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Neil Schofield-Hughes

@neilschofield.bsky.social
3.6K followers 859 following 1K posts

Retired Civil Servant, choral singer, opera lover. Left, green, liberal. The moment this choir practice ends the revolution begins. European, Cymro o ddewis, annibyniaeth 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺

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Reposted by Neil Schofield-Hughes
Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 15h
“cowboys” here really reminds me of a brilliant post I saw on Twitter that I’ve never stopped thinking about, which is how the manosphere brand of toxic patriarchy isn’t about MEN, it’s about BOYS. everything is a 12-year-old’s fantasy. Pete is playing G.I. Joe on a trillion-dollar budget
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 20h
In which we learn that: - the Triple Lock wasn’t quite the existential threat to the nation’s solvency that commentators said it was; - abolishing it won’t pay for much - but losing the earnings link means that pensions will fall in real terms. Somebody didn’t really think this one through.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Tyrants view educated citizens as their greatest enemy. Slaveholders stopped the enslaved from learning to read. Nazis burned books. Dictators censor media. That’s why Trump is attacking education, science, museums, the media, and the arts – to prevent us from learning. It's Fascism 101.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This merch rather adds fuel to the belief that the rise of Andy Burnham is really about a Labour Party that no longer knows what it is for having an internal dialogue rather than one with the electorate. It will not end well. For any of us.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Not the first time neoliberal Labour has used the term “moral crusade” to describe small-minded and cruel changes to the welfare system for which they know there is no political, economic or ethical justification.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
You know you’ve turned into a Welsh politics geek when one of your first thoughts on seeing this is “Barnett consequentials”.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Rachel Shabi rightly points out that by allowing the US to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire to bomb Iran, the UK has been dragged into their illegal war
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Nothing to see here. Just a Kinnock, dynastic opponent of Cymru’s democratic ambitions, calling Plaid supporters “plastic patriots”. You might have thought that, following their epoch-making electoral thrashing in May, Welsh Labour might have learned a little humility. But no.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Well. What a telling contrast to the relentless undermining of opera as an art form by governments and arts administrators in Britain.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Exactly this - and we saw it during Brexit too, when Tory MPs were trying to tell the Irish govt how to deal with border issues. Canada is a sovereign state. The EU is a union that the UK left. Until British politicians learn what isn’t their business any more we won’t be ready to rejoin.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
And what better week to do it when Labour MPs and officials are getting bladdered at corporate conference events… 🙄
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I am currently reading Katja Hoyer’s brilliant book about Weimar. It’s a potent reminder that when faced with organised far-right violence and intimidation, centrist politicians and parties talking about “legitimate concerns” are basically shilling for fascism.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“Talk is nauseous without practice … to kick over an idol you must first get off your knees”. How Tawney would have detested the moral and political cowardice of today’s triangulating, politically and morally cowardly Labour Party and its intellectual surrender to neoliberal values.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Speaking as an active amateur musician, I am looking forward to hearing Laura Kuenssberg’s analysis of Bruckner’s use of harmony and counterpoint. Or how Schoenberg uses the tone-row in his Variations for Orchestra. Or perhaps she should STFU and stop lecturing musicians on complexity.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
What attracts me, as someone who came to Cymru from England, to support independence; the sense that it is about normal, adult, democratic politics. In contrast to the perpetual theatre of the absurd at Westminster, in which performance has replaced politics, and democracy is dying.
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

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Wide shot of the BRITISH MUSEUM. There are suggestions of fascism around the streets - tanks, barricades, an Orwellian 'Big Brother'-style poster on a wall. A voice of a TOUR GUIDE emanates from the museum:

TOUR GUIDE:
So the Tapestry tells acrucial chapter of our nation's history...

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[Cut to interior of museum. A long Bayeaux-style TAPESTRY is on display, and the Tour Guide is speaking to a tour group]

TOUR GUIDE [smiling]:
How modern fascist Britain was created. 

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TOUR GUIDE:
The Tapestry begins here with the 2008 Crash, then austerity, then the AI Crash...

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TOUR GUIDE:
...and by the end of the room it's just full-on fash. 

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CHILD IN TOUR GROUP [gesturing to the tapestry]:
What's this middle bit?

TOUR GUIDE:
This is the 2026 Battle of Legitimate Concerns 

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TOUR GUIDE:
[show a reporter standing next to the Dover protests]
Here's the media saying the government have got to do something about the legitimate concerns...

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CHILD:
...About the failure of capitalism?

TOUR GUIDE:
No about brown people on boats

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CHILD:
[pointing at boats crossing the sea on the tapestry]
Are these boats the mega-dinghies?

TOUR GUIDE:
Not all of them

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[we see one of the boats  is a giant yacht]
TOUR GUIDE:
That one's a superyacht,
carrying money from the American fascists to the British ones.

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TOUR GUIDE:
You see really it's as much a story of convergence as it is of conflict.

[An alarm sounds in the museum]
DING DING DING DING 

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TOUR GUIDE:
Ok, tour over everyone 

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TOUR GUIDE:
It's time for the Two Minute Hate!

