steve kelshaw

[steve kelshaw @kel17]

#MoreinCommon
#Llanelli

[Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov]

Just so we're clear, one incident of alleged anti-semitism by a musician = a major national scandal that should be roundly condemned

Multiple incidents of alleged anti-semitism from the man leading the race to run the country = a load of nothing that should be completely ignored

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

I’ve held back from commenting on the revelations about Nigel Farage’s past racism. Not because the story shocked me. For many in this country, it merely confirms what we’ve suspected for years. But some will be hearing these allegations for the first time, and it’s to you that I want to speak.

Most of us have said or done things when we were young that we look back on with regret. That’s part of growing up. We make mistakes, we cringe at our former selves, we learn, we change. Some of those early attitudes fall away. Others become the foundations of who we later become.

What’s now emerging about Nigel Farage isn’t a single stupid comment or one heated moment. Former classmates are describing a pattern of behaviour. Not just a bully. A racist bully of the ugliest kind.

That doesn’t automatically mean he holds every one of those views today. But look at his politics. Look at his rhetoric. Look at the company he keeps and the division he trades in. It paints a picture of a man whose worldview didn’t appear to grow out of those foundations, but grew from them.

So what does that mean now?

If you already oppose Farage, this only hardens your resolve. If you adore him, nothing I say will shift you. But there’s a group of people I do want to reach: those considering voting Reform.

I’m not going to patronise you. I understand why many are thinking about it. If you’ve watched your pay stall, your bills rise, your community decline, and your politicians shrug for years, you might well think: what have I got to lose? Why not give the system a kick? Why not try something different?

And you may feel the country has taken a wrong turn. That we’ve lost something precious and need to put it right.

Those instincts aren’t wicked. They aren’t racist. They come from frustration, disappointment, and a desire for dignity and control in your own life.

But here’s the truth that cannot be dodged. Most people in this country are good, decent, fair-minded. They don’t want to see hate imported into the heart of their politics. They don’t want their children growing up in a country defined by fear and division.

So ask yourself this, quietly and honestly: is Nigel Farage a changed man? Has he shown any sign that he regrets the person he was? Or has he built a career by sharpening those same instincts into a political weapon?

Because if he hasn’t changed, then every vote for Farage isn’t a protest. It’s permission. It hands real power to a man whose teenage cruelty seems less like a phase and more like a blueprint.

This country is far from perfect, but it is worth fighting for. And once a politics of hatred takes root at the top, a country doesn’t easily come back from it.

You know this in your gut. We all do.

Nigel Farage is not fit to lead this country. A vote for him, or for those who still cheer the views he held as a teenager, would stain the country we love with something we may never fully wash away.

And to the Reform diehards who will now pile into the comments with abuse: crack on. You’ll only prove the point.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

NEW: Important thread from @thenerve_news with key WhatsApp evidence & videos from Nathan Gill hearing now sentenced to 10 & half years in prison
👇

[steve kelshaw @kel17]

Hey #Bristol

I have a spare ticket for tonight.

Free if your skint or a donation to @hopenothate

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

NEW: The British politician, his Russian intelligence handler & a Kremlin plot against the US & Ukraine.

My new piece about Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage for @thenerve_news in which we ask:

Why, even now, is no-one asking questions?

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

My colleagues & I have taken a huge gamble to set up @thenerve_news. We’re trying to build a new independent publication from the ground up. Social media is our only distribution for now.

Sharing this article in your networks would make a huge difference. Thank you! 🙏🙏🙏

[Nick Lowles @lowles_nick]

This is the foul mouth extremist who an Israeli government minister and speaker of their parliament is inviting to Israel.

No wonder British Jewish communal organisations have strongly spoken out against the invite

[Sayeeda Warsi @SayeedaWarsi]

The Israeli Minister inviting Tommy Robinson a man with multiple convictions for violence and fraud to Israel in response to the horrific Manchester attack.
Let that sink in.😳
At a time all communities in the UK are uniting to support our Jewish community as they grieve, the State of Israel is sowing division in our country, supporting and promoting those that platform hate and making our country unsafe.
It’s time for all right thinking people to call out this irresponsible and deeply dangerous behaviour from Israel.

[steve kelshaw @kel17]

Diolch @DyfedPowys @cyngorsirgar for joining us in #llanelli to celebrate UN Peace Day

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

Believe it or not, I had an old school friend on today’s marches in London. He sent me some photos from the crowd.

We went to middle school together and grew up on the same Eastern District council estate in Northampton.

I asked him why he was there. He gave me two answers:
1.“The government doesn’t listen to us.”
2.“I want to feel proud of my country again.”

