Amanda German

Glass artist, glass tutor and dog lover. “Creativity is contagious, pass it on” – Albert Einstein. Etsy shop: AmandaGermanGallery

[Compassion in World Farming UK @ciwf]

Don't let anyone fool you! Plans to farm octopus must be stopped.

Nueva Pescanova applied to the Las Palmas Port Authority to build the world's first commercial octopus farm. Tell the port authority to close the application: https://t.co/KrAfWJGpiv

[Turkish Archives @TurkishArc]

James Henderson, a former Royal Marine, was murdered by the IDF while carrying food to children in Gaza.

His fiancée said of him: “We want to keep his memory alive for as long as we possibly can.”

Remember his name.

[We Own It @We_OwnIt]

The pressure's building on Thames Water in Parliament. Last week many MPs were calling for special administration.

Now 16 MPs (so far) from across the political spectrum are demanding that it be taken into public ownership.

Every MP, of every party, should be putting their name to this.

https://t.co/6ZmJNX0w32

[NewsCord @newscord_org]

The lengths they are going through to ensure a relatively tiny deal (for Palantir’s scale) is made is very telling that this is not just a normal contract, it’s the harvesting of the public’s data to further enhance their war machines.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Govts handing NHS to private equity (PE).

Eyecare contracts handed to PE backed firms, profit margins of 32% to 43% from NHS work.

Profiteering means less available for NHS services.

NHS capacity not expanded, permanent dependence on private providers.
https://t.co/I0XaUBp0QC

[Sovereign Media @sov_media]

UK POLICE GRANT FREE PASS TO SALE OF STOLEN PALESTINIAN LAND IN LONDON

London's Metropolitan Police have confirmed they will not investigate the "Great Isr*eli Real Estate Event," held at the Edgware United Synagogue in North London, despite clear evidence that the event marketed land in illegal Isr*eli West Bank settlements directly to British buyers.

While the UK government officially classifies these settlements as a violation of international law, the Met Police has opted to bury the referrals within a generic pile of "Isr*el-H*mas conflict" cases.

By doing so, they have effectively granted those facilitating the annexation of P*lestinian land a free pass from criminal scrutiny.

This failure follows a performative referral from the UK's Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper to the Advertising Standards Authority, a move that human rights organisation Amnesty International dubbed a "ridiculous gimmick."

While the UK government claims to oppose settlement expansion in its official rhetoric, its refusal to enforce its own laws on British soil serves as a clear, tacit endorsement of the apartheid project. This confirms once more that imperial interests consistently trump international law and basic human rights.

This reflects how, when it comes to the colonisation of P*lestinian territory, the British state will choose to protect colonial expansion over justice.

[Steve Sweeney @SweeneySteve]

Almost one year ago I was detained on arrival in London immediately after landing on a flight from Beirut. I was held for hours, interrogated, had my DNA taken and my electronic devices seized.

I was told that I was under investigation for potential terror-related activities, linked to my work as a journalist in countries deemed unpalatable to the British state.

Others including @georgegalloway and @richimedhurst have been subjected to similar treatment. One year on and I’m still living in exile from my own country and in reality I am never likely to be able to return with the threat of a prison sentence looming over me.

Full solidarity with @loffredojeremy the latest victim of the increasingly authoritarian British state which allows IDF soldiers and those that have fought against Russia in Ukraine to enter freely, while targeting those who stand against imperialist wars and genocide.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Keir Starmer was not merely a disappointment. He is a mendacious figure of ethical decrepitude, a man who won the Labour Party leadership based on promises that he jettisoned five seconds after winning - a Labour leader who dared banish from the Labour Party not only his predecessor but also remarkable human beings like director Ken Loach - the gentleman who has taken the historic Labour Party and transformed it into a vessel for the very oligarchy it was elected to restrain.

Consider the litany of Starmer’s moral and logical failures. He promised a 'different Britain', yet his actions were a masterclass in Tory-lite politics—using the same maxed-out credit card analogies that once served the austerity brigades to justify his own failure of vision. He promised a human rights lawyer’s approach but he embraced a racist-lite version of Farage.

On Europe, Starmer promised Brexiteers that Brexit is Brexit yet stood before those who yearn to rejoin the European Union, winked at them to make them feel that Britain would gradually reconnect, even rejoin, with the EU while offering nothing of substance. This is not leadership; it is a fraud.

