James Cleverly will fix this

Daniel Moser@dmoser.bsky.social · 10h ago

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

The best time for broad based tax rises was autumn 2024. The next best time was autumn 2025. But here we are. The next best time is this budget. The point of political capital is to spend it when you need to. Take the hit now and give yourself a path to a strong political argument in 2028/29.

Aaaaarrrrggggghhhh.

John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 2d ago

No, it's vitally important you keep an election pledge no one believed you'd keep, tinker with the edges that make people feel like you've broken it, do some unpopular cuts you back down one, and then have massive cuts in the last fiscal year before the election. That's how social democracy works.

The more I read about OpenAI agentic AIs incident, the more amazed/alarmed I am. Give capable beings (LLMs or CEOs) high incentives to do tough tasks, & they’ll break things to succeed. Truly AI is our child. Thanks @dwarkesh.bsky.social @thezvi.bsky.social www.dwarkesh.com/p/openai-hug...

Argument that Sunak, as much as I dislike the content of his politics, is a more serious person than Starmer.

Tom Roberts@tpgroberts.bsky.social · 2d ago

Compare Rishi managing to condemn racist incitement despite it coming from his own party, he also is still in parliament and clearly takes that seriously, to Keir's silence followed by resigning on Burnham's first day back in parliament as PM.

Banter timeline: -Canada has stronger and deeper economic partnership with the EU than the UK does. -Many pro-Brexit commentators continue to argue for CANZUK (Canada + New Zealand + Australia + UK, basically the white bits of the old empire).

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Mark Carney: "This fall we will begin intense discussions with the European Union, the world's second-largest economy, to build a much stronger and deeper economic and security partnership"

“woke 1 was worse than our nation being run by fascist white nationalists” is a horrible thing to say out loud but it is the actual position most of these people hold so they disguise it by Just Asking Questions but you can tell by which subjects they cover

Radley Balko@radleybalko.bsky.social · 4d ago

It’s mind-blowing that we have literal white nationalists in the White House carrying out unfathomably cruel, abusive, white nationalist policies, and the punditariat has spent the last two weeks debating if some people were too intemperate after a Black man was murdered by cops six years ago.

Iceland is not in the EU, but it is a member of the Schengen area. It’s also a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and is part of the Single Market, meaning it enjoys freedom of movement with the EU. Good to know that doesn’t impact their independence. Maybe we should try it, Nige.

The case for being more optimistic on climate than current cultural default. (Note that ‘more optimistic’ is not ‘optimistic’ or ‘polyanna-ish’; just a raising the level out of ‘all will be terrible forever’.)

Albert Pinto@70sbachchan.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Same. HUGE gap between experts & everyone else. This was already expert consensus 2 years ago. Now? Trump's horrible & evil war have wrecked the perception of oil & gas as stable and cheap in the decade when solar, wind, batteries, EVs are SURGING worldwide www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/daw...

I learned today that some charitable trusts are now nervous about awarding grants outside the so-called Golden Triangle of Oxford-Cambridge-London. They‘re worried about wasting money as universities close departments & make staff redundant. Labour’s HE policy is entrenching elite privilege.

Is doomscrolling bad for you? A meta-analysis of 42 studies (N=46,912) finds that consuming short-form videos is linked to increases in inattention & impulsivity; reductions in working-memory span & self-regulation; elevations in anxiety, depression & stress; and a surge in addiction symptoms.

"If Labour’s strategy is essentially to do what Starmer did, but with better comms and more social-media dopamine, it will get the same result as he did." @chakrabortty.bsky.social

Does Nigel Farage know what people really think of him? I do – and he won’t like it | Aditya Chakrabortty

An anti-Farage army of voters is there to be galvanised, as exclusive data shows. But getting them out will be tricky, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

theguardian.com

We’ll defend ourselves by explaining to the Russians that what they’re doing is badly out of step with the Red Wall

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 7d ago

Healey to shelve his own defence spending target of 3% of GDP by 2030 ft.trib.al/qrq5xum

Today's @xkcd.com

The UK should be doing this! We could attract loads of top talent! Maddening.

