Mark Nixon
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fatbadger442.bsky.social
Mark Nixon
@fatbadger442.bsky.social
historian of Victorian culture & politics (esp w material culture); curator & public historian; education advocate. Obsessed with 1884. Otherwise, on a bicycle. he/him
Surprised? Nah, me neither.

(For those of you too young to remember, this commitment was also made in 1996, only to be dropped pretty bloody quickly by Blair.)

#RedTories

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Labour ditches day-one protection from unfair dismissal in U-turn
The right will now be introduced after six months, in a breach of Labour's election manifesto.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
The government is planning stricter than ever asylum policies, but what will this mean for child refugees?  | Ala Sirriyeh
How new asylum policies will affect child refugees
The government is planning stricter than ever asylum policies, but what will this mean for child refugees?
northwestbylines.co.uk
November 25, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
"Israeli troops have raided large parts of the city of Tubas in the occupied West Bank....

Roads into the city were blocked off with mounds of dirt dug up by bulldozers.

...Israeli military conducted door-to-door raids & forced around 30 families from their homes."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qivi...
Israel lays siege to occupied West Bank’s Tubas, displaces tens of families
YouTube video by Al Jazeera English
www.youtube.com
November 27, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
Contested Commons: a History of Protest and Public Space in England (Reaktion Books).
An ideal Christmas present. reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/contest...
November 27, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
How beautiful is this? The original Kit Williams "Masquerade" hare up for auction.

It was buried very near to where we live: I so wish I was wealthy enough to buy it for the local community. (If you happen to know any friendly multi-millionaires, please forward!)

www.sothebys.com/en/buy/aucti...
The Masquerade Hare | Fine Jewelry | 2025 | Sotheby's
<p>Set with a ruby eye, the body of pierced design with foliate scrolls, stars and five flowerhead motifs, each set with a cabochon turquoise, suspending five tinkling bells, a mouse, a frog, a bird a...
www.sothebys.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Good news for members of Labour Friends of Israel, and other racists.

#ethniccleansing #zionism #settlercolonialism #fascism #palestine
"UN has documented nearly 3000 settler attacks across the occupied West Bank since October 2023, driving communities from their land in what Palestinians say is a deliberate, violent campaign to displace them."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T6Z...

#BDS #FreePalestine #Israel #News #Palestine #WorldNews
Israel's systematic campaign to expel West Bank Palestinians
YouTube video by Al Jazeera English
www.youtube.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
How Republicans commemorated Thanksgiving in 1869--with a multi-racial/multi-ethnic gathering of people at a table with a centerpiece celebrating universal suffrage and self-government, and with an engraving of Castle Garden, the pre-Ellis Island point of disembarkation for immigrants.
November 27, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
While parallels exist between the colonization of Palestine and Turtle Island, each Indigenous peoples’ experience was distinct. To learn more about the specific history of the Indigenous people whose land you’re on, go to native-land.ca.
Native-Land.ca | Our home on native land
Native Land is a resource to learn more about Indigenous territories, languages, lands, and ways of life. We welcome you to our site.
native-land.ca
November 27, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Do you remember 'Two Jags' Prescott?

Well, here's 'Two Lies' Starmer.
November 27, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
Human Rights Watch now confirms that Venezuelans deported to El Salvador faced severe abuse in CECOT. Nearly half had no criminal record. Many were seeking asylum. The U.S. funded these transfers despite clear warnings about the risks.

Read my analysis here: open.substack.com/pub/austinko...
November 27, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
I feel much safer today knowing that we deported a Babson College student back to a country where she hasn't lived since childhood.

She wasn't even flying internationally. She was flying to Texas.
A Babson College student wanted to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. She was deported instead. - The Boston Globe
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza was at Logan to catch a flight to Texas when immigration authorities detained her as she was about to board the plane.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 27, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
November 27, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
Friends: do you know a Megan, who recently hurt her ankle in a Trade Joe’s parking lot and had surgery? Because her pissy ginger boyfriend is talking shit about her at Denver airport and thousands of women on Threads from *at least four* continents are gonna hunt him into his last days.

Pass it on.
November 27, 2025 at 6:49 AM
This would be hilarious in its profound ignorance of British politics, if it wasn't that this is a desperate construction of the hard right that is doing a lot of damage to our political culture.
November 27, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
I guess I now have to do a thread on shoes in ancient Mesopotamia in response to this (which happens to be from one of my favourite accounts).

I’m not an archaeologist, nor do I really know anything about shoes, but let’s go on this journey together.
can't believe this ancient mesopotamia shoe wearing ass said people need to dress up at the airport
November 26, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
It’s sad that we need a dead man's emails to believe the testimony of hundreds of living women.
November 26, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
John Chamberlain comes up so often in my Newberry Library course that I've started referring to him as "friend of the pod." #earlymodern #IYKYK #renaissance #tudors #elizabethans #jacobean #17thcentury
July 5, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
Honestly, people calling creators the "petite bourgeoisie" makes me want to snap.

We're working folk. And we work really hard. For next to nothing.

We're not lounging around eating bonbons. We're trying to figure out how we're going to be able to pay rent next month.
November 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
The quarterly immigration system statistics are out, covering the period ending September 2025: www.gov.uk/government/s...
Immigration system statistics, year ending September 2025
Quarterly statistics on people coming to the UK, extensions of stay, citizenship, asylum, detentions, and returns.
www.gov.uk
November 27, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
Another horrendous scandal that caused terrible suffering, and for which nobody was ever held accountable.
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
Poison Water review – a damning tale of greed, incompetence and Britain’s biggest mass poisoning
When north Cornwall residents’ water turned black and gelatinous in 1988, they were urged to mix it with orange squash when drinking. This powerful film lays out the effects of the toxic H2O – and the...
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Mark Nixon
“It’s only fair that you pay back the costs of going to university because you’ll get a better paid job at the end of it … but we’re going to make you pay back those costs even if you get a job at near minimum wage because we’d otherwise have to tax millionaires.”
November 27, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Lots of skilled workers who pay tax and contribute hugely to the economy and to society, that I.

Fuck the racists. The damage they are doing to the UK is incalculable. #racistUK #immigration
I'm not sure how much it is appreciated that there will be significant emigration coming. Those here on graduate visas coming to an end, the toughening up of skilled worker rules re. salaries/sponsorable roles and the 'earned settlement' changes to come. Lots of people are going to leave.
November 27, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Just makes me even angrier that Reeves didn't do this at the first opportunity. That they didn't tells you an awful lot about their ideological preoccupations.

#DontVoteLabour
What difference will scrapping the two-child limit make to children's lives?

Shauna says she'll be able to buy her children a new mattress.
November 27, 2025 at 11:29 AM