Marc Palmer

To say I am happy about this is an huge understatement! Thank you so much @johnvoorhees and @viticci for the kind words. @MarkLevyArt and I are over the moon with the positive responses

REPORTER: You would agree it's never acceptable to assault police officers? TRUMP: Sure REPORTER: Among those you pardoned is a guy who used a stun gun on a police officer. Why does he deserve a pardon? TRUMP: Well, I don't know

Screengrab from a friend's video in Algiers Point in New Orleans. I can't express to non-Americans how batshit this is. It's like Lagos getting snow, maybe. I can't believe this. It snows more in Las Vegas than New Orleans.

Boy do I have news for you

Fuck Nazis

This is my farewell post. I am not deleting this account, as I don’t want to lose the archive, and I don’t want my name taken by imposters. But, for as long as Musk owns the platform, I’ll no longer use it. I’m now posting at georgemonbiot.bsky.social. Since Elon Musk bought this site, he has transformed it from one on which millions could converse as equals into his personal megaphone. Now the world’s richest man uses it to wage his class war, transferring blame for the ills of capitalism onto vulnerable minorities, boosting the grimmest and most antisocial accounts while suppressing the humane voices with whom he disagrees. He has used X not only to subvert the election for the US presidency, but to create a role for himself in US politics which, though he has never stood for election and would not be eligible, grants him immense power over the citizens of that nation. This site has been used as a tool to help replace democracy with oligarchy. Musk claimed, on purchasing the platform, to be a “free speech absolutist”. He is in fact a prolific censor, suspending dissenting accounts and using lawsuits to shut down free speech, while employing an algorithm to increase the reach of his own posts 1,000-fold. He cannot abide a level playing field. He has permitted or encouraged the growth of a ghost army of bots and trolls to degrade the experience of all who disagree with him. Their task is not just to abuse opponents but, perhaps more importantly, to drown intelligent conversation with a tsunami of stupidity. They respond to data with denial, expertise with execration, insight with insult, humour with hatred and thinking with thuggery. They suck the meaning out of everything. The stupidity trends in one direction: in the service of economic power. It is a weapon used to suppress the possibility of a better world. Many years ago, when I lived in Brazil, I learnt that the military dictatorship had actively sought to suppress educational levels in schools, as it saw a well-informed population as a political threat. A confused, distracted and ignorant population is easy to manipulate. Now this counter-educational model is being rolled out worldwide, and Elon Musk is its primary sponsor. I stayed here long after I first considered leaving, as I believed it was wrong to cede the ground to an oligarch and his minions. But I came to see that those of us who do not subscribe to Musk’s grim project are being used as groundbait: stimulating the feeding frenzy of 15-minute, 24-hour hate that now powers this platform. We can no longer build anything of value here. Brute force – the unmediated power of money – has beaten humanity, intelligence, humour and democracy. On Bluesky I can be the person I want to be, a better person than I am on X, where it is almost impossible not to get dragged into the mud. I feel I can be understood because I am not confronting a deliberate effort to misunderstand me. So I can speak more quietly. There is no guarantee that Bluesky will not also one day be monetised by its owners or captured by self-serving billionaires. But for now it remains a place in which interesting and enjoyable conversations can be had, kindness can be shown to strangers and a better world can be imagined. I hope to see you there.

Now, I know what you're all thinking, but who hasn't accidentally done a Sieg Heil on their first day in government?

SCOOP: Rachel Reeves is preparing to publicly support a third runway at Heathrow in her growth speech this month. Government is set to approve controversial expansions to Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton as part of its growth push. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

It was obvious during the passage of this Bill in the Lords that @UKLabour wasn't too unhappy about the Tory Govt's decision to crack down on protests. Some of us peers tried to stop the worst excesses, but Labour waived them through Sadly can't trust them middleeasteye.net/news/human-rig…

Welcome to Starmer's police state: - 10 people charged. - 24 people bailed. - 48 remain in custody. - Corbyn and McDonnell to be interviewed under caution. For laying flowers for the children Israel killed in Gaza. Democracy is not safe in his hands. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

There will be no escape to Mars. There is no Planet B. We must live within the ecological and physical boundaries of the only planet that can sustain life as we know it.

For the last time Britain: Economic growth is not a result of rising house prices.

'Alpha'

James Watt Brewdog's CEO is worth £262,000,000 he is refusing to raise the wage of his staff in London by the £1 an hour to keep them at the National Living Wage. Brewdog is apparently a 'nice' company, but wage freezes don't seem very nice. Do they?

He hasn’t turned the country around though. He’s tanked business confidence and has possibly catalysed a recession. The idea that Starmer is a ‘left wing’ project has never looked more insane. Even kooks like Paul Mason must have given that up by now?

Did you last watch V for Vendetta and Children of Men when they came out in 2005/6? Try watching them now in our current context, and see how they’ve become less far fetched in the last two decades. Warning: it will freak you out

"I once visited a foodbank and then travelled by helicopter back to my castle, where my butler served me dinner."

He visited a food bank. In a helicopter. #NotMyKing

🚨 BREAKING: Starmer confirms he will be slashing welfare spending, saying he has "the balls" to make cuts. Starmer told The Sun: “We will be ruthless with cuts ... the fiscal rules and our commitment to them is ironclad".

There are no jobs on a dead planet: #ClimateEmergency theguardian.com/environment/20…