This is the essential point I think. We have been a vassal state of the US for a long time, but what limited autonomy and illusion of independence we were allowed will now be removed. The return of US nukes to Lakenheath as Starmer was grovelling to Trump at Turnberry spoke volumes to me.

The Prescott memo is a staggering work of nonsense. In it he claims the Congressional hearings were invalid because they had a Democrat majority.

Yep. That Panorama was an iconic disgrace as well.

The left needs not to focus on the 'battle for the institutions' but to pour all its energy into building its own spaces and counterpublics. It's the only shot we've got.

Just as Labour have shown no resistance to - indeed have embraced - the far-right agenda, don't expect institutions to do differently.

Here they'll just get punished even if they are enthusiastic - just perceived not to be enthusiastic enough.

/6

People believe this shit.

They believe the BBC is woke.

They believe vaccines are a conspiracy.

They believe all the other shit you see on FB and X, which is being pumped out with the money of right-wing billionaires behind it. /5

Now it is being accused, amongst other things, of being 'pro trans'. I wish it were. But it very much is not.

Just as free speech was never under threat in unis until the government decided to regulate that speech in favour of fascists, this too is institutional gaslighting. /4

This was the better part of 20 years ago. I was there with the MP I worked for.

The BBC has never been 'left wing', and certainly not now. Tom Mills' book is good on this, but Orgreave, its coverage of NI, and god knows how many other things will tell you that. /3

We are being told that there is 'systemic bias' in the BBC, but that it is 'left-wing bias'.

BBC has been accused of this forever. When Thompson was DG I went to an internal employees QT, hosted by Dimbleby, where Melanie Phillips and other right wingers were brought in to 'challenge groupthink' /2

Flashbacks from a bygone WSAG era

“How did we end up with concentration camps on British soil?”, well ask ourselves in a few years. “Dunno guv, it’s a mystery, I don’t remember reading anything much about it in the papers…”