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Gareth Edwards

@gedw23.bsky.social
359 followers 542 following 1.6K posts

Cymru. Politics. Punk rock. In no order Quiet family life in a quiet place, navigating middle age Helpless observer of a big picture thats falling apart

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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 3h
No doubt Russia helped 'flood the zone'. But they were not the only ones-the lies were greatly amplified by much RW media, while the national broadcaster failed to fact check adequately. Maybe Russian interference is less important than the undeniable fact it was all sold on a false prospectus
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 11h
Not just a subsidy for 'middle class households' also support for an industry of the future
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Disappointing. But there you are
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Apart from it hasn't. It can be 'blood & soil'nationalism; it can also be something very different Reimagining Zionism: the leaders who opposed the creation of a Jewish state | Britain Palestine Project: Recognition is the Beginning share.google/AfHq5KP7vJ3E...
share.google
Reimagining Zionism: the leaders who opposed the creation of a Jewish state | Britain Palestine Project: Recognition is the Beginning
A historian of the Middle East recalls the passionate Zionists who opposed such an entity as a distraction from the goal of ‘true Zionism’, which was to create a land where Arabs and Jews would flouri...
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Our women are not safe from the EU hordes
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Hopefully they'll cut out the middle man & print it directly onto Andrex
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
At which point exactly? At any time in the last 2 decades you could say they were less obscure than previously. All that's happened is a sustainable progress got replaced with a Reform style surge that has now stalled & , worse, done untold damage to the brand built up by Caroline Lucas & others
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Creative accounting aside, it's a poor showing from the Greens.The left (of Labour) vote remained about the same & Labour comfortably won in a seat Grn would have expected to take 6 months ago. It's likely ZP's populist surge is over but now Grns are saddled with him & the new members he attracted
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Rod Stewart?
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Cronenberg, surely?
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
That's not true with many at a local level or in fact with the man at the top. The Greens have made it impossible for other parties to work with them by going down this toxic wormhole
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hate to quibble but it was the foundational basis for places where the distinct group were the majority It was either consolidation as with Germany.or seccession from a larger empire as with Greeks and Irish. Hobsbawn is worth reading on this ; he places Zionism as a unique & radical nationalism
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Predominantly is maybe a better word. That's always been present within Israel, and increasingly so over the last 20 years with e.g the Basic law making it institutionally so. The idea of equal citizenship for non Jews is increasingly the dissident view.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Zionism predates Israel. Not every (pre Israel) Zionist agreed it should be in their historic homeland. Far from all Zionists thought it should be a state exclusively for Jews. In short many interpretations, not all racist. But yes slow handclaps for the self righteous gobshites who E done it again
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Greedy I know, when you're doing just fine with the one
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Seen only by yourself? It's not a 'dont talk about Palestine' thing' it's a having 2 braincells to rub together thing
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Revoked in 1991
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It's ethno nationalist in the same way the majority of Europe's nation states were formed around the idea of 'a people'. Just like German nationalism produced both a democratic federal state and 3rd Reich so Zionism can cover a range of outlooks and outcomes
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It's not a good look to be recycling the points raised, far better it has to be said, by Burnham last week. Probably not ZPs fault- he is one thing, & it worked while KS was PM. This moment calls for something different which is why I can't help thinking ditching the dual leadership was a misstep
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
For perspective: all European democracies bar one have FoM. UK is an outlier & losing it has hurt us. Saying that, the interaction between an economic model dependent on low paid, flexible labour & FoM was a significant factor in Brexit. It is something to be addressed not dismissed
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Agreeing to (one day) adopt € & actually having to are 2 different things, as Poland have shown. FWIW I think freedom of movement which we will have to subscribe to for any meaningful change will be the big issue
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Burnham's a mirror image of Thatcher. She was accused of trying to resurrect old fashioned economic ideas which the post war consensus had seen off. She,& others did it in a modern context hence the neo part of her liberalism. Now the pendulum is swinging back to neo social democracy
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Unless included in the poll is the ongoing cost of not being in the EU, it's a leading question. The reason it needs to be opened up with all options is exactly because theres never been a debate on trade offs
