Alex Niven
@Alex_Niven
Followers
12,184
Following
10,928
Media
555
Statuses
9,106
The North Will Rise Again exists @BloomsburyBooks // Newcastle, Endless @CanalsidePress does too
Newcastle upon Tyne
Joined January 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Harris
• 470073 Tweets
#MAGA
• 363113 Tweets
The Boys
• 281713 Tweets
Leeds
• 198341 Tweets
Sean
• 119639 Tweets
Bob Newhart
• 79933 Tweets
#Temptationisland
• 70947 Tweets
Lou Dobbs
• 69452 Tweets
Harehills
• 67143 Tweets
Sofía
• 64571 Tweets
Hulk Hogan
• 60356 Tweets
Ugarte
• 58969 Tweets
Newsmax
• 53787 Tweets
MIS TÍAS IS OUT
• 52864 Tweets
Stephen
• 48434 Tweets
Joey
• 42112 Tweets
#yangın
• 41658 Tweets
#SVAllStarsGala5
• 35865 Tweets
Kimiko
• 35584 Tweets
INEOS
• 29417 Tweets
Michelle Obama
• 26870 Tweets
Westbrook
• 25338 Tweets
ALONDRA PAUL THIN
• 20025 Tweets
Shapiro
• 19946 Tweets
Lino
• 19098 Tweets
Russ
• 16987 Tweets
Casemiro
• 16436 Tweets
ドジャース
• 15783 Tweets
Ridery
• 14525 Tweets
Paramount
• 13522 Tweets
一夜限り
• 13349 Tweets
Bosco
• 12582 Tweets
Filippo
• 12125 Tweets
Mark Halperin
• 10767 Tweets
内村光良
• 10602 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
Pleased to announce that this homage to the radical modernist North and/or lo-fi Hadrian’s Wall memoir will now reload in paperback. It’s like the hardback but softer and yours for the price of a 2030 pint - so do go ahead & order a copy if you really want to
16
33
192
Newcastle Uni students are now 50 days into their protest against the war in Gaza. Give them a retweet
988
20K
42K
Can we pls just fast-forward to the bit where Andy Burnham becomes Labour leader? Lord knows he’s imperfect but he’s now the only thing standing in the way of total extinction & a Tory millennium
153
530
6K
Possible next moves for socialists:
❌Become alcoholic
❌Become Tory
❌Become Neo-Blairite
✅Keep working towards radical left breakthrough in the 2020s & in meantime cultivate joy, hope, solidarity wherever you can (+ don't let heart turn to stone)
47
707
4K
Ah yes, the British government has famously had absolutely zero influence on significant events in Palestine & Israel throughout history
99
438
4K
I mean I know I'm biased but is there a finer geometric ensemble in the history of building stuff?
91
353
3K
Well done
@ScotNational
for being the 1st major outlet afaik to report Coren's evil comments, which should ensure he becomes a pariah for anyone with a conscience regardless of political persuasion. The silence from everywhere else is deafening & sickening
14
435
3K
As I’ve said before this lad deserves all our solidarity, support & respect
13
183
2K
We are hurtling to the right and a large part of the blame lies with the extreme centre for torching a left which had more and better ideas than it did out of sheer pique
116
320
2K
You'll hear a lot from the Labour establishment over the next few days about 'unity' & now not being the time to be divided. Don't buy this. Senior Labour officials tried to throw the 2017 election. Five yrs away from another one, it's not time for unity. It's time for justice.
46
553
2K
Keir Starmer is a bad leader of the Labour Party. His strategy is bad (tack right to win back +45s, oppose Scot independence, don't loudly oppose the gvt) & his morals are bad (toppling Colston 'wrong', don't protect renters, shaft left colleagues). No more pretending otherwise.
29
299
2K
Corbyn aged massively 2017-2019 (thank the dickheads for that) to the point that even a staunch supporter like me knew deep down that his moment had passed. But that doesn't detract from the fact that he's by far the most compassionate & righteous politician I've ever seen.
