Neil Atkinson
@knoxharrington.bsky.social
Turns meetings into pints and pints into meetings. Host of The Anfield Wrap and occasional writer of things. Author of Transformer for the good people at Canongate.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
i actually hate this feature of british politics so much, where when they kick you they also feel the need to spit in your face just to performatively pretend that what they did was Smart Politics and not the acts of a desperate, flailing person
November 14, 2025 at 3:01 PM
i actually hate this feature of british politics so much, where when they kick you they also feel the need to spit in your face just to performatively pretend that what they did was Smart Politics and not the acts of a desperate, flailing person
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
okay but we all know that this isn't what you honestly believe lol. this is just making up nonsense reasoning and sending it anonymously to the press to cover your ass for the fact that you can't figure out where to get more funds in the treasury from
November 14, 2025 at 2:59 PM
okay but we all know that this isn't what you honestly believe lol. this is just making up nonsense reasoning and sending it anonymously to the press to cover your ass for the fact that you can't figure out where to get more funds in the treasury from
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
What Americans don't understand is 'crassly forgetting Northern Ireland' is a core part of British culture, like cueing and only being able to communicate via laconic understatement.
No. No. It's absurd enough to think this for Americans, but fucking Brits!? Do you not know your own history!? Part of the country was in a civil war!
"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
November 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM
What Americans don't understand is 'crassly forgetting Northern Ireland' is a core part of British culture, like cueing and only being able to communicate via laconic understatement.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Why all the talk about leadership challenges misses the point that the biggest problem facing this Government is not just a lack of leadership but a lack of clear ideas about what a Labour Government is actually for
Until that changes, the question of who sits in No 10 will remain a hollow one.
Until that changes, the question of who sits in No 10 will remain a hollow one.
Labour's Biggest Problem Is Not a Lack of Leadership but a Lack of Ideas
Until Keir Starmer's party decides what it really stands for, the question of who leads them will remain a hollow one, argues Adam Bienkov
bylinetimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Why all the talk about leadership challenges misses the point that the biggest problem facing this Government is not just a lack of leadership but a lack of clear ideas about what a Labour Government is actually for
Until that changes, the question of who sits in No 10 will remain a hollow one.
Until that changes, the question of who sits in No 10 will remain a hollow one.
From @sianushka.bsky.social.
www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Everyone alright with these sponsoring Sky Sports's coverage of live football in order to reach more young people?
www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Everyone alright with these sponsoring Sky Sports's coverage of live football in order to reach more young people?
Exposed: British Army’s child recruits suffer violent abuse
An 11-month investigation reveals culture of violence, criminality and sexual abuse at army training centre for teens
www.opendemocracy.net
November 14, 2025 at 11:54 AM
From @sianushka.bsky.social.
www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Everyone alright with these sponsoring Sky Sports's coverage of live football in order to reach more young people?
www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Everyone alright with these sponsoring Sky Sports's coverage of live football in order to reach more young people?
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
"Hamish saw boys punched in the head during fights or whipped with belts during initiation rituals... staff said they didnt need to know about such incidents, encouraging them to physically fight it out."
How the army treats teenagers, by @sianushka.bsky.social www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
How the army treats teenagers, by @sianushka.bsky.social www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Exposed: British Army’s child recruits suffer violent abuse
An 11-month investigation reveals culture of violence, criminality and sexual abuse at army training centre for teens
www.opendemocracy.net
November 14, 2025 at 10:41 AM
"Hamish saw boys punched in the head during fights or whipped with belts during initiation rituals... staff said they didnt need to know about such incidents, encouraging them to physically fight it out."
How the army treats teenagers, by @sianushka.bsky.social www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
How the army treats teenagers, by @sianushka.bsky.social www.opendemocracy.net/en/british-a...
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
A total system failure, in other words: everyone who matters just yammering drivel at each other, for at least two decades. And it’s likely to be followed by Farage, and more of the same shit with the vicious idiocy turned up times one hundred.
November 13, 2025 at 7:03 PM
A total system failure, in other words: everyone who matters just yammering drivel at each other, for at least two decades. And it’s likely to be followed by Farage, and more of the same shit with the vicious idiocy turned up times one hundred.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Kind of crazy that evidence is mounting that the world is run by a group of rapists, pedophiles, and men convinced of women’s inmate natural inferiority, and the pundit class is trying to convince us that the real social crisis is that men are victimized and lonely because women have too many jobs.
