We asked what repairing the harm of enslavement would look like. This is what we found Our Legacies of Enslavement team has found humanity and dignity, not blame or guilt, are at the heart of the conversation

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

2. 62% were happy to continue contributing what they do now or to contribute more as the Church goes ahead with the scheme.

The Merlin Strategy Poll of Anglicans and its (Mis)Reporting in the Right-Wing Media Alan Lester It would be a feather in the cap for hard right-wing activists if they were able to block the Church of England’s Project Spire – a reparative justice scheme in recognition of the Churc…

1/2 Key findings: the poll of Anglicans reported as proof of churchgoers’ opposition to the Project Spire reparative justice scheme was commissioned by their main opponent. Respondents were given misinformation & leading questions. But even then, …

alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-mer...

The Merlin Strategy Poll of Anglicans and its (Mis)Reporting in the Right-Wing Media Alan Lester It would be a feather in the cap for hard right-wing activists if they were able to block the Church of England’s Project Spire – a reparative justice scheme in recognition of the Churc…

In December last year a poll of churchgoers was reported across right wing media to try to undermine the Church of England's Project Spire reparative justice scheme. I've been looking into it and all is not as it seems.

alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-mer...

Some places still available at this workshop for teachers, heritage professionals, journalists or anyone else who wants to be able to navigate the culture wars over empire with some expert input.

onlineshop.sussex.ac.uk/product-cata...

French man, 86, issues historic apology for family’s role in transatlantic slavery Pierre Guillon de Prince believed to be first in France to formally apologise for ancestors’ connections to slavery

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Reform dragged into tax row by Richard Tice’s unpaid £100,000 The party’s deputy leader says he will ‘pay what is owed if numbers need rechecking’ after more revelations from The Sunday Times

In short Rayner had to resign due to concerted media & political pressure over a single stamp duty mistake. Millionaire Tice bankrolled his party through deliberate, dodgy, tax-avoiding corporate tricks and yet the media pressure is limited to a few outlets.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired? The school’s $100m project to examine its slave ownership in Antigua is mired with controversy as academics allege obstruction

It’s ironic that Trump is punishing Harvard for being ‘woke’ when it was planning to limit recognition and reparation for its involvement in slavery anyway.
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Aporia describes itself as ‘the world’s only sociobiology magazine’. As @harryshukman explains in his frightening Year of the Rat, this is a euphemism for scientific racism. I’d hope Tory Peer Nigel Biggar’s appearance on its podcast was naive rather than knowing.

@jeremyvine.bsky.social seems to have completely abandoned any pretence at political impartiality on BBC Radio 2 as he pursues Starmer’s downfall.

And this too: 'The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are while working together on areas of common interest.'

Oh and by the way, the strategy also includes ending 'lobbying and influence operations that seek to steer our policies or involve us in foreign conflicts'. Not sure Netanyahu paid much attention to that.

Extract from National Security Strategy talking of Trump ending global wars

From Trump's National Security Strategy. How's it going?

I see the end to 'forever wars' is going well.

Moment Nigel Farage henchmen manhandle disabled OAP in parking row Henchmen working for the divisive Reform leader were seen on camera manhandling a retired engineer who was trying to park in a disabled spot to drop off his wife in Shetland

Farage thugs manhandle man with pacemaker after he objects to the Reform leader's chauffeur parking in disabled bay that he needs to use.

Lovely People.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Does it not count as libel if you put the accusation of lying in quotes?

Hastings Reform UK candidate probed over offensive Facebook posts Ricky Hodges said on social media that Muslims

An awful lot of bad apples

Reform UK candidate probed over Facebook posts www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

@janelydon.bsky.social
@alanlester.bsky.social
@ihr.bsky.social

It has arrived! The 200th volume in the Manchester University Press Studies in Imperialism series. A landmark study of the afterlives of Caribbean slavery in Australia. Come and help us celebrate while discussing imperialism, past, present & future?

www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Order your Stop Reform campaign pack We can stop Reform UK in the May elections. Order your campaign pack now.

Order your Stop Reform campaign pack here: actionnetwork.org/fundraising/...

6/6 Trump seems to ‘get’ only one of the strategies employed by imperial Britain. The overthrow of Maduro has left Venezuela & its oil under indirect rule, like much of West & East Africa and India under British rule. The question is, will his Iran escapade teach him any lessons about the others?

5/6 … seizing territory and crushing resistance in the world beyond Europe, with a clear technological advantage over adversaries, rather than in un-winnable wars, and larger commitments like the humiliation of a China were undertaken with allies on board.

Ruling the World Cambridge Core - Global History - Ruling the World

4/6 … but never everywhere & all at once. Governors were sacked if they over-committed the military to unnecessary conflicts; the Ottoman Empire was defended as a bulwark against Russia; a system of European alliances meant small land forces could be applied to ..

www.cambridge.org/core/books/r...

3/6 It’s also why he’s disappointed in Britain today. He believes Britain used to be Great because it too had omnipotent power. It didn’t. It could project the force required to seize resource-rich territory & satisfy its investors’ greed in certain places & times, …

2/6 He thinks he can trust his son-in-law and a real estate agent with the boring diplomatic stuff while he burns through long-standing alliances with tariffs and threats of invasion. Soft power is a sideshow that involves compromise, & he’s an uncompromising kinda guy.

1/6 🧵The Pope has put his finger on Trump’s greatest weakness on foreign policy. With his narcissistic delusion of omnipotence, he doesn’t understand how Great Powers maintain hegemony. Along with Hegseth he thinks it’s all a matter of brute force. Alliances, diplomacy & soft power are ‘woke’.

As Orban’s use of Russian oil money & the MCC to support right wing culture war propaganda in the UK becomes clearer, so it becomes ever more ironic that Nigel Biggar accused me of enabling Putin’s propaganda merely by writing about British colonialism.

mcc.hu/en/eloado/ni...

Very useful mapping of Orban-linked right wing networks & individuals
in the UK

bylinetimes.com/2026/04/14/e...

Lecturer and group of students in front of the Westminster statue of Robert Clive

Just thought I'd bust a culture war myth. This is me teaching Sussex students on a field trip. I'm talking about what Robert Clive did, how its been interpreted over time & why his statue was put here in 1916. Contrary to what you might read in certain places I'm not inciting them to pull it down!

Fully funded collaborative RHUL-Kew PhD:

www.royalholloway.ac.uk/media/j5lbzp...