Alexander Clifford
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alexclifford.bsky.social
Alexander Clifford
@alexclifford.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2.2K following 360 posts
Research & write on 30s Britain, Spain, Germany. Britain's Iron Chancellor out now!

Author of Hindenburg, Ludendorff & Hitler, Fighting for Spain, The People's Army and of the introduction to new release Britain's Iron Chancellor
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alexclifford.bsky.social
Alexander Clifford @alexclifford.bsky.social · Aug 21
Back in print after 90 years and it’s finally here!

Amazing to receive copies of Britain’s Iron Chancellor, the new edition of the autobiography of Philip Snowden, Labour’s first chancellor

Easily the best memoir of the era

As usual, a fantastic production from Pen & Sword! 🗃️#histbookchat
alexclifford.bsky.social
This might be me being a romantic little Englander but I feel like in the same situation if British coppers had come into that room they’d start with some understated reassurance rather than treating the people they’re rescuing like PoWs
lauraannstl.bsky.social Laura Burkhardt @lauraannstl.bsky.social · 1d
This is college in the United States. Video from inside a Brown University building shows the moment that police found a group of students who were sheltering after the shooting on campus. This isn't freedom.
December 14, 2025 at 1:05 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Thinking about the big political stories on UK and US bsky today - GB News racism and Hesgeth boat strikes - has made me wonder: how long before the far right here borrow from Trump and start calling for strikes on small boats in the channel?
December 3, 2025 at 8:21 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
You can tell Owen is working very hard here to get here to engage with actual policy - democratisation of boards, cooperatives etc - but she just ploughs on through. It’s not even A-level debate club level and it’s so far from the Labour tradition I find it hard to see why she ever joined the party
rolandmcs.bsky.social Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 13d
Zarah Sultana apparently wants to nationalise the entire economy including the Internet.
December 2, 2025 at 9:23 AM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Reckon you can stop Hitler taking over Germany? Try your hand at Red Autumn, a very nerdy (but great) text game where you lead the Social Democrats through the Great Depression
red-autumn.itch.io/social-democ...
Social Democracy: An Alternate History by Autumn Chen
You are the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1928. Can you stop the Nazis from taking power?
red-autumn.itch.io
December 1, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Oh wow, that's awkward. #Gullis
With a special Easter message to Tory MP Jonathan Gullis: Given the multiple bits of embarrassing personal information we have on you, I suggest you pipe down on your attacks against me
December 1, 2025 at 12:25 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Mental that the media/right-wing attack line has already evolved from “the budget kills the economy” to “the economy is so good Reeves was lying when she said it’s tough” in the space of a weekend
December 1, 2025 at 12:51 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
All this whining about the budget - over an *extension* to a *freezing* of income tax threseholds. It defies belief.

If you get a pay rise or two over the next few years, you might move into a higher tax band. As had always been the case... The media appear incapable of serious analysis on this
November 30, 2025 at 11:34 AM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Update: She's not here
news.sky.com/story/zarah-...
November 29, 2025 at 2:10 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
The contempt dripping from practically every word of this clip is hilarious

Interviewer asks about Sultana
Corbyn "Yes, she's here"

Interviewer "Have you both been involved in the organising of this conference"
Corbyn "More me than her"

Could be a firey weekend...
news.sky.com/story/jeremy...
Jeremy Corbyn declines to call Zarah Sultana a friend as Your Party holds first conference
Ms Sultana had previously claimed she was being "sidelined" by a "sexist boys' club" within the fledgling party.
news.sky.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:31 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
It's slightly weird to see my work so heavily discounted 😅 but it would make a great stocking-filler for your history-loving loved ones...

