'The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.' — David Graeber
Joined July 2015
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24 Jun 2025
This from @ZackPolanski is essential.
Labour will fail to deal with the housing crisis because they don't understand what caused it.
The rapid increase in house prices under New Labour is not talked about enough. Growth by unsustainable private debt: a disaster for society.
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Jun 12
'The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.' — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Jun 12
Elon Musk is now a trillionaire.
A world of trillionaires is, simultaneously, one where the middle class collapses. Anyone informed on the issue knows as much, but few are willing to accept what that ultimately means - and where we end up.
unherd.com/2026/06/the-right…
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'Labour insisted that tuition fees would be kept free. Just weeks before polling day, Tony Blair said: “Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education...
But just two months after becoming prime minister, Blair went ahead and introduced tuition fees.'
This insight by MacDonald is absolutely correct. PR removes the sense of a governing mandate. The governing programme is decided after the election, by which point voters have been removed from the equation.
While of course under FPTP governments may try to do the same, the political costs are higher because of the expectation that they were elected to govern on the basis of a set of manifesto promises made before the election to the voters.
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May 28
Another panel that raises serious questions of @bbcquestiontime.
And when is the Question Time special on electoral reform coming?
Do we really want to elect another government on little more than a third of the vote? It could, of course, be less next time.
May 28
Oracle’s £250m gift to the Tony Blair Institute appears to buy you an entire Question Time episode.
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May 26
Let's remember that Corbyn held Makerfield in 2019. Furthermore, in 2024 the Labour Party total was greater than the combined Tory and Reform total.
The combined Reform and Restore total will indicate the strength of a co-ordinated right.
Graph of Makerfield 24 below.
May 26
Amazing that the right has been able to launch two new parties successfully while the left hasn’t been able to manage one.
The Labour brand is weak even with Burnham. The key question to be asked after Makerfield: what happens in a FPTP election if the right consolidate?
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May 26
Amazing that the right has been able to launch two new parties successfully while the left hasn’t been able to manage one.
The Labour brand is weak even with Burnham. The key question to be asked after Makerfield: what happens in a FPTP election if the right consolidate?
May 26
Just to add to the chaos I'm now being told by multiple sources from different parties that canvass returns for Makerfield show Restore significantly outperforming the 7% revealed in the Times poll. I suspect that's what's underpinning the current Reform meltdown.
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May 14
Much more attention is needed on the inevitable arrival of El Niño.
An information campaign is needed to inform the public about what El Niño is and what it will mean for global temperatures in the short and long term.
@TheGreenParty @ZackPolanski
May 14
Well, a few governments are. Notably Finland, Switzerland. But the U.K. Govt?: absolutely zilch…
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May 14
It's surely time to begin talking about the coming El Niño.
@TheGreenParty
Chances are rising that an El Niño expected to form soon could become one of the most powerful such events on record, according to new data.
El Niño patterns are correlated with food shortages, water impacts and even civil conflict: wapo.st/49yLAQS
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May 12
Protect open selection processes at all cost.
Poor political governance in the UK is the result of closed systems of thought and value.
Open contest is the heart of a democratic society. x.com/GrnElects/status/20541…
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May 11
Alternatively: attempting to implement widespread economic and constitutional change on the basis of a hollow slogan that was chosen to mislead the public at the last election is a terrible idea.
May 10
The issue of democratic legitimacy is always going to plague any successor to Keir Starmer because of the archaic way power and political sovereignty is handed to one person (from the king) in an almost presidential manner.
I’m well up for having a conversation about voting systems, written constitutions & the parliamentary system. But we are where we are and haven the alternative - the most right wing, authoritarian govt in our history, one we will have to work through. I’m very much inclined to engage via citizens assemblies and other mechanisms where possible in the interim. But to do nothing isn’t an option. The system isn’t working, Labiur promised ‘change’ and this is a variant of what that change could look like.
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Greens could have won more seats in Haringey had they wanted to. Candidates are coming in only a couple of hundred votes short in areas where no campaigning has gone on.
Limited Green ambition has likely saved Labour a number of seats in London.
