Matthew Stiles

Marta is now a trader at the Seven Sisters Market, runs a community arts organisation @PueblitoPaisaCC and continues to work for peace and human rights in Colombia. theguardian.com/world/2002/dec…

@officialsteveee @JoosyJew Satire. How can you not understand?

@JoosyJew Are you okayyyy? It’s the same thing 😭😭😭😭

I thought for a moment this said “Three boys avoid jail after rape of two teenage girls.”

We really need to get away from fans feeling embarrassed and ashamed about stuff that isn’t their fault. Part of what prevents fans from holding their clubs to account is this identification with everything the team or the business does. I’m not ashamed, I’m really angry and sad.

500 retweets and I drop some facts about nutmeg and the Soviet Union

@sportingintel Yes, the near unanimous reaction on my WhatsApp Saints fans groups is to blame Saints staff for being incredibly stupid.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and this platform always does), but I think the vast majority of Saints fans, me included, have accepted, from the start, that if we broke the rules then we deserve what we get. And as someone who writes about this stuff routinely, I think that's rare?

The voice of a nation, Toto La Momposina, the iconic Afro-Colombian singer and child of political prisoners who was black listed by Colombia’s fascist government for the pride of Black resistance in her music, has passed. She was the soundtrack to my childhood, she’s who I put on and dance for hours to when I’ve had a bad day, she is all of Latin America to me, her Bullerengues are a spiritual realm, and she herself is eternal. Rest in power, Reina de la Cumbia 🕊️

A wonderful singer. RIP Toto la Momposina

@GeorgeAylett @Calderbank 51% for Labour in Gorton 4% for Greens in Makerfield It’s obviously of a different order

@Calderbank Given the circumstances, everybody knew it was a straight fight between Greens and Reform. Even if you refuse to admit it publicly, I think you have to admit to yourself that this was the case. At least be consistent.

Some Greens really are a bit unhinged. I suggested that it might not be a great idea for them to stand a candidate against Labour in a clear 2 way fight vs Reform >

This beautiful new Macca song brought me to tears during its live debut last night. So much gratitude for @PaulMcCartney - and his band here, @rustyanderson1 @brianrayguitar, Wix Wickens and subs @RHCPchad and @ingridmusic. Hope @AbeLaborielJr is well. youtu.be/BxHS7_YdEt0?si…

Perhaps as a sitting MP, David could get some basic facts right. Starmer brought a motion to the NEC to block Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate. It cited the electoral defeat of 2019 as the reason for this. It reaffirmed Jeremy’s membership rights at that time.

@sartejt @PhilosophyLines @CHinchliffMP Laughable argument. Should I live in a hole in the ground?

@MatthewStiles2 @PhilosophyLines @CHinchliffMP Posting Karl Marx quotes on a platform owned by Elon Musk via your smartphone. The irony is never lost on people like you

Daily reminder that YIMBYism is about the self-interest of well paid graduates, not solving the housing crisis for those stuck on waiting lists. Your value isn't based on your wage. Labour must reject this grotesque social cleansing nonsense and build 000s of council homes.

@PhilosophyLines @sartejt @CHinchliffMP Low paid people aren't prioritised though. Families with children tend to be though and rightly so. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

@MatthewStiles2 @sartejt @CHinchliffMP Ok but why should low paid be prioritised over medium?

@sartejt @CHinchliffMP DIsabled and elderly people aren't indolent. Low paid people aren't indolent

@CHinchliffMP How crude that people who want to pay taxes and contribute to the nation's prosperity want to be able to live within its economic centre? No you're right Chris, screw the people who pay the nation's bills. Let's house the world's indolent in the UK's economic engine instead

@0Calamity Easy mistake to make but it was Ian Murray the Scottish MP.

I remember that so clearly. I remember James Murray's response was to a spontaneous rally in his support was to tell Corbyn to "call his dogs off". Tom Watson called Corbyn supporters "trots" and "a rabble". Remember the #trotsrabbledogs hashtag? Ahh. Those were the days. And less than a year later, he came within inches of unseating Theresa May with a hung parliament.

I know the news Andy Burnham has a route back to Westminster will divide opinion. So, before anything else, I want to speak plainly – to Labour members and voters, to those who have left us, and to anyone on the centre-left, whether you vote Green, Lib Dem, or are simply looking for a politics that hasn't given up on you. Last week's local election results were, for many of us, existential. Not disappointing. Not a setback. Existential. Look across Europe and beyond at what happens to social democratic parties that refuse to step outside the economic orthodoxy of the last forty years – the one that hollowed out our public services, privatised what was ours, drove inequality to indecent levels, and cleared the ground for the authoritarian right to march into. That is the path we are on. Keir Starmer has refused to see it, and the country cannot afford another general election spent finding out the hard way. So let me be direct. The Prime Minister should set out a timeline for an orderly transition. I have said this before. I say it again now because the stakes have changed. Reform is not a protest – it is a project. And it will not be beaten by a Labour Party that mistakes managerial caution for strategy. As regards Andy, I want to set down here that I do not see him as some kind of messiah. Far from it. As someone who has been around frontline politics for more than twenty years, he has made his fair share of mistakes. But for the last ten years he has been a serious, grounded, and effective Mayor of Greater Manchester. The party and the country need their strongest players on the pitch, and he has a great deal to offer at a moment when the national stage has rarely mattered more. I hope the NEC will listen to the overwhelming view of the Cabinet, the PLP, the membership, and the unions, and let Andy stand. And I hope and believe the people of Makerfield will send him back to Parliament. But that is not a given. We know Reform will throw everything at this by-election. We must do the same and then some. Reform have spent a year being told they are inevitable. Makerfield is where we find out whether that is true. Every advance has a limit. This is where we set it. Millions of people, including my constituents in Norwich South, need this government to succeed. They need housing, working public services, secure jobs, water and energy that serves them rather than extracts from them. That work is not finished. But the honest truth is that stopping Reform and rebuilding the country is bigger than any one party. It will take a progressive politics willing to listen, willing to cooperate where the public interest demands it, and willing to drop the tribal habits that got us here. The country is ahead of us on this. It is time we caught up. Makerfield is one of many places where Labour has lost trust. It is an area Andy knows and has lived in for many years. If selected, he will work hard to win that trust back and make the case for a Labour Party worth voting for again. That case has to be made not only to people who once voted Labour, but to everyone who believes the answer to Reform is a serious, democratic, social alternative – not a paler imitation of the politics that created the problem. This by-election is not about one seat. It is a test of whether Labour understands the moment we are in. No single party is going to stop Reform on its own. The progressive majority in this country is real – but it is scattered across Labour, the Greens, the Lib Dems, nationalists, independents, and millions of people who have stopped voting altogether. Our job is not to demand they all come back to us. It is to earn the right to work with them, on shared ground, for a shared future. To former Labour voters: come and talk to us again. To Green and Lib Dem voters: we are not enemies. To Labour members and MPs: this is the fight. Let's get on with it. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

A simple demand of any aspiring Labour PM: nationalise water. No need to compensate the shareholders, they've pocketed plenty in dividends already, while soiling our rivers with sewage and leaving infrastructure to leak & decay.

A thought or two for any putative Labour leaders going forward.

The Labour Party needs to change direction The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy highlights some important Party election deadlines. @CLPD_Labour labourhub.org.uk/2026/05/14/the…

'Why were you called The Zombies?' Colin Blunstone, lead singer of the sixties rock band the Zombies, spoke to #BBCBreakfast about still performing more than 60 years later bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

Paul McCartney's Club Sandwich magazine, Winter 1995. Beatles reunion issue! 1/3