Novara Media

Novara would very likely agree with Monbiot.

These comparisons (“Xi’s China”) totally obfuscate things. They can be situated within the history of the British state, of the role of repression in the accumulation of capital. https://t.co/eJXfsfoDon

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) October 20, 2022

A communist speaks.

If you want a General Election, get out on the streets and demand one.

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) October 20, 2022

disappointed penny's gone for the novara media aesthetic here rather than the tried and true, much-beloved brand identity of Good Manners Emojis. game's gone. https://t.co/w77VB9zrML

— josie sparrow (@ofthesparrows) October 20, 2022

Getting more Bastani tweets on my timeline. Inanities like this.

The Peripheral is really good. London circa 2090 has replaced building lego-esque skyscrapers with statues several times larger than the Shard (!)

Sci-Fi is such a powerful genre in 21st C, when every political & economic impulse demands the future *must* look like the present. pic.twitter.com/dY9Wcs0sA4

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 22, 2022

Last night I finished watching Tysky Sour from 8 days earlier - that is 1 PM, 1 Chancellor, 1 Home Secretary ago. It featured a good nuanced discussion of the Van Gogh oil protest. I was quite convinced by MW's statement that "these people have made the sacrifice of being thought ridiculous by most of the country". A discussion of undeclared donors to neoliberal think-tanks was also good.

Then I started watching one from a mere 5 days ago, with Sarkar. I now only have about 4 hours of this to be up to date again.

Thank goodness for Novara Media's coverage of current events, which can help our understanding and also sometimes give us entertainment or encouragement.

What a silly person.

this reads like copy from a property developer who wants to put a load of shipping containers full of street food vendors on brockwell park https://t.co/EcUUBymHKM

— Peregrine falcon fan (@nrgsrhc) October 24, 2022

lol this tweet was harrumphed at by the full-spectrum professional twitter grump gang (from joe k3nnedy to qu4ntick)

I have quite often said before that while I like lots about the Novara people, they are different from me for various reasons, above all that they are young.

I feel that Sarkar's statement reflects this. I don't like it at all.

If parks are open and spacious then leave them that way. It is probably better for what limited wildlife exists in them. The idea of wanting to cover this with 'street food stands' is very wrongheaded.

I reflect that Sarkar's statement also reflects a general tendency among these people to go somewhere and say it's better than the UK. In some cases, in some ways, it might well be. But the gesture also seems naive, too much the reaction of the thrilled tourist who didn't want to come home.

I would say all kinds of bullshit if I had their kind of platform tbh

I think in this particular case you're both getting hung up on the food stalls and ignoring the two other, non-profitable, activities listed.

I do find London public spaces, be they parks or squares or whatever, sorely lacking in Old People Just Hanging Out Talking Shit, which def is an important sign of civilisation.

Of course London weather doesn't make this very easy but I notice Caribbean immigrant populations give it as much of a go as they can, when they are not being dispersed by the cops for anti-social activity that is.

West Ham Park and the Olympic Park are full of people chatting on benches, having kids' birthday parties on the grass, walking their dogs, playing table tennis, doing open-air workouts.. Maybe Ash doesn't live in the right part of London for this stuff?

there is a giant outdoor chess board outside Hudds library and two branches of Greggs, a largish piazza where couples can canoodle. Total Mexico ripoff.

As someone who lives near Brockwell park I see couples in parks. I do see old people walking. I see people going for a run or playing some sport.

In summer I see the festivals being put in the park, so it is actually being criminally well used for profit. She is talking nonsense xxp

If she was suggesting urban golf courses be compulsorily purchased and turned into parks then I could get behind it, hate those fucking things

Ok but "this is untrue" is a diff argument from "thid would not be good".

Simon Jenkins, a person who people on ILX probably do not like, has written many times that London's parks, which should be simply public, are repeatedly sealed off and used by private corporations to make massive profits, and that this is wrong.

I agree with this view.

you could also replace "London's parks" with "land"

let's take back st george's hill from the golfers and millionaires

Ok but "this is untrue" is a diff argument from "thid would not be good".

― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 24 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink

I mean it's just inaccurate as a reading of the situation in regards to London parks.

If Sarkar had said things about minorities being excluded from parks by police then fine but she is not.

Also putting down Bastani and Sarkar's bad takes on their youth seems wrong to me. They are old enough.

They do just tweet stuff with little thought, in that they aren't very different from a lot of journos in legacy media. But they should know better, right? They are communists with a different set of politics, they should be looking at stuff from a different angle.

bastani is nearly 40

i mean we're all still "learning to use" social media as a political tool of various valencies -- which seems to be the issue here -- but AB was early to it and tbh has *more* experience than most

I mean it's just inaccurate as a reading of the situation in regards to London parks.

So say that instead of posting a "this is what a property developer would say" bad faith take. :)

Well it's one of the three things she talks about. We all know what a bunch of street food stands in London would be about.

I don't know if spaces for Chess in parks have been abolished. I feel that's not what she's talking about.

