Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 11h

The Young Republicans Were Practicing Politics the Right Way

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 12h

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 2d

This seems a bit unfair (based on this speech from a few days ago at least)

www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025...

We are living through the largest fascist mobilisation in recent British history. This has not come out of nowhere. It has been emboldened by politicians and the media who scapegoat migrants, Muslims and minorities every single day. And Reform is their political vehicle.

She added:

We must challenge them in the streets as well as the ballot box. To be clear, you can’t beat far-right politicians and fascism by ignoring them or, as the Labour Party are doing, copying them. You do it by fighting them, you do it by organising, you do it by uniting the working class around a positive vision. And by building a movement that is broad and rooted in solidarity.

Emphasising that “the far right thrive on a politics that is reduced to scapegoating, division and fear”, she asserted:

our movement has to say with one loud voice, we will not play that game. We will fight for every single person and we will defend the most marginalised.

In particular, she noted:

This rise in transphobia that we are seeing is deliberate. It is being stoked as a wider culture war to divide us. And just like with migrants, just like with Muslims, just like with disabled people, the goal is always the same: ‘find a scapegoat so people don’t look upwards at who is really holding the power’.

1 1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 4d

Reality is biased against Israel

6

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 4d

Proverbs 26:11

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 6d

@blindboyboatclub.bsky.social memorably covered this a few years back
shows.acast.com/blindboy/epi...

Hieronymus Bosch | The Blindboy Podcast

I chat about the painter Hieronymous Bosch, and how our modern vision of Hell is based on 12th century Cork

shows.acast.com

1 1 1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 6d

The Anti-Human Centipede

10

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 6d

She's the Ed Balls of Reform

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 6d

UK must emulate the place I recently moved my family to or go bust, says my partner

1 1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 6d

I know Streeting and the rest of his accursed faction are obsessed with resurrecting the ghosts and ghouls of the long 1990s but I didn't have Simon Fucking Wessely on my bingo card

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 6d

Just as we are beginning to understand the biochemical basis of this horrendous condition, the government appoints the man perhaps most responsible for the mischaracterisation of ME/CFS – Simon Wesseley - to its *overdiagnosis* commission. www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/controv...

Controversial professor to investigate overdiagnosis of mental health and neurodivergence for Labour

Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 8d

Indeed. Instead of interviewing @zackpolanski.bsky.social they invited along a Tory peer who proceeded to smear a Jewish man who has been marching tirelessly for Palestinian liberation as a "useful idiot"
bsky.app/profile/saul...

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 9d

Tory peer Ben Houchen calls a Jewish man who's attended pro Palestinian marches every week for the last 2 years a "useful idiot" #bbclaurak

2 5

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 9d

Imagine the all-channels screaming and baying for blood if a parliamentarian of any party had described a Zionist Jew as one of Netanyahu's "useful idiots". For the likes of Houchen, Jews only count to the extent they can be instrumentalised, dead or alive

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 9d

Tory peer Ben Houchen calls a Jewish man who's attended pro Palestinian marches every week for the last 2 years a "useful idiot" #bbclaurak

2

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 10d

They disowned him for the same reason Farage does (to maintain a wafer-thin veneer of respectability)

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 10d

The inverse is also true - describing the far right as "populist" implies that forces in opposition to them are elitist, technocratic, out of touch, etc.

Michael Colborne @colborne.bsky.social · 10d

“When we use the term “populist”, we often create a semantic link between the word and “the people”. So when we allow the far right to be described as populist, we are incorrectly implying that they are tapping into what the people want or that they speak for the “silent majority””

Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.bsky.social · 10d

This short piece co-authored with Alex Yates shows why the misuse of populism plays right in the hands of the far right

(Annoyingly, the app is not allowing me to tag colleagues, but follow them!)

theconversation.com/the-word-pop...

