Samira Shackle
@samirashackle.bsky.social
7.8K followers 330 following 330 posts
Freelance journalist (mostly for the Guardian Long Read) and author of Karachi Vice. I am also on Substack @samirashackle. Currently on maternity leave!
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Samira Shackle
stephenkb.bsky.social
Quite. So many Labour people on this website visibly have no idea of just how bad things have got for ethnic minorities since they came on, and how their visible indifference lands.
amrk.bsky.social
Also frankly I am quite desperate! A party that’s at best ambivalent on the question of whether I’m English and wants to deport my friends is 9 points ahead in the polls and the current leader is floundering and visibly out of his depth!
samirashackle.bsky.social
This is one of the most frustrating things about politics and coverage of it at the moment.
stephenkb.bsky.social
It just straightforwardly *insane* how much political chatter in the United Kingdom is about the next general election, an event that is a long way in the future, and how basically none of it is about 'uh, this policy agenda doesn't look adequate to the scale of the inherited problem'.
samirashackle.bsky.social
This headline is so New York Times that it seems like a joke.
samirashackle.bsky.social
Davey’s letter highlights how quiet the other party leaders (including the literal PM) have been.
sundersays.bsky.social
Musk accuses the LibDem leader of "cowardice" for opposing Musk's advocacy of pre-emptive violence (interethnic conflict, anti-migrant violence & partisan violence) to kick off a British civil war.

This shows that Musk just has no idea of the gravity of advocating political violence & civil war
samirashackle.bsky.social
“What we are seeing is not about having a bad economy. It is the result of a year in which neither the government nor the opposition have been willing to draw red lines.” Excellent piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social on.ft.com/4pq7NHo
Starmer and Badenoch are handling the far-right march all wrong
A look back to the days of Enoch Powell suggests a better model
on.ft.com
samirashackle.bsky.social
I’m inclined to agree with this. It’s disturbing to see how explicit racism is becoming more acceptable, and the extent to which it is going unchallenged. I don’t know if it’s down to an increasingly fragmented media landscape, inertia of government, or what, but it is frightening.
jdportes.bsky.social
.but it should not be beyond capacity of civil society to organise against what is happening now - through demonstrations, public campaigns, etc. Not just on Bluesky.

[Rock Against Racism emerged at the time of economic crisis and an unpopular Labour govt, after all.]

[3/3]
Reposted by Samira Shackle
jonnelledge.bsky.social
Keep thinking of arguments for why it would be completely insane to dump a prime minister with a huge majority just 14 months in, and also about how if he's not going to say a single word in opposition to the kind of shit we saw today then I no longer feel convinced by any of those arguments.
Reposted by Samira Shackle
liamthorp.bsky.social
Still waiting on the Prime Minister’s statement condemning the huge, violent, Nazi mob that attacked police officers in London…
samirashackle.bsky.social
I find it mind boggling that our entire political class seems to be ignoring this. Musk is the owner of a major media platform that - as we’ve seen - can shape media and political discourse. And the official response seems to be head in the sand.
tomashirstecon.bsky.social
This is the owner of X actively campaigning to take down the elected government of a country he is neither a resident nor a citizen of - and using threats of violence in the streets to further his aims www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
“My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You’re in a fundamental situation here. Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”
Reposted by Samira Shackle
jim.londoncentric.media
Absolutely !!!insane!!! to me that the UK government, lobby and newspapers litigate at length every minor infraction by the BBC, rival newspapers, or what some random columnist has posted. But all of them just carry on not even commenting about this media owner. He’s not hiding, he’s telling you!
Reposted by Samira Shackle
davidwearing.bsky.social
It's physically unsafe for people like me to go into the centre of our home city this Saturday on account of the colour of our skin.

Most politicians are either failing to stand up to this or actively contributing to the situation.

We don't owe any of those politicians our votes. Not one of them.
Reposted by Samira Shackle
annamerlan.bsky.social
Each alleged mass shooter is even more On the Computer All the Time than the previous one. Probably nothing to worry about there
Reposted by Samira Shackle
stephenkb.bsky.social
In the real world, the last PM, a Conservative, actually defended this stuff, to the point of saying that British multiculturalism works and taking real political damage to do so. Some Labour people are so convinced of their superior virtue they don't seem to realise it's about what you *do*.
Reposted by Samira Shackle
zoesqwilliams.bsky.social
Who could possibly have foreseen?
Reposted by Samira Shackle
colinmurray.bsky.social
Much of the media continue to allow Farage to elide the figures for all immigration with asylum seekers, and the reality for asylum seekers, who are prevented from working, with other immigrants. He is repeatedly enabled to blow immigration issues out of all proportion.
jdportes.bsky.social
Farage repeating - yet again - the simple lie that most new migrants don't work.

Completely unchallenged by Kuenssberg, yet again.

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/co...
Reposted by Samira Shackle
samwhyte.bsky.social
This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".
One of Britain’s most senior police officers has launched an angry tirade against Extinction Rebellion protesters going “all floppy” when they get arrested.

Sir Stephen House, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said the tactic of going limp was a “flipping nuisance” as it required extra officers to drag protesters away.

House told a London assembly police and crime committee hearing: “We have asked them to stop being floppy. And that might seem like a silly thing to say, but when we arrest them and pick them up, they go all floppy, which is why you see four or five officers carrying them away. It’s a complete waste of officers’ time, and a complete pain in the neck.”

Extinction Rebellion: how successful were the latest protests?
Read more
House also expressed annoyance at how the tactic made the police look heavy-handed. He said: “The problem with them going floppy and four offices carrying them away [is that it] looks to the general public like police are overreacting here. We’re not making them go floppy. They’re just sort of being a nuisance.”
Reposted by Samira Shackle
samfr.bsky.social
What makes this even more frustrating is the Tories did exactly the same thing, and it was one of things that destroyed them at the expense of Reform. The mechanism is so obvious.
Reposted by Samira Shackle
pickardje.bsky.social
“Farage claimed last year to have “bought a house” in his constituency but the property is actually owned in the name of his partner, meaning he legally avoided higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional home – given he already owns other properties”

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Nigel Farage uses private company to pay less tax on GB News earnings
Exclusive: Reform leader’s use of personal services firm is a practice criticised across the political spectrum
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Samira Shackle
elliemaeohagan.bsky.social
This is also the same with climate change by the way. Public concern about it goes up when it gets more coverage (ht @steveakehurst.bsky.social). Journalists have a moral and civic duty to cover the climate crisis extensively
patrickgaley.bsky.social
Your weekly reminder that voter "concern" with immigration doesn't correspond to actual immigration levels.

It corresponds to the amount of coverage the media gives immigration.

This an entirely self-fulfilling mess, and it is entirely pointless.
Reposted by Samira Shackle
chimpsahoi.bsky.social
Feeling seen by the Oxford Uni job portal
Reposted by Samira Shackle
will-davies.bsky.social
this is right. Nobody, least of all anyone on the radical Left, should be pleased about the police - the *police* - having to sort this stuff out
jamesrball.com
Something is being completely missed in the Graham Linehan / broader UK ‘free speech’ row – and it’s that much of this is a direct consequence of Elon Musk no longer doing anything like what’s required to moderate X in line with UK and European law. 🧵
Reposted by Samira Shackle
zoejardiniere.bsky.social
Today Nick Ferrari asked if treaties like the ECHR & the Refugee Convention that were drawn up in the wake of WWII are still relevant to modern Britain.

I said the context of racial hatred towards Muslim immigrants now echoes the hatred of Jewish immigrants in the 20th century. We need these laws.