
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.
The rest of the blog
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.
More than 200,000 young men aren’t “signed off for life”—they are the reserve army of labour, conscripted into the Telegraph’s morality tale to prepare the ground for austerity.
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.
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.
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.
The events of Saturday (13/09) prove that Britain can go fascist. Musk calls for violence, the Telegraph and Times launder his words, and Starmer clings to the flag. We must name the danger or watch it grow.
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.
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.
The arrest of a part-time cleaner for sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action shows how Britain’s response to Gaza has drifted from foreign policy into domestic repression.
Keir Starmer’s government has turned protest into a criminal offence, wielding counter-terror laws against pensioners, vicars, and schoolteachers while arms dealers cash in. This isn’t public safety, it’s the criminalisation of conscience.
The Labour government has not criminalised violence, it has criminalised resistance. Holding a flag, wearing a slogan, even whispering “Palestine” is now suspect. But dropping bombs on children? That’s fine. If that sounds like justice to you, you’re already lost.
While Israel levels Gaza, the Labour government arrests pensioners in Liverpool for carrying a leaflet. Yvette Cooper calls it national security. But what we are witnessing is the suppression of solidarity, the silencing of dissent, and the transformation of protest into a punishable offence. A government that will not name a genocide is quick to jail those who do.
The LA deployment is not a policing measure. It is a political theatre of domination designed to send a message: the state belongs to Trump, the military answers to Trump, and those who oppose him—activists, migrants, dissenters—will be met with force.
The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is not just an attack on one activist, it is a chilling demonstration of how the state can manufacture criminality in real time, silencing dissent without justification or consequence.
The UK government’s attack on dissent and protest rights echoes a long history of state suppression, revealing a deep fear of the power of a mobilised working class.
From silencing dissent to expanding state powers, the Conservative government is pursuing an increasingly authoritarian agenda that should deeply concern all who value human rights and democracy, argues Simon Pearson. Their inflammatory rhetoric and restrictions on protests, speech, and accountability mechanisms reflect a dangerous slide towards illiberalism.
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has sparked heated debate globally, with some accusing critics of Israel’s actions of being antisemitic. This argues for nuance in understanding the crisis, differentiating between legitimate critiques of state policies and bigotry, and calling for ethical consistency in advocating for human rights on both sides.
On a seemingly ordinary Thursday, at the time-honoured Glyndebourne opera festival, an unexpected interlude of protest emerged. In the sanctuary of the arts, amid the melody of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, a dissenting chorus brought the opera to a standstill. Sparked by the cause of Just Stop Oil, the interruption blended a traditional form of high culture with the pressing concerns of our era. This is the narrative of that day, a symphony of dissent resounding from the grand opera house to the streets of London.