sheela banerjee

Author of WHAT'S IN A NAME? P'back Aug 2024 | @HodderBooks | A New Statesman Book of the Year | Eastern Eye Best Non-Fiction award | words @guardian | ex BBC/C4

[sheela banerjee @sheelabanerjee]

It’s publication day! I’ve put my heart & soul into writing WHAT’S IN A NAME?, the story of my name & those of my best friends, of race & immigration in 20th c UK. So grateful to my friends & to the team @SceptreBooks. A huge thanks also to @MichaelRosenYes for his generous quote.

Order at: https://t.co/PAajlyAe71

@Kate7Barker #SouthAsianHeritageMonth #whatsinaname

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Trevor Philips is neither sharp nor fearless: he is one of many second-raters who are being given rapid promotion by Bari Weiss because of his long record of making hostile comments about Muslims (for which he was suspended by Labour, until Keir Starmer, who shares his views, cancelled the enquiry) as well for justifying Israel's mass-slaughter of Palestinians. On the contrary, there is now no quicker route to advancement than to espouse such prejudices and to air them in sink holes like the Telegraph

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

Read this from @signalapp, one of leaders in tech privacy to understand the implications of Starmer’s announcement. This is going to hand even more surveillance powers to the very companies that already know way too much about us.

[Prof. Katharine Hayhoe @KHayhoe]

This article says climate change is “believed to have played a role” in the UK's extreme heat this week.

As a climate scientist, let me fact-check that.

First, climate change is not a religion. No belief is required. It is about evidence.

And the evidence has been crystal clear for more than two decades: climate change is making heat waves hotter, longer, more frequent and more dangerous.

In fact, science has advanced far beyond saying climate change merely “played a role.” Today, we can quantify how much more likely and how much hotter climate change made a specific event.

Here's the bottom line:

Climate is changing. Humans are responsible. And we are experiencing the impacts now. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that solutions already exist, and the majority of people care - 89%, around the world!

But meaningful action depends on helping people understand not just what is happening: we need to know how it affects our lives (this heat wave being example A today) and what we can do about it.

That’s the opportunity this reporting missed.

https://t.co/vYfPDKcWWf

[Adam O'Fallon Price @AdamOPrice]

Feels crazy to say, but I’m rereading Mrs. Dalloway, and this genuinely might be my favorite paragraph OAT. It find it extraordinarily moving

[Cal Cowen @calculus52]

Hey @BBCNews , got a story for you!

About 11 reform new councillors have stepped down or been expelled already!

It will cost a lot to elect new ones. How about running that as a story, just for a smidgen of impartiality?

[lemn sissay OBE FRSL @lemnsissay]

Dear #whistledownproductions and @BBCRadio4 Camilla Batmangelidjh was the first lead of a national children's organisation "kids company" who openly spoke about 'love' as an essential part of their work. Also her academic research on trauma informed work with young people and families was years ahead of its time.

Today her academically based practise of love and trauma informed practise are utilised by heads of children's services up and down the country.

There will never be another time when so many men in power brought down a single woman in public life with lies. The workers of Kids Company spread around the country and the world as the charity was taken down.

The lies of her accusers were uncovered in a forensic examination lasting years. Camilla and kids company were fully exonerated in a court of law, but you didn't read about that.

In light of the brilliant groundbreaking work of Kids Company and in light of the exoneration It would make for a very very special REUNION ON RADIO 4. A reunion for the founders and some of the workers of Kids Company and some of fans and foes ....... sort of like the miners strike - too soon? How so?

@bellafreud #KidsCompany @michaelgove @David_Cameron @BBCr4today @BBCRadio4

@BBCR4Researcher @BBCreunion

https://t.co/ntcZWDQ15r

https://t.co/aw9pPFuYJP

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

@bbcnickrobinson @BBCr4today Do people stand up for 'black people and Muslims' when they come 'under concerted violent attack'? Do any of those attacks go unreported or under-reported? What's the history of reportage of attacks against people of colour?

