Sathnam Sanghera
@sathnam.bsky.social
45K followers 950 following 220 posts
Sunday Times bestselling author. FRSL. FRHistS. WTF. Join me on my Empireworld tour in 2025. Pre-order my book on George Michael, Tonight the Music Seems So Loud, published by Picador in 2026. www.sathnam.com
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Reposted by Sathnam Sanghera
robfordmancs.bsky.social
A reminder of how Mrs Thatcher's Conservative party in 1983, an era featuring much more widespread racial prejudice in the public, approached the issue of race and national identity:
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carolinepennock.bsky.social
God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...
Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.
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mrjamesob.bsky.social
Lords Heseltine & Kinnock seem more alive to these self-evident truths than most members of the Commons. Similarly, I find thinkers with direct lived experience of far right dictatorship, Greeks of a certain age for example, crystal clear about what’s happening now.
bbcnewsnight.bsky.social
“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight
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hughster.bsky.social
"I hoped…the outrage about [Windrush]…demonstrated we were finally moving away from [racist] thinking. But Jenrick’s remarks show…we are, in 2025, in an even worse place. [They] are a symptom of a new cult of ethno-nationalism, imported from the USA and supercharged by bad actors on social media"
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13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
We all hoped the Windrush scandal would be shame enough. But no. The Tory party plumbs new depths with its vile rhetoric. Nothing good comes from their prejudice. But our communities prove them wrong every day.
Important response to Jenrick from @sathnam.bsky.social

www.thetimes.com/article/3af4...
I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school - he's wrong about race
• NEW
The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn't see'another white face. You can't judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian Sathnam
Sanghera I hoped that the outrage about this scandal across the political spectrum demonstrated we were finally moving away from such thinking.
But Jenrick's remarks show that we are, in 2025, in an even worse place.
The comments are a symptom of a new cult of ethno-nationalism, imported from the USA and supercharged by bad actors on social media. Suddenly, a great many people - including, bizarrely, Suella Braverman - are keen on the racist idea that you simply can't be English and non-white.
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adamjschwarz.bsky.social
Heseltine at the Tory conf:

"Fascists of the 30s are back... Trump's language coincides with words here... The immigrant has replaced the Jew as the problem. We must make clear we will never have any part in the populist extremism of Farage... We don't need Trump's mouthpiece anywhere near No. 10.”
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jacklondonbluesky.bsky.social
This is what I - a non-Midlander young in the peak of the Reggae wave - thinks of when someone mentions Handsworth

How grey & thin would English life be without the influences from outside - most from parts for which Victoria was Empress

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_P...
Steel Pulse - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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ricardoautobahn.co.uk
This is the maddest tour I've ever seen in my life. It seems like he's doing more gigs than there are days in the year.
A quite insane tour schedule
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samfr.bsky.social
JFC the man has not one ounce of shame in him.

He went to private school and Cambridge. He owns three homes and rents a fourth!
jamesdaustin.bsky.social
I know plenty of politicians 'working classify' their backgrounds, but this from Jenrick is taking the piss.

His father's linked in is here: uk.linkedin.com/in/bill-jenr...

He was a managing accountant who ended up as the Managing Director of Cannon Industries
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domw.bsky.social
"We want people to be living in mixed communities, don't we?"

Robert Jenrick's home is in Eye, Herefordshire, where 165 out of 166 residents were white at the time of the last census.
bestforbritain.org
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
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lewisgoodall.com
Am wondering if all of those suddenly deciding they’re against communities living “parallel lives” might reconsider their support of religious schools? Or indeed private ones?
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saveredlandlibr.bsky.social
9:30am TODAY on @BBCRadio4Extra

From 2023, Ep 7 (of 10) 📻 “EMPIRE OF TEA” - “Punjabi Cha and Masala Chai”

Punjabi cha is the drink of Sathnam Sanghera's childhood; one of many varieties that make tea India's national drink. From 2023.

#TuesdayTea 🫖

@sathnam.bsky.social
BBC Radio 4 - Empire of Tea, 7. Punjabi Cha and Masala Chai
How tea, in various forms, became India’s national drink.
www.bbc.co.uk
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mikeachim.bsky.social
Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...
Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."
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onlyinbirmingham.bsky.social
#Handsworth could teach @RobertJenrick how to live in a global society. #BenjaminZephaniah - spirit of #Birmingham - said "Handsworth for me is...where I learnt all my skills, my communication skills, my hustling skills, my poetic skills, everything."
sathnam.bsky.social
Everything is horrible, and politics is nothing but a cauldron of despair, but even within this Robert Jenrick sticks out for his unrelenting vileness.
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.
sathnam.bsky.social
Another great series. You get the feeling with so many podcasts that the presenters have not really done the reading, with Origin Story it feels like they've done too much reading, if anything. Always wonderfully digested.
originstorypodcast.bsky.social
“Nobody explains capitalism better than Marx.”

@iandunt.bsky.social and @dorianlynskey.bsky.social discuss how Karl Marx's ideas stayed relevant even after the fall of the Soviet Union.

#originstory #politics #podcast #marx
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