James O’Brien
@mrjamesob.bsky.social
250K followers 850 following 1.6K posts
Broadcaster @lbc.co.uk Author: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-they-broke-britain/james-obrien/9780753560365
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Reposted by James O’Brien
maddow.msnbc.com
“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

apnews.com/article/pope...
Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths
Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.
apnews.com
Reposted by James O’Brien
explaintrade.com
This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.
Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.
Reposted by James O’Brien
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
Hannah Arendt distinguished totalitarianism “from other forms of political oppression known to us such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship” in that totalitarianism seeks to subjugate civil society and private lives, not just political opponents, using psychological, not just physical, repression.
editorialboard.bsky.social
I saw the new George Orwell documentary last night. It’s called 2+2=5. I have been a little bit squeamish about applying the word totalitarian to Trump and the Republicans. Not anymore. We are experiencing a totalitarian movement. There’s no question.
Reposted by James O’Brien
peterjukes.bsky.social
For more on Nadia Sass/Borodi's role at the heart of a pan-European Russian influence machine, read more here

desk-russie.eu/2024/09/08/n...
Reposted by James O’Brien
peterjukes.bsky.social
Same day. Same plenary session. Same visit to Gill’s office. Same Farage, Same Gill, same wife of sanctioned pro Russian agent.

Six days after the first bribery charge
Reposted by James O’Brien
ldfreedman.bsky.social
With Farage’s former colleague Nathan Gill guilty of taking money from Russia to promote its propaganda Sam looks at the wider connections between the radical right and Russia. (£/free trial), samf.substack.com/p/russia-and...
Russia and the rise of the radical right
Marine Le Pen meets with Putin before the 2017 French Presidential election (Photo credit Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images)
samf.substack.com
Reposted by James O’Brien
zackpolanski.bsky.social
Glad to see Nigel Farage has finally remembered Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform in Wales - found guilty of taking bribes from Russia.

Maybe he'll now remember how much he took from Putin's propaganda broadcaster Russia Today for all his TV appearances when he was a MEP?
Nigel Farage on Russia Today.
mrjamesob.bsky.social
Ah man, that’s wonderful to hear. Congratulations & love to you all X
Reposted by James O’Brien
Reposted by James O’Brien
peterwalker99.bsky.social
I realise I slightly go on about this, but I'm not sure enough attention is paid to the fact that a fair proportion of comment articles in the modern Daily Telegraph are utterly unmoored from any sense of even tenuous reality.


    Daniel Hannan

Britain has given so much to civilisation. Now the barbarians are inside

The poisonous ideas of Vladimir Lenin have infected our progressive elite Contemplate those elderly buffoons in blue berets who hand out EU flags at the Last Night of the Proms. Do you suppose they have any real interest in rejoining the EU? Do they strike you as having looked into the budgetary, migratory and commercial implications? Of course not. They just loathe the people they imagine having voted Leave.

Listen to Sir Lenny Henry, who thinks that, as well as handing over squillions to the West Indies and Africa, we should pay black people in this country. So much for the notion of equality before the law.

I could go on. The museums rushing to give away legally purchased collections to people who have never owned them, and who will very probably sell them on to private collectors. The diplomats longing to surrender British territories in defiance of the wishes of their peoples. The universities eviscerating the Western canon in the name of decolonising the curriculum. “Colonialism-and-slavery” is proffered as a binomial phrase, like “law-and-order” or “gin-and-tonic”. Few kids in our schools are given the slightest notion that the first, at least in Africa, was driven by the desire to extirpate the second. Even fewer are taught that African kings fought to defend the institution.

The Benin Bronzes, which our cultural leaders are so keen to give away, were seized to defray the costs of an 1897 expedition against a state that buried slaves alive. The British Museum, which owns most of them, dares not mention it. Instead it says the carvings were acquired during the “expansion of colonial power”
Reposted by James O’Brien
peterjukes.bsky.social
Most people seem to have missed who retweeted this picture of Farage in Gill’s office a few days after Gill began receiving his first bribes from Oleh Voloshyn (Oleg Voloshin). None other than…
mrjamesob.bsky.social
Can we at least all agree that he deserves to win the Carabao Cup?
Reposted by James O’Brien
helenebismarck.bsky.social
I think this is hugely important. I have done a lot of research on religion and politics for my book (about 🇬🇧) and I cannot overstate the difference between the pundits and politicians who talk aggressively
about "cultural Christianity“ and the people you meet when you actually go to church.
timbale.bsky.social
"People who attend church or identify with a Christian tradition are not systematically more (or less) nativist, authoritarian or populist than their secular counterparts. Conversely, people who hold nativist and authoritarian views are often also Islamophobes, and vice versa." 👏 @kai-arzheimer.com
Islamophobia in Western Europe is not driven by religiosity
Are Christians more likely to be Islamophobic than other citizens in Europe? New research finds European Islamophobia has no link to a person’s religiosity.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
mrjamesob.bsky.social
And it shall be known as: ‘The Nobel Peace Prize (That You Don’t Know Because It Goes To A Different School.’)
atrupar.com
Rep. Buddy Carter: "Donald Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. That's why I'm introducing a resolution today that will honor him with the Nobel Peace Prize."

(It doesn't work like that lol)
Reposted by James O’Brien
abitpolitical.bsky.social
The British-Israeli Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors with @mrjamesob.bsky.social on @lbc.co.uk right now.

So so sad. It's going to get a reaction but you can't deny the passion behind the words, and they demand attention.
Reposted by James O’Brien
mrjwdrama.bsky.social
Dear Lord - you will not hear a more earth shattering call than the first on @mrjamesob.bsky.social today - please listen
Reposted by James O’Brien
gralefrit.bsky.social
They should stop polling, and just stick with the big one we had in 2016 that revealed that roughly half of us will believe any old shit.
mrjamesob.bsky.social
On the other hand, the Daily Mail appears to be launching a campaign for Donald Trump to be canonised...
mrjamesob.bsky.social
There's a piece by Catherine Philp in The Times today that provides forensic & fascinating detail about the peace deal agreed yesterday. I cannot recommend it highly enough but won't share a link because I'd get a dozen replies from people pointing out that it's behind a paywall!