And then there's the manner in which Starmer and his government rushed to offer Israel unequivocal support in pursuing its genocide in Gaza, sacrificing precious political and civil liberties in the UK by imprisoning grandmothers, priests and peaceful activists who dared support Palestine Action, an organisation that Starmer and his minions proscribed as terrorists for practising the usual activist tactics of trespassing to spray paint military planes that had demonstrably aided in the genocide. To add insult to injury, Starmer performed the diplomatic pantomime of recognising a Palestinian state, in a manner that ensured it would never happen.

But above all else, this is a government that has learned nothing from the post-2008 era. Starmer and his Chancellor are playing the same tired austerity game while enabling and empowering the Finance Curse perpetrated by the City of London, throwing in forgood measure cuts in international aid to fund a military spending trickle under the guise of a "Strategic Defence Review" . It is the same old doctrine: austerity for the masses, socialism for the financiers and the arms dealers.

History will remember Mr Starmer as a man without conviction, a Prime Minister who offers not a shred of honesty, but merely the cruel illusion of change. He is ethically decrepit because he had chosen, consciously, to abandon principle for power. And for that, history will indict him. Good riddance, I say.

https://t.co/sGfebPkDXR

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Every British PM’s nightmare

With Keir Starmer expected to fall on his sword shortly, here is my take on the conundrum facing Andy Burnham, indeed any and every British PM.

The true nature of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States has far more to do with American financiers’ willingness to keep borrowing to purchase British government debt than with history, culture or Britain’s defence needs. This is the burden under which every UK Prime Minister must labour.

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit”. The same could be said of prospective British prime ministers, especially after Liz Truss's spectacular defenestration. They all have a plan until the guilt market hits them. Andy Burnham, Nigel Farage, my friend Zack Polanski will have to face this, if they ever move into 10 Downing Street. I think they know it. But I doubt whether they appreciate the true magnitude or nature of their predicament.

Conventional wisdom has it that the bond market comprises people looking to invest their savings in a government's debt. They seek the right balance between a higher interest rate and the increased risk this implies. For example, higher bond yields may signal that the market expects future inflation to reduce the value of the fixed interest payments that their bonds will yield. Worse still, it may foreshadow a risk of government default, as occurred in Argentina and Greece.

That’s more or less what first year economics and finance students are taught. And it’s all true. Except that, in the case of the United Kingdom, this story misses the most fascinating and worrying aspect of its government bond or gilt market: The British government’s ability to refinance its public debt of almost 3 trillion pounds does not depend on savers choosing to invest in gilts. In fact, the British government’s ability to sell gilts hinges heavily on the willingness of numerous US-based financial institutions to borrow substantial sums of dollars to purchase British gilts, which they then use as collateral to borrow for their own purposes within the US.

And there’s the rub. There is a world of difference between needing to borrow from savers and from relying on speculators who borrow themselves to lend you. Savers who lend to you focus on your long-term ability to repay them. They may tolerate your desire to make infrastructural investments that could increase your debt in the short term, in return for future profits that will help you repay them when their bonds expire. However, speculators who borrow in order to lend are a different beast entirely. They are much jumpier and prone to margin calls: situations where, if the bonds they purchased from you begin to lose value, fearing they will not be able to repay their own creditors, they dump your bonds thus turning their decline into a crash.

The question arises: Why are British bonds, or gilts, so much more reliant on American speculators borrowing money to buy them than German bunds, Japanese bonds, Italian bonds or Greek bonds? Why does every British government rely so heavily on American leveraged capital inflows?

It all started in the 1950s when the City of London discovered how to avoid following the British Empire down the road to oblivion. The trick was to carve out a niche for the City within the emerging dollar empire, which was institutionalised within the Bretton Woods system. American financiers faced rigid capital controls within that system, but the City of London was able to alleviate these due to three invaluable features.

First, London’s trading expertise and legal system offered American financiers efficiency with immunity from all sort of interventions, including democratic accountability. Secondly, Britain’s network of offshore jurisdictions offered fabulous tax-minimisation opportunities. And, thirdly, London quickly became the holding depository of a torrent of petrodollars and eurodollars, not to mention the shadowy dollars created outside the United States by foreign bankers.

Thus, the Great British paradox: while the UK's real economy was in decline, the City of London was flourishing. When the Bretton Woods system collapsed in the 1970s, American financiers discovered another use for the City: they borrowed dollars in the US short-term to buy long-term UK government gilts, which they then sold quickly to repay their loans. They would then repeat this process again and again to profit handsomely. This is how the British government became reliant on leveraged US institutions. In order to continue operating as usual, London today requires American balance sheets that are willing to expand through borrowing and use British gilts as collateral in order to maintain liquidity in the US.

