A few more years of this and we'll be a failed state.

It is hard to imagine a radically different future for the country in which you live. But plenty of nations have flipped from prosperity into political and economic collapse, often through gross misrule.
Gross misrule is the UK's other pandemic.
And there's currently no vaccine.
The usual treatment is effective opposition. But, given the scale of the crises we now face, Labour is being remarkably quiet and passive. It should be mobilising its base in protest, while articulating a fresh and exciting political vision.
A crucial aspect of this vision is political reform:
Proportional representation, so the many can never again be dominated by the few.
Get the money out of politics.
Cut Murdoch and the other media barons down to size.
Build a new, more participatory democracy.
The crisis makes a much bolder and more radical Opposition response necessary.
It also provides an opportunity for a new politics, that wasn't there before.
Why isn't Labour grasping it?
If Labour doesn't articulate a new vision, if it doesn't signal a clear break from Boris Johnson's corrupt, incestuous, chaotic, authoritarian politics, if it doesn't first frighten Johnson into changing course, then evict him at election, state failure becomes a likelihood.
I'm told that Starmer is playing a long game.
In my view, playing a long game in a national emergency represents the triumph of strategy over success.
In the meantime, it is surely now clear that the best protection against ongoing disaster for the people of Wales and Scotland is independence, and for the people of Northern Ireland, reunification.
I know that would leave England in an even bigger mess. But we have to sort out our deep problems, rather than relying on princes over the border to rescue us.

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I'll bite, Mr. Gray. We can even play by your rather finicky rules.

Let's begin with some of the things you have said about Xinjiang, notably absent from your more recent media appearances, but still present in your blog about your 2014 biking trip.


The following is taken from an ongoing list I keep of people who have been to Xinjiang and written/spoken about their experiences. It is separate from the testimony of detainees and their relatives I also keep. Jerry is on this

Jerry, your article for CGTN, as well as your various Medium pieces, belabor themselves to emphasize the smoothness of your time in Xinjiang. Why did you leave out so many details from your log of your 2014 trip? They seem relevant.

For example, would CGTN not let you speak about Shanshan, the town that evidently disturbed you so much?


Why, pray tell, after noting how kind and hospitable Xinjiang police were to you in 2019 for CGTN—and how you were never told where you could or could not go—would you omit these details?

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