Integral Fella

SIR PATRICK STEWART (1940-2026) Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love. We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions. My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in 'Star Trek'. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk—getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”. Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did for not just his devoted Trekkies but film and theatre audiences, who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes ('X-Men' of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway. America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin. But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire. His farewell performance in 'Avengers: Doomsday' is yet to be seen. Ian McKellen 29 October 2026 Photo: University of Huddersfield

The SS chief who ran the concentration camps said gold teeth from the dead reached his office yet his conscience was clear. He never hated the Jews and only followed orders... This is what he told the Jewish translator next: (🧵)

For years, Europe was told it was weak. Frightened. A continent of museums, long lunches and people who needed an American to open a particularly intimidating jar. An interesting assessment of the continent that produced Roman legions, Vikings and enough military history to fill several libraries with reasons never to do it again. We know what strength looks like. We also know what happens when it becomes stupidity. Our history contains rather extensive documentation of both. Now the orange clown wants to leave? Fine. There’s the door. Try negotiating a tariff with it on the way out. Trump’s America sells invincibility with the confidence of a second-hand car dealer standing in front of a smoking engine. Meanwhile, Iranian strikes have damaged or destroyed hundreds of structures at US bases across the Middle East. A humiliating discrepancy between the sales brochure and the actual vehicle. Europe should stop waiting for the next reassurance from Washington and start placing orders. Build the factories. Make the ammunition, drones, missiles and air defences. Invest in engineers, energy, intelligence and logistics. Create skilled jobs in European towns instead of purchasing another decade of dependence. Our security should come with European production lines and European pay packets. The principle is simple: an attack on one is an attack on all. Take the collective-defence principle behind Article 5 and give Europe the military capacity to uphold it, whoever occupies the White House. We do not need an American-sized carrier fleet to defend our continent. Nor must we audition for the role of global sheriff in the Pacific. We need the means to make attacking Europe a catastrophically bad decision. Hundreds of millions of people can organise that. But it requires contracts, common procurement and working factories. Preferably before another committee commissions a report about commissioning a report. MAGA Washington can marinate in its own corruption and obsess over Venezuela. Europe has a future to build. Russia is a serious threat. Meeting it requires serious European power, with Ukraine central to the effort. Let the clown leave. Build something that lasts.

I can't find words. Dnipro 💔 A railway platform is covered in people's bodies after a Russian strike. Russia started this war. Russia continues killing Ukrainian civilians every single day. Russia won't stop until it is stopped.

🇪🇺🇬🇧 Bad news for Russia. The UK has announced over £10 billion package for Ukraine The EU is preparing to cover its €70 billion funding gap. Your negotiations with the US are irrelevant. We will keep supporting Ukraine and crushing Russia’s economy. Russia will be left crippled and surrounded by countries integrated into European defence structures. Meet with American businessmen as much as you like. It will change nothing.

EUROPE HAS BEEN SYSTEMATICALLY WEAKENED, AND NOW BRUSSELS IS FINALLY WAKING UP. After 20 years of declining oil-refining capacity, the European Commission suddenly sounds the alarm. EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen declares: “This crisis is a wake-up call.” A wake-up call? Europe has spent two decades making itself increasingly vulnerable, and only now are its leaders beginning to recognize the consequences. For years, ideological environmental activism, misguided energy policies, and political short-sightedness have helped undermine Europe’s energy security and industrial competitiveness. And who benefited from a Europe that became increasingly dependent on imported energy? Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Russia has exploited political divisions on both sides of the European political spectrum. On the far right: Financial links and political relationships involving Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France. Russian influence operations targeting figures associated with Germany’s AfD. Close political relationships with Austria’s FPÖ and Italy’s Lega. Support for nationalist movements hostile to European integration. Propaganda designed to weaken NATO, undermine EU unity, and reduce support for Ukraine. Disinformation campaigns exploiting immigration, nationalism, and distrust of democratic institutions. On the environmental and political left, Russia pursued a different opportunity: Amplifying opposition to European shale gas and fracking. Encouraging narratives that made domestic fossil-fuel production politically unacceptable. Exploiting anti-nuclear sentiment that contributed to the closure of reliable electricity generation. Benefiting from campaigns against domestic energy infrastructure. Taking advantage of political resistance to long-term investments in European energy independence. Exploiting the contradiction between Europe’s ambitious environmental promises and its growing reliance on imported energy. Not every environmental campaign was Russian-funded or Russian-directed. But Moscow certainly had every reason to encourage policies that made Europe more dependent on Russian gas. The result was a strategic disaster. Europe weakened parts of its own energy infrastructure while purchasing enormous quantities of energy from an authoritarian regime. We closed nuclear plants, lost refining capacity, restricted domestic production, and allowed ideological purity to take priority over energy security. Meanwhile, Russia collected energy revenues, strengthened its geopolitical leverage, and continued undermining the democratic institutions Europe was supposed to defend. Protecting the environment is important. But environmental protection without economic realism, industrial security, or geopolitical awareness becomes a dangerous weakness. The greatest irony is that movements claiming to protect Europe’s future helped create vulnerabilities that Russia could exploit. Europe’s fundamental values include democracy, freedom, sovereignty, scientific progress, and the ability to determine our own future. Those values mean very little if we become economically and strategically dependent on authoritarian regimes. Putin did not need to defeat Europe militarily to weaken it. He could exploit our political divisions, our ideological extremes, and our own disastrous policy decisions. And now, after two decades, Brussels calls it a wake-up call. The real question is why it took so long.