George Monbiot

This point needs to be made over and again:
The main purpose of wealth taxes should not be to raise revenue. That's a small and secondary benefit. The main purpose should be to *reduce the fortunes of the ultrarich*. Why? Because those fortunes present a massive threat to democracy and public life.

After I wrote last week's column, I learnt that a neighbour with severe disabilities, an extremely tough & resourceful woman who lived to the full, died in the heatwave. Everyone here is devastated. I can scarcely express my anger towards a mindset that treats people like her as collateral damage. 🧵

Never underestimate the self-pity of the ruling classes.

As the revelations pile up, the excuses get thinner and thinner. But this is always the story with the extreme right. It's a racket, a deception perpetrated against the public. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Nigel Farage did not declare gifts from crypto entrepreneur convicted of fraud

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick says Farage accepted staff, security and accommodation from George Cottrell before becoming an MP

I strongly believe in giving the man a chance. But keeping Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary suggests the vicious attacks on immigrants and refugees, and self-defeating attempts to outrun the far right, are likely to continue. Which is pretty damn depressing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Read these words from 100 years ago about immigrants in Britain – and see how history is chillingly repeating itself | George Monbiot

Shabana Mahmood’s new rights clampdown looks outlandish until we remember that this kind of hardline action is part of our country’s fabric, says George Monbiot

Meanwhile, in the US. It just takes your breath away. *50 years* in prison for protesting.
Don't imagine for one moment that we are immune to this. Already, the legislative framework is in place in the UK to enable such convictions - before we get a Trumplike PM.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Alarm over ‘extreme’ sentences for anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism

First amendment groups call 50-to-100-year prison terms chilling as legal experts say sentences unusually long

Few people understand the scope of the powers UK governments have granted themselves, to criminalise us as terrorists for expressing an opinion. Fewer still understand how illiberal the Court of Appeal judgement is. But @davidallengreen.bsky.social does.🧵 www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

What the Palestine Action appeal decision tells us about terrorism law

An already broad law is now matched with broad ministerial powers

Blatant lobbying, not for the sake of our country, but for the fossil fuel industry, in which almost all the ultrarich - including, in all likelihood, the proprietors of these newspapers - are heavily invested. These people are not and never will be your friends. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

Analysis: UK newspapers have already printed 63 editorials in 2026 backing North Sea drilling  - Carbon Brief

UK newspapers have already published 63 editorials this year calling for more oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

The greatest global threat to both peace and a habitable planet is the government of the USA. It has been so for a long time, but Trump has nixed the deniability. We should stop treating it as an ally that has mysteriously gone astray and start treating it as a hazard to be avoided and contained.

A barrister represents his clients in court. Clients who are political dissidents. He now faces criminal prosecution for doing so.
Not Turkey.
Not Egypt.
Not Russia.
England.
Astonishing, deeply disturbing, and part of a long slide towards authoritarianism.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Palestine Action barrister’s prosecution criticised as ‘chilling’

CBA chair says contempt charge over closing speech by Rajiv Menon KC has left lawyers fearful of doing their job

Despite all the noise today I'd really like you to read this, as I think it's crucial. The government's in the process of p*ssing up to £264 billion into the ground, at the behest of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, £264 *billion*. It's utterly mad, and has to stop. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The great carbon capture con: behold the wasted billions Burnham could claw back | George Monbiot

There are far better ways to tackle climate breakdown, but successive governments have chosen to listen to the fossil fuel companies instead, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Reply to @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

So when governments say "but the ultrarich might leave the country", we should respond, "mission accomplished then." Get them and their ill-gotten gains out of our politics and out of our hair.
And hopefully, with global measures, out of everyone's.

Reply to @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

It's a collective psychopathy, which treats disabled people, elderly people and people with long-term conditions as disposable. We see it in the Covid-19 pandemic. We see it in the heatwaves. Their deaths are inconvenient reminders that a favoured policy is disastrous. So they must be dismissed.

While this place is 100x better than the hellsite, there are still a few people who seem determined to spoil the experience. So here are my instant blocking criteria:
- Insults or abuse
- Performative idiocy
- False accusations
- Pointless conflict
- Racism, sexism or other prejudices.

There's a simple, fair and effective means of funding politics, which ensures that voters count and money doesn't.
MPs: please stop messing about with proposals for donation caps, and press for a proper, democratic funding system.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Political donations are poison to our democracy – but there’s an easy antidote to that | George Monbiot

As revelations about Reform UK’s donors emerge, it’s clear that increasingly complex forms of patronage can’t be regulated effectively. We need a clean sweep, says columnist George Monbiot

Something deeply troubling & shocking is happening at Exeter University*, where a mass cull of staff is planned, even though it's in surplus. No good justifications given. @jamesgdyke.info provides the details: www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-...
*Disclosure: I have a Visiting Fellowship here. +🧵

The bonfire of the humanities

150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences

The famous "Wedges" paper was used repeatedly to shut us up when we argued against the continued use of fossil fuels, and, esp, against carbon capture and storage and the mass use of bioenergy. "But these eminent scientists say ..." Now we learn BP co-authored it. www.propublica.org/article/wedg...

How BP Execs Influenced a Climate Study That Shaped a Generation of Global Policy

BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels. Its key work, a paper known as “Wedges,” guided climate discourse for a generation.

Coming over here, winning the World Cup ...

Men in Blazers Media Network @meninblazers.bsky.social

Spain’s Nico Williams gave his mother, Maria, his World Cup winner’s medal after Sunday’s final ❤️💛 Nico's parents trekked some 2,000 miles across the Sahara from Ghana to Spain as refugees. Now, their son is a world champion 🥹

Reply to @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

How long will it be before we start hearing people with disabilities and special needs being described once more as "useless eaters"? Because frankly, if I'm interpreting this right, that's what such culture warriors are thinking.
Sorry to download. Feeling quite angry and bitter right now.

This week's column explains how successive Environment Secretaries in the UK have been actively facilitating ecocide on behalf of industrial lobbyists. Charged with protecting the living world, one after another has been working for the enemy. This has to change.🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Besieged by lobbyists, will UK ministers protect our ecosystems? No, they’ll chicken out | George Monbiot

Industrial poultry farming is killing our rivers. But rather than stop it, the government has been facilitating it. Will Andy Burnham end this ecocide, asks Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Apart from Blair, I can't think of a Labour leader who has done more than Starmer to create division and polarisation. Pandering to Reform on immigration, complicity in genocide, attacks on the right to protest ... Now he presents himself as a great healer. His speech was not "moving" but sickening.

There's no avoiding the conclusion, however much dust the UK government throws into the air. By providing weapons, rhetorical and diplomatic support to the Israeli government as it has committed genocide in #Gaza, Keir Starmer and his ministers *are* complicit in this great crime.

It's a grim reflection of the media's priorities that there's been seldom a word about who the new Environment Secretary is (Angela Eagle, by the way, who is surely an improvement on the dismal Emma Reynolds). The post should be up there with Home, Foreign and Defence. It's central to our wellbeing.

Reply to @georgemonbiot.bsky.social

Other people are mere counters in their game. Oh whoops, you fell off the board. Never mind. Yet somehow these sick-minded people, who don't in any way reflect the attitude of the general population, come to dominate our politics and our media. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

When the right denies the true danger of heatwaves, ask yourself this: whose children’s lives is it willing to risk? | George Monbiot

The class politics of extreme heat are very real and very dangerous – but that doesn’t stop the billionaire press from peddling its agenda, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot