Russell Norton

Professional doomscroller.

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

Please listen to Palestinians on whether or not Zionism is Racism, rather imagining someone who now feels a bit sad because the Greens identified their ideology as racist.

In fact, erasing Palestinians from this entire debate is, itself, racist.

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

The media euphemism that Keir Starmer has ‘vacated his seat’ is an utter travesty. Almost as if he accidentally wafted away on a gust of wind.

Be honest. He u-turned on his promise to stay as an MP, deserted his constituents and his party - for what? To go and make money on the international circuit.

The only thing forensic about him is the chalk outline he has left behind instead of a meaningful legacy. A fitting epitaph to the worst PM in our movements history.

Believe me, it’s not personal in anyway. I wish him well.

But we cannot allow the media and others to sugarcoat just how bad his govt was, by the standards OUR movement expects.

We must have an honest analysis of it it. About the toxic culture it fostered, the behaviour it condoned. One that enabled a small clique to bring back Peter Mandelson into the heart of govt.

To expel thousands of members for no reason. To clamp down on the right to protest. To allow a genocide to unfold and do next to nothing about it.

If we don’t ask ourselves how this happened and why, if we don’t interrogate this sorry chapter - then we are doomed to repeat it.

So no, let’s not sugarcoat his legacy.

[Devutopia @D_Raval]

I support @novaramedia but it needs to be better. I've paid to support it for years and will keep doing so, I think it's essential to the left having a media outlet that can actually compete for attention, not just virtue.

- Scale is the whole point. Novara's left-wing peers have mostly come and gone; Novara has survived and grown into something with real reach, over a million YouTube subscribers, tens of millions of views. The perfectly-curated socialist blog you love that 3,000 people read doesn't move politics. A recognised name that reaches millions can. Zeteo UK might get there eventually. Nothing else is close right now.

- No outlet is perfect, and that's not the standard. The Mail and Sun have never satisfied every reader on every article either. "I don't rate one presenter so I'm done with the whole outlet" isn't a serious critique of a media organisation, it's a mood.

- But the Arday episode isn't that kind of complaint, and it can't be waved away as one bad week. Aaron Bastani has now fully apologised, "professionally I erred, but ethically I really screwed up", and that apology matters. But it followed two earlier attempts that made things worse, and it followed comments (including calling Arday a "con man") made in the middle of a racist media pile-on that ended with a man dead. That sequence, instinct first, correction only under pressure, more than once, is what happens when there's no one in the room whose job is to ask "should we run this" before it runs, not after. Or to question "Is that really an apology?"

- That's the actual fix, and it's structural, not personal. Novara needs an editor or a senior producer who isn't one of the founding "mates" and who can hold a line the outlet is accountable to, the kind of function every professional newsroom has and Novara still visibly doesn't. It also needs more voices, and bigger ones, who aren't part of that original circle; there's a lot of left opinion that's never had a look-in. If Novara already have someone doing this role, I would argue they clearly don't.

- And Aaron specifically needs to decide what he is. Is he a Novara exec, or is he a personal opinion columnist whose hottest takes increasingly get read as Novara's position because the two are fused in the public mind? Trying to be both is the structural flaw sitting underneath this specific failure.

I'm saying this because I want Novara to get stronger, not weaker, the left needs an outlet at this scale to succeed. That means being honest when it falls short, especially when the stakes turn out to be this high.

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Marina Purkiss, "188 articles on this man, Jason Arday, who was not a public figure, over 9 days"

"It was a blood sport for The Telegraph, The Times, The Spectator"

"They have blood on their hands for this man"

"They just thought clickbait was more important"

"The Times even had articles on Jason Arday, that was paid for advertising"

"And I just want to call out Julia Hartley-Brewer, you disgusting vile woman in my opinion for what you posted on social media yesterday"

"She wrote: I'm pretty sure Jason Arday's huge book advance would be enough to cover his funeral costs. Give your money to a more deserving cause"

"What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you"

[Philip Proudfoot @PhilipProudfoot]

You can argue, if you want, that a nuclear deterrent is necessary to keep us “safe” — and many would rightly disagree.

But it is completely false to suggest that arms manufacturing is re-industrialisation and thus “good for the economy” — all evidence suggests spending that same budget amount on education, infrastructure, green transition, or health would be far more economically productive with much more significant fiscal multiplier effects.

