anti capitalist musings

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Close-up of a British two pence coin, copper-coloured, showing a heraldic lion in a crosshatched frame with fleur-de-lis corners and the words “TWO PENCE” at the top.
Labour Government

Rachel Reeves and the 2p Trap

The chancellor’s proposed income tax shuffle is clever accountancy but toxic politics — a pledge-break disguised as fiscal discipline, and proof that Labour has trapped itself in rules it cannot escape.

An illustration of a red fish (Herring) in profile against a pale background, with the words “RED TERROR” in bold black capitals beneath it.
Charlie Kirk

Red Herring, Not Red Terror

David Frost calls it a new “Red Terror.” The truth is plainer: it’s the Right’s wars, coups and crackdowns that have spilt the deepest blood in politics.

Donald J Trump

The Invention of the Narco-Terrorist

Trump’s latest “kinetic strike” killed three unknown Venezuelans he labelled “narco-terrorists.” The phrase is not law but incantation, a word that strips away humanity and legitimises killing. From Vietnam body counts to Obama’s “signature strikes,” America has always named its enemies into existence, and into death.

Britain

Beyond Creeping Fascism

To call Robinson’s rally “populist” or “right-wing” is to miss the point. Fascism doesn’t require every marcher to be a coherent ideologue; it requires a mass, a scapegoat, and leaders prepared to turn grievance into violence. That is what we saw in London.

Screenshot of a Telegraph article by Camilla Tominey titled “The killing of Charlie Kirk shows just how poisonous Left-wing politics now is,” with the subheading “Speech has consequences – we have once more learnt that lesson from the horrifying events in Utah.” Below the headline is a photo showing two people in jeans holding a poster with a portrait of Charlie Kirk.
Camilla Tominey

Tominey’s doublethink

Camilla Tominey’s sainthood act for Charlie Kirk trades politics for piety. The Right already owns the machinery (press, finance, courts, police) and Kirk was part of the drive shaft. A death certificate doesn’t wash clean a career built on making violence respectable.

Britain

Flatlining Growth, Rising Crisis

The ONS reports zero growth in July. The papers call it “grim news” for Rachel Reeves. In reality, it is the latest entry in a long obituary for British capitalism — a system now sustained only by euphemism, stagnation, and decline.

Black-and-white halftone-style collage combining three elements: the 1924 Daily Mail “Civil War Plot by Socialists’ Masters” headline, a photograph of Enoch Powell speaking at a microphone and holding papers, and a lower strip showing a line of police clashing with protesters, evoking themes of political unrest and authoritarian response in Britain.

The Right’s Civil War Fantasies – and the Britain They Are Trying to Build

The right’s talk of a “coming civil war” is not a forecast as such, but a repeated political script. From the Ulster gun-runners of 1914 to Powell’s “rivers of blood” and today’s viral predictions of ungovernable cities, the plot is always the same: declare an existential threat, build the apparatus to counter it, and keep the threat just far enough away that the apparatus becomes permanent. The danger is not that Britain will descend into the racial-ethnic conflict of their imagination, but that we will sleepwalk into the authoritarian Britain they need to “prevent” it.

Sepia-toned image styled like a Byzantine religious icon, showing two men in front of a striped flag. The man on the left is blurred in profile, gesturing with one hand, while the man on the right is reimagined with the features of a traditional haloed Christ figure, dressed in flowing robes, seated in a high-backed chair, and radiating light from a circular halo.

JD Vance’s Gospel of Hypocrisy

JD Vance’s outrage isn’t about defending human rights. This is the religious right’s export strategy, dressing up theocratic politics as “freedom of conscience” and using America’s human rights report as a battering ram against the separation of church and state.

Grainy black-and-white, newspaper style showing the silhouette of a police officer facing a crowd, holding up a blurred mugshot. Camera flashes from photographers in the background illuminate the scene, casting stark light and deep shadows, evoking a sense of public spectacle and mob judgment.

Back to the Mob

Publishing a suspect’s ethnicity isn’t transparency, it’s a gift to the mob, a state-sanctioned dog whistle that trades justice for headlines and hands Reform UK exactly the ammunition it craves.