A few months ago the head of finance at a Russell group university told me a dozen + universities would go to wall without increase in fees (half of all unis are running deficits!)

So today’s move is not inexplicable. But piling more debt onto young workers is not a solution /1 Scrapping the fees system (which is working for literally nobody - including the taxpayer) won’t be easy. But I suspect it starts with capping interest at 1% (or something similar). And we need to see end of fees system for subjects like nursing before next GE. Should be free /2

The inability to accept the possibility of an English identity is such a gap among progressives. It is a nation, and one that has existed for more than a thousand years. Its language is the world’s lingua franca. I appreciate Britain, & empire, complicate things. But it’s true. 1 Unless you think Lincoln, Norwich and Salisbury cathedral emerged from the earth perfectly formed, then they are expressions of a certain culture. The same with literature, landscape (for better and worse!) etc 2

The conduct of Britain's privately owned water companies is bad - but Thames Water just seems like organised criminality...

They have just been fined £104 million by OFWAT (9% of turnover) - but it's only going to get worse.... Last month they were found to have breached their operating licence after their credit rating was slashed to junk status by rating agencies.

Maximum fine? 10% of turnover...

Meanwhile the company is being investigated for breaches re dividend payments. Likely fine: £40M

I read Reform’s manifesto. In it: forgiveness of student debt for NHS workers, publicly owned equity in utilities & a tax on the online giants to help the high street.

It’s a shift: from re-heated Thatcherism to the continental radical right. novaramedia.com/2024/06/21/nig… In it: a kind of welfarist nationalism more reminiscent of the Law and Justice party in Poland, or Victor Orban in Hungary.

Alongside that, there is a clear effort to champion small business. If Britain really is a nation of shopkeepers, then Farage wishes to be their tribune.

Very obvious that the Labour right are now starting to use exact same campaign techniques against the Greens that they used against Corbyn.

Greens should take that seriously: most of broadcast media is New Labour aligned & very happy to repeat garbage - from Sky to BBC & LBC 1/3 How does it work?

1) They attack credibility/integrity by attacking your social networks & fragmenting them. This works particularly well against those whose pitch is moral virtue.

2) This is done not just by Labour but by favourable parts of media (Sky, BBC) & NGOs

2/3

I wrote for ⁦@novaramedia⁩ about the Dune films, and why they are the most important of the 2020s.

Not only do they show how humanity’s future could resemble its past, but they underscore our relationship to technology is a *choice*. novaramedia.com/2024/03/20/the… The Dune universe is built on a critique of technopoly, and the idea that technological progress can be substituted for human progress.

The Butlerian jihad is a more relevant uprising in a world of machine learning & generative AI than the Matrix or the Terminator.

I can’t quite believe what happened a few hours ago, but on my way to the train station, to head into the @novaramedia office, a man I’ve never seen before screamed my name while passing by and assaulted me. I was punched multiple times. (1/5) Fortunately I was able to pacify him, with subsequent assistance from a passer-by, until the police arrived.

This is someone who knew my name. Fortunately there were multiple independent witnesses, and the man is now being questioned by police. (2/5)

If he gets an invite to speak from them he should presumably… ‘no platform’ them? Nice one comrade! Radical!

I’ve spoken to communists in Sweden and Silicon Valley billionaires. The world isn’t a student occupation.

https://twitter.com/paulocanning/status/1665667845613658112

In 2023 some 50-something men on the left have the same political default as blue haired students occupying universities in 2016. Amazing how quickly it’s happened. No platform for… anyone I don’t entirely agree with!

Does anything demonstrate BBC’s complete lack of editorial confidence when it comes to an under 40 audience as seeing Kirsty Wark ask Mizzy about….Andrew Tate. What on Earth??

Median age is 40 in U.K. BBC news is fast becoming irrelevant for anyone younger than that. Also the Tate interview was utterly crap. Hectoring, predictable questions. Interviewer seemed genuinely underprepared (any gotchas would take hours of proper research watching him and having counter arguments to his replies.)

BBC interviews with Tate & Musk have been abysmal.

You can now watch my interview with @GoodwinMJ on the @novaramedia youtube channel. A few thoughts & an apology.

Firstly, I think it important to interview Goodwin as anti-elite politics are now the shared political fabric of *everyone*.

It's important to interrogate the right's version of that, & hold it alongside left's.

Personally I think an anti-elite politics infused with proper class analysis makes infinitely more sense, & I hope that comes across in the interview. The conservative account is lightweight.

Ed Miliband implies Corbyn is banned for antisemitism, which isn’t mentioned in Starmer’s motion. Decade ago Corbyn was only Labour MP to defend Miliband’s (deceased) dad in media from attacks.

