hello it’s me again

“According to experts, Barclays is Europe’s largest funder of fossil fuels since 2016, and is a major lender to weapons companies supplying Israel. Last year alone, Barclays provided over £17.5 billion to fossil fuel companies driving up emissions and pollution, a 10% increase on the year before. Since 2019, they have provided over £6 billion in loans and underwriting to companies supplying Israel with weapons and military technology.”

I was interviewed about the Museum of Neoliberalism and my other horrid collections of awful things on the Cursed Objects podcast. It was a really fun chat and great to meet Kasia and Dan!

Listen here: https://linktr.ee/CursedObjects

I didn’t think I would feel quite as buoyant as I do post-election. In between the big headline of a Labour landslide and a glorious Tory capsize are some far more interesting stories.

Starmer won the election on a smaller number of votes than Corbyn got in 2017 and 2019, which if you’ll remember, was touted as the public firmly rejecting left wing politics. I doubt we’ll see much soul searching from centrists and the commentator class over this however.

The depressed turnout for Neoliberal Labour meanwhile sees Starmer’s constituency majority being slashed by 10,000 votes by the campaign of Andrew Feinstein, meaning Starmer was far more popular an MP when Corbyn was leader than when Starmer himself is leader.

Two Labour shadow ministers also lost their seats to indie challengers, & Wes Streeting, an awful man, who wants to privatise the NHS, and is being positioned as future PM came within 582 votes of losing his seat to the incredible grassroots campaign of Leanne Mohamad (a great achievement but also depressingly close to victory, she must run again!)

The Greens gained four seats, their largest ever number, one less than far-right Reform who were supposed to get far more.

Corbyn won in Islington North! This would have been such a brutal loss if this had gone any other way, the Labour Right spitefully putting a private health millionaire up against him just shows that their commitment to spite always overrides any strategic nous they think they have. Amazing campaign by an indie campaign team, and the result is the very least that man deserves.

Transphobe’s favourite “Rosie Parker” lost her deposit in a dismal election performance in Bristol. A firm rejection of transphobia at the ballot box. Turns out that having an astroturf hate campaign backed by an online bot army doesn’t translate into votes cast by real people irl.

That all said the surge in support for Reform, and the amount of second place results they got, is deeply concerning and is a problem stored for future elections. Austerity is creating the conditions for fascism, and Labour have to take action and invest in these communities if we are going to stop this rising threat to us all.

After getting my brains back from the Glastonbury lost and found department I remembered that I had done a pre-order run on these God Will Not Save the King t-shirts last month but hadn’t sent them to print – (sorry if you’re waiting for yours!) – but that does mean if you want one you still have time to put an order in before I send them to print on Monday. This time they’re available in black too.

I’ll be getting a few extra sizes done in case of shipping mishaps etc, but due to moving my studio in a few months I’m not getting these in regular stock, so this pre-order is the only way to get one.