May 8
Haringey results trickling in – only three wards declared, in which the Greens have won every council seat they've stood in.
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Andy Burnham will lead a political party into the next election. Anything other than that would be strategic ineptitude. The Green Party will also evolve.
Reform voters can be won over.
A New Democratic Settlement is close. The case is made. Now for the right moves.
Andy Burnham is the only senior Labour figure with a net positive poll rating amongst the British public.
He is more popular than his party. I met Green and Reform voters in Gorton and Denton who would have voted for him if he was the candidate in the by-election.
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In a different world, as local elections approach, politicians would spend time wondering if the central grant to councils is sufficient.
They’d lament the selling off of council assets over decades.
They’d even think about who should receive contracts from local authorities.
May 6
The Green Party can’t stand up to antisemitism and have no plan for our borders or defence.
Nigel Farage takes £millions from a crypto exile in Thailand, and his party is a clear and present danger to the NHS.
We’re getting on with the job.
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What happened last week should worry us all.
Media publicised a political intervention by the police against the leader of the Green Party. This occurred in the run-up to an election.
In a functioning democracy this would not be allowed to happen.
Just looking over some data ahead of our elections webinar later and Zack Polanski’s net approval rating has fallen by a fairly chunky 14 points over the last week. Still far ahead of Starmer but also puts him now well below the top three of Badenoch, Davey and Farage.
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I've seen it before.
What is actually feared is open democratic politics.
It's oligarchy vs democracy once again.
May 5
I've never seen anything like the shameless attacks against us by other political parties.
Are they really so frightened of our plans for a fairer society and to protect Nature in all its forms??
It just makes us more determined to win.
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I will be voting for @TheGreenParty this week. Why?
1) The Green Party democratically selects candidates.
2) The Green Party supports ending First Past the Post.
3) The Green Party backs taxing the wealthiest in society.
This Thursday polls will open across the country.
Don't miss out on your chance to vote for real hope and real change.
Vote Green on the 7th May 💚
ALT A graphic of cartoon design by Mr Scruff of people with ballot cards with Green crosses in them next to a ballot box with text that reads "vote green! for real hope, real change"
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So, the precedent has been set: high ranking police or army officials can now influence elections by calling out politicians directly in the lead up to voting.
What a disaster for democratic standards in the UK.
Where are the MPs who will speak in defence of democratic norms?
BREAKING: Greens leader Zack Polanski responds to critcisms from Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley:
"‘Everyone in leadership has a responsibility for lowering the temperature at a time of such tension, and I apologise for sharing a tweet in haste. Police responses to emergency situations such as these do need later reflection in the right forums, but I accept that social media is not the appropriate channel for doing so. I have invited Mark Rowley to meet with me to discuss the police response and the wider issues raised in his letter."
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Apr 30
This message undermines the political neutrality of the police.
That the message still stands, and that there hasn’t been a robust response to it across the political spectrum, shows that UK democracy is fragile and under attack.
Apr 30
“Apprehending violent and dangerous criminals is a full contact and messy task which may appear shocking to observers with little experience of policing in the real world.”
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley writes to Zack Polanski.
ALT Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley's letter to Green Party Leader Zack Polanski.
ALT Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley's letter to Green Party Leader Zack Polanski.
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Apr 20
The question that the media refuse to ask: did the Labour leadership knowingly mislead the electorate by not including some policy intentions in the Labour manifesto?
MPs are apparently protected from being misled in Parliament, what protects the public from such dishonesty?
Apr 20
NEW: Keir Starmer unknowingly misled Parliament, his spokesman appears to admit.
“The prime minister would never knowingly mislead Parliament or the public. He's clear, though, that this information should have been provided to Parliament. It should have been provided to him, it should have been provided to other government ministers..
“But he clearly did not have this information - that is the crucial fact - he clearly did not have this information when he previously spoke to Parliament.”
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Apr 19
To get a single piece of New Democratic Settlement legislation passed we will need:
More than three hundred representatives ready to legislate it.
Hundreds of thousands willing to campaign for it.
Millions of voters heading to vote for it.
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