Author | Lightnews

Dr Karen Smith👻🍂👻🎃🕷🐇🐈 💚🇮🇪🎶🎭📽️🎞💙😷💉🕯️🦋🌻

@karenapsmith.bsky.social

6.1K followers 8.1K following 760 posts

Taught HE over 25 years, Dep Head Cass Art School. Film/Media scholar programmer/cinemas/cult/horror/gothic/folk horror/music/neighbourhoods/audiences/gentrification/ScalaCinema UCL+KCL Lived opposite Grenfell Tower for over 20 years 💚 W10 to WKen London

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Dr Karen Smith👻🍂👻🎃🕷🐇🐈 💚🇮🇪🎶🎭📽️🎞💙😷💉🕯️🦋🌻 @karenapsmith.bsky.social · Oct 31

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Cats of Yore @catsofyore.bsky.social · Oct 31

Metamorphosis! Théophile Steinlen, late 19th century. wellcomecollection.org/works/p8bvjn...

Drawing of naked pale white witches with long dark hair ride broomsticks across the dark city sky. From the rooftops below, black cats howl excitedly up at them.

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 1h

If Reform UK are happy to have an overt racist on their benches then what does that tell you about the party?

Pochin should have had the whip removed 24 hours ago.

Or are Reform condoning it by their silence?

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Reform MP Sarah Pochin's comments about adverts were 'racist', Wes Streeting says

Sarah Pochin apologises for saying "it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people".

www.bbc.com

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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 2h

the hypermasculine fascist personal aesthetic, roid-boy-in-tactical-gear, huge truck with punisher sticker, is an expression of deep psychic damage and profound internal disorder and is very sad actually despite being grotesquely violent and also quite dangerous

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2h

It’s fun to look at this ai slop nazi propaganda and then remember what these guys actually look like. This isn’t what they (or america) looks like and far from loving america, this is an expression of severe self loathing bsky.app/profile/geof...

Geoff Bowser @geoffbowser.bsky.social · 14h

I made an image of all the art posted by US DOL on X since approximately Labor Day

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Dr Karen Smith👻🍂👻🎃🕷🐇🐈 💚🇮🇪🎶🎭📽️🎞💙😷💉🕯️🦋🌻 @karenapsmith.bsky.social · 2h

Reporting seems to have no effect - so yes, unsubscribing seems to be the only option

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James FBSI 🐸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇵🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇺 (Extremist) @toplandscaper.bsky.social · 3h

A few weeks ago it was the GPEW and Zack Polanski. This week, despite success in the Caerphilly by-election, the BBC has chosen to ignore Plaid Cymru. Biased BC!

BBC under fire as Plaid Cymru missing from Laura Kuenssberg show despite election win
www.thenational.scot/news/2557242...

BBC under fire as Plaid Cymru missing from Laura Kuenssberg show despite election win

THE BBC is facing criticism over not including Plaid Cymru on its flagship Sunday politics programme, despite the party securing a seismic…

www.thenational.scot

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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 3h

Cartoon by Stephen Collins for the Guardian.

[Scene is BBC BREAKFAST with two presenters and a guest on the sofa].

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PRESENTER:
Now - some disturbing new research has shown

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PRESENTER:
that as many as 10 non-Reform political parties may currently operating ‘under the radar’ across the UK.

[Show on screen logos for Greens, Lib Dems, Conservatives

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PRESENTER:
In the studio to discuss this, Nigel Farage

[We see the guest on the sofa is indeed Nigel Farage]

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PRESENTER:
Nigel, what’s your view?

FARAGE:
Well I think this very worrying.

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FARAGE:
And just another reason why we should ban all immigration.

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PRESENTER:
I won’t push back on that

FARAGE:
Absolutely!

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PRESENTER:
Funnily enough, this is what your new show’s about, isn’t it?

FARAGE:
Oop - plug time!

PRESENTER:
Ha ha

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FARAGE:
Yes it’s a 12-part BBC documentary called ‘In Search Of The Political Parties That Aren’t My One’.

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[Show on the TV screen Farage presenting a documentary series titled In Search Of The Political Parties That Aren’t My One. He is wearing his farmer's getup and looking dreamily at the UK from hillsides, visiting pubs and chatting with the locals, etc]

FARAGE:
It’s a really emotional journey

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FARAGE:
with lots of dreamy footage of me looking relatable...

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FARAGE:
as I answer the question:

*Am I the only option for Britain?*

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[Cut back to studio]

PRESENTER:
I won’t push back on that

FARAGE:
Absolutely!

[ends]

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Dr Karen Smith👻🍂👻🎃🕷🐇🐈 💚🇮🇪🎶🎭📽️🎞💙😷💉🕯️🦋🌻 @karenapsmith.bsky.social · 2h

In my area posts seem to be mainly conspiracy-fed anti Khan comments, blaming him for absolutely everything

Signed up for local events - got unadulterated racism & support for Reform

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 5h

"Let's not forget, when we remember the service and the sacrifice with this poppy, that the people who bled and died for our democracy and our freedom, weren't just my grandfather who looked like me & worshipped the same God, but people across Empire & Commonwealth, who were Muslim, Sikh & Hindu'

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 14h

I don’t really think the framers intended for a president to have the power to slap a tariff on products from a particular country because he didn’t like a TV commercial they ran about him, but I suppose it is presently up to the Supreme Ct to decide how far the Mad King can go.

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 13h

While we’re on the subject of Ronald Reagan.