He wore a Union Jack, not a St George’s Cross as he said that one had been hijacked by racists.

He wasn’t there for Hopkins, Musk, or any of the professional ‘grifters’ as he put it. He was there to feel part of something bigger, though he admitted there were a lot of, in his words, “assholes” there.

He’s an electrician. He’s smart. He’s not racist, but he’s not “PC” either. He’s not a fan of Keir Starmer but he also believes Farage would be a disaster.

Oh yes, he’s a bundle of contradictions! But aren’t we all?

I don’t know what ‘box’ we put him or the millions like him in. And I think pretending they’re all racists or fascists would be a massive mistake.

Some were. But not all.

This is about something bigger than immigration slogans or GDP numbers. For decades we’ve hollowed out our national life, underfunding and undermining the very institutions that once brought us together.

Karl Polanyi, writing in The Great Transformation, argued that when markets are “disembodied” from society, when land, labour, and life itself are treated as commodities
society pushes back. He called this the “double movement”: people seeking to protect themselves, to reclaim dignity and meaning when everything solid seems to melt into air.

That’s what I saw in my friend’s photos. Not just anger, but a demand for belonging.

We’ve replaced collective experience with atomisation. Without getting too nostalgic, programmes like the BBC’s Generation Game once pulled in millions every Saturday night, giving us something we could all talk about on Monday morning. Now we watch Netflix, Disney+, Prime, or Paramount, alone, in algorithmic silos.

Football used to be affordable and rooted in community; now it’s millionaires playing for the profitability of billionaires. The NHS, the post office, the railways - all chipped away, run down, sold off or centralised, leaving people feeling powerless and disconnected.

And don’t get me wrong: some kind of “Hovis Labour” nostalgia for the 1950s isn’t the answer. The country back then was often intolerant, grey, and deeply unequal. But what we’ve built since is a society that gives people little to hold in common, no collective story about who we are or what we’re for.

I reckon that’s partly why my mate marched. Not because he wants to turn back the clock. But because he wants to feel pride again. Pride in a country that is inclusive, fair, and offers a role for everyone. Pride in a nation that has a respected place in the world, tackles grotesque inequality, and gives people something real to believe in.

Polanyi warned that when democracies fail to provide a humane alternative, the backlash can turn authoritarian. This is how fascism grew in the 1930s, not because everyone became a true believer, but because millions felt abandoned and looked for strength, identity, and meaning wherever they could find it.

If Labour and progressives don’t offer that story of renewal, if we don’t rebuild our national institutions, restore collective pride, and re-embed markets within society, the far right will do it for us, in their own image.

And by then, it will be too late.

[HOPE not hate @hopenothate]

There is nothing wrong, or racist, about flying the flag of your country, but the organisers behind Operation Raise the Colours are hardened and extreme far-right activists. @RestIsPolitics

[Sayeeda Warsi @SayeedaWarsi]

With famine officially declared in Gaza today and the Israeli defence minister threatening to unleash hell, today feels like a particularly hopeless moment.
Yet even in these dark times we can all find a way to do something - please donate to @MedicalAidPal
There will be a reckoning for this awful period , where the powerful failed the Palestinians.
This Israel government, its cheerleaders in Israel and across the world will one day be held to account for the appalling violence and abuse inflicted upon a whole population.
So keep speaking out, keep documenting and amplifying the human rights abuses, keep demanding a ceasefire,
call out the genocide and those enabling it
Keep demanding a stop to all arms sales to Israel, and demand an immediate start to humanitarian aid.
Always choose hope.

[steve kelshaw @kel17]

@mhdksafa

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

I once got into a conversation about Israel with the late great @BZephaniah Prof Benjamin Zephaniah. At one point, I was burbling on about Balfour, and the Middle East as the West sees it... and he laughed and said, 'It's racism, isn't it?'

[Maria Popova @themarginalian]

"Things take the time they take. Don't worry."

Mary Oliver on how to live with maximum aliveness https://t.co/NKOJbDDKkn

[Gordon Brown @GordonBrown]

Time to tax the highly profitable gambling industry to pay for action on child poverty.

Gambling will not build a Britain for the future but children free of poverty will.

https://t.co/Foqzx47yza

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Every single day, starving innocents are being massacred. How many more thousands have to die before our Western governments take firm action?

At least 32 Palestinians killed in Gaza as IDF fires on crowds seeking food. Witnesses say scenes near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid hubs in the south of the territory resembled a massacre
https://t.co/h8jDL53k73

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

Still in a state of shock how little attention this story has received.