Gareth Leaman
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garethleaman.bsky.social
Gareth Leaman
@garethleaman.bsky.social
400 followers 220 following 18 posts
Writer. See garethleaman.com for published work.
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Gareth Leaman @garethleaman.bsky.social · Apr 27
A new essay, for Cwlwm, about Idris Davies and Gwent: cwlwm.substack.com/p/these-trou...
‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent
What makes our idea of a place? Gareth Leaman considers the work of the poet Idris Davies from Gwent in the imagining of our corner kingdom
cwlwm.substack.com
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
garethleaman.bsky.social
My report for Novara on Labour's collapse in Caerphilly:

novaramedia.com/2025/10/24/p...
Plaid Cymru’s Caerphilly Victory Matters Everywhere | Novara Media
The Caerphilly Senedd by-election win for Plaid Cymru is indicative of dissatisfaction that reaches far beyond the town’s boundaries. We should remember that Reform can still capitalise on this anger ...
novaramedia.com
October 24, 2025 at 11:15 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
My report for Novara on Labour's collapse in Caerphilly:

novaramedia.com/2025/10/24/p...
Plaid Cymru’s Caerphilly Victory Matters Everywhere | Novara Media
The Caerphilly Senedd by-election win for Plaid Cymru is indicative of dissatisfaction that reaches far beyond the town’s boundaries. We should remember that Reform can still capitalise on this anger ...
novaramedia.com
October 24, 2025 at 11:15 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
They're going to come for the left:

disposableeverything.com/2025/09/21/t...
They’re going to come for the left
We know, obviously, that the new British right defines itself not by what it stands for, but by what it opposes. Reform UK, along with the incipiently fascist street movements they’ve provided poli…
disposableeverything.com
September 21, 2025 at 10:07 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
A useful read for fellow UNISON members ahead of the General Secretary election:

jmknight.substack.com/p/opinion-no...
Opinion: Nomination maneuvering means that UNISON establishment is worried
Reflections on the National Executive Council's nomination meeting, Regional Officer overreach and the mystery candidates.
jmknight.substack.com
September 15, 2025 at 10:01 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
An important listen for anyone interested in the future of professional sport in Newport, and what it means for the local economy and culture in general
1912exiles.com 1912 Exiles: Newport County podcast @1912exiles.com · Sep 11
🏉⚽️Ep241: The WRU's decision 🏟️🍻

What would the disappearance of the Dragons mean for Rodney Parade, Newport County and the city centre?

LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE
🟢 Spotify: tinyurl.com/1912exilessp...
🍎 Apple: tinyurl.com/1912exilesap...
💻 Online: shows.acast.com/1912exiles

#ncafc 🧡🖤
September 11, 2025 at 10:49 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
www.redpepper.org.uk/economics-un...
Cymunedoli: The glue that binds - Red Pepper
Economic power in the community – cymunedoli – is the antidote to the far right’s growing appeal in Cymru, write Beth Winter and Leanne Wood
www.redpepper.org.uk
September 4, 2025 at 11:10 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
The only way to save Welsh rugby as a cultural force is to go back in time to the start, tweak the rules so it's incompatible with the rest of the sport, and it becomes (South) Wales' answer to GAA. It was always going to fade out

Old but still relevant:
disposableeverything.com/2020/03/03/t...
Welsh rugby’s great sell-off
International rugby may soon disappear from free-to-air television. This has obviously created a degree of collective consternation about the implication for Welsh mass culture, and rugby’s apparen…
disposableeverything.com
August 20, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
alexheffron.bsky.social
'Some of it may be useful, most of it is banal, but the algorithm can never satisfactorily differentiate, leaving all users to wade through the resultant mire in the hope of finding something valuable.'

Very good from @garethleaman.bsky.social

disposableeverything.com/2025/06/15/o...
On Twitter and Bluesky
The liberal exodus from Twitter/X, which has seen millions of people ditching the platform and migrating to Bluesky, has been met with various forms of derision from those who remain behind. Conser…
disposableeverything.com
July 17, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
alexheffron.bsky.social
The best piece I've read regarding the machinations around the setting up of a new left party. I think @garethleaman.bsky.social hits on all the important points.

disposableeverything.com/2025/07/09/t...
The party needs to be the people. In a truly democratic political party, in which the leadership and membership are as one, the intent of bad-faith external saboteurs becomes irrelevant. The media will be at odds with your demands at every turn no matter what – you don’t combat that by out-debating them, you combat it by becoming the reality they can’t dispel. The problem is, this takes a very long time to build: there are no shortcuts, and you can’t fake it. I’m just going to rip from an earlier article that touched on this, rather than rehash it: ‘The challenge, however, is that the left and right are working at different temporalities. The ingredients for a leftist fightback – community resilience, workplace organisation, etc – take a long time to develop.⁠ This can’t be astroturfed, imposed top-down from without – such a project can only occur organically from below if it’s to have lasting success. The right, on the other hand, already has everything it needs for success: money, power, influence, a political culture well-suited for the contagion of their ideas, etc.’
July 16, 2025 at 9:12 PM
garethleaman.bsky.social
Notes on the 'new left party':

