I was born in a water moon. On bluesky as @fearlessknits.bsky.social. One half of Mary James - read my book for free in the link below!
Sheffield, UK
Joined December 2008
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Hey, remember that book my girlfriend and I wrote a while back? I think it's extra relevant for Labour party members right now, and wrote a bit about why
fearlessknits.wordpress.com/…
Charlie retweeted
Literally one of the least eco-friendly budgets in generations, and Healey's justification for this is so mind-bendingly stupid that I'm seriously concerned someone in his orbit is receiving back-handers from the fossil fuel industry.
theguardian.com/environment/…
Charlie retweeted
The Home Office has banned Swedish author Andreas Malm from entering the UK, saying his presence in the country “is not considered to be conducive to the public good”.
Malm – a climate academic and the author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline – was due to speak alongside a co-founder of Palestine Action at an event run by Tribune magazine about the impact of the ban on the group on free speech.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Friday morning that he could not see any other explanation for the Home Office’s decision than his scheduled appearance on the panel.
Malm said in a separate statement: “That I am prevented from going to the UK to sit on a public panel, speak to the BBC, attend an academic conference, I think it is nothing short of scandalous.”
He added: “One was under the impression that the Burnham government had slightly more respect for the basic notions of freedom of expression and other democratic rights. I appeal for this decision to be overturned.”
Malm is an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza who has been interviewed by Novara Media several times. In 2024, he told Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar that he had been finding it “incredibly difficult to emotionally engage with the climate question since… the genocide started”.
Irish author Sally Rooney, whose books can no longer be sold in the UK due to the Palestine Action ban, described Malm as one of “the most brilliant and influential intellectuals working in Europe today”. Barring him from the UK is “a sad and frightening act of cultural self-harm”, she said.
Tribune’s editor, Oliver Eagleton, said it was “deeply disturbing” that Malm was “seemingly being censored for speaking out about censorship”, adding that it is “now commonplace for authors and academics to be treated as terrorists because they support Palestinians facing genocide”.
Malm’s case recalls that of leftwing US commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, who were blocked from entering the UK by Keir Starmer’s Labour government in June, also on the grounds that their presence would “not be conducive to the public good”.
Palestine Action became the first direct action group in British history to be proscribed as a terror organisation last summer. The Tribune event at which Malm was due to speak was timed to coincide with the start of a supreme court challenge to the ban on Wednesday.
Charlie retweeted
Andreas Malm is one of the world's pre-eminent climate scholars.
Denying him entry is another example of how Britain's alliance with genocidal Israel is corroding our democracy.
I'll be interviewing Andreas Malm today.
Swedish academic Andreas Malm has been denied entry to the UK over his plans to appear on a panel alongside Palestine Action cofounder Huda Ammori because the gov't says his “presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good”.
🔗: aje.news/rvo1e1
Charlie retweeted
We've waited patiently for a plan to end neoliberalism. We won't wait anymore.
We need rent controls
We need a wealth tax
We need *serious* cuts to energy bills
Instead it's a few pence off gherkins & a payout which the experts say won't touch the sides on energy bills.
Charlie retweeted
You won't see this pointed out @BBCNews
Charlie retweeted
Professor Mazzucato: *detailed analysis of the holistic importance of the public realm to the economy*
Potato IQ Tory career politician: "BUH BUH NUMBER TOO BIG"
“What I find very difficult… is the assumption you have to cut your way to be being fiscally responsible”
“There’s not a hope in hell that [Labour] are going to oversee any cuts to public spending”
Economics professor Mariana Mazzucato and Conservative MP Julia Lopez debate Chancellor John Healey’s spending plans.
#Newsnight
Charlie retweeted
Wonder how all those British commentators who worked themselves into such a lather with @ZackPolanski and the Green 'Zionism is Racism' motion, are squaring their convictions with the awkward fact that Netanyahu would actually have packed his bags by now and conceded if, well, Zionism wasn't racist & it was OK for mainstream Israeli parties to enter coalitions with moderate Palestinian ones.
As it is, we are probably in for another massively racist and genocidal government, quite possibly led by Netanyahu...
Charlie retweeted
Calls to properly tax banks appear to have been watered down after the usual round of closed-door lobbying & public scaremongering.
Hard to square promises of “ending neoliberalism” with a flagship measure delivering a partial, temporary reversal of a Tory tax cut worth £1.4Bn.
Charlie retweeted
This budget was a betrayal of our future; the Labour government chose protecting corporate profits over people and planet.