Normal people can’t do this. Politics is a mucky business!

If you want honourable behaviour politics isn’t the right place to look. But Labour is the worst organisation I can think of in terms of gap between how MPs behave & who they think they are. ‘I must be nice, I’m a progressive!’ has no relationship to morals of normal people.

The 'Chip War' is THE essential story of 2023.

It's about gradual deglobalisation, the race for technological leadership, mastery of artificial intelligence, & how, when the rules no longer suited the US, they changed them.

Me for @novaramedia (1/14)
novaramedia.com/2023/03/27/the… For context the 'CHIPS and Science Act', ratified by the Biden Admin, allocates $52 billion to the US microprocessor industry.

Why? Because the US accounts for only 12% of global chip supply. Meanwhile Taiwan is in crosshairs of Beijing... (2/14)

The moment I fully understood the Met police was completely and utterly beyond repair? That it had to be abolished and start over?

It was when I was arrested alongside Ashok Kumar in 2011. Multiple officers were willing to lie to destroy a young man's life (1/10) Ashok Kumar, and I, were at a protest against David Willetts outside SOAS in 2011. Noisy, yes, but no threat of violence.

I saw Kumar being grabbed by one officer (the man in the first image) for no reason. I felt he had been picked because he was the darkest guy there. (2/10)

Some thoughts about our interview with Roger Hallam, founder of XR and Just Stop Oil. It really made me think. (1/9)

I do find it odd that after engaging with public for decades, & gradually getting point across that higher concentrations of CO2 lead to warming temperatures (which most, including me, only passively understand) that some want to say climate change is nothing to do w/ CO2! (2/9)

Any Tik Tok ban is a HUGE deal, but not for reasons stated here.

The truth is that, as with the CHIPS Act, the US now realises it can’t continue to lead innovation, & create worlds most valuable companies, without hobbling China & companies it creates. The significance of this is huge! And is at odds with two central pillar of ideology of last 40 years.

Firstly that free markets are good and create net benefits for all concerned (US clearly doesn’t believe this re strategic industries). And secondly…

The hysterical response to nepo babies in the media (from some) is bizarre. If you are highly successful in an industry, & your child chooses to enter it, a sensible person would say ‘make your mark, ignore any unfair criticism and be grateful for any advantages’ > Is it because in our culture everyone now needs a hard luck story to be authentic? (Including rich people with good connections). I have the upmost respect for people born with advantage, who are good at what they do, and are grateful for their background. >

One of the most extraordinary details of the PC David Carrick story is he raped a female colleague and she didn’t report a crime because she thought nothing would happen.

We are now at the point that *police officers* don’t trust the police to solve crime. Carrick pulled a knife out on another woman police officer. Neighbours called Hertfordshire police and the force has said Carrick’s Met supervisors were informed. He continued to work for the Met for another decade. And they now say they have “no record of the incident.” (!)

Why you should read more fiction in 2023.

Me for @novaramedia on the importance of speculative world-building in a society which often insists that nothing can change.

Some suggestions (1) >

novaramedia.com/2022/12/26/soc… 1) ‘Dawn’ by the Octavia Butler (the 🐐) goodreads.com/book/show/6092…

Pretty extraordinary story from Peckham & Camberwell. Im told the selection committee met last night to decide a shortlist. They voted 5/1 for a shortlist of 3, which was Evelyn Akoto, Peter Babadu, and Miatta Fanbulleh.

Then it got interesting (1/4) The NEC rep spent an hour trying to convince the selection committee to shortlist Johnson Situ as well, but they refused.

So the NEC rep agreed to a short list of 3 and the meeting closed with the regional rep saying he was going to inform the candidates of decision.

(2/4)

No, younger people aren’t always progressive. Indeed a century of low growth, climate change & geopolitical fragmentation could, in the medium term, mean the opposite.

Me for ⁦@novaramedia⁩ on why Brazil, & Israel, offer a glimpse of the future. novaramedia.com/2022/11/08/no-… According to polling conducted in 2016, 54% of Brazilians held a high number of conservative opinions up from 49% in 2010. Another poll from 2018 showed support for death penalty stood at 58%, 10% higher than 2008. The age cohort most in favour of capital punishment? Millennials.

I understand that there will be no standard trigger process for Labour MP Christian Wakeford, a Tory MP until this year.

The party bureaucracy has appointed him as the Party's GE candidate for Bury South - without the process that *all* of his colleagues must go through. It does make you wonder how a Labour government will deal with issues of legal equality and due process in government. There’s every chance they will be as bad as the Tories (possibly worse, late Blair certainly worse than Cameron on this).