You just know that “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” bit would have done NUMBERS in this little clique
Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.
November 13, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Kind of crazy that evidence is mounting that the world is run by a group of rapists, pedophiles, and men convinced of women’s inmate natural inferiority, and the pundit class is trying to convince us that the real social crisis is that men are victimized and lonely because women have too many jobs.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
I truly believe that Wes Streeting has the ideas, the charisma, and the likeability to be an even more historically hated Prime Minister than Keir Starmer
November 13, 2025 at 1:45 PM
I truly believe that Wes Streeting has the ideas, the charisma, and the likeability to be an even more historically hated Prime Minister than Keir Starmer
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Wes Streeting has received £225k from private healthcare donors in the past year and I just don't think my morals could be bought for the price of half a London flat. I don't know if I have a number that would make me sell my country's health service down the river but Wes and I are different.
November 13, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Wes Streeting has received £225k from private healthcare donors in the past year and I just don't think my morals could be bought for the price of half a London flat. I don't know if I have a number that would make me sell my country's health service down the river but Wes and I are different.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
The Guardian gave Goodwin lots of space in the 2010s to whitewash racism as Legitimate Concerns, imbue those Concerns with faux working class authenticity, and denigrate anti racism as the bleatings of a cosmopolitan elite. Its a bit late to start Noticing now.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reform UK accused of embracing racism over its pick for head of student organisation
Matthew Goodwin argued people from minority ethnic backgrounds born and raised in UK were not always British
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:02 AM
The Guardian gave Goodwin lots of space in the 2010s to whitewash racism as Legitimate Concerns, imbue those Concerns with faux working class authenticity, and denigrate anti racism as the bleatings of a cosmopolitan elite. Its a bit late to start Noticing now.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
(I am aware that the role of social media in the Arab Spring may well have been overstated but it is IMO to understand that wealthy and powerful people appear to have believed it was all Twitter and Facebook. And well, look at what has happened to Twitter and Facebook).
November 13, 2025 at 9:38 AM
(I am aware that the role of social media in the Arab Spring may well have been overstated but it is IMO to understand that wealthy and powerful people appear to have believed it was all Twitter and Facebook. And well, look at what has happened to Twitter and Facebook).
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
As @flyingrodent.bsky.social has pointed out repeatedly, the Harvey Weinstein scandal directly challenged the elite impunity and degeneracy that Jeffrey Epstein typified, and the response was a deranged, all-channels backlash to make clear such uppity behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated from the plebs.
Extra maddening because we are currently living through the backlash to #MeToo, which was attempting to address precisely behaviours and attitudes like this! We are living in the reaction to a movement that attempted to confront this mysterious behaviour head on!
November 13, 2025 at 9:26 AM
As @flyingrodent.bsky.social has pointed out repeatedly, the Harvey Weinstein scandal directly challenged the elite impunity and degeneracy that Jeffrey Epstein typified, and the response was a deranged, all-channels backlash to make clear such uppity behaviour wouldn’t be tolerated from the plebs.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
The fact that this person remains Health Secretary is objectively one of the most significant British political scandals of the post-Covid era. But because he's doing something the media barons like, everyone has decided it's fine.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting says that the British Medical Association, which represents Britain's doctors, is a threat to the NHS. Streeting took a record £225k from private healthcare-related donors in just two years.
British Medical Association ‘threat to future of NHS’, says Streeting ahead of doctors’ strike
Health secretary accuses doctors’ union of ‘cartel-like behaviour’ and tells it to ‘get real’ over pay demands
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:46 AM
The fact that this person remains Health Secretary is objectively one of the most significant British political scandals of the post-Covid era. But because he's doing something the media barons like, everyone has decided it's fine.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
The only threat to the NHS is Wes Streeting. Solidarity with the BMA.
There are also big problems with the way the Guardian has reported this. Basically a puff-piece for their centrist golden boy.
1…
archive.is/t1BJO
There are also big problems with the way the Guardian has reported this. Basically a puff-piece for their centrist golden boy.
1…
archive.is/t1BJO
November 13, 2025 at 10:02 AM
The only threat to the NHS is Wes Streeting. Solidarity with the BMA.
There are also big problems with the way the Guardian has reported this. Basically a puff-piece for their centrist golden boy.
1…
archive.is/t1BJO
There are also big problems with the way the Guardian has reported this. Basically a puff-piece for their centrist golden boy.