37
151
2K
As far as I can make out, in the absence of any hard evidence of anti-semitic sentiment whatsoever, this is a story in a national paper about a handful of people trying to get a lawful protest against the slaughter in Gaza banned because they don’t like it
22
365
2K
There’s the fact that this bus driver is subject to the most appallingly intimidating and demeaning behaviour from the person filming this. Then there’s the fact that this organisation feels empowered in the current climate to try to get him sacked for it
.
@StagecoachGM
- your driver on the 192 route in Manchester is sharing his political views as part of of his work uniform AND whilst delivering a public service as part of
@greatermcr
Bee Network.
As you can see/hear from the video this Jewish passenger felt intimidated and
2K
255
835
15
222
2K
This is - I really hope - the last thing I'm going to say about Sir Keir for some time. The important thing for people to grasp is that this goes way beyond the factional narrative, the left feeling powerlessness, sour grapes etc (though these things are real enough). 1/
43
491
2K
The ‘once Starmer is in power he’ll suddenly veer left’ theory is such complete and utter obvious bollocks. What an extraordinarily stupid bunch of absolute idiots
81
253
1K
So sick & tired of debates around racism in this country being framed by intellectually challenged light entertainers talking utter nonsense
33
174
1K
Everything about this band is unspeakable
145
117
1K
If the report on the Labour leaks shifts blame onto the whistleblowers then Starmer is guilty of both rank hypocrisy & the factionalism he's claiming to bring to an end. It really is as simple as that.
20
427
1K
In a country where titles & honorifics prop up hierarchy in almost every walk of life, Zephaniah’s repudiation of the honours system was a brave, radical, self-sacrificing gesture. Nobody’s perfect, but some people do the right thing in life when it counts
Benjamin Zephaniah on his refusal to accept an OBE.
'No way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.'
Rest in power.
306
10K
35K
11
228
1K
Will answer Cameron to this every time. Thatcher was perhaps personally more vicious, but the 2010-2016 gvt was more mercilessly sadistic & unfazed by human suffering than any since the 30s
Interesting Q: Who is the worst British prime minister of your lifetime?
232
7
25
29
139
1K
No idea why anyone thinks this is a watershed moment. British voters saw plummeting living standards, rising homelessness, foodbanks, Windrush & Grenfell and still voted Tory en masse because Jeremy Corbyn once laid a wreath in a cemetery.
27
223
1K
Oh my god we are sleepwalking into an ocean of shit
Labour intends to pay for its NHS and school breakfast plans through future savings to public spending if it wins power, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves says
480
58
182
9
96
1K
Frankly - and I'm sorry for the dyspepsia - but both ardent Leavers and ardent Remainers can go fuck themselves. There is 48% absolute child poverty in the constituency I live in. That happened while we were in the EU, and it looks highly unlikely to change when we leave.
42
164
1K
Art & politics aren’t the same thing, sure. But then literary festivals are also not art: they’re public appearances involving public statements, as well as being promotional campaigns funded by corporate sponsors. Hyde’s argument that this is art-for-art’s-sake is utter nonsense
This is essential viewing if you have watched in horror
#BaillieGifford
’s withdrawal of funding to several
#literaryfestivals
.
@MarinaHyde
brilliant as ever “if you insist that all art must be politicised..you are wishing for a contraction of the human experience “.
510
948
4K
24
147
1K
Goodbye Michael Gove. As someone who left the UK school system in the 00s & returned to it as a parent in the late 10s can confirm that you absolutely fcuked millions of lives for the sake of some coked-up educational theories & your own career. Hope the law gets you eventually
Dear Mogg
Just as Edward Lear wrote, '...all mimsy were the borogoves', our Gove is so mimsy he's afraid of braving the electorate. He's run out of people to stab in the back, hasn't he, Moggo? Of course, I was his most famous sacrificial ham.
Tofu in balti
Boris
45
274
2K
15
160
999
Right, I can't see any other option but to resign Lab membership. This is heat of the moment stuff but I also feel that it's rationally the right thing to do, coming off the back of lots of other stuff I've thought about in the cold light of day. What's everyone else thinking?
307
107
908
This is how a former Blairite MP is responding to a report which shows that senior Labour officials tried to sabotage the 2017 election campaign. These people are without shame & beneath contempt.
16
172
905
Is it perhaps because since the 2000s its meaning has totally changed to ‘honouring the British armed forces’ & become a rallying point for the centre- to the far-right, when it used to mean people mourning friends & relatives who died in living memory & insisting ‘never again’?
23
163
946
Incredibly unfunny liberal/Tory jokes about Johnson, a thread
20
74
922
The entire British media class has the unearned confidence + philosophical illiteracy of a 12-yr-old
16
75
890
We’ve had self-interested, amoral Labour leaders before, of course, but never one so grey, so snivelling, so pathetically in hock to the stereotype of establishment yes-man
'While I understand calls for a ceasefire I do not believe it is the correct position'.
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer says "the only credible approach" is taking a humanitarian pause.
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
2K
167
557
10
140
876
The fresh hell of 2020s Britain is like 1990 Britain but without rave, the Welfare State and left-wing old people
Police using batons on
#KILLTHEBILL
protesters outside Bristol Police Station.
@EpigramPaper
385
1K
2K
11
83
848
"If I was a child now I wouldn't have been brought up on a council estate, I would have moved from B&B month after month with no stability, no security. The conversation I hope a Labour government engages in is the shocking journey we've been on to a disgustingly unequal society"
Historian
@DavidOlusoga
on inequality, the key challenge facing the next UK government after July’s election.
56
1K
3K
7
201
878
For those unfamiliar with the North East, Elswick is to put it mildly very much not a leafy student enclave (cf. Tish Murtha), and neither are the South Tyneside areas with Green gains, so there’s something demographically & psephologically nuanced going on here
Elswick (Newcastle Upon Tyne) council election result:
GRN: 45.4% (+35.7)
LAB: 41.3% (-24.7)
CON: 8.8% (-9.2)
LDEM: 4.5% (-1.9)
Green GAIN from Labour.
99
496
2K
22
105
794
2020 Labour doesn't have anything to offer voters. It amputated its ideological & youthful wing as part of a factional movement against Corbynism & it's never going to beat a Tory-controlled establishment on 'competence' (the establishment *defines* competence). Big change needed
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 46% (+1)
LAB: 36% (-1)
LDEM: 6% (+1)
GRN: 3% (-1)
BREX: 2% (-)
via
@YouGov
, 08 - 09 Jul
Chgs. w/ 28 Jun
401
490
1K
23
126
746
Shocked on moving to NE from London in 2015 to find rubbish bins collected only every fortnight. Fly-tipping is rife, bins often overflow & rise of internet shopping means way more stuff/private trips to local waste disposal. Modern Britain is a permanent Winter of Discontent
13
113
722
Would like to congratulate Keir Starmer on another forensic performance at PMQs tomorrow
21
54
693
Great reform must and will come out of great tragedy. Every generation gets one big chance: socialists need to spend every quarantined minute writing, dreaming, organising, persuading & planning so we can build something positive on the other side of this
11
212
684
Very useful for repudiating the ‘Labour’s vote share was low cos of tactical voting for Lib Dems’ canard. This suggests Labour’s vote would actually have been much *lower* without tactical votes borrowed largely from Greens & Lib Dems
Implied voting intention if tactical voting were not necessary
Labour: 29% (-8 compared to actual voting intention)
Conservative: 18% (-2)
Reform UK: 16% (=)
Green: 13% (+6)
Lib Dem: 12% (-2)
Other: 9% (+3)
39
213
718
20
181
698
Inventing something called The Test of Leadership, deciding Corbyn has failed it and then publishing the verdict in a Guardian advert says pretty much all you need to know about patrician Blairism & its continuing inability to think beyond technocracy, statecraft and PR.
What has it come to in the Labour Party when the only way Labour peers feel they can communicate with their leader
@jeremycorbyn
is to pay to take out an advert in
@guardian
! No major party has ever been this dysfunctional
2K
1K
4K
13
179
639
There was a tweet a while back saying something like ‘the left’s biggest problem is giving too much credence to 2017’.
For Labour the *exact opposite* is true. If Lab is ever to get out of this hole acknowledging what went right in 2017 has to be the first rung on the ladder.