The arms industry is highly capital intensive, automated, and has low levels of secondary economic impacts.

22,000 apprenticeships is nothing compared to the jobs that could be created by investing that same amount of money in pretty much any other productive sector.

[Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 NICE 爷爷 @MichaelRosenYes]

One way to do a massacre of a people is to do it slowly, one day at a time, so it doesn’t hit the headlines, doesn’t shock the world, doesn’t force other countries to do any thing and just feeds denials. What massacre? There’s no massacre here, they can say.

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

It is not decent to lie. It is not decent to indulge warmongers. It is not decent to, as happened to Faiza Shaheen, abandon a mother who has devoted her life to beating former Tory leaders in safe seats because she is too left-wing. It is not decent to humiliate a predecessor because it’s expedient to do so. It is not decent to refuse to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, then scrap the two-child benefit cap after caving to internal pressure and to try to take the credit in a resignation speech.

Left Hook by @OliDugmore: Stop calling Keir Starmer a good man

https://t.co/Xq1lYCP3fw

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

This is fascinating to me, because beyond the surface level it illuminates why conservatives are often so full of shit.

The baseline here is that there's a heatwave, and Mamdani asked New Yorkers to adjust their thermostats to help the grid. This is regular practice in red and blue areas of the country. Daniel posts a defiant "I'm not gonna do what mommy tells me!" style post. He surely thinks he's a very clever boy here.

Now if the message is "This is a free country, and I love my AC, and by god it's my house and no government bureaucrat can force me to change", then fine. Sure. But there is no law being proposed here. No police are bursting down your door demanding to check your thermostat. It's a request from a community leader, a polite ask that you engage in a very small pro-social sacrifice.

You would think conservatives would understand the idea that local communities should pull together in times of need. For the 'common good', perhaps. You'd think. And that they'd be happy if no government force was involved, if they could act merely because they had strong moral character and believed in private charitable action.

"Nobody should ever ask anyone to sacrifice for the common good, even if it's just a polite request" is just dipshit nihilism.

But I suspect Daniel doesn't actually believe in those conservative ideas. Or if he does, they're a distant second to the true guiding star of conservative thought: owning the libs. Given the chance to help people or own the libs, conservatives will always own the libs. Given the chance to demonstrate strong principles or own the libs, they'll always abandon the principle to own the libs. The actual philosophy of the right is merely "We hate the left". And it's sad.

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

There’s a lot of talk about Andy Burnham being bad news for the Greens.

But without the Greens taking Gorton and Denton, and battering Labour in the local elections, Burnham would not be on course to become PM on this platform.

Whether he delivers is another question entirely.

[Oli Dugmore @OliDugmore]

Some ideas for the next government

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

Let's just be direct here:

Using the suffering of the Sudanese people to deflect from the West directly facilitating Gaza being wiped from the face of the earth in a genocidal frenzy

is absolutely fucking digusting

and anyone who does it is morally disgraced beyond redemption

[NJ @NoJusticeMTG]

@souljagoyteller no he just did bad things that everyone hated. it wasn't bad comms it was bad policy

[Faiza Shaheen @faizashaheen]

Yes, expect a rewrite of history over the next few weeks…
Starmer’s regime stripped the soul out of the Labour Party. From authoritarianism and enabling genocide to pro-rich anti-working class policies, his downfall was entirely self-inflicted and deserved.
The thing is, some of his enablers and supporters will still hold senior positions under Burnham. And they assume we will forget.

[Jen Wood - est optimum simpliciter @unojen_wood]

So if France rocked over to the UK, demanded on threat of death that towns and villages 'evacuated' so they could be bombed to smithereens and then called it self defence and a 'buffer zone' everyone would be ok with that? No?, then why are they ok with what Israel are doing.

[Double Down News @DoubleDownNews]

"Tommy Robinson could have organised his demo on any weekend, but chose a day coinciding with the annual Nakba Day march.

Rather than push for date of Robinson march to be changed, Met Police ordered the route of Nakba march to be moved.

