James Vaughan
@equusonthebuses.bsky.social
3.2K followers 900 following 1.6K posts
Historian of UK-Israel relations, British decline, and propaganda. Hittites. Blues harmonica. Aberystwyth Cricket Club. Just posting stuff that interests me really.
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Reposted by James Vaughan
timothysnyder.bsky.social
Our authoritarianism is run on clichés borrowed from the Eastern Europe of twenty years ago. Paid protestors, disloyal cities, evil Soros, vast conspiracies — it was all tiresome then and there, and now it’s pathetic.
atrupar.com
Trump: "They're, like, insurrectionists, they're terrible people. But you really wonder why. Why are they doing it? What are they gaining? Other than they're obviously paid. They're paid a lot of money."
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
If Trump had invited more intelligent versions of stupid people, they'd have done a Pat Robertson and banged on about Nesta Webster's conspiracy theories about leftist Jewish subversives in the 18th century...
paleofuture.bsky.social
"Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost 100 years in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany."

- Jack Posobiec at Trump's roundtable on antifa
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Occasional reminder that the "distracted boyfriend" meme has its origins in a pre-WW1 Punch cartoon about Anglo-German relations...
Reposted by James Vaughan
stephenkb.bsky.social
No, it's not. It's all a lie. The blunt truth is across 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.
igmansfield.bsky.social
Outstanding piece by Stephen Daisley.

Ethnicity is no barrier to Britishness - it's culture and integration.

That means 'smaller cohorts and aggressive integration policies' - and tackling the institutions that 'have amplified grievance narratives and radical anti-Western ideologies'.
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
A 25-year old front cover of The Economist... 👀
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Given the regularity with which it produces sub-standard political leaders, I'm more worried about PPE at Oxford
Reposted by James Vaughan
lahoare.bsky.social
Kemi Badenoch is lazy, she's performative, she's anti-intellectual, and it says something about the ruined state of the contemporary Conservative Party that she could not only rise to the top of it but, for a time, be seen as its saviour.
Reposted by James Vaughan
lahoare.bsky.social
Everyone who was told to go to university to learn how to code is now finding out that their future job has been taken by AI but English is the real 'rip-off degree,' you understand.
Badenoch: Curb students taking 'rip-off' degrees such as English
The performing arts, sociology and anthropology are among the subjects the Conservatives would like to cut
inews.co.uk
Reposted by James Vaughan
saulstaniforth.bsky.social
"You go to some places like Handsworth.. parts of Dewsbury, Bradford, Leicester, where you see.. a single ethnicity.. we don't think that's healthy thing"

Kevin Hollinrake is MP for Thirsk and Malton, which according to the 2021 census is 98% white.
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Fountaine had also delivered a notoriously antisemitic speech at Party Conference in 1947 (just weeks after anti-Jewish rioting had swept across British cities). Eventually the Conservative hierarchy washed their hands of him; he ended up as a founding member of the fascist National Front in 1967.
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Seems appropriate to remember Andrew Fountaine's Conservative Party Conference appearance #OnThisDay 1948. Fountaine denounced the Labour government a group of "national traitors, semi-alien mongrels and hermaphrodite Communists". He was adopted as the Tory candidate for Chorley in that year.
Reposted by James Vaughan
samfr.bsky.social
All these people really want is to pay no taxes and be treated with floor scraping deference. Everything else is just bullshit in pursuit of that goal.
sundersays.bsky.social
Party donor Nick Candy says "I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’

Via Sam Leith in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
“You are now to retire - as indeed should I…”
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
"People are really rather afraid that this conference might be rather swamped"
adambienkov.bsky.social
Kemi Badenoch asked about the low turnout at Conservative Party conference describes it as "teeming" with members
Reposted by James Vaughan
gabrielmilland.bsky.social
I don't think Robert Jenrick realises that the people clapping along to him when he talks about Handsworth would clap along if he said the same about Stamford Hill. I'd hope that would give him pause for thought.
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Interesting choice of book to showcase behind the Egyptian diplomat on C4 news. Joel Gordon’s history of the 1952 free officers. I have a different edition up at the office…
Reposted by James Vaughan
djwyszynski.bsky.social
My high schooler says there is a growing contingent of GenZ and GenA where “that’s so AI” is used as a pejorative. Their peer group increasingly look upon it not only as cheating but just stupid and fake.
Reposted by James Vaughan
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Sunday afternoon stroll at Tan-y-Bwlch, Aberystwyth
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
Conference season in different times. Tony Benn at Labour Party Conference, Brighton, #OnThisDay 1979
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
"The fear is gone". Not talking about (or interested in) Manchester, I guess.
equusonthebuses.bsky.social
"The legacy of Heaton Park will stay with us for decades.... It is not the end. I hope it is also not the beginning of the end. But mostly today I pray for Adrian and Melvin, may their memories forever be a blessing. They were the first. May they also be the last."