Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 8d

Labour rescinded my conference pass over an unspecified "breach of the event code of conduct".

10 minutes later, @owenjones.bsky.social received a similar email.

This is a terrifying, authoritarian crackdown on press freedom.

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 10d

Starmer wanted Labour conference to be about taking chunks out of Farage and his "racist" and "immoral" policies. That isn't happening.

Perhaps he's struggling to seize the moral high ground, says @labourlewis.bsky.social, because he's supporting a racist, immoral war in Gaza.

My report:

Labour Is Struggling to Keep Palestine Off Its Conference Agenda | Novara Media

Palestine Action supporters, anti-genocide marchers and pro-Palestine celebrities have disrupted the start of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, which the party had hoped would be about anything...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 20d

NEW: DESNZ cancelled a bake sale by staff for @medicalaidpal.bsky.social, saying the charity was too politically sensitive.

Union members wrote to secretary of state Ed Miliband citing "anti-Palestinian racism" and received no response. novaramedia.com/2025/09/18/g...

Government Department Cancelled a Charity Bake Sale for Palestine | Novara Media

Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero cancelled a planned fundraiser after officials accused the charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians, of political lobbying. Rivkah Brown reports.

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 23d

The belly flop is the signature move of this government. “Phase two of my government starts today,” Keir Starmer intoned on 1 September, signalling little more, it turned out, than his own hubris.

A portrait of a PM in his final throes, by @joecguinan.bsky.social novaramedia.com/2025/09/15/a...

Arrogant and Inept, Keir Starmer’s Hubris Is Blowing Up in His Face | Novara Media

Liberals and lobby journalists jubilated last year when the grownups were finally put back in charge. Now, Starmer’s future and indeed Labour’s seem as certain as an iceberg lettuce, writes Joe Guinan...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 23d

Marie launched Changing Politics in 2018. If she thought McSweeney had no idea what he was doing, why did she write this 5 days after Starmer made him chief of staff?

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 27d

Glad mainstream journalists have finally asked Peter Mandelson some tough questions about his association with Jeffrey Epstein, which has been public knowledge since at least 2019.

Here's me asking Epstein's beloved "Petie" about his late friend at 2023 Labour conference

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 28d

Big scoop from @novaramedia.com's Harriet Williamson: BBC Global News execs wrote to BBC News (the UK service) telling them to correct their claim that Anas al-Sharif worked with Hamas, as the BBC had no evidence for it.

BBC News *ignored their own colleagues* and the article remains uncorrected.

BBC Ignored Internal Request to Correct Claim Anas Al-Sharif Worked With Hamas | Novara Media

Exclusive: A leaked email shows that the BBC ignored an internal request to correct reporting that smeared Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, killed by Israel in August, as a Hamas operative. Ha...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 29d

The first move of new Green party leader @zackpolanski.bsky.social wasn't a policy (he'd already made a wealth tax his big thing) – it was a podcast.

It's a sure sign of a leftwing leader who's learned from his predecessors' mistakes.

Me for @thenewarab.bsky.social: www.newarab.com/opinion/zack...

Zack Polanski is doing what Corbyn couldn’t: Play the media game

The new Green Party premier’s first move? Launch a podcast. It’s a sure sign of a leftwing leader that’s not about to repeat past mistakes, writes Rivkah Brown.

www.newarab.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Aug 22

Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer were handed a combined 3.5 years for doing £8-10k of damage to the frame of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Turns out the gallery spent just £150 retouching it.

And we're really still talking about 2-tier policing? novaramedia.com/2025/08/22/t...

The National Gallery Only Spent £150 Retouching Van Gogh Frame After Just Stop Oil ‘Souping’ | Novara Media

Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer were jailed last year after being found guilty of causing between £8,000 and £10,000 worth of damage. Yet emails between gallery staff show the amount actually spent on...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Aug 11

A man claimed to be the victim of an antisemitic mob. His alleged assailants say he instigated the altercation, calling Arabic-speaking patrons ‘terrorists’. The Guardian printed one side of the story. This is how hysteria is manufactured. Me for @novaramedia.com novaramedia.com/2025/08/11/w...