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
In the case of the Poll tax- whatever was in the 87 manifesto-people refused to pay it on a scale which meant it couldn't be implemented. Given its failure was the main reason for Thatchers demise, the idea Major would persist with it is... far fetched
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This was 5 men out to steal diesel, coincidentally near a US base. www.wiltshire999s.co.uk/raf-fairford...
wiltshire999s.co.uk
RAF Fairford suspects were 'just thieves syphoning fuel', sources
The RAF Fairford suspects were 'just thieves syphoning fuel', according to sources. A Ministry of Defence source told Wiltshire 999s...
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
No genuine change until UK signs up to the 4 freedoms. 3 are uncontroversial, the other is freedom of movement for people. No frontline politician has the minerals to make the case for FoM; until someone does we face being progressively locked out of an economic bloc we need to be part of
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
There's no parallel with NI & Cymru. Over there it's deep, sectarian & sporadically violent; here it's just political opinions
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
No serious MP would think you could plug chronic shortfalls of experienced workers with unemployed teenagers
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
From the headline & pic. it looks like DT is the distraught victim of a dinghy slashing attack
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The crisis is people deciding other people arriving via dinghy or in the back of a truck represents a crisis.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Tommo Tank would've been good. He could have hired Ringo Starr to narrate his 'Tommo Tank & friends' Tiktok vids of their adventures
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It's a no brainer when put like that. Problem is it's not rooted in reality; it's a false paradigm put about by extractive rentiers, mislabeling their activities as 'wealth creation' and casting poverty as a moral choice.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Coke is just Speed for wimps
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Daniel Thomas- Tommo or Dan for short 4 sure. But 'Danny Tommo'? Maybe a privately schooled middle class boy's attempt at a working class nickname.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Always better to hold up Norway as an example than Russia. However I think alot of Remainers screwed up after the result by trying to refight the battle instead of building support for a soft Brexit
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I believe this is just a rewrite of the existing agreement into short words Trump can understand. It still needs ratifying by both Denmark & Greenland parliaments & it'd be ironic if Trump's gloating led to one or both rejecting it
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Did anyone want an EFTA outcome?
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Tommy, Katie, Tommo, Jenno... the whole freakshow should descend on Piddington to give it their seal of approval just so the 'legitimately concerned' residents are clear in which waters they are swimming
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Until they've sorted out the vexed question of who doesn't get custody of Tim Montgomery there'll be no deal
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It's really not.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Strains of Ollie blaming Stan for the 'fine mess ' there. As one half of the bungling double act who delivered the clusterf**k which includes, but is not confined to, Brexit, he bears a heavy responsibility
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Given he was part of the crew that chose to put Brexit on the ballot when no one knew what it meant. Given he created the conditions for a populist backlash with austerity... Much of this is on him & there's no sign he's accepting any responsibility
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Given every US president from Reagan onwards was bought and paid for by corporate America, & that Trump was outspent by his Democrat opponents, I'm not sure there are direct parallels
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Down not up, surely?
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Iterative progress to what is the question. The article doesn't touch on that. For Starmer it was 3rd country status with permanent red lines. The extent to which that's changed under Burnham isn't clear; whether we're locked out or included in 'Made in Europe' may be an important signifier
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Noted that, like Zack Polanski, Ed Miliband has been relegated to 'of Jewish heritage'
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's real in that UK has done this with 11 other countries, they've recognised what's happening as ethnic cleansing and declared the occupation illegal. Economic sanctions can only be symbolic given the small £ involved; that they've included services tells you they want it to have some impact
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Any UK economic sanctions amount to chump change & are symbolism. Far more significant is a bloc of 11 countries explicitly acting against an illegal occupation & ethnic cleansing. The difference between real action & impotent shouting from the sideline right there.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Fairly sure this predates Keir Starmer's resignation.
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Gareth Edwards @gedw23.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
'They come here, don't speak the language, threaten our democracy and my kids aren't safe since a load moved in down the road'?! Legitimate concern is a form for expressing objections rooted in fear & insecurity. Racists stoking the fire understand this. Too many liberals, it seems, don't
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