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TC Parker Is Horrific Enough Already (she/her) @tcparker.bsky.social · 2h

Spiralling into a public meltdown because you once saw a brown family in a fish fingers advert after Coronation St is a level of white fragility I may never quite get my head around

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Paul Lewis @paullewismoney.bsky.social · 7h

Horse racing joins the ‘we’re too big and important to tax more’ club bit.ly/4hpk8rw It was in 1989 that convicted tax evader Leona Helmsley said ‘only the little people pay taxes’ and if all these lobbyists get their way they may be the only ones left for Reeves to tax more!

Why we’ve had to pause investment in horse racing

The Horserace Betting Levy Board collects £100m from bookmakers to be invested in the sport. But the threat of tax hikes has forced it to halt spending

bit.ly

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 7h

I know this is obvious. And I know we all know this.
But if the President can raise taxes because an advert annoyed him, without even consulting Congress, then the US constitution is simply not functioning as intended.

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 7h

Sarah Pochin is a racist.
Reform is a racist party.
Her ‘apology’ makes no difference to that.
Trying to claim your words really meant something else is not an apology.
It’s a lie about who you are and what you think.
So, she’s a racist.
And, for all our sakes, that MUST be a shameful thing to be.

Photo of Pochin saying:

"It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of anything other than white"

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 6h

A reminder that this is the same Rishi Sunak who when he was Prime Minister raised taxes to their highest level in more than 70 years

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 5h

Reform MP Sarah Pochin: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of people who are anything other than white.”

Today on the BBC, Tory spokesperson Chris Philp: “I’m not going to call her that word. I'm not calling her racist.”

The real Uni-Party.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 1d

Beth Rigby: "Keir Starmer has changed his top team more than I've had hot dinners."

In two years before Starmer we had 3 PMs, 4 Chancellors, 3 Foreign Secretaries, 5 Home Secretaries, 5 Education Secretaries, 5 Cabinet Secretaries, etc. - total 221 ministerial departures.

Maybe Beth is on a diet.

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John Lipponen 🇫🇮 🇦🇹 @lippoenen.bsky.social · 13h

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 16h

Per @chicagotribune.com, the pajama-pants-guy is a former county prosecutor.

And he had some things to say. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/25/c...

A different video captured after agents unleashed tear gas showed plumes of smoke billowing down the street as the crowd's piercing shouts and whistles reached a fever pitch.
Onlookers scurried to the sidewalk to get away from the chemicals, with one neighbor, Brian Kolp, seen walking away barefoot and in Chicago Blackhawks pajamas.
Kolp, 41, said he was drinking coffee on his couch and watching the news as he always does on Saturday morning when he saw what's become an all-too-familiar scene unfold outside
his window.
Two U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were tackling a man to the ground on his front yard.
Meanwhile, Kolp's TV continued to blare a news segment discussing the ongoing temporary restraining order restricting federal immigration agents' use of tear gas.

Kolp, a former prosecutor with the Cook County State's Attorney's office, sprang into action as he sometimes wondered he would have to do
throughout the Trump administration's
"Operation Midway Blitz" these last two months.
He didn't even have time to put on his shoes or change out of his pajamas, he said, drawing jeers from one of the agents as he screamed
"Nazis!" and "Gestapo!" at the agents.
"Quite honestly, when all this started happening, I thought to myself that if the opportunity ever came my way to have to get involved in one of these situations, I was certainly going to do what I could to make sure that they weren't openly and flagrantly violating the law or the Constitution," Kolp said. "And yet, they just went ahead and did it anyway."

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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 2d

Viktor Orbán, Putin and Trump's favourite lapdog in the EU, and the Hungarian rising star Péter Magyar, held opposing rallies in Budapest today.

The pro-Russia Orbán rally gathered less than 93k people.
The pro-Hungary Magyar rally gathered more than 168K people.

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Dr Robert Bohan @robertbohan.bsky.social · 23h

Catherine Connolly, the independent socialist, is President-Elect. Yet again, Ireland bucks the trend of liberal democracies falling to far right nihilism. Here is who she is - Connolly supports the LGBTQ community & People with Disabilities, Carers & a United Ireland. #Aras25 #SpeirGhorm

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 21h

big tough guys deploying tear gas to protect us from inflatable dinosaur Halloween decorations

an ICE agent with a long gun walking in front of inflatable dinosaurs holding jackolanterns

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tinybaby @tiny.baby · 19h

it's important to remember the people doing this aren't "just following orders," they signed up to do this, they're excited to do it, it's what they want to be doing, and each one of them is personally culpable for the entirety of ICE's conduct

The Weekend: Primetime @theweekendprime.bsky.social · 20h

In video provided exclusively to MSNBC's The Weekend: Primetime, immigration agents are seen attempting to pull a man out a window of a Chicago home. Agents also jumped a fence into the locked backyard and manhandled people doing work. Hear from the homeowner tonight on The Weekend: Primetime.

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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 19h

the way Trump and his administration keep going on livestreams and tv to laugh about this, I can’t really compare it to anything political that comes to mind, only thing that comes to mind rn is a serial killer who writes letter taunting family of their victim.

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 2d

Trump’s victims are now washing up in Trinidad:
“The U.S. campaign targeting what it says is drug trafficking from Venezuela has exposed Trinidad to the fallout: unidentified bodies with burn marks and missing limbs showing up in its territory.“

A Mystery in Trinidad as Bodies Wash Ashore After U.S. Strikes

www.nytimes.com

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 1d

That's racism. Plain and simple.

No other word for it.

It's shocking beyond belief that this sort of thing is somehow acceptable.

Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 1d

Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin, “It drives me mad seeing adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of anything other than white"

Followed by that time Sarah Pochin said, "My kids say: mum, you're such a moron" 👀

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Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 19h

Make Racism Disgraceful Again 💯

Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

We must make racism disgraceful again. This kind of shameless ugly inadequacy from Pochin should be career-ending, not career-enhancing. Honestly… the Little England nastiness is repulsive.

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