In London "Street food" now means "£12 burgers" afaict

Paul Mason is already threatening to defy whip - he’s not even an MP yet!

He’s absolutely right tho, Labour will likely adopt Sunak austerity. To even sort GPs & ambulance waiting times, let alone create national care service, will require ‘McDonnell-esque’ tax rises on rich. pic.twitter.com/5EFZu96Bys

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 25, 2022

Tweeting from Barcelona this week.

Sunak infinitely more likeable at the despatch box than Starmer. Not good given the latter was meant to be Señor #PMQs.

The facts are: Starmer did try to overturn Brexit, did lie to members and did support a man (Corbyn) who he now claims isn't fit to be a Labour MP.

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 26, 2022

agree that Starmer no es bueno

He lied to members, he lied about Corbyn but surely that's ok because winning power is good. Machiavellic.

Also, why pay attention to PMQs, unless an announcement on policy is made?

Señor Starmer, es un gran mentiroso !!

posting like excitable kids whilst on their 6th holiday of the year, that's "luxury communism" in a nutshell for you!

Bunch of grifters

Who said it better? @michaeljswalker gets my vote pic.twitter.com/D2hWRu96mN

— Novara Memia (@NovaraMemia) October 26, 2022

Tysky Sour from 1 week ago.

https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/20/liz-truss-resigns-as-prime-minister/

Bastani emphatically stating that he expects the Con party to be decimated at next GE and it would take extraordinary, unprecedented leadership to prevent this.

I find this very incautious. We are two years from an election. The Con party is a corrupt machine that is dedicated to power and can count on lots of corporate and media support. Not many people like the LOTO. Seems intuitive that there is now a good chance of the Con party recovering to something like parity, though not winning a huge victory next time.

Rishi is already polling higher than Starmer in at least two "best pm" polls. It is a completely inane thing to poll like, but nevertheless I think we can safely say Bastani is much more interested in having a career and profile rather than seriously thinking bout what is really going on in UK politics.

I don't think I can predict whether the Tories will explode or implode at the next GE but it seems unlikely that anything Labour do will determine the outcome

Isn't that true of all UK elections? That they are lost by the incumbent party rather than won by the opposition, though its still on the opposition to some extent to be able take advantage of those mistakes

The thing about the tories is their gaslighting ability to always pretend they've somehow only just got in. I don't know if the constant leadership changes are necessarily perceived as negative when it comes down to it

tories have this legitimacy bias that seems to persist regardless of all unpopularity and incompetence and corruption and brutality it's like even if you hate them they feel like the sort of people who'd be in charge you know

tories have this legitimacy bias that seems to persist regardless of all unpopularity and incompetence and corruption and brutality it's like even if you hate them they feel like the sort of people who'd be in charge you know

I was thinking this a while ago when they went out on the street to interview Steve from Mansfield (64) every day for months on end, and one of the things that kept cropping up was 'Labour hadn't done this that and the other I'll never vote for them again'. And you could kind of read it as 'oh they didn't do that years ago when they were in power'. And you could also read it as referring to Labour councils too, both of these things are more than viable

But tying in to what you just said, I also got the feeling of Labour as CURRENTLY in power, as part of the government, as a kind of a Department of Opposition. And that you're not supposed to actually vote them in, they exist to keep the Tories in check and they had been failing at doing that.

I don't mean in a 'controlled opposition' sense, more a kind of conflating of they're part of parliament with they're part of government, and in more of a subconscious way

I don't know if the constant leadership changes are necessarily perceived as negative when it comes down to it

Reminds me of the model of management turnover that has been very successful for Chelsea FC.

It's entirely true about "legitimacy bias".

A while ago someone posted a Perry Anderson analysis from 60 years ago that showed the same thing.

This is also a factor in why the Con party will probably not emerge very badly from the next GE, contra Bastani.

I shouldn't say "probably". Truth is I don't know, but I think his predictions are oddly incautious this far out.

This is a much better assessment of the situation than "It'll go higher/lower".

https://newsocialist.org.uk/centrism-suppression-politics/

This person's gonna be on Novara next week pic.twitter.com/7TYW1HdkOC

— Hywel (@hywelroberts12) October 28, 2022

I know you want to cultivate that UnHerd “thoughtful” anti-liberal make you think world, with various the left wing case for something conservative, but come the fuck on. https://t.co/09egAVrnzW pic.twitter.com/tnUDOWCPBK

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) November 1, 2022

bastani is only really useful as a sort of ideological weather vane but if this is the way the wind is blowing on the anglo left we are extremely fucked

Another case of green room poisoning…

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FgkVqvfXgAEDk17?format=jpg&name=small

corgi registered hot takes

If you don't like noise don't live in a city centre. And if you can afford to buy in a nice location you can afford to buy secondary glazing and a white noise machine. This stuff does my head in. They've already destroyed Brick Lane at night. https://t.co/az7csjPDZl

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) November 2, 2022

I am not sure I have ever heard of 'secondary glazing' before.

And ... a white noise machine ?!

you can buy white noise machines for £20-30