George Monbiot

1. It’s been the great weakness of parts of the left ever since the Holodomor. If you are not a universalist, if your humanitarianism applies to some but not to others, fine, walk your own path. But please stop wasting the time and energy of people with consistent principles. Thank you.

1. The moment you criticise an enemy of the West, you become an enemy of some on the Western left. Oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Assad’s use of chemical weapons or Iran’s murder of protesters and you become a “stooge”, a “sellout”, even a “warmongering imperialist”(!!) It drives me mad.

1. It shouldn’t be a difficult concept to grasp, but the nastiest battles I’ve had are over this issue. Bitter contestations with Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and - much worse - the cult-like movements they’ve attracted. Their enemy’s enemy must be a friend, however gruesome they may be.

1. There’s much more, but I’ll leave it there, in the hope that maybe you can begin to understand that Starmer’s detractors aren’t just the bitter, never-satisfied cynics and saboteurs of your imagination, but might actually have a point. Thank you.

1. B. Does it give business lobbyists what they want? To just as great an extent as the Tories, this government has allowed corporate lobbyists to shape its agenda and shut down competing options. When you see the whole picture, it’s breath-taking. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

Warning! The rightwing junktan…

1. Perhaps above all, it’s the way policy is decided. There seem to be two main determinants. A. Will this stick it to the Labour left? The whole country must suffer for Starmer’s factional war. Good, progressive policies are blocked or delayed because they would look like a concession.

1. The failure to change our disastrous electoral system, which might gift the UK to Reform on a small share of the vote, can, I feel, be understood as a matter of putting party over country and faction over party. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

If Reform ever wins power in W…

1. Its misallocation of resources on climate has also been deeply shocking. It is sluicing public money into Carbon Capture and Storage not because it works (it doesn’t) but because it’s a finacial lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

Labour’s carbon-capture scheme…

1. For me, a massive frustration has been the government’s war on nature: falsely pitching wildlife against human welfare, tearing down essential protections for the tiny scraps of ecosystem that remain here. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

Wage war on nature to build ne…

1. Its repeated assaults on benefits - first resisting, beyond all reason, its backbenchers’ demands to end the Tories’ vicious two-child benefit cap, before finally relenting, then seeking to throw people with disabilities into the ditch - has been grim beyond belief.

1. Then there’s the government’s parroting of Reform UK lines on immigration and small boats, despite all the evidence showing that when centrists ape the extreme right they simply empower it. It even went so far as to mimic Reform’s branding: www.theguardian.com/politics/202…

Labour launches ads in Reform-…

1. Linked to its alignment with the Netanyahu government is the Labour government’s assaults on the right to protest at home. Assaults that would have stopped the Labour movement in its tracks: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre…

Here’s what you need to know a…