16
91
627
This is very much the Gary Neville / Elton John / Zadie Smith / Terry Christian / Tony Robinson / Clive Tyldesley / Supertanskiii election isn't it
They partied , they bet on elections , they crashed the economy, they broke every public service, they destroyed integrity and honesty in public office , they paid their mates billions , they put their friends in the House of Lords, they gave their cronies knighthoods, they went
7K
19K
82K
20
41
637
In late June 2016 the response of the PLP to polls like this (actually slightly better) was to launch an actual full-on coup against the Lab leadership
9
70
594
Since Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party one year ago today Keir Starmer’s leadership has been going from strength to strength
13
88
589
Strong candidate for most Telegraph series of words/values ever
7
39
583
'Old Labour manifestos' lol, read what he actually says
17
84
577
'Inclusive Thatcherism' is exactly the kind of unforced error/self-written epitaph you'd expect from these immoral, incompetent idiots isn't it?
Rachel Reeves says Labour wants ‘inclusive’ version of ‘decade of renewal’ that followed Thatcher’s election in 1979 – UK politics live
82
11
12
19
101
589
Centrism in this country is 99% just the aura of power & professional eminence. That's it, that's their politics.
If one with no prior knowledge of the last election result were watching this
#PMQs
, they would be left in absolutely no doubt that Starmer was Prime Minister. And Raab a double-glazing salesman who wandered into Parliament by mistake, was handed a clipboard and told “you’re on”.
126
934
6K
7
66
550
Lots of very happy private memories of Dawn. Publicly will just say w/out hyperbole that her coverage of Grenfell, her book Lean Out & her ability to smuggle the unvoiced opinions of all of us into the broadsheet press were among the major writerly achievements of the century
We are immensely saddened to announce that our dear friend
@DawnHFoster
died suddenly at home this week, related to her long-term illness. I, and I know many of you, loved her deeply, and it is a terrible loss.
2K
2K
15K
3
39
530
I voted for Diane Abbott in 2010, Corbyn in 2015 & 2016 and it'll be Rebecca Long Bailey whenever the ballot arrives today
Like striking when your union calls a strike, voting for the most socialist candidate is just something you do if you're a socialist in a rightwing society
18
75
508
Don’t ask me how I know this but nowadays Eng lit undergraduates are often encouraged not to write on Orwell’s 1984 for their dissertation because it’s regarded as a terminally cliched, analytically simplistic text which only people who haven’t read many books would eulogise
21
53
513
Polls are polls but trends are trends & one of the main ones from the last year or so is the remarkable lack of progress the Lib Dems & Greens have made in spite of Lab's downslide. Shows how much Corbynism was abt enthusing non-voters, who've now returned to pre-2015 type.
12
80
501
These guys thinking Spaced hasn't dated says pretty much all you need to know about the cultural mindset of Gen X sensible centrism
21
48
480
As a left-wing Catholic I'm startled to discover there might be bad things about the church this is something I have never considered up to now thank you for your guidance
3
45
482
Can even Starmer apologists now see a realistic scenario whereby he somehow turns this around, unites the party, inspires youth turnout, wins back Scotland & Red Wall, discovers charisma & defies boundary changes to win 130 seats in 2023-4? He's not Tony Blair he's Michael Howard
Starmer is defining his leadership of Labour. It is his version of Tony Blair’s determination to abolish Clause lV
86
16
172
15
66
472
"Our investigation into Watergate will focus on 3 equally important things:
1) How & why those journalists came to be investigating Nixon in the 1st place
2) What Nixon said
3) Whether the journalists were justified in making what Nixon said public & what should be done abt them"
NEW: Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner are commissioning an urgent investigation into the internal report.
278
530
2K
3
138
467
Regional prejudice (overlapping with but not identical to class prejudice) is a massively under-explored phenomenon
15
109
463
One reason we can't deal with major crises is that we're essentially a gerontocracy. The power structure of the west is just old conservatives doing evil stuff & old liberals mounting hapless opposition. When you lock out the energy & ideas of <45s you become a decrepit society
7
67
464
“Unfolded”. This man is scared to call a massacre of civilians by soldiers what it is for fear of offending Middle England. Utterly clear now that if he wins power he’ll merely do what the Tories are doing but slowly. Pls spare me the necessary compromise arguments at the next GE
50 years ago, the horror of Bloody Sunday unfolded in Derry.
