Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 20h

Watching the Bibi & Don Show treat this like some grand victory, while people returning to northern Gaza dig the rubble for loved ones' remains, is pretty revolting.

100 460 1.7K

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 1d

I bang on about this a lot: I think the combination of a global pandemic, underregulated internet/SM, collapse/corruption of trustworthy media, plus now unregulated genAI, is a wildly toxic environment for radicalisation & mental health. We see the results of that in our politics & lives every day

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 1d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

23 190 770

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 1d

It’s impossible to overstate how much “abolish ice” is the normie position now here in chicago — just countless random moms at toddler soccer on a park district field asking me where I bought my anti-ice t-shirt. average people don’t like our neighborhoods being terrorized.

laura olin @lauraolin.bsky.social · 1d

A friend ran the Chicago marathon today and said he couldn’t count the number of FUCK ICE signs along the way.

72 2K 10K

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 2d

Democracy will still be on sale in your absence, cheap, and we need you to keep the receipts, so get well soon 👊🏻

1 1

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 2d

...and therefore can be stripped of UK citizenship by the Home Secretary, as he has a 'plausible claim' to a second nationality.

In this racist, two-tier system, Black and Asian Britons are much more likely to be at risk. Millions of people.

BTW the next Home Secretary gets these unchecked powers.

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 2d

I keep thinking about this episode. The TL/DL is that Powell's views had (racist) popular support, but political and media institutions strongly rejected them. Now the reverse is true: society is more integrated, less racist, but political parties and media are pushing ethno-nationalism.

Rivers of Blood – How Enoch Powell poisoned Britain

Podcast Episode · Origin Story · 20/08/2025 · 1h 21m

podcasts.apple.com

1

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 5d

I, however,
Have such meagre power,

Clutching at a
Moment,

While you control
An hour.

But your hour is
A stone.

My moment is
A flower.

-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"
#everynightapoem As ever.

I have done so little
For you.
And you have do little
For me.
That we have good reason
Never to agree.

I, however,
Have such meagre power,
Clutching at a
Moment,
While you control
An hour.
But your hour is
A stone.
My moment is
A flower.
-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"

4 150 450

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 4d

Some good news.

That "Texas won't execute a guy who is likely innocent, at least in the near future" counts as good news right now . . . says a lot about right now.

But I'll take it.

clayjak.substack.com/p/breaking-n...

BREAKING NEWS: Robert Roberson will see his next birthday

That should make us all hopeful

clayjak.substack.com

3 50 280

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 5d

Brian Eno's John Peel Lecture on the value of art is fantastic www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

BBC Radio 6 Music - The John Peel Lecture, Brian Eno's BBC Music John Peel Lecture 2015

Listen to Brian Eno deliver his John Peel Lecture on the ecology of culture.

www.bbc.co.uk

1 1

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 5d

I found Origin Story podcast on Powell's "rivers of blood" speech v interesting. Tory party and media strongly rejected it/him but he found broad (racist) popular support. Now reverse is true: society less racist, more integrated but 'conservative' institutions are pushing ethno-nationalism.

1 5

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 6d

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

37 650 1.9K

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 6d

"Here's a member of the global elite soliciting another member of the global elite for cash to fund the proud British insurgency against global elites. That’s just the game. Money talks. Shaking things up for the little people is a laugh. Why bother pretending otherwise?"

The hypocrisy of Nick Candy

How can Reform reconcile that with showing its petticoats to a foreign billionaire who openly wants to interfere in our politics?

www.spectator.co.uk

1 1

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 6d

We all hoped the Windrush scandal would be shame enough. But no. The Tory party plumbs new depths with its vile rhetoric. Nothing good comes from their prejudice. But our communities prove them wrong every day.
Important response to Jenrick from @sathnam.bsky.social

www.thetimes.com/article/3af4...

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school - he's wrong about race
• NEW
The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn't see'another white face. You can't judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian Sathnam
Sanghera

I hoped that the outrage about this scandal across the political spectrum demonstrated we were finally moving away from such thinking.
But Jenrick's remarks show that we are, in 2025, in an even worse place.
The comments are a symptom of a new cult of ethno-nationalism, imported from the USA and supercharged by bad actors on social media. Suddenly, a great many people - including, bizarrely, Suella Braverman - are keen on the racist idea that you simply can't be English and non-white.

9 70 290

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 6d

"The day had begun with Robert Jenrick accused of racism. This is of course quite unfair. Racists believe in something." Absolutely fantastic sketch by @roberthutton.co.uk. Every line is a banger:

Rob whistle | Robert Hutton | The Critic Magazine

The day had begun with Robert Jenrick accused of racism. This is of course quite unfair. Racists believe in something. Some of us remember Jenrick as a chubby-cheeked fan of David Cameron fighting…

thecritic.co.uk

8 61 190

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 8d

There would be, but it's filled by Starmer's Labour Party. Or at least, that appears to be the lane they're choosing.

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 8d

I haven't seen Top Gun

5

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

dag @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 8d

The government want more coercive powers for the state against protests, and the main opposition party wants more coercive powers for the state against migrants.

Our political-media culture continues in a loop where the response to every perceived problem is yet more coercive powers for the state.

2 380 860

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 8d

Here is a thing that I hear from *almost every British Jew I know* but have barely heard expressed in any of these programmes: No single person has done more to make Jewish people globally less safe than Benjamin Netanyahu.

38 250 1K

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 8d

Many pundits today are pushing the line that everyone who protests the genocide in Gaza is basically either antisemitic or tolerant of antisemitism. But isn't that precisely the conflation of the actions of the Israeli gov't with all Jewish people, which is at the heart of this wave of antisemitism?

43 220 930

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 9d

"Even more un-British than certain unsavoury people attending certain protests would be a world in which the country saw Jews or the Jewish community demanding that certain rights were disavowed or forfeited."

Sunday Times' Gabriel Pogrund on the weekend's planned protests.

#Newsnight

15 25 81

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 9d

John Woodcock is an arms industry and fossil fuel industry lobbyist, on a mission to further criminalise peaceful protest.

The UK's anti-protest laws are already among most restrictive in the G20.

1

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Rufus jones @rufeydoof.bsky.social · 10d

Amazon have removed the guns from their Bond posters, giving the tantalising impression that Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan think you’re a wanker.

150 920 2.5K

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Tariq Panja @tariqpanja.bsky.social · 10d

More than two dozen new committees created by Infantino in last year, positions that will allow more random FA officials from nations that vote for the FIFA president every four years to get paid. Hard to square all this with need to have excessively high ticket prices to fund world football.

1 2 7

Andrew Purcell @andrewpurcell.bsky.social · 11d

I actually think "golden ticket" may be worse than "island of strangers".

Starmer's comms team know it's irresistible to headline writers, they know it's pandering to racists, and they know it's a gross distortion.

They apparently *don't* know they're gift-wrapping an election for Reform.

5 14

Reposted by Andrew Purcell

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 12d

A peerage can only be removed by an act of parliament. The last time that happened was in 1917.

Our House of Lords is completely unfit for purpose, and the likes of "Lady Mone" can keep her position for life without consequences.

Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 12d

Covid-19 Bereaved Families on today’s ruling ordering PPE Medpro to repay £122m to Govt

“Nobody who had any part to play in the PPE scandal...should have any role in public life. Baroness Mone should have no role in making & passing the laws we all live under. Her title must be revoked immediately"

63 250 840