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · last wk.

The American brain drain gathers pace.

Good piece from @himself.bsky.social on Acemoglu, developing the idea that I had been speculating about - that the weird Economist piece attacking him was all about his criticisms of AI. www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-acemog...

The Acemoglu Wars Are All About AI

Regarding that Economist article ...

programmablemutter.com

This piece on Dolly Parton from @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social is excellent. "In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer." — Camus Let summer be this immaterial wealth Parton had in who she was & how she lived & what managed to spread around in her art and her advocacy.

Rebecca Solnit@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · last wk.

Somehow her being gone made her more present than ever in one way. In another, with her gone, it's up to us to be what she was to the best of our ability....

"Neutral in the culture war"

CNN@cnn.com · last wk.

"At a time when no American celebrity seems immune from the country’s many divisions, Dolly Parton was a crossover icon who stayed neutral in the culture wars while still speaking her mind," writes Zachary B. Wolf. | Analysis

It would be impossible to guess any of this from most media coverage.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · last wk.

New immigration stats show that the numbers of asylum seekers in hotels is down to 16k - falling 50% in a year. Small boat crossings down 23% in the year to June. Numbers waiting for initial decision down from almost 180k to 40k.

Plug-in solar panels are go. www.businessgreen.com/news/4534869...

'Simple and affordable': Plug-in solar panels approved for sale in the UK

Legislative amendment allowing plug-in solar panels to be sold in the UK enters into force, government confirms

businessgreen.com

I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.

One way you know Dolly Parton lived life the right way: I don’t think anyone’s going to get fired for accurately quoting Dolly Parton today.

On the very day Sam published this, one of the most empathetic people of the last century died. And the response among every side of the political spectrum to her death suggests to me that empathy still has some miles left in it.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · last wk.

New post out: Much of the right - led by Elon Musk - has decided the world's problems are caused by "suicidal empathy". I look at where this phrase comes from, why it's a profoundly wrong misdiagnosis, and a misunderstanding of what empathy is. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/the-war-ag...

#ReadingNotes Latest of my doctoral reading. Alveson et al identify 4 reflexive* research practices: -Multi-perspective -Multi-voicing -Positioning -Destabilizing *='research that turns back upon itself to explore the situated nature of knowledge' davidbent.wordpress.com/2026/08/25/r...

Reflecting on Reflexivity: Reflexive Textual Practices in Organization and Management Theory #ReadingNote

In Reflecting on Reflexivity, Alveson et al make the case for reflexivity in research outputs, because social reality is constructed, rather than discovered, through research. They define reflexivi…

davidbent.wordpress.com

It is absolutely meaningless for the UK government (or EU governments) to talk about regulating social media while continuing to ignore this stuff from Musk.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · last wk.

Elon Musk emdorses claim the coming European Reconquista will be "much uglier" and more violent than it needed to be. Blames "ethnomasochist" opponents of remigration + racism

Its also worth noting, if youre in the 'norms are everything' camp (as I am) that the US had a extensive programme of norm building (swearing allegance, the detification on the constituention, huge educational effort) which has totally failed and may have contributed to the issue

The depressing thing about the US isn't Trump really. He's just a grotesque. It's the complete failure of all the things liberals believe in: Congress, the judiciary, the press, voters themselves, all persistently unwilling or unable to stop him. It's the failure of an entire society.

Alan Beattie@alanbeattie.bsky.social · last wk.

And yet still farm counties will vote Republican. They always do.

It’s really important that independent organisations can hold Government to account. I’m on the Board of @nao.org.uk which does this and we are looking for two new Board members. Could you help spread the word so we can get the best possible field of candidates roles.saxbam.com/advert-detai...

Something something FOX something something HENHOUSE.

Alex Partridge@alexpartridge87.bsky.social · last wk.

George Freeman MP had a fox in his Portcullis House office this morning...

8. Academic freedom is not the freedom to say what you think per se, or to come to any conclusion. It's the freedom to engage in scholarship in accordance with the rigors of an academic community which has been admitted by the collegium of scholars.