Matthew Pencharz

Government Affairs Director @ Tarmac
Trustee @ Centre for London
Recovered Deputy Mayor of London & journalist

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

My piece @OnLondon on why we need #LTNs and will grow to like them. https://t.co/CsgH3xahFK

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@AaronBastani @lewis_goodall It’s a classic of the present working to cancel the future.
See also rows over the Brockwell Park concerts, Wimbledon extension etc, and almost very single development anywhere.
And we wonder why we’re getting poorer every single day.

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@dcsandbrook @bookclubpodhq But where is Brideshead Revisited and Dune (my faves) both of which I hope you’ll do.

[Nick Cohen @NickCohen4]

"End the Zionist Occupation of Britain" on the far right
"Globalise the Intifada" on the far left
If the horseshoe fits...

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@crubba @wallaceme And what about this City of London dragon on south side of London Bridge? Doesn’t that mark the beginning of the City @BBCTomEdwards ?

[Modernism in Metroland @mod_in_metro]

Cockfosters Underground Station

1933

Charles Holden

[Simone Rodan-Benzaquen @srodan]

There is a claim that keeps circulating, presented as sophisticated analysis: antisemitic violence is caused by Israel’s actions. If Israel behaved differently, Jewish communities around the world would somehow be safer. This argument is not analysis. It is a moral inversion. And it collapses the moment you apply it consistently.
When China imprisons Uyghurs, does anyone warn Muslim communities in Paris to expect attacks? When Russia invaded Ukraine, did anyone tell Russian restaurants to brace for violence? No. Never. The causal chain between a government’s actions and violence against a diaspora is only ever constructed for Jews. Every other minority is extended the basic moral courtesy of being treated as individuals rather than proxies.
Now look at what the data actually shows. The SPCJ, which tracks antisemitic incidents in France in coordination with the Interior Ministry, has documented a consistent and damning pattern: it is antisemitic violence that inspires more antisemitic violence, not Israeli policy. After Mohamed Merah murdered Jewish children at point-blank range at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse in 2012, antisemitic acts surged by 200%. There was no Gaza operation. No Israeli military action. The massacre of Jews in France produced more attacks on Jews in France.
The same logic held after the Hypercacher attack in January 2015: antisemitic acts increased by nearly 300%. Massacres of Jews do not shock antisemites into restraint. They embolden them. They signal impunity. They normalize hatred. And everyone in a position of responsibility knows it.
Which brings us to October 7. From the day of the Hamas attack, antisemitic acts in France increased by over 1,000%. A daily average of approximately 25 antisemitic acts was recorded in the 30 days that followed, reaching nearly 40 on some days. In the three months after the attack, the number of antisemitic acts equaled those recorded over the previous three years combined.
And here is another detail that makes the “Israel causes antisemitism” argument impossible to sustain: the spike began on October 7 itself, the very day of the attack. Israel had not yet responded. Not a single soldier had entered Gaza. Interior Minister Darmanin sent an urgent message to prefects that same day asking them to immediately reinforce protection of Jewish community sites. Synagogues. Schools. Community centers. By October 10, 10,000 police officers had been deployed to protect 500 Jewish sites across the country.
Before any Israeli response existed, the French government already knew that Jewish communities needed protecting. Not because of what Israel was about to do. Because of what had just been done to Jews.
Antisemitic violence has one cause. Antisemitism.

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

Let us hope and pray this isn’t the case.

[Independent Voices @IndyVoices]

The golden age of Jewish life is over – antisemitism is here to stay | Ben Judah (@b_judah) https://t.co/gbiNaN7umD

[Tom Holland @holland_tom]

It’s all too clear that a country in which Jews are attacked on the streets simply because they are Jewish, synagogues need to employ security, & anti-Semitic slogans & images are paraded through city centres or exhibited in art galleries is exactly what we’ve become.

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@gustav0cardenas @MrTCHarris You mean Capricorn One wasn’t a documentary?

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@dcsandbrook @bookclubpodhq Loved this episode-especially dæmon banter.
When Hollywood film came out they had a website that told you your dæmon after answering some questions.
I hope mine would be a lion. But it was a a - err - snow rabbit. 🙄

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

Spied @holland_tom at the @TheRoyalOpera last night seeing Wagner's Siegfried.
Not surprising he should be a fan after @TheRestHistory 's special:
https://t.co/TRhkLSy6Eq

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@guyadams God forbid there should be economic development anywhere.

[Robert Colvile @rcolvile]

In short, @OvePM bang on the money https://t.co/wbMjJ3zPN3

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@sturgios @DarrenJohnson66 More so than Southgate do you think?