Hindenburg, Ludendorff & Hitler is rollarcoaster of conspiracy theories, intrigues and coups in Weimar Germany
www.naval-military-press.com/product/hind...
HINDENBURG, LUDENDORFF & HITLER Germany's Generals and the Rise of the Nazis - Naval & Military Press
www.naval-military-press.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:23 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
For a ludicrously low price - £4.79 - here's a Christmas idea for your anti-fascist friends & family: Fighting for Spain

My acclaimed account of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. With over 150 rare photos, it's a lovely thing to have
www.naval-military-press.com/product/figh...
FIGHTING FOR SPAIN The International Brigades in the Civil War, 1936-1939 - Naval & Military Press
www.naval-military-press.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:20 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
As it’s budget week, I can’t help but plug Britain’s Iron Chancellor - my new edition of the autobiography of Philip Snowden, Labour’s first chancellor of the exchequer and quite a character to say the least

It’s a brilliant yarn (the guy really could write) and it’s 30% rn with a Black Friday sale
Britain’s Iron Chancellor
PHILIP SNOWDEN was a proud Yorkshireman, a founding father of the Labour Party, its first Chancellor of the Exchequer and eventually was seen as a…
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
This has got to be one of the worst takes of all time from Badenoch. For one thing, the Roman Empire was very much a state: censuses, public transport, even welfare (free bread for citizens)

More importantly, the assertion that welfare is unchristian is the most unbiblical heresy I’ve ever heard
November 28, 2025 at 12:42 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
So much press budget analysis has been endless articles about how much money *you* will lose

Is it so hard to factor in that we benefit from more £ for public services??? Do people not gain from NHS funding, education, justice, police etc? No acknowledgment that if not tax rises then spending cuts?
November 27, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
luke-akehurstmp.bsky.social
The numbers speak for themselves - minimum wage increase ✅
November 27, 2025 at 7:03 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
You know all those “charity begins at home people”? Are they coming out in support of this budget? 🤔

And on that note, can government comms not get out the easy win message of taxing mansions and bookies to basically do Children in Need. Taking from millionaires to help UK kids, it’s an open goal!
November 26, 2025 at 8:12 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
With everything that has come out over the last few days, it’s surely time for British civil society and media to condemn as Farage an anti-Semite

