baby, build’ Reed’s boast looks likely to end in targets more pathetic than they are now, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

www.theguardian.com

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LiLBazula 👻 @lilbazza.bsky.social · 17h

That never ending housing crisis? Those sky rocketing homeless figures? Don't fret: Labour is here to make it worse while subsidising developers already soaring profits from the public purse

So much for high politics; the ground reality is of a housing crisis that just keeps getting bigger. Over 13,000 people slept rough in London in 2024-25, four times the number before David Cameron’s austerity regime. At the start of this year, 73,000 households across the capital were in temporary accommodation, including 90,000 children – so that on average at least one child in every classroom in London is homeless. The capital’s councils pay out £5.5m every day just to put them up in rooms that are too often cramped, ridden with mould and worse.

None of this will be improved by these measures, as laid out here. More than one source believes developers will halt projects already under way, arguing they should be allowed to divert into more profitable housing. A source at the Greater London Authority estimates that up to 20,000 affordable homes already planned, some even part-built, could rapidly disappear.

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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 17h

Hind Khoudary reporting this morning that the aid entering Gaza is very little & not enough to meet the massive needs of the population. Hind also explains that a lot of what's entering are commercial trucks with goods to be sold. The problem? Lots of people have no money.

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Graeme Purves @gaspurves.bsky.social · 1d

Access rights, the Auchreoch sign, and the Orwellian world of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority.
#PublicAccess
#LochLomond&Trossachs

Access rights, the Auchreoch sign & the Orwellian world of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority - parkswatchscotland

On 20th September I wrote about the sign above in a post on Scotland’s free trade in land & its consequences – Coille Coire Chuilc and Auchreoch. I reported the sign that same evening to the Access T...

parkswatchscotland.co.uk

Graeme Purves @gaspurves.bsky.social · 1d

You can hear Scots being spoken in the streets, on the buses, and in the pubs and shops of Edinburgh any day of the week - and certainly in the Oxford Bar! 🤨

Rankin can construct interesting plots, but his dialogue and characterisations are unimpressive. He doesn't seem to have an ear for Scots.

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Stefan Mohamed @stefmowords.bsky.social · 2d

think I'd be risking a blood pressure incident if I actually read this book. but good that it's out there I guess, not that the perpetrators are ever going to suffer the consequences they deserve

How Keir Starmer conned the British electorate

Book review: ‘The Fraud’ offers the most damning portrayal yet of the Starmer project.

www.declassifieduk.org

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Wolverinethad (Boo Thad) @lettersfromthewasteland.org · 2d

Corbyn was driven out over this complete and utter bullshit. Cynical to the core. Starmer got power, too, and can't even wield it semi-competently! What the fuck was even the point??

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DavidMcKenna @davidmckenna.bsky.social · 2d

Re: the Labour shenanigans detailed in The Fraud. "Gordstein", it should be noted, was not a real person but an invention of Euan Philipps of Labour Against Antisemitism, who is not Jewish but made complaints under what he obviously considered to be a 'Jewish-sounding' name

Stefan Mohamed @stefmowords.bsky.social · 2d

particularly callous and inhumane detail here. these people never gave a fuck about Jews

"In September 2020 “Gordstein” was one of three complainants against Riva Joffe, an 80-year-old Jewish veteran of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa.

Her sin was to have described Israel as an Apartheid state (a view shared by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem) and to have urged Jeremy Corbyn to stand up to the “Zionist lobby.”

The Labour Party opened a formal investigation and Joffe spent the closing days of her life penning an immensely dignified response from her death bed. “This frenzy of purging you are driven to – it’s not the behaviour of mature adults. It smacks of desperation, fear and panic,” she wrote.

Joffe lived in Starmer’s constituency and knew him personally. But a direct request on behalf of her son that the charges against her be posthumously dropped did not even elicit a response."

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Polly Pallister-Wilkins @pollypw.bsky.social · 2d

I would bet my flat that not a single person proposing this has an A-level in English language.

(In literature possibly, but language, very unlikely).

The Independent @the-independent.com · 2d

Migrants will need A-level standard English to work in UK

www.independent.co.uk

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