James Connelly
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jamescon.bsky.social
James Connelly
@jamescon.bsky.social
1.1K followers 2K following 150 posts
Emeritus Prof, Hull. Writing Collingwood bio / Philosophical Idealism, Environmental politics & ethics, Elections/electoral systems / Minsters Rail Campaign /[email protected] / https://hull.academia.edu/JamesConnelly
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Reposted by James Connelly
imincorrigible.bsky.social
Ben Jennings is bang on the money, again.

#COP30 is joke.

The #ClimateCrisis is already here, and we're arguing about taking even more fossil fuels out of the ground, and pretending that the halfhearted action we've taken so far is going to save our kids from suffering on burning planet.
November 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
imincorrigible.bsky.social
FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Yeah, why tax global planet killing companies when you can just raise income tax on "hard working people" instead.

#Budget25 #Reeves #ClimateCrisis #GlobalHeating

#FossilFuels
October 29, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
anandmenon.bsky.social
Do we really think tinkering with rules about ILR etc will fundamentally change the incentives of those risking their lives, and those of their kids in dinghies? And is legitimising racism by seeing it as a logical reaction to policy failure really takes basis on which to proceed?
November 23, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
catanonim.me
Reminder.
November 23, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
alanlester.bsky.social
Actual analysis of the BBC’s coverage of Gaza is devastating for Prescott and the right wing attacks on the BBC. Ratio of Israeli-Palestinian deaths: 1 /34. Ratio of coverage of those deaths: 19 / 1.

cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-...
BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards - Centre For Media Monitoring
cfmm.org.uk
November 23, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
As Trump and Putin work to crush Ukraine and destabilise Europe and Farage’s ally gets sentenced to 10yrs for taking Russian bribes, it’s a good time to revisit this excellent report on how the British rightwing has betrayed us all.
Brexit was their weapon of choice.
bylinetimes.com/2022/03/08/p...
Putin’s Plot Against ‘Great’ Britain – And How He Got Away With It
Peter Jukes tracks Vladimir Putin’s long war against the West and the allies he has found in the pro-Brexit establishment in the plot to derail Britain
bylinetimes.com
November 23, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
doctorvive.bsky.social
Good. I'm glad this is the headline. This is the real story. Thank you to the BBC.
Climate COP30 in Brazil fails to secure new pledges to cut fossil fuels • 22 November 2025
November 22, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
adambienkov.bsky.social
The same people who convinced the British public to back a catastrophic Boris Johnson premiership are now pulling the same trick again with Nigel Farage

www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-confid...
The Confidence Trick That Put Boris Johnson Into Power Is Now Being Used on Nigel Farage
The same people who convinced the British public to back a catastrophic Boris Johnson premiership are now pulling the same trick again with Nigel Farage
www.adambienkov.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
minstersrail.bsky.social
gofund.me/37f231c0a
Donate to Minsters Rail Campaign, organized by Peter Hemmerman
The Minsters Rail Campaign are trying to restore a rail link from Beverley to York joining the … Peter Hemmerman needs your support for Minsters Rail Campaign
gofund.me
November 22, 2025 at 2:28 PM
jamescon.bsky.social
gofund.me/37f231c0a
Donate to Minsters Rail Campaign, organized by Peter Hemmerman
The Minsters Rail Campaign are trying to restore a rail link from Beverley to York joining the … Peter Hemmerman needs your support for Minsters Rail Campaign
gofund.me
November 22, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
itsstillme1.bsky.social
We know that’s not true!
November 22, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
minstersrail.bsky.social
www.railmagazine.com/news/plans-f...
Plans for Leeds Bradford Airport parkway station still no closer to fruition
It's been nine years since plans for a new station were first announced.
www.railmagazine.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
minstersrail.bsky.social
www.railmagazine.com/news/norther...
Northern outlines plan to grow passenger journeys by 30 million in five years
Northern unveils '30 by 30' plan to increase the number of journeys made on its trains.
www.railmagazine.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
alanlester.bsky.social
Far right activists descending on my area to demonise people seeking asylum is a far greater threat to locals than single men being housed in a barracks because the same far right activists don’t want them in hotels.

Your Questions: Asylum plans in Crowborough www.bbc.com/news/article...
Plans to house asylum seekers in Crowborough army camp explained
The latest Home Office figures state that 540 men will be housed at the army camp in Crowborough.
www.bbc.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
ianhall.bsky.social
🌊 Climate change is now warming the deepest parts of the Arctic Ocean

phys.org/news/2025-11...
Climate change is now warming the deepest parts of the Arctic Ocean
While it is well known that climate change is heating the world's oceans, it was thought that the deep sea was safe from its effects—until now. Researchers have discovered that a rapidly warming part ...
phys.org
November 21, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
hcrichardson.bsky.social
Before the midterms of 1866, President Andrew Johnson called his congressional opponents traitors and said they should be hanged.

Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
November 20, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
petermclayton.bsky.social
Goldfinch #birds
November 20, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
washingtonpost.com
Breaking news: A panel appointed by President Trump to review whether to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency has instead concluded that the agency should be more powerful and autonomous.
Noem at odds with Trump-appointed panel over future of FEMA
Instead of further shrinking and dismantling FEMA, the FEMA Review Council wants to make it more independent.
wapo.st
November 19, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
tg42birder.bsky.social
To be welcomed but we have a bigger problem. And it’s everywhere…

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides
www.theguardian.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
thierryaaron.bsky.social
Inspired by Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, Dr. Roberta Millstein reexamines this philosophy in light of contemporary ecology, sharing new interpretations of interdependence, land health, & the “biotic community,” offering a fresh take on how these ideas can guide modern conservation & restoration policy
Aldo Leopold and Environmental Stewardship | Dr. Roberta Millstein Lecture
YouTube video by Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics
youtu.be
November 19, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
minstersrail.bsky.social
www.railmagazine.com/news/passeng...
New line passenger forecasts 'should be based on previous successes'
Campaign for Better Transport says forecasts should better reflect the success of routes such as the Elizabeth, Dartmoor and Northumberland lines.
www.railmagazine.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
adambienkov.bsky.social
We must copy Denmark Social Democrats' hardline anti-asylum measures in order to win back voters' trust, says Shabana Mahmood.

Meanwhile in Denmark:
November 19, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
marklazarowicz.bsky.social
This one of the most powerful critiques of Mahmood's plans on asylum and immigration. Even if you have read many others, you should read this from @tanjabueltmann.net
tanjabueltmann.net Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 4d
Tried to get this published but no luck, so might as well ‘publish’ it here so it’s not a complete waste!

➡️ Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow

#asylum #Mahmood #history #humanrights
Stripping rights from refugees today endangers us all tomorrow   When I was 13, I visited a Nazi concentration camp for the first time, confronting my country’s dark history always—and rightly—a bedrock in my growing up.    One image from that visit has stayed with me ever since: a display of prisoners’ personal possessions.    It revealed a world in which those imprisoned were stripped not only of their freedom but of the last tangible traces of their humanity. That systematic erasure was the most important precondition for murdering millions.   Now, as a historian, I know that history does not flow into the present in a straight line, and direct comparisons are rarely appropriate. They certainly are not here.   But history is the one compass humanity has. Too often we choose to ignore it.    The Home Secretary’s proposals for changes to the UK’s asylum system represent such a moment of failure.    Yet the most troubling aspect of Labour’s frantic efforts to appear tough on immigration is not even the historical echoes that taking refugees’ possessions invokes. It is that cost recovery is not the real purpose of the rationale behind it.    The true aim is to appeal to a particular audience—those who take satisfaction in seeing people seeking refuge deprived of what little they have. It is hard to imagine a more troubling approach to policymaking, and that becomes even clearer when we consider the Home Secretary’s proposals in context.   As of June 2025, there were 42.5 million refugees globally. Over 70% are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. The UK hosts 548,000 refugees; that is 0.78% of the UK population. Around 110,000 people are in receipt of asylum support; that is 0.15% of the UK population.   It is unconscionable that such a small and vulnerable population can be targeted with deliberate cruelty and weaponised for assumed political gain.   And that is all this will ever be. The core miscalculation is believing that adopting these positions will neutralise Reform.    Both historical knowledge and current research show the opposite. Mainstreaming extremist policies legitimises them further and aids only the original. Each step towards Reform’s territory simply gives Reform more power.   But our political discourse has been so degraded over the last decade that many no longer even recognise policies—or the language that frames them—as extreme.    That is how the Home Secretary can speak so casually of desperate people seeking sanctuary as recipients of a ‘golden ticket’ as though the context is Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory rather than countries torn apart by war and starved by famine. Speak of her ‘moral mission’ to withdraw support, alleging that ‘illegal migration is tearing our country apart.’ And warn of ‘dark forces stirring up anger,’ oblivious to her own role: from the use of blurry, dehumanising images of refugees to spread falsehoods about their impact on communities, to the equally false description of refugee movements as illegal migration.    I suggest the Home Secretary find a mirror if she is keen to understand who is helping turn anger into hate.   Because it is the mainstreaming of far-right talking points that the Home Secretary’s proposals represent that is really tearing our country apart.   For when a policy looks like the far right, speaks to the far right and is hailed by the far right as being far right, it is far right. There is a reason Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is jubilant and speaks of ‘the Overton window having been obliterated.’   This makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s recent comments on the urgent need to tackle racism. But it also raises alarming questions about the impact this will have on communities around the country, many of which are already deeply divided.    The proposed policies will do nothing for these struggling communities, because their problems simply do not stem from people seeking sanctuary with us. In fact: for as long as politicians focus on immigrants and refugees as the cause of our problems, they will fail to deliver for the British people.   But it is important to grasp the impact of the Home Secretary’s proposals as they carry broader consequences for all of us. Suggestions for changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights is applied are particularly concerning. Requiring judges to prioritise ‘public safety’—falsely implying refugees pose a threat—would qualify human rights for a specific group.   And once one accepts that human rights can be qualified for one group, one creates tools that can be used against anyone.   So what these proposals really mean goes far beyond asylum policy. This is about the kind of country we will have in the future. If human rights are no longer universal, they become a means for exclusion and control.    That is why stripping rights from refugees today can only enable a system that endangers all our rights tomorrow.    And that is why our historical compass matters and why we have to use it now. Because that compass tells us without doubt that when first they come for one group that is never where it ends. 
November 19, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Reposted by James Connelly
crookedfootball.bsky.social
Me at the LRB blog on the atrocious refugee policy of Mahmood and Starmer
Christopher Bertram | ‘Core Protection’
Refugeehood is not supposed to be like this. The ideal envisaged by the Refugee Convention is that refugee status should...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by James Connelly
tom--scott.bsky.social
Nigel Farage, career racist, Trump sycophant, Putin fanboy & close associate of multiple serious fraudsters, wants to make the BBC a "beacon for British values".
November 18, 2025 at 6:19 PM