[They all leave the museum]

[ends]
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I hope someone had the presence of mind to ask the hyper-Unionists of the Scottish and Welsh Liberal Democrats whether they understand Cymru’s and Scotland’s route back to the EU lies in independence, and their opposition to Indy puts the decision in English, not Scottish or Welsh, hands.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Absolutely this.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It’s about how the government defines “legitimate”. Labour chooses not to regard protest against genocide or climate change as “legitimate”. But since street fascism is rationalised as being about the boats, it frames its roots as legitimate. It’s Labour’s concept of morality on trial here.
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Good Law Project @goodlawproject.org · 18/09/2026
Palantir think hiring Tom Watson is the way to the heart of the British people – and Andy Burnham. They’ve got a lot of data but it looks like they’ve got a lot to learn... www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/articl…
thetimes.com
Palantir hires Tom Watson to fight left-wing campaign against US firm
The tech giant, which holds several public sector contracts, hopes that hiring the former Labour deputy leader will buy it a hearing in the Burnham government
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A Blairite dog returns to its vomit…
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Savage. Brilliant. And utterly fair.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Well, that’ll do it. Imagine if he were retired clergy holding up a home-made placard against genocide in Palestine.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
As someone born in Edgware, and whose granny lived in East Finchley, “You are Morden” has a certain resonance…
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Why are so many people so willing to impoverish the old age of future generations that won’t have the final salary workplace pensions that many of us have today, for the sake of a tax cut now? Isn’t this just more redistribution from struggling young to affluent middle-aged and old?
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I’m reflecting on the irony of how Brexiters always claimed their project would allow the UK to build closer ties to the former Dominions, like Canada.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The week so far in Welsh politics: - Historical agreement between leaders of majority parties in Cymru, Scotland and NI - Reform Leader in Senedd stands down following arrest for assault/coercive control - Reform MS defects to Plaid Cymru And it’s only tea-time on Tuesday…
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
During the Senedd elections here in Caerdydd Penarth the Green Menace worked out of a church just down the road from me. They were terribly nice, very diverse, didn’t cause traffic issues, and bought their coffees and snacks from local businesses. Let’s all be more Green Menace.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Should have guessed that the thing that would eventually kill off the right's interest in grammar schools would be non-white kids doing too well in the 11+.
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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
That’s selection for ya 😉
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I think we all know loving, strong families where the parents never married, and respectably married couples whose family life would give the House of Atreus a run for its money. It really shouldn’t be necessary to argue any more that this has nothing to do with the interests of the children.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
AI: the technology is new but the ideology it represents is as old as capitalism. Refreshing Marxist analysis 👇👇👇
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Why is an organisation that claims to stand for democracy using the language of “risk” to describe the idea that Cymru, Scotland and the North of Ireland should choose democratic futures outside the Union, but in the EU? What is the quiet bit not being said out loud here?
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Le Monde @lemonde.fr · 14/09/2026
Royaume-Uni : les dirigeants écossais, gallois et nord-irlandais affirment leur « droit à l’autodétermination »
lemonde.fr
Royaume-Uni : les dirigeants écossais, gallois et nord-irlandais affirment leur « droit à l’autodétermination »
L’Ecosse, le Pays de Galles et l’Irlande du Nord sont actuellement dirigés par des indépendantistes. Ils ont affirmé que l’avenir de leurs nations était « dans l’Union européenne ».
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Alyn Smith MSP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 @alynsmith.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I would say this wouldn’t I, but the commitment across all three nations not just to independence from the UK but to EU membership is a significant driver of the need for change.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It’s been pretty grim lately. At last, some hope and optimism. And a firm commitment that the future of our nations lies with Europe 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇪🇺
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
So the ‘negotiation’ involves blowing smoke up Putin’s arse, asking him what he wants then attacking Ukraine for refusing to concede it. Never forget the huge swathe of UK media & political figures who celebrated Trump’s ascent while claiming to care about Ukraine. Absolute heels, the lot of them.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
As a reader of history I feel the really dangerous election is not the next one, but the one that follows the next one’s inconclusive outcome. And as I read literature too I can foresee the cries of “which of you has done this” from those failing to act now. Too late. You need to get a grip now.
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kenofseattle @kenofseattle.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The things that are most likely to destroy humanity are climate change and mass species extinction. But to talk about those things offends against the centrist omertà.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
More evidence that an inward-looking Labour Party simply hasn’t got a clue about the existential threat to democracy this country faces. A party that looks at the world through the distorting lens of its own internal politics is absolutely no use whatsoever just now.
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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Even leaving any politics at all aside: as general rule, no state can allow a group of masked men to be able to close down critical infrastructure. This is basic stuff.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
But pub snacks and Northern Soul… I wonder how long it will take for Labour people to realise that in their rush to get rid of Starmer and replace him with someone in their own image, they have foisted on themselves - and, far more importantly, us - an absolute blithering idiot.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Perhaps the scariest thing about the current existential crisis of democracy in this country is how utterly clueless our mainstream politicians are - they don’t even begin to understand it, let alone have the first idea of what to do about it. At what point do they notice this is serious?
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Sadly, my experience of party politics is that this is absolutely true. Party machines across the piece reward compliant mediocrity. My abiding memory of my time in the Labour Party is its savage anti-intellectualism. We need politicians who read, think and challenge convenient fictions.
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
*taps the sign*
My previous post:

Liberal democracy needs people who will burn their lives for a sunrise they know they will never see.

It's got Lisa Nandy instead
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Exactly this. If the best the party of government can offer is a performative people-pleaser bloviating about Northern Soul and pub snacks, we’re in the deepest of deep shit. Centrist politics is no use now.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
One of the lessons from history is how the gradual ceding of territory to authoritarians - the normalising of their agenda - is one of the things that propels them to power. Our present government appears not to understand this.
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Neil Schofield-Hughes @neilschofield.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Ymlaen!
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