disposableeverything.com/2025/07/09/t...
The new left party
If the British⁠ left is to organise itself electorally, then clearly a new political party is needed. After the failures of 2015–19, it was always going to come to this.
disposableeverything.com
July 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
A review of Adam Curtis' Shifty:

disposableeverything.com/2025/06/29/a...
Adam Curtis, ‘Shifty’
Shifty is, perhaps, the ultimate Adam Curtis film. Eschewing the expansive globetrotting that defines much of his work, it instead dives deep into all he’s ever tried to say about the British state…
disposableeverything.com
June 30, 2025 at 6:54 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
disposableeverything.com/2025/06/15/o...
On Twitter and Bluesky
The liberal exodus from Twitter/X, which has seen millions of people ditching the platform and migrating to Bluesky, has been met with various forms of derision from those who remain behind. Conser…
disposableeverything.com
June 16, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
garethleaman.bsky.social
Some brief notes on 'the red Welsh way':

disposableeverything.substack.com/p/the-red-we...
The red Welsh way
This isn't a full essay, but the phrase 'the red Welsh way', introduced by Eluned Morgan earlier this month, is too annoying to ignore.
disposableeverything.substack.com
May 23, 2025 at 7:29 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
Some brief notes on 'the red Welsh way':

disposableeverything.substack.com/p/the-red-we...
The red Welsh way
This isn't a full essay, but the phrase 'the red Welsh way', introduced by Eluned Morgan earlier this month, is too annoying to ignore.
disposableeverything.substack.com
May 23, 2025 at 7:29 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
Some notes on celebrity spaceflight:

disposableeverything.substack.com/p/for-all-ma...
For all mankind?
On celebrity space tourism
disposableeverything.substack.com
May 17, 2025 at 7:12 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
I tried to talk about what I think 'vibe' is, and used it to scratch the surface of a pet project:

disposableeverything.substack.com/p/vibe-is-se...
Vibe is sentient capital
Notes on everything that moves
disposableeverything.substack.com
April 7, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
pete-davies.bsky.social
"As the right’s ascendency inadvertently demonstrates, the main psychic need of capitalist culture, its central desire, is for an anti-capitalism. The right has individuated this feeling – the task is to (re-)collectivise it before it’s extinguished."
November 23, 2024 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
rhyskamjones.bsky.social
This by @garethleaman.bsky.social is brilliantly clarifying on how a successful hyper-capitalist like Trump presents (and even embodies) a kind of anti-capitalist affect

disposableeverything.com/2024/11/21/l...
Implicit in the relationship between capitalist and capital is a central tension. Central to capital’s essence is the imperative of accumulation, which inherently begets subsumption and exploitation for anyone who fails to attain the power to subsume and exploit. So, being a successful capitalist may be laudable, but capital itself is something to be overcome. Such a sentiment permeates capitalist culture: we see everywhere the pressure of the ‘rise-and-grind’ mentality, the endless pursuit of ‘growth’ in every exhausting sense, the exploit-or-be-exploited cycle of cruelty that the atomised labour market engenders, and so on. Implicit in this mentality is a fight against something that is making all this toil-to-exist necessary. Whether recognised or not, this ‘something’ is capital itself. The paragons of this endemic hustle are thus in many ways antagonistic towards capital: they tame it, maximise the hand it deals them, exploit it for their own ends. They do not preach its virtues, but rather vaunt their own virtue in having ‘beaten’ it.
November 22, 2024 at 2:45 PM
garethleaman.bsky.social
Some notes on the US election, the collapse of liberalism, and the rise of the 'anti-establishment' right

disposableeverything.substack.com/p/liberals-h...
Liberals have nothing left
Notes on the US election, the collapse of liberalism, and the rise of the anti-establishment right
disposableeverything.substack.com
November 22, 2024 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
phildavies1995.bsky.social
Only just come across this article by @garethleaman Its fantastic. Idris Davies in one of my favourite poets somewhat unsurprisingly being both from Gwent and a Socialist.

Highly recommend giving this a read.

www.cwlwm.cymru/p/these-trou...
‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent
What makes our idea of a place? Gareth Leaman considers the work of the poet Idris Davies from Gwent in the imagining of our corner kingdom
www.cwlwm.cymru
November 13, 2024 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by Gareth Leaman
rhyskamjones.bsky.social
Just as I'm contemplating getting properly stuck into Idris Davies, I find this great piece by @garethleaman.bsky.social

’Thus the land is set, its name embedded into history, its etymology a portent of its future meanings: Gwent is a market.'

www.cwlwm.cymru/p/these-trou...
‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent
What makes our idea of a place? Gareth Leaman considers the work of the poet Idris Davies from Gwent in the imagining of our corner kingdom
www.cwlwm.cymru
October 30, 2024 at 9:14 AM
garethleaman.bsky.social
A new essay, for Cwlwm, about Idris Davies and Gwent: cwlwm.substack.com/p/these-trou...
‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent
What makes our idea of a place? Gareth Leaman considers the work of the poet Idris Davies from Gwent in the imagining of our corner kingdom
cwlwm.substack.com
April 27, 2024 at 10:24 AM