This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH

IN THE court of Emperor Trump the oligarchs rule. At least they think they do. But as in any feudal system, even the oligarchs are just courtiers.
Courtier power is conditional, not on the amount of cash you shower upon the emperor but on the ability to constantly praise his every word. The battleground between courtiers then becomes “who gets closest to the emperor’s ear”?
At the moment Elon Musk has Trump’s ear. Musk is not just an increasingly right-wing media mogul who helped rig the election in Trump’s favour. He is keen to do the same for the AfD in Germany, the Reform Party in Britain and any number of right-wing movements across the globe. This is what modern feudalism looks like.

ALAN SIMPSON warns of a dystopian crossroads where Trump’s wrecking ball meets AI-driven alienation, and argues only a Green New Deal can repair our fractured society before techno-feudalism consumes us all


