Kristian Niemietz Profile picture
Editorial Director @iealondon. Views my own. Author of the books 'Imperial Measurement' and 'Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies'.
Jul 22 4 tweets 1 min read
"The total [...] delay was calculated to be 50,856 hours. The vehicles affected were calculated to number 708,523. The economic cost was calculated to be £769,966, without [...] the cost of policing." thecritic.co.uk/the-just-stop-… "While there is a right to protest, [...] [p]rotesters do not have carte blanche to behave as they wish [...]
Those rights fall to be balanced against [...] the rights of members of the public to go about their daily lives safely and without illegal interference."
Jan 3 5 tweets 2 min read
Finally, the media takes a stand against the bourgeois, late-capitalist, white supremacist, Islamophobic and transphobic tool of oppression known as "writing your own stuff". And so does Twitter. Image
May 11, 2023 10 tweets 2 min read
"The ground is being prepared for a new political upsurge, which the lessons of the last period could potentially lift onto a higher level than Corbynism." socialistparty.org.uk/articles/11053… "We are in the midst of the biggest waves of strikes for over thirty years [...]
Many of those striking were first politicised by their experiences of Corbynism. [...] The hero status of Mick Lynch [...] gave a glimpse of the power of the workers’ movement"
Apr 20, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
"...the difference between a militant French working class with the willingness to assert its rights on the streets [...], and its benighted British counterpart that would rather remain tied to its master by bonds of subservience and deference."
johnwight1.medium.com/hope-denied-a-… "How else to explain the fact that at the same time the French are out in the streets [...] creating havoc [...], millions of Brits are preparing [...] street parties in celebration of the coronation of King Charles on May 6?"
Apr 19, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read
Hickel.
He unironically quotes Hickel 😭😭
Hickel is a charlatan who peddles trendy nonsense for cheap applause and status.
Example: He claims that current poverty measures don't work for pre-capitalist times, because most people were small-scale subsistence farmers, who didn't have a money income: They just...
🧵
Apr 19, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
now trending in lowercase letters
how cool is that Image Wondering:
Could it be that Twitter has already been entirely replaced by AI?
Could it be that I'm the only real person left here, and that this is all just a gigantic experiment, the aim of which is to test for how long I'll keep going until I notice it? Image
Apr 19, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
The replies. The "im too cool for capital letters and question marks" hipster kids are turning on Novara 🤣🤣🤣 Image
Apr 18, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
#IStandWithPastrami ImageImage Some say Pastrami is moving "to the Right".
He's not. He's still a commie, and he always will be.
It's just that he's been doing this Corbo-commie stuff for 12 years or so now, and he's getting a bit bored with himself. So he wants to branch out a little. Talk about other stuff.
Apr 7, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
Over the past 2 years, the fashionable opinion has shifted from "The NHS is wonderful" to "The NHS used to be wonderful, but the Tories have brought it to the brink of collapse".
(1/?)
🧵🏥⚕️🩺 This is, at first sight, a clever move. It means Lefties no longer have to defend the indefensible.
It's the healthcare version of "The Venezuelan economy was destroyed by US sanctions."
(2/?)
Sep 1, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
Our greenbelt.
The envy of the world. Rolling hills.
Sep 1, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
"[D]ecisions are made by those that show up – it’s true, and sways decision making in particular directions. Activist politics is dominated by two groups, the university aged (now almost universally on the left) and the retired (usually Tories)."
joxleywrites.substack.com/p/how-do-we-so… Isn't this just the perfect caption?
Aug 31, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
#SaveOurOldGasworksSites Tory politicians are so totally hopeless and useless.
They don't care about the fact that literally everyone under the age of 45 hates them. They seem totally oblivious to the fact that the Boomers, who keep them in power for now, are a rapidly shrinking % of the electorate.
Aug 31, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Gorbo was a net force for good.
But he wasn't a hero.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was not initially his aim. His aim was a partial - political and economic -liberalisation *within* a socialist system. That then got out of hand, because socialism cannot be "made nicer". The best thing about Gorbo was what he did *not* do. He did *not* send Soviet tanks to Poland, the GDR or the ČSSR to crush the uprisings. He did *not* do a Tiananmen Square.
That's his legacy. He could have done a lot of bad stuff, but chose not to.
Aug 31, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
May 20, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
That's a rare one: commies vs wokies Useful reminder that there's no logical reason why commies have to be woke, or why wokies have to be commies. It's just that fashionable opinions usually come in ready-made packages these days. So in practice, wokies are also commies, and commies are also wokies.
May 19, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
"[T]he behaviour of cultural elites is powerfully influential on the manners and morals of society. We imitate the fashions [...] of our perceived social betters. We also imitate their morals." "“Britain and Twitter aren’t the same thing” is perhaps the only David Cameron axiom you ever hear quoted approvingly. But it’s not exactly true. Britain and Twitter are not the same thing now. But they will be eventually."
Mar 31, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
You know how the Spanish always have 2 surnames?
I once tried to fill in a Spanish online form, and left the field for the 2nd surname blank. Didn't work. It kept saying "You must enter your second surname", and yelling "I DON'T HAVE ONE!" at the screen didn't do the trick.
So... ...in the end, I put in "Niemietz Niemietz", just to be able to go on to the next page.
I'm only now realising how I missed a trick. This could have made a great Guardian article about how my identity was being erased by postcolonial Hispano-supremacist ethno-nationalism.
Mar 30, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Mar 30, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
😬
theguardian.com/politics/2022/… "[T]he Alliance for Workers’ Liberty [...] had historically stood candidates against Labour [...] but the movement deregistered with the Electoral Commission two days after Jeremy Corbyn was elected party leader, in order to support his leadership."
Mar 29, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
"[T]here’s something [...] downright racist [...] about white people’s reaction to the [...] smack. [...]
[T]here’s a layer of hyper-violence that’s being projected on to Smith simply because he is a Black man [...]
[T]he backlash against Smith is rooted in [...] anti-Blackness" "Smith is being held up to much stricter standards than white men [...]
[T]his kind of performative pearl-clutching is only ever reserved for Black men"
Mar 29, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
It is over, though. I mean, feel free to continue buying masks from Dr Jujujujujujujulia, and post selfies of how you're wearing them even when you're alone in the middle of the desert, or on a boat in the ocean. But the pandemic is over.