Janice Thomas 💚💙

retired midwife. Disillusioned with politics Labour is full of ghastly people & the US under trump is a disaster
vote green 💚

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

Climbing up was straightforward..remembering the way down not so easy. *looks round..totally meant to do that* 😉🦔
#HedgehogLife #FeedingUpForHibernation #Autumnwatch

[Taj Ali @Taj_Ali1]

Report from Southampton

[Briefcase Michael @BriefcaseMike]

What a coincidence that the Government has finally managed to get a Resident Doctors' strike called off - a strike that would have happened in the week of a crucial by-election. #BBCNews #LBC

[KUTUB @KUTUBProduction]

Israel flattened Beirut in 1982.

No Hamas. No Hezbollah. No October 7 to point to then.

Just 17,000 dead Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

Even US president then Ronald Reagan, who armed Israel, called Begin furious after seeing a photo of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off and said “It is a holocaust”.

They killed so many innocent people that the survivors had no choice but to pick up weapons.

Then Israel had the audacity to keep using “Self-Defense” excuse every decade.

Israel didn’t stumble into endless war. Israel built it. Brick by brick.

Own it.

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

@MichaelRosenYes @catherigorman Talking of olive oil, I remember when you could only find that in little bottles in the chemist.
Now all supermarkets etc seem to stock a bewildering array of olive oils.
It’s all got so complicated 😂

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

FYI for our haters: I know you want @zeteouk to fail but in less than 72 hours since our soft launch, we have over 20,000 subscribers in the UK, a big chunk of them paid (double our target number).

To our supporters: thank you, and it's a great start, but we still need many more subscribers to compete with the mainstream media. Tell your friends, colleagues, family members; share the subscription link on your socials, far and wide. Let's change and improve the British media, together.
https://t.co/0D8Z2l1YMY

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

It means the end of the middle class. And, as a consequence, majoritarian democracy.

In a sensible media landscape that’s a *centre right* argument.

[Raven Cozens-Hardy @RaveCozensHardy]

The video that confirms how corrupt and dishonest @michaelgove really is.
Gove referred or was lobbied for Covid-19 "VIP lane" PPE contracts worth a combined total of roughly £1.16 billion.
@UKHouseofLords expel Gove.

[Zack Polanski @ZackPolanski]

Daily Mail posts lies about the Greens that are spread far and wide. I wish half the number of people saw their apologies.

Solidarity with Kamel.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

This is such a smart hire by Bari Weiss & a reputation-destroying one by Trevor Phillips whose mouth one can only presume was stuffed with gold.

[LPC @landpalestine]

Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes says When I visited Israel I saw how disgusting Israeli people were because of their racist treatment of Palestinians

“Israeli people are shits”

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

@SaulStaniforth Overfed lardarse squatter in the House of Lords speaks.

[Sangita Myska @SangitaMyska]

Hi David, Sangita here. I know you didn’t mean to - but your post comes across as rather diminishing of the wealth of experience @mehdirhasan will be collaborating with during the hard launch period in autumn. I accept that the line-up is perceived as centre to left wing. In a similar way in which Times Radio & podcasts (where I think you worked?) is perceived as centre to right wing.

It’s also worth noting that Medhi’s start up has hired @ShehabKhan - a young political repeorter from ITV. I, for one, am excited to see what he does.

For my part, my career spans 25 years in mainstream broadcast journalism - most of which was spent at the BBC (first recruited via a competitive BBC reporter traineeship) as a TV & Radio national news correspondent, current affairs presenter and documentary maker.

My work included original stories & investigative work. I left in 2022 but many of my friends still work there; I’m grateful for all I learnt at a public service organisation. I went on to host a very popular weekend phone-in show at LBC where I raised the AWA above half a million listeners p/w for the slot - with zero publicity and barely any resources. That had never been done before or since.

As an admirer of your work, I know you know the extra barriers this industry throws up for someone like me: an immigrant whose family lived pay check to pay check, state educated, non-oxbridge, poc woman - especially 3 decades ago. Yes, I’m now a political commentator at the brilliant @thenerve_news where my columns have mainly - but not exclusively - focussed on the rise of the hard and far right - which I believe is of pressing concern. I also make very popular political mini-docs at David Hearst’s @MiddleEastEye - to a repeatable digital format I created myself from scratch.

I won’t be involved in daily news at ZETEO UK, which is a start-up, not least because I’m quite the warhorse at it - riots, state visits, terror attacks, crime etc - I’ve covered it all - and I’ve worn out the rubber on these soles of my shoes! So, forgive me for bristling at - what appeared to be - a person with a few opinions formed without journalistic rigour. You see, I have a rock solid mainstream reporting career to fall back on.

For the @zeteouk launch, I’ll be focusing on a long-form podcast series with, what I hope, will be thoughtful, revealing, conversations. I’m happy to interview people across the political spectrum; I’m excited to see where it goes and we evolve. My work elsewhere will continue.

As for the other launch writers & broadcasters - @afuahirsch , @owenjonesjourno @OborneTweets @graceblakeley - they are a group of sharp minds, all courageous and accomplished in their fields. A couple of them have developed huge online audiences that MSM would envy. I’m proud to be in their company. No one can dictate what any of us think. We certainly don’t all agree, all the time, on every story. That’s healthy.

I have every confidence @mehdirhasan and I will converge on some issues & have some pretty robust disagreements on others - which can only be a good thing for the audience. Anyway, I’m happy to grab a coffee sometime should you wish to discuss the state of the media - or the world - further. Best Wishes, Sangita

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

@NiallHarbison @NicTrades @happydoggothai I know that beach well. Perfect for dog walking. Always windy.
Although it is summer here, apart from the heatwave a couple of weeks back..is really quite chilly.
I’m sure she’ll adapt quickly.

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

Concerning. This needs looking into seriously.
@ShabanaMahmood @ukhomeoffice

[Socialist Opera Singer @OperaSocialist]

I assume a career criminal, like Danny Tommo and a mob of people who no doubt have numerous convictions, trying to organise a militia is illegal in the UK @metpoliceuk @MetCC

[Will Hayward @WillHayCardiff]

Reform politicians just did something really strange inside the Welsh Parliament/Senedd. 11 of Reform's 34 MS voted AGAINST their own party.

The Senedd was debating Plaid's childcare offer and a Plaid politician added an amendment saying that "the Senedd notes that Reform UK had no commitments on childcare in its Welsh manifesto" and that "providing access to childcare would reduce child poverty in Wales".

A third of Reform's politicians voted for this. Basically they voted in favour of a motion saying they had no plan for childcare.

We asked the party why they did this but they wouldn't respond.

I strongly suspect that the 11 who voted against their own party either didn't understand the motion or accidentally voted the wrong way...

[Mike Morrison @MDMorrison82]

In the dead of night the Scots arrived at the Airbnb across the street. Decked out and playing the pipes at 6:30 am. So it begins…

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

@SangitaMyska @musica_callada @AaronBastani Yes, but to be fair, it’s a lot easier to drag off, arrest and imprison silent, elderly and/or disabled protesters holding “posters”

[Janice Thomas 💚💙 @rednotgrey]

@hughlaurie Loved “Tehran” can’t wait for the next series.
Sadly you’ll not be in it 😕

[James Schneider @schneiderhome]

Henry Nowak was murdered. His killer lied. The police failed him.

Now Farage, Musk, Vance and Rubio are turning his death into a myth of white persecution.

My latest for @NewStatesman on grief, racism and Britain’s recruitment into a US-led racial order.
https://t.co/fgJGdfb9iD

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

November 1971. Chiswick, West London.
Erin Pizzey is 32 years old. She is not a lawyer. Not a politician. Not a doctor.
She is a woman who talked Hounslow Council into lending her a cold, rundown building on Belmont Road — a former community hall — for almost nothing. Her original plan was modest. A warm room. A cup of tea. Somewhere for mothers with young children to simply get out of the house.
Then the door opened.
A woman stood in the entrance. She was covered, head to foot, in bruises. She was holding two small children. She was shaking.
She didn't want tea.
She needed somewhere to hide.
Erin let her in. She didn't turn her away. She didn't tell her to call the police.
Because Erin had already called the police. They told her the same thing they told every woman in Britain at the time: they could not enter a private home over a "domestic dispute." That was the law. The home was private. What happened inside it was a family matter.
When Erin contacted a female civil servant to report what she was seeing, the response was astonishing. The woman told her flatly: "There wasn't a problem of battered wives until you made one."
Erin put down the phone. Then she went back to her residents and made sure they were fed.
Within weeks, 40 mothers and children were sleeping in four tiny rooms. No funding. No staff. No legal authority.
She didn't stop.
By 1973, word had spread through quiet whisper networks — one woman telling another, "There is a place. Go to Chiswick. She won't turn you away." That same year, Erin hosted the first National Women's Aid Conference in the UK. Women from across Britain arrived, and they all recognized the same thing at once: what she had built needed to exist everywhere.
In 1974, the council set a maximum of 36 residents. At peak times, 150 women and children were living inside those walls — sleeping on floors, on chairs, in hallways. The building smelled of cooking, fear, and something else entirely: relief.
Erin was taken to court for overcrowding. She appealed all the way to the House of Lords.
She kept the doors open the entire time.
That same year, she wrote a book. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear. It was the first published account of domestic violence in British history. It used real stories from real women inside the shelter. Overnight, a problem that had no official name was on front pages from London to New York.
The movement spread. Refuges opened across the UK. Then Australia. Then Canada. Then the United States. The pattern she created in four small rooms in West London — no blueprint, no permission, no funding — had been replicated in hundreds of shelters across the Western world.
MP Jack Ashley stood up in Parliament and said: "It was she who first identified the problem, who first recognised the seriousness of the situation and who first did something practical."
She was ranked 14th in a poll of the 100 women who shook the world. She was awarded the Italian Peace Prize. She received a CBE. The charity she founded — Chiswick Women's Aid, which became Refuge — grew into the largest domestic violence charity in the United Kingdom, with over 460 employees and an annual income of more than £33 million.
Erin Pizzey passed away on October 4, 2025, aged 86.
She never stopped.
It all began with one woman, one borrowed building, and an absolute refusal to say no.
Forty women and children showed up with nowhere to go.
She made room.

Share this if you believe one ordinary person, refusing to look away, can build a shelter that holds the whole world.

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