Evening all,

It’s Carole here. It’s spring and I’m sitting on a park bench surrounded by bird song, the day after Trump threatened to erase Iran and its people.

He didn’t, thankfully, but that’s not really the point. Threatening a genocide is in itself a breach of the genocide convention. Another big so what in the great continuing collapse of the international order. 

The blossom is blossoming and I’m watching footage of Israel blowing up familiar areas in Beirut, even after a ceasefire was supposedly agreed. 

I volunteered last night to write something about Lebanon today because I know the country (I once wrote a travel guide there) and felt I should, because what’s happening in Lebanon has been criminally under-reported by the international news media (with the notable exception of Sky News, whose correspondent there, Alex Crawford, has been repeatedly abused for pointing out it’s not okay to murder journalists).

I believe we’re looking at Gaza 2.0 and the silence is deafening. Read my piece here.

Our usual Tuesday edition is a day later this week due to the bank holidays, and we’re bringing you a fascinating – and sobering – report by Rei Takver on Reform UK’s plans for an ICE-style data driven deportation drive (and how Labour are paving the way for it), a lovely piece by British-Iraqi writer Arwa Haider on the joys of pop fandom, our weekly guide to the best new culture, and news of the latest Nerve members’ events including an evening with Dave Eggers in Manchester.

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Nigel Farage appears to be learning from the activities of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) – who have been responsible for 15 deaths in custody and two fatal shootings so far this year – if Reform’s plans for surveillance tools to power a “relentless” deportation agenda – are any indication. And Palantir and the Labour government could be enabling them. In a report for the Nerve, Rei Takver joins the dots between Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” policy document (starring their “Illegal Migrant Identification Programme” and "cutting-edge data fusion), the plasticity of Labour’s recent new data law, and a heads-up from Palantir that they will be fine with use of NHS data for immigration crackdowns. Read Rei’s report here.

As a 13-year-old girl living in Saudi Arabia, Arwa Haider wore a Pet Shop Boys T-shirt under her abaya. Being a pop fan produced “a full-time dopamine rush, occasionally punctured by stuff like school and chores”. News of a major exhibition at London’s Somerset House exploring how stars become idolised has sent her hurtling back to memories of her poster-strewn teenage bedroom and “the electricity of a pop culture awakening that still feels hard-wired in my system.” Read Arwa’s piece here.

A new film from American auteur Jim Jarmusch is always an event and his Father Mother Sister Brother, which arrives in UK cinemas on Friday, does not disappoint. “He takes the mundanity of family life and transforms it into a pleasingly mellow kind of cinematic contentment,” says our film critic Ellen E Jones. Other recommendations this week include a return to form for musician Jamie Woon, Peter Doig’s new art space and a debut novel that “you'll be thinking about for a long time afterwards”. Oh, and a reminder to book for Harry Styles’ tantalising Meltdown festival. Read the full list here.

We are delighted to announce a Nerve-hosted onstage conversation with the American writer Dave Eggers to mark the publication of his new novel Contrapposto at Manchester’s Anthony Burgess Foundation, Thursday 2 July. Dave came to literary fame in 2000 with his best-selling debut, the memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Since then his work has included What Is the What, The Circle and A Hologram for the King. Contrapposto is a love story that is, according to his publishers: “Twenty years in the making, a novel about art, life and the complicated beauty of both.” Buy tickets here for £11.00 (or £7.00 for members, who were sent an email yesterday with a special discount code - get in touch if you haven’t received that).

We are also hosting a talk at Bristol’s Bookhaus on Tuesday 19 May with our contributing writer Natasha Walter who will discuss her timely new book Feminism for a World on Fire. Natasha’s previous works include Living Dolls: the Return of Sexism, The New Feminism and Before the Light Fades and she is the founder of Women for Refugee Women. Natasha will be in conversation with the investigative reporter Sian Norris. Buy tickets here for £7. Again, members have been sent a link to buy discounted tickets, for £4. For updates on all events keep an eye on our members’ page: thenerve.news/members.

See you again on Friday!

Carole, co-founder