[Sangita Myska @SangitaMyska]

🚨Your Sunday watch has dropped!

Would Donald Trump invade Iran’s oil-critical Kharg Island?

The US president has made plenty of threats in an attempt to secure the Strait of Hormuz but what are the odds and potential fallout? I ask the experts:

FULL VIDEO: https://t.co/ru47v9cCQS

@MiddleEastEye

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

Over at 'Kids' Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen' on YouTube, we've just reached 160 million views.
Here are the latest stats:
877K subscribers
577 videos
160,000,256 views
https://t.co/kSEuQsSATw

[Feargal Sharkey @Feargal_Sharkey]

By the way did I mention that Mandelson's company
Global Counsel lobbies govt on behalf of the water industry.

Think about it, WCs using bill payers money to pay Mandelson to lobby govt acting not in customers best interests but purely and solely the interest of shareholders.

I'll just leave that thought there shall I.

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

Morgan McSweeney’s resignation should not be treated as a cleansing moment. He was not an aberration. He was the tip of an iceberg.

What he represents is a political culture that has dominated Labour for a generation. A culture forged under Blair and Mandelson that taught the party to be relaxed about extreme wealth, comfortable in the orbit of billionaires, lobbyists and corporate power, and increasingly detached from the lives of the people it was created to represent.

The Mandelson scandal matters because it exposes that culture in its rawest form. Proximity to wealth and power was not a by-product. It was the point. Access was normalised. Influence was laundered as ‘serious politics’. Moral judgement was dulled by the belief that being close to money and power was a sign of maturity rather than capture.

That mindset hollowed Labour out. It replaced a party rooted in working-class life with a professional political caste fluent in donor networks, private dinners and elite reassurance, while communities were told to accept decline as the price of ‘responsible’ government. Politics became about managing optics and markets, not challenging vested interests or redistributing power.

McSweeney’s departure changes none of that on its own. Unless Labour confronts the culture that rewarded closeness to wealth, blurred ethical lines and treated democratic accountability as an inconvenience, this will amount to little more than damage limitation.

Remove one operator and the system that produced him remains. And unless that system is dismantled, Labour will continue to lose its moral authority, its social base, and ultimately its right to govern, leaving the ground clear for forces far worse to exploit the wreckage.

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

According to a 2025 report, an early confidential strategy paper by McSweeney identified the cultivation of "seemingly independent voices to generate and share content" regarding antisemitism as a "key weapon" in changing the party's direction.

[Aditya Chakrabortty @chakrabortty]

The Green surge shows UK politics has reached a turning point – and it has surprisingly little to do with Zack Polanski
One man is driving the rapid realignment of the British left, and his name's not Zack.
My column https://t.co/aSqIr8WOav

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

My 80th birthday tour of NICE! opens at the Rose Theatre, in Kingston.
Hope you'll be there
https://t.co/LkAfN6QJNP

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

My 11 poetry workshops for teachers, parents and children 'What is Poetry for Kids' have now had in total 350,000 views.
https://t.co/mY70xEFNKT

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

One of the most effective things you can do right now to fight Trump and ICE is to cancel your ChatGPT subscription.

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

Hello teachers.
Today I recorded 35 poetry workshops for you to use with your classes. 10 are for Early Years, 25 for KS 1,2 and Year 7. These are to go with the 11 that are already up on our channel.
Thanks to @ApplesAndSnakes for support.

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

16 tour dates, already booked in for this show.
More to come.
Details here:
https://t.co/7epqhe7xjN

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

New book about my father’s work.

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

If schools are marking Holocaust Memorial Day, can I offer my 4 books? 'The Missing' (memoir), 'On the Move' (poems) , 'One Day' (picture book) and 'Please Write Soon' (fiction as letters based on my father and his cousin). And video of 'The Missing' https://t.co/y7YhiWrGQ9