The message in this article ⬆️ by the fabulous #NesrineMalik is SO important. it is just not true that we are all regressives resisting change, yet our system amplifies and panders regressivism, at all levels.

Credit to a fellow school mum for the apt word “pandering”. We were talking about school drop-off arrangements (an ongoing issue..). She said: why is it always the angry driver parent who is being pandered, not those asking for healthier, better green policies?

'We are stuck with a system that indulges useless, morally vacuous politicians as long as they don’t threaten to reshape the economy or political culture to the benefit of those who need a strong public sector, affordable housing, fairer distribution of income & the sort of compassion that would give refugees their internationally mandated human rights. . .' #NesrineMalik https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/19/boris-johnson-brexit-partygate-tories

Weekend is still 'catch up with the papers' (on paper -- I used to work as a journalist). Nesrine Mailk rarely touches directly on environmental concerns, my main area of reading, but her analysis of a whole range of political questions is enlightening, sharp and necessary. She's a brillaint writer. #NesrineMalik https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/13/saudi-arabia-golf-human-rights-sportswashing

Morning. I'm being the #NesrineMalik bot today. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2023/jun/04/rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-corporate-speak-british-politics-securonomics

Late with my #NesrineMalik reposting service. 'Despite all that the toxic immigration debate has cost us – lives, rights, freedoms – there is still a listlessness among progressives to see it for what it is. That is, not just a humanitarian issue, or a fixation of the political right that is ringfenced from the rest of politics, but a moral panic which the Conservatives have leveraged for electoral success and a relevance that is renewed with every immigration “crisis”.' https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/20/gary-lineker-culture-war-government-cruelty-migrants-rights

'I bring the promise of my history to these times with the expectation that that connection is surely clear by now: that divestment from the state has made us vulnerable to shocks; that we have been unable to effectively distribute the rewards of all that private wealth creation, which squatted on the site of the old public realm, unable to transform it into a hospital bed, a cheap home or an affordable energy bill.' Resuming my role as a #NesrineMalik bot on Mondays. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/27/labour-britain-change-hope

“The obscenity of the system is made possible by the dramatically diminished bargaining power of #labour. Weak labour is #CheapLabour. More lucratively, the world’s workers can increasingly be mobilised according to #employers’ precise needs, so not a penny is wasted. The purpose is to transform the #HumanWorker into a machine that can be switched off when not in use (although at least machines are tended with maintenance). In 2020, #Amazon’s UK sales soared by half to £19.4bn. In 2021, an investigation in Britain found that the company was bypassing its own #employment standards by hiring thousands of zero-hours workers through #agencies.” — #NesrineMalik

Zero-hour workers.

#corporate / #economics <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/23/system-rigged-inequality-pandemic-despair-super-rich>

'The obscenity of the system is made possible by the dramatically diminished bargaining power of labour. Weak labour is cheap labour. More lucratively, the world’s workers can increasingly be mobilised according to employers’ precise needs, so not a penny is wasted. The purpose is to transform the human worker into a machine that can be switched off when not in use (although at least machines are tended with maintenance).' on Mondays I am a #NesrineMalik reposting bot. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/23/system-rigged-inequality-pandemic-despair-super-rich

'When there are no real solutions on offer, that unfulfilled sense of common cause can become welded in a furnace of frustration, and then used as a tool to hammer politicians.' #NesrineMalik today https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/16/strike-workers-britain-politicians-tories-labour

'The danger in this is less about the deliberate defunding of the public realm by the government – serious though that is. It lies more in the divestment from the public realm by the people. The withdrawal of the state creates not a physical place, but a mental place, where you give up on the government altogether. This is a place where you perceive what were rights before as luxuries: where each self-providing home or community becomes a mini-state.' #NesrineMalik https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/09/state-services-pay-rishi-sunak-britain-private