Seán Smith

Formerly peacekeeping researcher in Mali 🇲🇱 for the Center of Civilians in Conflict. Mali, UK politics & Pêl-droed Cymraeg 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿.

[Seán Smith @SeDanSmith]

Our CASEVAC brief is out! It examines how
@UN_MINUSMA has sought to improve its ability to treat & evacuate casualties to hospitals by decentralising decision-making. https://t.co/9ECeZh5rOt

[Polymarket Sports @PolymarketSport]

🚨It's Superclásico this week in Argentina. River Plate will play Boca on Sunday night in Buenos Aires...

The non South American mind can not comprehend

[Bruce Arthur @bruce_arthur]

JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible

[Will Hayward @WillHayCardiff]

Remember a few weeks ago when Reform UK threatened to defund Bangor University in the name of "free speech" because some students refused to do an event with them?

Well despite repeated requests, Reform are not allowing me to attend their manifesto launch.

In the last week I have attended events and asked questions of the leaders of Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Conservatives. But Reform won't allow it.

The restriction of bonafide journalists from providing legitimate scrutiny is straight from the Trump playbook.

It shows a total contempt for free speech and democracy when political parties restrict journalists they fear will challenge them.

If they are willing to do this when they are in opposition, imagine what they will be like if they have all the levers of the state behind them.

[SV *Champions of England* @SVCarbaholic]

There’s always a tweet

[The Overlap @WeAreTheOverlap]

"They don't want us, they don't want loyal fans!" 🗯️

Is loyalty being taken for granted in modern football? 🧐

[Aaron Bastani @AaronBastani]

I LOVE this.

Well said @dcsandbrook!

[Theo Bertram @theobertram]

Gordon Brown turned 75 on Friday & @Kevin_Maguire’s @NewStatesman article is a reminder of why Brown was always - & still is - different. While Mandelson was jetting to billionaire islands, Gordon was being Gordon - and probably still wearing a suit jacket while he did this…

[Tim Walker @ThatTimWalker]

Private Eye acknowledges the genius of our political commentariat.

[Mike H @mikoh123]

Jon Sooel - You were a remainer when Cameron was PM, you were a brexiteer under Boris, you said it was shameful that Truss was still in the party but voted for her budget & now that the Tories are languishing in the polls you go to the party leading in the polls.
#bbcqt

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Looks like Tony Blair is very determined to confirm his status as one of the worst persons alive.

His speech is pure 19th century colonialism: he frames the Gaza issue as one of "ineffective governance" on the part of the Palestinians, without as much as mentioning the 17-year blockade, the occupation, or the small matter of the deadliest assault on a civilian population this century.

I'd love to understand how you build "effective institutions" when:
- Your airport was destroyed by Israel in 2001
- Your seaport is blockaded
- Building materials are banned as "dual use"
- Your university gets bombed every few years
- Your civil servants can't travel for training
- Your economy is strangled by design
- Your people and government officials are routinely killed in devastating attacks

And he uses this, the eminently predictable outcome of this continuous strangling of a people, as evidence that they can't govern themselves and that they require outside management by the architects of their immiseration.

Absolutely repugnant, no other word for it.

[Jackie Leonard @JackieLeonard01]

This was in @PrivateEyeNews no.1668
Interesting.

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

This speech *is* one for the history books. But that’s less a compliment, than a coda.

Carney has given us the words to mark the end of the ‘rules-based order’…by acknowledging it never really existed.

It was a collective illusion. That now is over.

[Amnesty International @amnesty]

🚨 The massacre of protesters in #Iran demands global diplomatic action to signal an end to the impunity.

The evidence gathered by @AmnestyIran points to a coordinated nationwide escalation in the security forces’ unlawful use of lethal force ⬇️
https://t.co/Wba2Z5RTAZ

[Evolve Politics @evolvepolitics]

In a BBC interview, Peter Mandelson just claimed he never saw young women on his visits to see Epstein.

Anyway, here’s a photo of Peter Mandelson alongside a scantily clad young woman during a visit to one of Epstein’s houses.

The lying is truly shameless.

[Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv]

Russia has the White House by the balls.

[scha·den·freu·de  @BlisterPearl]

"It was not Hitler or Himmler who abducted me, beat me and shot my family. It was the shoemaker, the milkman, the neighbor, who received a uniform and then believed they were the master race."
Karl Stojka, Auschwitz survivor

[MattStaniek @MattStaniek]

Windermere vs Buttermere

Windermere: Since 2017, over fifty billion litres of treated sewage and more than 30,000 hours of untreated sewage have made their way into the lake.

Buttermere: a lake where the water company is not allowed to put any sewage at all.

Images taken on 24 and 25 April 2025.

The only way to protect Windermere is to end the sewage pollution once and for all.

https://t.co/Z8svuQkFOO

[European Movement @EMInternational]

Setting the record straight, for anyone not paying attention. 😉

[Neil Renic @NC_Renic]

The best thing about American culture war exporters is their literal inability to find places outside the U.S on a map

[Private Eye Magazine @PrivateEyeNews]

Number crunching: Individuals arrested within five days for suspected manslaughter after fire apparently related to building materials ripped through seven Hong Kong apartment blocks v individuals arrested over Grenfell

From the new Private Eye, out now.