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 11d

It's never been clearer that Israel is basically the vanguard of the new fascist international but Starmer et al will no doubt keep the spy planes (and the F-35s) flying over Gaza

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 11d

This Israeli government decision to host Tommy Robinson will widen the growing gulf between the Netanyahu government and the British public, including the broad majority of Jews in Britain (3/4 of whom dsapproved of Netanyahu, before this new link to this anti-Muslim racist UK far right convict).

1 5

Reposted by Sam

Jack @jackinpogform.bsky.social · 11d

Responding to an act of terrorism perpetrated by an English citizen against the English Jewish community in England with 'this is why we need to be nice to Israel' is disgusting. I'm sorry if its not my place to say but that is just fucking disgusting.

2 8 49

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 11d

Another ghoul cynically conflating all Jewish people with Israel and its genocidal armed forces. One more example of what @gabrielwinant.bsky.social memorably termed "the conversion of grief into power"

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 11d

Robin Simcox, the commissioner for countering extremism, says chanting 'death to the DF' at Glastonbury indicates something dark

No. The IDF is a brutal occupying army committing genocide, & yes UK citizens serve in it. Are you monitoring those extremists if/when they come back?

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 14d

So it turns out that "delivery, delivery, delivery" = taking two years to build an "online hospital"

Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 14d

Via UK Govt: "A pioneering new ‘online hospital’ will transform healthcare in England, improve access for patients, and slash NHS waiting lists, the Prime Minister is expected to announce today."

NHS Online is set to be rolled out "from 2027". PM speech at 2pm from Labour conference.

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 14d

Artist's impression:

A screenshot of the 90s computer game Theme Hospital

5

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 23d

He looks like he fell into Tommy Robinson’s washing machine

Gav Maclean @gavmaclean.bsky.social · 24d

You don't win a flag shagging argument against flag shaggers by flag shagging

Farron drapes himself in flag as Lib Dems seek to reclaim patriotism

The Lib Dems are urged to stop being squeamish about national pride, at their annual conference.

www.bbc.co.uk

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 26d

Also - and again, eyeballing this - they're probably thirsty, but they're not THAT thirsty

1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 26d

Side issue, obviously, but was Nick Clegg wearing a hotdog costume when he gave this speech?

“The moment our tech companies start developing any scale or ambition, they have to go to California because we don’t have the growth capital here,” he said.
“It perplexes me why the British political, cultural and media establishment doesn’t worry more about the structural loss of sovereignty. This US-UK tech deal is just another version of the UK holding on to Uncle Sam’s coattails.
“Imagine [the outcry] if all the tech in our phones from the cloud to the software was in the hands of the French. But we’ve defanged ourselves because of our long adherence to the Cold War transatlantic relationship with the US.
“We have to be a bit firmer about what we can do ourselves rather than just taking sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley.”

2 1

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 26d

Cloning mammoths is probably no worse as a growth strategy than "mainline AI into the nation's veins"

1 2

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 27d

As @gabrielwinant.bsky.social wrote of Israel after October 7, they have built “a machine for the conversion of grief into power”, and any liberals who willingly feed that machine just make them stronger

www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

More tragically, the sentiment of those who want peace and justice for all and express this by chastising those in the West whom they see to be reacting with insufficient grief and excessive politics have only given amplification to the propaganda machine that is now openly calling for the blood of the innocent and the silence of doubters.

4

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 28d

Jon Cruddas apparently once summed up the Labour right's approach to politics as "kiss up, kick down" (H/T @davidwearing.bsky.social). Clearly that also extends to their media outriders

Sam @faroqabilly.bsky.social · 28d

“The Great Noticing” has very quickly morphed into “The Transparent Telling On Ourselves”

Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 28d

In which I argue that:

a) The Paul Ovenden messages about Diane Abbott are really repugnant, and

b) We might want to be careful about deciding anything bad anyone has ever said online, however long ago, even in a private message is grounds for resignation

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Who will be the next Paul Ovenden?

The messages from Starmer’s ousted aide are repugnant. But digital skeletons have become almost inevitable

www.newstatesman.com

1 12