We saw, rightly, the lens turned on the Labour Party. I hope, probably in vein, that equal scrutiny and criticism will now be turned on Farage
snig.bsky.social Snigdha @snig.bsky.social · Oct 1
Nigel Farage has been a lifelong racist. He's been a racist since his school days. David Lammy was forced to apologise for saying Farage flirted with the Hitler Youth - but what do you call it when someone sings Hitler Youth songs? Read Chloe Deakin's letter on Farage's fascism and racism at school.
From Chloe Denkin 01-734 1717 and 1778 E3 ALBANY PICCADILLY WIV ORH 4th June 1981 Dear Master, I am happy to say that I am not acquainted with N. P. Farage, of ASRY happy, because judging from hereporis i haveter ceived he is not someone with whom I would wish to be acquainted; and becaure I am, therefore, able to write on the ground of no personal prejedice, but on that conceraing p. inciple. You will recati that at the recent, and longthy, moeting about the selection of prefects, the nomads by a hegy that Sara was "a fascist, but that was no reason why ho would not make a good prefect" invoked considerable reaction from members of the Common Room. Another collesgue, who teaches the boy, des-cribed his publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views; and he citod a particular inciler in which Farage was so offensive to a boy in his set, that he had to be removed from the lesson. This mastor stated his view that that behaviour was precisely why the boy should not he made a prefect. Yet another colleague deseribed how, at a CCE camp organized by the College, Farage and others had marched through a quiet Sussex village very late at night shout-in Hitler-you songs; and when it was suggested by a master thie boys who expressed such views "don't really mean them", the College Chaplain himself commented that, on the contrary, in his experience views of that kind expressed by boys of that age are onted, and are mennt, At the end of that meeting I had not a scintilla of doubt that after the facts disclosed to you, Farage's nomination would no longer be considered. Nor, I imagine, had my colleagues; other-wise, we would have expressed ourselves even more strongly. But yesterday I was told by a senior boy, in terms of st that Farage was indeed to be selected; and today, of course, his appointment was announced in Assembly an announcement, I gather, which was met with disbelief and derision. To say that is too late to reverse this decision, or that Farage', acdir 3 will be restricted to particular areas of College te, or that he will be supervised within them, is futile. His appointment will have four immediate consequences. First, it will vastly increase his own confidence, and sense of self-justification. Secondly, he will have the privilege of listing his appointment as a profect at Dulwich College in his uni-versity and other applications. Thirdly, his peers, according to their own views, will either adopt him as an exemplar, or, as is much more likely, regard his appointment with disillusionment and cynicism when Ley observe that his notorious views and behaviour, well known to poth Master and members of the staff, are, as it would aptent, condoned by them. Fourthly, those members of the Common Room, such as myself, who believed that a firm daca fon had been reached through a democratic process, will be shock, saddened, angered, and disheartened. You will appreciate that I regard this as a very serious matter. i have often heard you tell our senior boys that they are the nation's future leaders. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these lenders are enlightened and compassionate. As you know, the national and educational press has recently given much prominence to the growing concern at the exploitation of school pupils by extremists of all kinds. A school of the stature and high roputation of Dulwich College which openly con-domned the recent troubles in Brixton, and offered its facilities freely to the foreca of law and order, ought not to be seen laside or outside its confines to be giving its endorsement, expressly or by implication, to budding extremists of the opposite kind. A school which is proud of its selectiveness, conservatism, and discipline, cught not to allow these characteristics to degen erate into intolerance, political extremism, or bullying of the nastiest kind, in its pupils. The matter of the appointment of Farage as a prefect may be thought by some to be minuscule against these deep considerations. It is not so. I am by disposition, tolerant; and in politics, moderate. But as a member of the Common Room, I find it distasteful that a boy such as Farage should have bestowed upon him the prestige of office and authority: wore I a parent or a pupil, I would find it profoundly so. In view, as I am aware, of the wide concern within the College about this matter, I am sending a copy of this letter to the chairman of the Common Room. Yours very sincerely, David Emms, Esq., MA, The Master of Dulwich College.
November 26, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
adambienkov.bsky.social
"We are freezing known Russian assets" says Rachel Reeves

"But let me be clear, I don't actually mean the member for Clacton"
November 26, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
redpeter99.bsky.social
The misogynistic "Rachel from Accounts" has never looked so tired, unfunny and inappropriate.
Reeves is very impressive.
#Budget
November 26, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
liamthorp.bsky.social
Tory front benches equally furious at a tax on mansions and hundreds of thousands of kids being pulled out of poverty. Shameful stuff.
November 26, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Alexander Clifford
stephenkb.bsky.social
Why the two-child limit has to go, in a chart.
A chart showing child poverty in the UK increasing sharply if the two child limit remains in place, and falling if it is scrapped.
November 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Post a movie where you're from

My dad is the kid not doing a great job of being an extra next to Michael Caine
Get Carter (1971), racecourse scene. Michael Caine shouting, my dad staring at him like a wally. Fun fact, my grandmother and grandfather were also extras in the scene but the director or whoever paired up my dad with another woman to 'play' his mother
November 23, 2025 at 9:15 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
One aspect of the Global South MAGA Twitter accounts scandel-thing that I haven't seen mentioned: it may well be that people in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Thailand etc have latched onto this easy way to make $

Equally, might Russia not be paying people to influence western politics in a deniable way?
November 23, 2025 at 8:27 PM
alexclifford.bsky.social
Obviously Bazball is saving test cricket but also might it make it financially unviable? Sunday was a sold out 60k crowd that will now be refunded

Ballpark 100,000 tickets sold for days 3-5, $100 a ticket average, that’d be $10 million gone for WA. Not to mention gallons of beer down the drain…
November 22, 2025 at 12:27 PM