The victims left behind families and a community that grieved their loss and struggled for decades to have the truth told about what happened.
I send them my deepest respects on this poignant and significant day.
1K
734
6K
1
69
465
LABOUR RIGHT: What do we want? Fewer ideas! When do we want them? 1997!
13
44
458
Ofc Burnham has manifold flaws, but it's hard to imagine Starmer saying anything as simple, relatable & pithy as this in private, let alone in public. And this is the problem.
Any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.
2K
6K
52K
6
31
459
Some people make sorrow just for the hell of it
11
46
453
A massive shame RLB has launched her leadership campaign under the sign of 'progressive patriotism'. This is a really bad thing to do, for 3 main reasons, broadly moral, intellectual & strategic
42
75
442
Really pleased to announce release & artwork for this book - a cultural history of northern modernism & revivalism since the 60s, out with
@BloomsburyBooks
on 2 Feb 2023. It’s rather unsubtly called The North Will Rise Again & you can pre-order it here:
22
74
444
So to sum up ... this has rescued Johnson's premiership (for now), encouraged large numbers of leftists to go from being Starmer-sceptic to actively anti-Labour & made loads of current Labour MPs seem a bit grubby & morally compromised. Masterly!
A very warm welcome to Christian Wakeford MP!
The new Labour MP for Bury South. 🌹
3K
2K
13K
8
63
438
A couple of weeks ago the BBC arts correspondent framed Julie Burchill's racist abuse of
@AyoCaesar
as a "freedom of speech debate" in which Burchill was a "high-profile target" of "cancel culture". Deeply normal country.
“I very much fear for the younger generation of writers.” Hear more from Kazuo Ishiguro about “cancel culture”, freedom of speech and his new novel
#klaraandthesun
coming up on
#r4today
@r4Today
@FaberBooks
15
3
11
12
147
433
Don’t really get this theory that a Labour landslide will ‘create room for the left’ given the obvious historical precedent of New Labour
30
40
434
Wild thought this but is it possible the closure of countless swimming pools & other civic amenities during 2010s austerity might actually have long-term negative consequences?
10
65
435
This is a not-very-well-delivered, scripted summary of headlines from the past week or so, spoken to a PM almost everyone on all wings of the establishment agrees is terrible, by a journalist for whom this should be standard procedure. It is in no way courageous or remarkable
If you watch anything to today. Let it be this. The opening sequence of
@BethRigby
interview with Prime Minister Liz Truss. Beth demonstrating the courage we would all wish for, if ever faced with Truss. Nonetheless, truly one of the most cutting interview openings in years.
1K
11K
53K
12
39
437
Toying with voting Lib Dem in protest against a Labour Party you're a bit peeved with? Get a fucking grip, look at what we're up against and get full square behind the only party capable of defeating this shit in the long term.
Both of these in the last hour or so
60
92
185
6
104
397
The Miners' Gala is not a proportional congregation of Co Durham voters, it's a local & national gathering of capital L organised Labour past & present. If you don't know this then you are both a) very stupid & b) totally ignorant of the NE of England & its makeup.
Fun Fact: There are 7 seats in County Durham.
🔷Tories took 4 of them in last month's election.
🔷123,112 people voted
@Conservatives
vs. 122,547
@LabourParty
voters.
We're the majority. 'Othering' conservative representatives & voters only means we stay that way.
103
160
758
8
63
398
The promotion of this non-story by the Guardian in a week when they have studiously ignored multiple insane examples of TIG racism is part of why they'll be extict within the decade. Utterly disgraceful.
20
132
383
There was a time not so many years ago when we were genuinely worried that Z*r0 would come to seem cooler & more credible than Repeater. Think it’s fair to say those days are gone
24
7
380
Not sure I said it exactly but 'Capitalist Realism was marked low on the REF' is an apt epitaph for the intellectual decade. This bashful, bearded interview I did with the New Statesman is ostensibly about New Model Island but Mark Fisher took centre stage
10
74
396
“Far from being the enemy of creative freedom, social security in the widest, deepest sense is the practical means by which personally liberating – & ultimately, socially useful – imaginative ideas are given the space to grow.”