Put differently, the flipside of the City’s success story is that, even though it borrows in a currency that it prints, the UK is not financially sovereign. Yes, the City occupies a strategically important position within the global dollar system but the price for this is that the UK government’s sovereignty is circumscribed by its priority to maintain the City’s central position in American finance. While this remains the priority, the occupant of 10 Downing Street is like the captain whose powers are limited to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Is there an alternative to this peculiar form of financial subservience to US-based leveraged financiers? Yes, but it requires a willingness to accept a falling pound and falling house prices while increasing public investment through a new investment bank that issues bonds supported by the Bank of England.

Any Prime Minister who tries to maintain Britain’s financial servitude to US capital while also investing in public goods may well put Britain on a path towards the IMF, whose sole purpose, lest we forget, is to create the political leverage that will bring about – like it did in Greece – the permanent loss of sovereignty over tax and spending policy. The question is: Do the current contenders for Britain’s top job understand this?

https://t.co/xGrWjjcudY

[Double Down News @DoubleDownNews]

BREAKING: Keir Starmer Resigns

Media sold Starmer as 'forensic, decent & capable' PM. He was NEVER that as we made clear yrs ago:

"Starmer is a LIAR in charge of a brutal, authoritarian, inhuman political machine but you wouldn't know about that if you read or watched UK media"

[Georgie #pigoneer 🐖🐽🌱 close all sea 🌎 🐬🐋🦈🐳 @GeorginaMangan4]

Come on animal lovers everywhere- 🆘🙏 thus far about 400 donators have raised 20k - but realistically we need several thousand people to each give a tenner or whatever they can afford. There’s more than 400 animal lovers on here, surely? #SavetheBoarBarn #SavetheBoarsLives 👇🐗

[Earth-ed @Animalww26]

Animal life on Earth has been reduced by 70% in the last 50 years, and the fact that this is not talked about enough is sickening.

[Rachida Benamar🐝 @ramapublishing]

Boycott Israeli produce day and night. We can't stop the b*mbs from falling on innocent people but we can starve them economically. #boycotttisraeliproducts

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Left: Laura Kuenssberg, "Former Cabinet Secretary Lord Simon Case explains the cost of political chaos"

Right: Case was meant to be investigating the parties in Downing Street during covid restrictions, except, he was actually attending some of them 🤷‍♂️

His "reward" for breaching the rules? To be made a life peer as Baron Case of Fairford, introduced to the House of Lords on July 22, 2025

[͏b͏l͏a͏n͏c @dqveed]

They’re charging people who were trying to bring children food with the death penalty but yeah totally not Nazi Germany 2.0

[Saul Staniforth @SaulStaniforth]

"Can you understand why people who work in health don't.. want to partner with a company that helps deliver death"

Louis Mosley doesn't see any contradiction between working in healthcare at the same time as helping Israel slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinian kids.

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Former CEO of Pennon, owner of South West Water, got £270,000 bonus after parasite outbreak that contaminated drinking water.

SWW dumps sewage in rivers, fleeces customers, neglects investment.

OFWAT didn't stop the bonus.

Let customers vote on exec pay
https://t.co/odlPmzeQ93

[Animal Justice @AnimalJustice]

🐴💔 ANOTHER SHIPMENT: This week, more terrified horses were loaded into wooden crates & exported from Canada to Japan for slaughter.

During these gruelling journeys, horses are denied food, water, & rest until they reach their destination. Injuries & deaths are common.

Tell the government to keep its promise & BAN this cruelty now ➡️ https://t.co/VL5LN5hNBE

#CdnPoli

[Alex Ⓥ #pigoneer 𓃟 🌱 @InfiniteRadar]

Gandalf & his fellow boars were rescued from a hellhole farm, then saved from a cull 🙏🐷

But their rented home of 6 years is being sold.

£20,000+ now raised to help @BTWsanctuary buy the barn – but more urgently needed!

Please donate what you can ⬇️
https://t.co/3GeEzUa99a

[Masu Zafi 🔥🔥 @masuzafi]

📢📢Raw. Unfiltered.
The reality that too many still refuse to see.
If after watching this you can still defend what’s happening in Gaza… then the word “humanity” has officially lost all meaning.
Watch it to the end. Let every frame hit you.
Then come back and tell me who crossed the line?