nandy pulled off the scam of the year lol like imagine pleading for your job all ooh you don’t understand i was blocked from doing what i wanted to do and then going back to snoring in a hammock

don't ask me how. i'm not a policy guy. but every fash like Tommo out there is in it for the social media payouts. force companies to cut that off, and to demonitize any channel they appear on. they aren't gonna do this content for free.

🚨 NEW BLOGPOST 🚨 The last week has seen multiple incidents of masked mobs trying to subvert the power of the state. Their actions have been illegal and unpleasant. But the treatment has been weak. The police haven't dealt with it, and neither has govt. open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

Stop the Louts

The tools exist. The will, so far, doesn't.

open.substack.com

I do begin to wonder if this is Labour wildly course-correcting from Gordon Brown insulting a little old lady into "we must never be impolite to any racist ever" For god's sake.

John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 3d ago

What is this comment from the Labour MP? No, the issue here isn't that the attempted pogrom had the wrong targets!

If you're in government watching criminal-led blackshirt thugs in balaclavas wage war on the RNLI and you're hedging your bets because you're not sure who the majority of the country will side with, why do you even want to be in government? Why would you WANT to lead people you think so little of?

Broke: Respect the Police Woke: Defund the Police Bespoke: Fund the Police, respect the internal investigations department that holds them in line

Jay Zedbee@jayzedbee.bsky.social · 4d ago

sorry if this """offends""" some on the so called "woke bbc""" but i think roving gangs of masked thugs threatening infrastructure is bad and should be dealt with by the police............i am not afraid to be a bit of carceral feminist about this

Timeline and replies full of people confidently asserting Trump is committing a bribery offence. Actually, a politician promising to *all* voters a benefit on victory, *regardless* of how they vote, is not bribery. It is a staple of democratic politics.

Corey Rayburn Yung@coreyryung.bsky.social · 4d ago

I understand that people want Trump's ridiculous $5k check proposal to be a crime. But it's not. He is just describing (falsely) what will happen if the GOP wins. He is not paying anyone to vote. It's just a pathetic campaign promise.

Ok, either the police in britain cannot police a credible threat of mass racial intimidation, in which case the home secretary needs firing, or the police in britain does not care about it, in which case the home secretary needs firing

labour government quietly effective factoid actually just statistical error. average labour minister actually incredibly useless. Ed Millerbind, who lives in cave & actually does 10,000 things with power each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Worth recalling that the Cameron government privately warned Israel that it risked being treated as a pariah as far back as 2014 if it continued on its course re occupation and settlement. Miliband is not making Israel a pariah state, successive Netanyahu governments have done that

If your business processes are not simple and consistent with clear governance, then the most efficient approach is internal staffing. Not because it is efficient in itself, but because networking and institutional knowledge are your only hope at stopping things becoming too inefficient.

I cannot stress enough that a civil partnership is 61 quid.

This is the thing, I am happy to accept that I am wet, lefty liberal on immigration compared to the voting public, I'm not really prepared to accept the same on the topic of black masked militia men blocking infrastructure!

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 7d ago

This should be the easiest open goal in the world for a progressive government - they are literally violent criminals. Most voters do not like violent criminals.

Brexit and its aftershocks produced countless anxious articles, books, podcasts &c. about how the political class had become isolated from ordinary people - but has mostly tipped into the same level of patronising caricature that doesn't understand the public don't like things.

@timoconnorbl.bsky.social · last wk.

As a general note: the median British voter is in favour of doing things that would elicit a quiet whistle of worried admiration from Bomber Harris to those who obstruct or target the RNLI, and quite rightly so. If a government cannot see that and react, it has a problem seeing the simple things.

"They're attacking the RNLI. Protest is one thing, but once you attack the lifeboats, all bets off" is a simple message, but all the more powerful for that simplicity.

So in one week: 1) Reform get stung for dodgy finances, and the regulators play pass the parcel about enforcement 2) Farage announces plans to largely dismantle independent scrutiny of govt, and barely any press discussion of it 3) Masked thugs blockade a port, with narry a word from senior govt

My Mum has been married to my Stepdad for 13 years, and part of that stability is that he keeps the TV remote nearby so he can pause it when my Mum starts going "oh, what's he been in, you know, that show with whatsername out of that other thing" which is constantly, as she loves Death in Paradise.

Another bad day for people who argue that studying the humanities is the path to more ethical tech

Peter Jukes@peterjukes.bsky.social · last wk.

Just a reminder, Professor James Orr, Reform UK head of policy, teaches 'ethics' to undergraduates at Cambridge University youtu.be/aXut3s90rUI

With all respect to the BBC, the reason this story "matters" is not about whether it distracts from Reform's conference. It "matters" because it is important our leaders are not conspiring to break the law.

Strap in for some great art and hot takes.

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 2w ago

Clearly there are going to be a lot of stupid takes on the by-election, so when I see one, I am going to post a picture of a painting and a general subtweet rather than getting involved.

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.

Duncan Weldon@duncanweldon.bsky.social · 2w ago

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.

It’s not really worth reading Graham Linehan’s whole piece, but I’m trying to imagine how you could quote this message from a friend and think it reflects poorly on him, not you

Freda Wallace She/Ra@missfreda.bsky.social · 2w ago

Graham Linehan reacts to Jon Ronson’s assessment of his downfall and unravelling by doing more downfalling and unraveling.

'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

Make your favorite film sound as boring as possible without giving away the title. Local people fail to fix wall in rural area, people rarely climb through the gap.

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 2w ago

Make your favorite film sound as boring as possible without giving away the title. Local businessman completes acquisition of entertainment venue.

Many years ago, I wrote down this bit of a speech Obama gave to an audience in Silicon Valley. Because it absolutely NAILED the difference between government and business.

David, just David@coldwarhost.bsky.social · 3w ago

The most damaging political idea I've seen in my lifetime is the idea that government should be run like a business

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 · 3w ago

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...

If this gdp acceleration doesn’t happen all these investors are getting carried out on stretchers even if AI is the most consequential invention of the 21st century.

"For as long as I can remember, I’ve wished innovation could happen faster. With AI, my feelings are more complicated." Fascinating and important essay by Bill Gates:

I wasn't planning to betray I'm not the kind of man to stray But I won't be her second-rate Jolene She's got it bad, it's getting worse Somehow she's on her seventh verse My woman clearly wants to fuck Jolene

Still unbeaten. RIP