Wrote this for the Guardian
14
105
403
‘Seventeen Going Under is a full-blown socio-political rallying cry. It confirms that Fender is now an essential and utterly inescapable figure for anyone interested in the future of social realist writing in this country’
Wrote this for Tribune
17
72
400
Condescending bs. New Lab did some good things in short term (during economic boom) but as with everything else the deep structural side of its education policy (OFSTED, tuition & top-up fees, league tables, exam focus) was unambiguously Thatcherite
21
85
372
Seeing idiots from centrist hacks to actual Tories suddenly embrace the tenets of Corbynism is sickening. But on the other hand Corbynism is finally cutting thru. The British state is like the dickhead boss who has to be fooled into thinking an idea is his before implementing it.
11
58
376
Larkin is insanely overrated English miserablist garbage, the Coldplay of poetry, his inordinate popularity largely based on the fact that journalists find it easy to quote his ruefully reactionary light verse feat occasional swear words
45
22
377
But what you've got to understand is that when surveyed lots of these people hadn't yet heard Keir talk about how machine learning can cater for individual work styles
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 39% (-)
LAB: 31% (-1)
LDEM: 8% (-2)
GRN: 9% (-)
REFUK: 4% (+1)
via
@YouGov
, 28 - 29 Sep
458
457
1K
9
33
377
If we have to have someone like Keir Starmer as Labour leader, wouldn't it be much better to have Andy Burnham?
So it looks like the Government ARE digging in and standing by their deeply flawed system.
In that case, I will be taking legal advice this morning and have instructed leading Counsel. I expect to be writing to
@ofqual
later today to initiate action.
353
2K
8K
28
27
365
Tfw when you tried to become a Scandinavian modernist city-state in the post-war years
7
26
367
Dadrock: substantially to the left of Sleaford Mods since 1966
7
37
372
that continued the reorganisation of the country on Thatcherite lines (tuition fees, academies, foundation hospitals, ASBOs, anti-immigration stuff, private housebuilding, hawkish foreign policy etc). Pretty conclusively, the scales of Blairism were not tilted to the left. 4/
4
27
358
Handwringing expostulations like these aren’t merely rhetorical. Having rejected the rational, even mundane analysis/response of 2015-2019 the liberal brain literally cannot compute what’s now happening
9
63
361
Don't think people (by which I mean centrists) realise how badly Rachel Reeves will go down in a GE campaign
'That's not the way our democracy works.'
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves says there won't be a by-election in Bury South after Christian Wakeford's decision to defect to Labour.
Rachel Reeves is instead calling for a general election.
122
19
66
14
38
350
All you cynics saying Grey Labour won’t actually change anything in government - check this motherfucker out!
BOOM
68
48
367
"The source and ongoing power base of Grey Labour lies in the contemporary right wing of the party: one of the stupidest, most intellectually moribund tendencies in the history of British democracy."
Wrote this on Grey Labour for
@tribunemagazine
22
138
363
Yep. A big problem with the 'we need to listen to people in Bishop Auckland' trope (much as I agree) is that lots of us listened to people in Bishop Auckland this winter & they most often said 'Corbyn should be hanged', 'he's an IRA collaborator', 'Diane Abbott is disgusting' etc
Indeed. When people say “on the doors people didn’t like corbyn” they mean “lots of people wanted harm to befall him”. The layers of this need unpicking, and mass paid Facebook propaganda played a key part.
7
36
222
11
84
342
The alternatives - and at the moment Starmerism is one of them – will simply not be enough to save us. 12/
18
19
344
Tom Watson is now a publicly discredited figure hawking a wrecking policy with the backing of other yet more discredited public figures (Blair, Mandelson). Just ignore him.
24
103
330
For those confused about the backstory to Repeater Books taking back control of Zero Books, here’s a note I posted in 2018. To be clear, the people running Zero 2014-2021 knew about all of this, because we told them & asked for their solidarity (they ignored us)
4
37
342