To allow tens of thousands of Robinson's supporters, who have track record of violence, to descend on London the same day as a peaceful anti-genocide march is an act of gross irresponsibility on the part of the Met"

@PulaRJS

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

2/ Israel's abuses against Palestinians did not begin on October 7. Sexual violence against Palestinians has been documented since the very foundation of the Israeli state, but this is nothing the NYT spoke about – so far.
https://t.co/9W7LBBVnbR

[Rabbi David Mivasair @RabbiMivasair]

You have to do better with that brand new $1 billion CAD propaganda budget.
Arabs rejected the "two-state solution" in 1947 because it gave 55% of the land to the Jews who at that time owned only 7%.
Arab armies "invaded" only after months of Jewish terror depopulating dozens of Palestinian villages and neighbourhoods.
Doesn't everyone know that by now?
Read "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

On the 78th Anniversary of the Nakba – 15 May 2026

Seventy-eight years ago, Britain committed one of the most catastrophic acts of colonial injustice in modern history. With the stroke of a pen, the British government disposed of a land it had no right to give – uprooting an entire people from their homes, their soil, and their heritage to install a project built on displacement, exclusion, and dispossession.

The Nakba was no accident of war; it was a deliberate, calculated campaign of erasure. Hundreds of villages were demolished. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were driven from everything they had ever known.

Britain bears a historic and moral responsibility for this foundational crime – a responsibility it has never acknowledged, never atoned for, and never answered. Today, we name it plainly: what Britain inflicted upon the Palestinian people was a crime, and history will not allow it to be forgotten.

Yet, the crime did not end in 1948. The world’s governments, institutions, and international bodies chose complicity. For nearly eight decades, the international community has legitimised a regime built on stolen land, suppressed Palestinian resistance at every turn, and shielded Israel from accountability. They looked away – or actively enabled the oppressor – as war crime followed war crime.

The occupation deepened. Settlements expanded. The blockade tightened. The apartheid wall grew in length and height.

Now, before the eyes of the entire world, Gaza faces a genocide – a systematic campaign to destroy a people. Children are bombed in hospitals and schools. Families are starved by design as a weapon of war. An entire civilisation is being dismantled in real time. The collusion of world powers in this ongoing catastrophe does not merely dishonour them; it makes them active accomplices in every crime committed since the first.

And yet, Palestine endures. Through every massacre and siege, through expulsion, imprisonment, and collective punishment, through seventy-eight years of unrelenting assault on their very existence, the Palestinian people have never surrendered – and they never will.

Generation after generation has carried the flame: from those who fled with the keys to their homes in 1948, to the children of Gaza who today stand amidst the rubble and declare that they are still here. This is more than resilience; it is one of the most extraordinary acts of collective resistance in human history.

The Palestinian people have taught the world what it means to refuse to disappear. They will not be erased. They will not be silenced. And they will not rest until every inch of their land is free and every right is restored – fully, unconditionally, and without compromise.

The tide has turned, and the world knows it. The Zionist project, sustained for decades by propaganda, intimidation, and the suppression of truth, is losing its grip on the global conscience. Millions across every continent have taken to the streets. Students have risen on university campuses from London to Los Angeles. Artists, academics, lawyers, and doctors are raising their voices, and international courts have opened investigations.

The mask has been torn away, exposing the reality beneath: an apartheid regime, a colonial enterprise, and a system of terror and control that has no place in the modern world. The narrative that once protected Israel from scrutiny is collapsing. The impunity that shielded it from consequence is eroding. The end of the Zionist project as a viable political reality is no longer unthinkable; for the first time, it is inevitable.

On this 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the Global Alliance for Palestine makes this unshakeable pledge: we will not rest. We will not be silent. We will not be bought, intimidated, or deterred. We stand in full, unconditional solidarity with every campaign, movement, and act of resistance – legal, moral, cultural, and political – that advances the cause of Palestinian liberation anywhere on earth.

We will work without pause until the dream that has sustained an entire people across three generations becomes reality: a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. Full rights, full dignity, and full justice will be restored to every Palestinian – those living under occupation, those displaced in the diaspora, and those who gave their lives so that others might one day be free. https://t.co/nUI3OpUTup

The Nakba is not history; it is an ongoing wound. And we will not stop until it is healed.

Global Alliance for Palestine

15 May 2026

[State of Palestine @Palestine_UN]

78 years of ongoing Nakba.
78 years of erasure.

Against all odds, we remain on our land and the land of our ancestors.

Return is our right.
Freedom is our destiny.

On May 15, join the Palestinian people in commemorating the Nakba.

#NAKBA78

🎥 PAL Global Echo