Why Did the Guardian Run an Unverified Antisemitism Story? | Novara Media

A man claimed to be the victim of an antisemitic mob. His alleged assailants say he instigated the altercation, calling Arabic-speaking patrons ‘terrorists’. The Guardian printed one side of the story...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Aug 4

I had no idea that Fifa awarded the 1934 World Cup to fascist Italy despite Mussolini using the tournament as a propaganda tool. Just one of the many things *you too* can learn from Juliet Jacques's excellent @novaramedia.com peice about Fifa's revisionist history. novaramedia.com/2025/08/04/t...

The Fifa Museum Is a Masterclass in Reputational Whitewashing | Novara Media

Handing world cups to fascist dictatorships, brown-nosing Trump, endless corruption scandals - there’s an awful lot of history on display at Fifa’s Zurich museum and absolutely none of the stuff that ...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jul 30

Why was this story – which weaponises hostages' experiences to undermine Palestinians' claim to recognition – leading @theguardian.com's homepage until moments ago?

“I suppose this is Kath [Viner, the paper's editor-in-chief] trying to both-sides a genocide again," one Guardian journalist told me.

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jun 25

Green leadership candidate Zack Polanski says would-be members of a rumoured new left party should "stop pissing about and join the Greens". My profile for @novaramedia.com novaramedia.com/2025/06/25/z...

Zack Polanski Is Done Talking | Novara Media

The Green politician’s surprise leadership bid has excited a rudderless left. Could he turn the Greens from a byword for well-meaning environmentalists into a mass movement? Rivkah Brown meets Zack Po...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jun 5

Which do we prefer: cute with a hint of sneer or straight-on with a hint of babushka?

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Apr 26

How are political prisoners treated compared to, and by, other prisoners? How do they adapt to confinement? What's the most popular vape flavour at HMP The Mount?

This and more on episode 2 of Committed ⛓️ open.spotify.com/episode/655Q...

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Apr 22

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Apr 22

open.spotify.com/episode/0ilc...

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Apr 22

@clarehymer.bsky.social and I have spent the past 5 months interviewing Britain's political prisoners about life inside – and thinking about the kind of people that give up their freedom for a cause.

Ep 1 of Committed is out today, listen here or on the NM podcast feed novaramedia.com/committed/

Committed | Novara Media

Britain is locking up peaceful climate activists. You’ve probably heard of some of them – they’re the road-blockers, soup-throwers and spray-painters who’ve made headlines around the world with Just S...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Feb 25

Always blows my mind that Miriam Margolyes can be on the cover of Vogue one minute but the minute she opens her mouth about Palestine...............crickets

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jan 27

Running an inflammatory headline from a 3-month-old report on antisemitism today, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, is the kind of irresponsible, sensationalist journalism I'd expect from the Jewish Chronicle, not the Guardian.

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jan 17

Itsu said Jeremy Corbyn 4 PM

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jan 14

Police also cite complaints from rabbis inc Barry Lerer, who in September delivered the sermon: “It is time to go to combat our enemies, not only on the battlefield but the hostile press, those on social media, the UN and governments." A good-faith actor?

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jan 14

NEW: The Palestine movement is headed for a historic confrontation with police this Saturday as organisers say they'll go ahead despite a police ban.

Police cite disruption to nearby synagogues – despite services finishing 2 hours before protesters arrive.

novaramedia.com/2025/01/14/p...

Palestine Marchers Set to Defy Police Ban | Novara Media

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has always cooperated with police, until now. Rivkah Brown reports on why the group is refusing to cancel Saturday's central London march, despite the Met doubling do...

novaramedia.com

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Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · Jan 13

“We are not calling for demonstrations to be banned,” the Jewish Leadership Council's Claudia Mendoza told the Times. "We just want it to start away from the synagogue.” Not what she'd have said a year ago! 3/

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