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

BBC has put this wonderfully whimsical 1995 documentary about the people @BrockwellLido on YouTube.

Wonder where these people are 31 years later.

https://t.co/kSGnp8sZZC

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@DarrenJohnson66 @MuradQureshiLDN Learned this week from @TheRestHistory that Dr Samuel Johnson had views on American Revolution:

"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

I’d hoped after seeing King open Canadian parliament, they’d realise their 250 year mistake.

[Matthew Pencharz @mpencharz]

@dcsandbrook @bookclubpodhq Helping to promote Villeneuve’s Dune Messiah, which is being released around then?
Good timing!

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

The images emerging now from Iran of young people, older people, boys and girls, who were murdered in the last few weeks by the Iranian Islamic dictator, the Islamic Corps of Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and imported killers from Iraq, are heartbreaking but also enraging.
Some depict beautiful people at play, at the gym, dancing, on motorbikes; some makeshift morgues full of bodies; some streetscenes where killers shoot down unarmed protesters; and many show families opening bodybags to find their dead children shot in the head; others discover bodies of protesters wounded then executed in hospital beds and particularly women with uteruses removed or other horrors to conceal brutal rapes... Many are not young but it looks like the slaughter of the best and brightest of Iran Gen Z. Ive tried to repost these here.
I dont want us to tire of theses or look away. So many are these images that it is hard to open the images or repost them.
I have been contacted by people in Iran (who weirdly read my books in pirated Farsi editions) who manage to come online in various ways and they beg me to keep posting these images and faces and keep talking about them. Embarrassingly they thank me just for doing this! That is why i am writing this now. We must keep going and keep doing so.
The numbers killed are astonishing: based on sources within the murderous dictatorship, it may be as many as 36000 were murdered just in the first days of the terror 8/9 January and more later - making it likely that 40,000 is a horribly plausible estimate.
This makes this event the most greatest massacre in modern Iranian history by far, the greatest single event slaughter in modern MIddle Eastern history since 1900 - along with the Assad's liquidation of an entire town, site of Islamist insurgents, Hama, in 1982 when around 30,000 were killed. Both of them not taking place in wars but in cold blood - and this Iranian atrocity being far more terrible since none of the protesters were armed.
We live in a time of egregious comparisons to the Holocaust when the Holocaust is repellently abused and minimized by cynical cretins - radiohosts, podders, politicians- to criticize anything from vaccination to ICE raids. But here is a comparison that stands in its scale and horror: in size and horror this does resemble the two days of Babi Yar near Kiev in Sept 1941 where 33,000 Jews were killed. It is also worth pointing out that an entire progressive movement arose against the autocracy of the Shah. And his was an autocracy. But in his forty year one reign, only around 3000 people were killed, mainly in the last year before his downfall. This week alone would have murdered in the streets, torturechambers, hospitals of Iran. It is very striking that the UN has barely commented on this; its sec-general has been shamed publically by dissident @AlinejadMasih; many countries have refused to vote against Iran; many of those formerly known as 'progressives' are silent or supporting the regime - incredibly; some famous so-called 'humanitarian' NGOs - many of them organizations i revered since my childhood; hello Amnesty where is your other ball now - are silent. In doing so, they have discredited any claim to humanitarian credentials and exposed themselves.
Many Iranians dissidents have asked where are all the 'humanitarian' protesters who filled our streets, where are the righteous actors and other boobies now? It says alot that a comedian @omid9 is still doing more than BBC or Sky to cover this story. There are a plethora of great Iranian writers historians activists on X covering this. The killing is still going on.
The tyranny is fatally damaged, it may fall on its own ultimately, it is now even more tainted, more likely metamorphose into an ICRG dictatorship. But history shows declining damaged regiimes can survive for years. Britain - as usual desperately doing a lamely virtuous catchup following more determinated players in foreign policy, sometimes sensible things, othertimes foolish - is i think banning ICRG but when the lumbering EU is ahead of you, we should worry; it should also seize the properties owned by Khamenei family and dynasties; and do more.
For now all depends on the US President; depending on the details, a US strike might make its downfall more likely or it might not. What can we do? Not enough but keep posting the pictures for a start....

[Farhad 🇮🇷🇮🇷 @Farhadgol60]

Bahar Hosseini, a 3 year old child, was shot and killed in Neyshabur by regime forces.

Her family was threatened and forced on camera to say she was killed by terrorists.

A child lost her life & her family was silenced.

The truth must be heard.

Graphic 🖼️ : @tabar_iran

#IranMassacre #IranRevolution2026 #R2PforIran‌