1…
archive.is/t1BJO
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Maybe it's just me and I'm being unfair but every time I have seen Streeting speak on anything he came across as profoundly insincere, calculating and a ball of barely supressed rage.
November 13, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Maybe it's just me and I'm being unfair but every time I have seen Streeting speak on anything he came across as profoundly insincere, calculating and a ball of barely supressed rage.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Mr Streeting’s campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is he so popular?
November 13, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Mr Streeting’s campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is he so popular?
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
The tight knit political elites running our democratic capitalist economies, have not only spent years telling us that we can't possibly tax or curtail the power of the rich, but also enabling their abuse of vulnerable children with full knowledge. This is not a conspiracy theory.
Cannot be stressed enough that there is a crucial and fundamental aspect of the Jeffrey Epstein story that directly corresponds with the Jimmy Savile story, to wit: Everybody knew.
Also its the rules you have to read it bc i spent part of my birthday emailing with one of the Epstein book contributors (he wrote a poem and, uh, has stuff to say)
November 13, 2025 at 7:36 AM
The tight knit political elites running our democratic capitalist economies, have not only spent years telling us that we can't possibly tax or curtail the power of the rich, but also enabling their abuse of vulnerable children with full knowledge. This is not a conspiracy theory.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
This is some devastating stuff here, surely: an absolutely massive step backwards, unravelling many years of work on victims rights.
Recently I talked to a woman who had been raped about cross examination. She went into a catatonic state for 15 mins, then asked me to hold her hand, and then began to cry. We discussed whether she should refuse to give evidence - even though it would mean he got off.
And now this 👇🏻
And now this 👇🏻
November 13, 2025 at 7:53 AM
This is some devastating stuff here, surely: an absolutely massive step backwards, unravelling many years of work on victims rights.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Every journalist briefed by No 10 re Streeting knows who did it but now maintains the fiction it’s not clear who did. Treating government as a political campaign feeds journalists but it is bad government eg the huge number of leaks re Budget options has chilled the economy.
November 13, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Every journalist briefed by No 10 re Streeting knows who did it but now maintains the fiction it’s not clear who did. Treating government as a political campaign feeds journalists but it is bad government eg the huge number of leaks re Budget options has chilled the economy.
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
anybody trying to tell me that Wes Streeting is “charismatic” is going on a list of people whose judgement I will not trust on any subject ever again
November 13, 2025 at 8:08 AM
anybody trying to tell me that Wes Streeting is “charismatic” is going on a list of people whose judgement I will not trust on any subject ever again
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
November 12, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
“I’m not ringing Spellar”
“Because he’s a horrible neocon bigot and crank?”
“Oh that doesn’t bother me. I simply cannot socialise”
“Because he’s a horrible neocon bigot and crank?”
“Oh that doesn’t bother me. I simply cannot socialise”
From Patrick Maguire's sub stack. Says an awful lot, and none of it good.
November 12, 2025 at 7:20 PM
“I’m not ringing Spellar”
“Because he’s a horrible neocon bigot and crank?”
“Oh that doesn’t bother me. I simply cannot socialise”
“Because he’s a horrible neocon bigot and crank?”
“Oh that doesn’t bother me. I simply cannot socialise”
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
COMMENTARIAT: Streeting is statemanlike, a man of the people. He has really impressed me today.
STREETING: If anything, nurses get paid too much! They're like a Mexican cartel!
STREETING: If anything, nurses get paid too much! They're like a Mexican cartel!
November 12, 2025 at 6:07 PM
COMMENTARIAT: Streeting is statemanlike, a man of the people. He has really impressed me today.
STREETING: If anything, nurses get paid too much! They're like a Mexican cartel!
STREETING: If anything, nurses get paid too much! They're like a Mexican cartel!
Reposted by Neil Atkinson
If Finkelstein had an ounce of courage/moral fibre, he'd attack Dan Hannan and Michael Gove for this sub-BNP racism published yesterday in the Specator.
bsky.app/profile/pete...
bsky.app/profile/pete...
Spectator running a piece by Daniel Hannan which leans heavily into the inferred idea that you're not necessarily British if you come from a migrant background, even if you were born and brought up here.
November 12, 2025 at 6:27 PM
If Finkelstein had an ounce of courage/moral fibre, he'd attack Dan Hannan and Michael Gove for this sub-BNP racism published yesterday in the Specator.
bsky.app/profile/pete...
bsky.app/profile/pete...