Melissa Biro

Londoner, European, leftie. Fond of cats and laughter. Care about justice, equality and kindness. I'm now also elsewhere: @melbiro.bsky.social

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

A big tick for London, then!

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

Sure, these rankings are kinda silly but I must say that raising kids in Melbourne indeed feels pretty good. Source: https://t.co/X4FlWypE3f

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

By their giving shall ye judge them ( as maybe nobody actually said). But I'm definitely judging

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

The chart ranks billionaires by their lifetime donations divided by their current networth (2024 data). Soros gave away heaps more than he is worth at present. To what causes billionaires give probably matters to you too. Source: https://t.co/LBM3qfJkjM

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@MbarkCherguia A tree

[GET A GRIP @docrussjackson]

Chris Mason’s inadvertently revealing @BBC piece on Starmer’s “dire” predicament is textbook Westminster insider journalism: mood, metaphor, anonymous sourcing, and ticking-clock drama frame the PM as uniquely exposed after McSweeney’s resignation.

McSweeney is lionised as the indispensable technocratic operator who “got us here,” delivered the #GE2024 landslide and acted as a protective “lightning conductor.”

Starmer, by contrast, is subtly diminished as a late entrant who “travels light ideologically” (code for thin conviction and over-reliance on elite machinery rather than political depth or vision). The implied tragedy is not governing failure, but the squandering of electoral success through personal misjudgement and the loss of sharp operatives.

Crisis is then ratcheted up through doom-laden language, dramatic metaphors and a manufactured sense of unanimity, turning insider anxiety into an apparent party-wide verdict of impending collapse.

Countervailing facts such as Starmer’s mandate, his resolve, and international standing are briefly acknowledged, then sidelined, overwhelmed by a narrative in which politics becomes Westminster soap opera: elite missteps, personalities and parliamentary mechanics crowd out policy substance or structural constraints.

Perhaps most revealing are the omissions. There is almost no engagement with governing choices, no serious attempt to explain why the Mandelson appointment angered people beyond optics, no mention of Palantir contracts, and no analysis of whether any of this turbulence matters outside SW1.

Power is reduced to position and atmosphere among elites, with the public cast as a passive audience simply reacting to Westminster drama.

Most strikingly, Mason never even mentions #Epstein. By reducing the Mandelson controversy to vague “misjudgement” and “lies,” the article depoliticises a global scandal about elite networks, vetting, and sexual abuse, reframing it instead as an internal mood crisis and a test of Starmer’s personal resilience.

All this while maintaining @BBC surface impartiality. The relentless focus on insider sentiment and technocratic competence privileges Westminster drama over governing substance, reinforcing perceptions of Starmer’s fragility rather than neutrally observing them.

Politics, in this telling, has fuck-all to do with issues that shape our lives, such as inequality, migration, media power, housing, the cost of living, taxation, or public services. It is reduced to something that happens primarily among elites, which the public then reacts to later.

From the perspective of the Masons, Kuennssbergs, Pestons and Rigbys of this world, ‘the political is personnel’.

Whereas second-wave feminism insisted that the ‘personal is political’ (that lived experience reveals underlying structures of power requiring collective solutions) my inverted aphorism names a different reality: politics is interpreted through individual competence, appointments, and elite manoeuvring, while the structural forces shaping people’s lives are relegated to background noise.

This reflects the deeper victory of a neoliberal rationality that privileges competitive individualism and elite managerial skill over collective solidarity, structural explanation, and shared purpose.

Westminster journalism doesn’t just report this worldview, it helps manufacture and sustain it, rendering structural politics unintelligible and collective alternatives invisible, while elite personalities and appointments pass for politics itself.

#Starmer #Mandelson #EpsteinFiles #Palantir

https://t.co/bL7sIc4OfE

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

Looking at this map, it took me a while to figure out what the price-to-income ratio actually shows. Only then did I see what’s going on in Portugal!

[Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya د.حسام أبو صفية @HussamAbuSafiya]

A year has passed since the detention of my father,
In this white coat, he walked alone amidst death, destruction, and in front of tanks—not because he was fearless, but because his oath and his humanity were greater than any fear. He refused to abandon the children and the wounded at Hospital , and for that, he was detained.
This image is a testament to the courage of the man who was the last line of defense for life, and it is the very same scene that ended with his unjust arrest.
A full year of injustice has passed. Today, we ask for nothing but his freedom. Please share his story to keep his voice alive.

[dave lawrence 🐟🐟🐠 @dave43law]

This is the reality that the Tories want you to desperately forget

THEY literally GAVE AWAY more than Reeves has had to find extea in 2 Budgets

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@narindertweets Because she can. The first question should always be 'what evidence do you have?'. Let's get into the habit, instead of always shouting

[☕️Carol Hedges 💙💛(also at @caroljhedges) @riotgrandma72]

😧😧😧😧😧😧😧
One rule for them ….
Utterly pissed off with a woman whom the Ethics Adviser says acted with ‘integrity’ resigning her job while these Reform UK feckers get away with exploiting and getting away with it!
When will THEY be held to the same (or any) standard?

[Owen Jones @owenjonesjourno]

Israel’s own military database indicates that only a quarter of Gaza detainees are fighters.

Civilians are the vast majority, facing extreme torture, hunger, rape, and violent deaths.

These are Palestinian hostages.

https://t.co/HvnaaeaU1m

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

Lovely thoughts of a terrific old person!

[Christopher C. Leon @Christcleon]

This is rather lovely. And I’m relieved to see it is NOT being posted in memoriam - that Ms Routledge is still with us at 96.

She doesn’t mention at which point she recorded her audiobook reading of Wuthering Heights, but it’s one of the towering performances in the medium.

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@Miatsf Is London perfect? Nope. Is there crime? Of course there is. But is it a brilliant, dynamic, exciting, mostly friendly place to live? It absolutely is.

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

Absolutely right.

[Miatta Fahnbulleh @Miatsf]

Scroll your phone and you’ll see a London of fear and decline.

Walk its streets and you’ll find a city where difference is a strength and communities look out for one another.

The reality will outlast the fiction.

[Jessica Simor KC @JMPSimor]

I simply do not understand how we have returned to a time when someone’s nationality or ‘race’ is considered to be a matter of public interest/relevance when it comes to the commission of a crime? It is sinister.

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

I've always thought US security was just extreme dick- swinging. Ludicrous!

[John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews]

JD Vance’s security entourage in the Cotswolds is huge. By comparison, when the late Queen travelled round the UK she usually went by train. She and her companions would have 4 seats in a 1st-class carriage, plus 2 more for her detectives, leaving the rest of the carriage for the public — who were always stunned to see her with so little security.

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@RhonddaBryant How absolutely shameful!

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@catshealdeprsn Falafel!

[Melissa Biro @melbiro]

@MartinKnight_ Lovely story. I grew up in those times too. And there are still lovely people willing to go a long way for others: in my case, a young man cycled 17 miles to bring me my phone (its cover containing cash, credit cards, driving licence etc) fell off the roof of my car.