Charlie retweeted
Abdul El-Sayed: “We are being actively bullied by the dumbest people in the room. Donald Trump is an idiot. He has one genius which is getting attention. Because his dad never gave him enough, because he was a nepo baby, he craved attention and used the bullying tactics to get it. But the man is an idiot. Just a fool”
Charlie retweeted
The Labour government’s backing for Rosebank exposes the hypocrisy of its supposed sanctions policy on the occupied territories. It is greenlighting new oil and gas extraction through Ithaca, part of Israel’s Delek Group, whose operations supply energy to the occupied West Bank. This government is fuelling climate breakdown while propping up companies implicated in Israel’s occupation.
Charlie retweeted
.@TheGreenParty's leader @ZackPolanski said:
"Today’s budget looks like a catastrophic let down for anyone expecting Burnham to give them hope for the future, particularly young people. A broken promise on the minimum wage, baking in climate chaos and nothing expected to tackle the spirally costs of renting.
"Healey has refused to fix the foundations of the economy - and instead offered cosmetic tweaks that will do nothing to buffer people against the fossil fuel rollercoaster.
"Meanwhile this Labour government under Andy Burnham is now actively fuelling the climate crisis, in a way his own Foreign Secretary said was climate vandalism.
"A budget based on approval of mass new oil drilling is a betrayal of our future. Instead we need to see extreme wealth taxed fairly to fund investment in our future, and an end to tax breaks for tech giants and fossil fuel companies to help bring people's bills down."
ENDS
Charlie retweeted
Was that it?
It all felt very familiar.
A Labour Government totally unwilling to take on power and wealth and give our country the investment we so desperately need.
Join.greenparty.org.uk
Charlie retweeted
A 3% extra temporary bank surcharge is rather feeble given the astronomical scale of the profits UK banks have been making - the big four made £29bn in the first six months of 2026 alone. #Budget2026
Charlie retweeted
Budget finished and straight out of the traps, one senior Labour MP texts: "That's the end of 40 years of neoliberalism?"
Charlie retweeted
Yesterday, I was barred from entering the West Bank by Israeli officials, as part of a @ProgIntl delegation.
What's happening here in Palestine is unjust. We've just witnessed what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many others have called a genocide unfold in Gaza.
We came here to show the world, and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Israeli government didn't allow that.
Charlie retweeted
Hannah Peaker from the @NEF explains that if you equalise capital gains tax with income tax so you tax wealth at the same rate as work, along with sorting out some of the problems with CGT, some estimates say you could raise £19.7 billion a year.
Charlie retweeted
If this is accurate this is a terrible budget. Terrible.
The only substantial increase is on defence spending, paid for with borrowing.
Bakes in the approval of Rosebank drilling, which is genuine madness as climate change is not just a human catastrophe but also our biggest national security threat.
The tax rise on banks is tiny and takes us back to the levels under the Tories.
The most pifling cost of living support that will be totally erased by inflation & 25% increase in energy costs, with much of it short-term.
Structural energy price reform - the only thing that will drop prices in the absence of nationalisation - delayed for the long-term.
If this is accurate, this is a budget that guarantees ordinary people will get poorer, oil companies richer, and all of us less safe as Labour doubles down on the sort of militarism that is causing our cost of living crisis and new oil& gas that will drive us towards catastrophic climate tipping points.
🚨 NEW: John Healey is set to announce the following in his Budget later
- The gas standing charge will be scrapped to save £27 a year on a typical bill
- Green levies on energy bills will be scraped "for good"
- NHS prescription charges will be frozen at £9.90 for another year
- Poorer households on benefits will receive extra help with energy bills before January's sharp rises
- The VAT cut on electricity bills, which was due to expire in April, will be extended (though it's not clear if this will be announced in the Budget or separately)
- The Government will remove the link between gas and electricity prices, which currently inflates household bills, "in the long term"
- Banks will face higher taxes, with the surcharge on their profits potentially rising from 3% to 8%, making it the Budget’s biggest revenue raiser
- HMRC will be given powers to seize money from the bank accounts of people who fail to pay their tax
- The freeze on rail fares will reportedly not be extended beyond April
- Online retailers like Amazon, eBay and Temu will be made responsible for collecting unpaid VAT from sellers to fund a cut in business rates for high street shops
- The thresholds for income tax will be frozen again so another half a million people may be dragged into the higher rate
- January's planned increase in fuel duty will be cancelled
- Pensioners relying solely on the state pension will see their tax-free allowance rise to £13,036, in line with the pension increase, so they don't pay income tax
- Billions in long-term borrowing to invest in defence firms and raise the share of GDP spent on defence (without breaking fiscal rules, as the investments are expected to generate returns)
- The upcoming "Your First Home" scheme will be made more generous to provide greater support for middle-income earners
- The Budget will also assume the Rosebank oil field is approved, which will generate "significant tax revenues"