CIRCLE WITH A DOT

Governments sit and watch while oligarchs purchase our politics, as if it were just another asset to be monopolised. For the sake of democracy and our own survival, we need to get the money out. Our political systems must belong to us and us alone. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/m...

Funding for populist-right ‘me...

Everything we need to do to stop climate breakdown, we also need to do for national security. Energy saving, more renewables, more electricity storage and interconnectors, electrification of transport, heating, cooking and industrial processes, plant-based diets. We win on all fronts.

1. One of the things I mention as a secondary issue in this week’s column is a lie so deeply embedded in official narratives that we seldom even notice it: capitalism = “free markets”. In reality, capitalism is *the opposite* of the free market. A short 🧵. 1/8 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We need to be honest about Ira...

Most of the media reflects neither reality nor public opinion. It reflects the views and demands of those who own it: the Oligarch Class. They employ editors and journalists to channel their demands and sell their fictions. Hence the endless attacks on net zero. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Rightwing narrative fuelling f...

You might have formed the impression that Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, knows what he's talking about. The media treats him like the voice of God. But here he is - and not for the first time - talking out of his hat. Let's break it down in a short thread. 🧵

The only way Reform UK could win a general election is through our first-past-the-post system. If we had proportional representation, the threat would evaporate. We don't have PR because Starmer has blocked it. This allows him to say: vote Labour or you get Farage. Because it's all he has left.

Funny how all the "free speech" warriors go so quiet when actual state censorship comes along. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

FCC chair threatens to throttl...

If it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between fossil-fuel lobbyists and the billionaire press, that's because there isn’t one. My column on the politicians, journalists and junktanks using the Iran crisis as an excuse to extract our remaining gas and oil. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

UK energy prices are soaring –...

There are quite a few cynical and sinister figures in British public life. But Tony Blair is among the very worst. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Tony Blair’s oil lobbying is a...

Just to log this, in case it escalates. This article, which claims I've endorsed an automated trading service, is a scam, which has nothing to do with me, the Guardian, or the BBC, whose logo has been mocked up. The only financial advice I'd give anyone is "don't ask me for financial advice."

When an illegal war, likely to cause mass murder, is launched, we have a choice of 2 positions: 1. It's wrong and has to stop. 2. Hurray! Let's join in. Much of the UK Establishment - Conservatives, Reform, the billionaire media - went straight for Option 2. Which tells you all you need to know.

We are just begin to get an inkling of how deeply embedded Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair were/are with the sinister rich. Every time you think you've seen the worst of it, something else emerges. www.thenerve.news/p/peter-mand...

Peter Mandelson, the Russian s...

From 1941 to 1952 in the UK, the top rate of income tax was 98%. A luxury goods purchase tax introduced in 1940 later rose to 100%. Result? The share of incomes captured by the richest 0.1% fell from 7% in 1937 to just over 1% in 1975. That's what we need today. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Things are not going to get be...

To restore democracy and create a fairer, safer, greener world, we need massive taxes on the ultra-rich. As in the 1940s. People get confused about this. The main purpose of such taxes is *not* to raise revenue. The point is to stop the few dominating the many. It's an essential democratic measure.

How much more evidence do we need? The ultra-rich and the governments supporting them will destroy everything for the sake of profit, power and pride. Nothing is precious to them - not human life, not the living world - except their own wealth and status. Our survival depends on resisting them.

Israel and the US appear to want to do to Tehran what they have done to Gaza: reduce a busy and complex society to a toxic wasteland.

The precedent is eerily, chillingly precise. What the current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is doing to immigrants and refugees today is almost a carbon copy of what Sir William Joynson-Hicks was doing 100 years ago. And that's not a good thing. My column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Read these words from 100 year...

I'm on Question Time tomorrow. Hold onto your seats! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC One - Question Time, 2026,...

In the shop today, I was accosted by a stranger. "George!" "Hello." "Do you work for the security services?" "Yes, but you aren't supposed to know." "Some of us reckon you do." "Well, there's no arguing with idiocy, is there?" Coming home, I was suddenly really annoyed. What the hell?

The UK's permission for the US to use its bases in attacking Iran amounts to complicity in the crime of aggression. It drags us into what could be an endless war, without democratic or even parliamentary consent.