Not gonna lie, kind of excited that we’ve got a new Miss Marple book this year. (Yes. I am choosing to read that rather than some depressing headlines tonight.)

I do feel like a lot of issues here r not them hating Europe, more them disliking moving countries and being an immigrant: the labour market barriers, the lack of social connections, etc. That is fair. Not everyone likes that life and not everyone has to.

WIRED@wired.com · 2d ago

The internet told them Europe was a social paradise. Turns out the trains are awful, the health care isn’t free, and people can be really mean.

French cities build way more trams than the UK. Over the past decade alone, they've added more than the entirety of all England's exiting networks combined. It's not just trams - from road to rail, England's transport infrastructure delivery has fallen behind. We wanted to find out why 🚃

Centre for Cities@centreforcities.bsky.social · 2d ago

NEW REPORT | Mayors have big plans for trams, rail and roads. But building transport in England is slow and costly. Licence to build sets out how devolution can help mayors deliver 👇 buff.ly/lopu9fe

It took the city of Dijon 4 years to build 20km of tram. Birmingham's 1.7 km Eastside tram extension required nearly 6,000 pages of planning documentation and more than three years to secure approval. Thirteen years after it was first proposed, planning approvals were still ongoing.

In my crystal ball, I can see a future when someone says "the psychic business employs X time more people than the fishing industry" in a re-join debate.

Hannah Fearn@hannahfearn.bsky.social · 3d ago

Why has everyone started going to see a psychic? I asked myself this question after one too many social media scrolls and weird chats IRL. And it passed the more-than-vibes test: "psychic services" are one of our fastest growing industries. Bit weird.... Or is it? I found out...

Think a key thing about terms like progressive or conservative is that they r social tendencies rather than solid sets of positions. Being a progressive is about always looking for the next cause for social change. Being a conservative is about finding what to conserve in a status quo.

James Austin@jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 3d ago

There is a whole thing about how they were the young, radical progressives and have ended up entirely rejected by those circles and cant deal with it

I hate this so, so much. We're social creatures; we need other people and go.... weird when we don't have them. Also makes me realise how much of a outlier I, and I suspect a lot of people on here, are.

Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 4d ago

hatttttttte this I hate it I hate it it makes me so sad I hate it www.ft.com/content/989c...

wild to remember Capt Hannah Graf got a MBE in 2019 and now there's a de facto ban on trans troops

RDCK98@comradekenobi.bsky.social · 6d ago

We really are back to the 90s in so many ways, de facto ban on trans soldiers

“When r u ever gonna use this” is just a bad argument against fundamental education content. No. I didn’t love maths as a child. Yes. Studying it gave me a lot of future options. I didn’t necessarily pursue all of them, but it was nice to have options.

Anthony Painter@anthonypainter.bsky.social · 6d ago

Schools can only teach one thing apparently. We have to choose which one. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is a mess - and will cause real harm to trans people. Trans exclusion, whether in healthcare or other spaces, is an indignity. We will always stand against it 🏳️‍⚧️✊ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Trans people should use hospital spaces according to biological sex, NHS England says

New guidance says trans patients should be cared for on single-sex hospital wards or bays that align with their biological sex.

bbc.co.uk

In every part of the country, cities punch above their weight in containing jobs + especially higher-paid (top 20% of pay) jobs. This is why cities matter for local economic growth across Britain - if cities struggle then the national economy will struggle to create jobs.

Centre for Cities@centreforcities.bsky.social · last wk.

The Government wants “good growth in every postcode”. But jobs and businesses cluster in particular places (cities). Our new briefing sets out why the goal should be access to good growth in every postcode 👇 buff.ly/zjjaQ4V

This is really interesting! Adds some complexity to the “horseshoe” theory of left and right populism.

Chris Clarke@warringfictions.bsky.social · last wk.

With huge thanks to @goodgrowthfdn.bsky.social for allowing me a sneak peak at their polling, the piece looks at where the parties sit on a spectrum between scarcity and fairness. It examines what the parties of the populist right and left share – and what they emphatically do not.

The fictional magical city in my dark academia fantasy novel has a modern tram system, and that feels odd somehow.

Another political one: once read a murder mystery where the background tension is some rich person with a newly built luxury hotel in scenic rural Dorset, which the local people were completely powerless to stop and were not consulted on. As if.

Daniel@deargodwhaat.bsky.social · last wk.

Prompts a fun question: whats the most niche historical inaccuracy in a piece of work that annoys you Not like 'oh they were referring to the wrong king' , more 'they had the wrong king on a banknote in one scene'

I read about 80 books a year. About 70 would be fiction, and at least 50 would be murder mysteries, Can safely say I derive very little useful knowledge, beyond some meta commentaries about the genre. It is just fun to me, and that is okay.

Amrk@amrk.bsky.social · last wk.

This is not going to be popular on Bluesky but I maintain reading novels as the Good Hobby is a useful fiction to tell kids we want to get literate, if you’re already literate probably not great if you prefer TikTok but preferring films or TV or gaming or sports or the pub is Fine

Slightly different, but it has always annoyed me that Alex’s climatic speech in Red, White and Royal Blue, a scene that I rather like, is a Hatch Act violation.

Daniel@deargodwhaat.bsky.social · last wk.

Prompts a fun question: whats the most niche historical inaccuracy in a piece of work that annoys you Not like 'oh they were referring to the wrong king' , more 'they had the wrong king on a banknote in one scene'

That was an amazing start to my London Film Festival experience.

NEW: What happened in Holborn? Some constituency polling to help us understand a bit more. TLDR: loyalty to Burnham + a local candidate won the day; no real sign of tactical voting; Greens never convinced ppl they could win but Polanski not toxic necessarily. @persuasionuk.bsky.social

Trump’s obsession with demonizing the Somali community is dangerous and reprehensible. Hate to break it to him: Somali Minnesotans are resilient. We will not let Trump intimidate us. Our neighbors have our back.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Trump tries to start a race war: "The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants ... The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!"

This is obviously horrific reasoning start to finish. Also, “we r a completely different country from 50yrs ago” is a standard and healthy thing. Something would have to have gone seriously wrong if it was not the case.

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 2w ago

‘Culturally British by my standards’ is one of the most chilling phrases uttered in British politics. Entirely unsurprising to me who it’s from.

Think a part of me will always be angry at what they tried to do in Minneapolis. Unforgivable things done to a beautiful city.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Trump tries to start a race war: "The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants ... The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!"

“This may seem trivial. But it’s really not.” I mean, yes. The BoE is doing this for a very consequential reason: to reduce counterfeiting. Or does he just like forgery?

Peter Whitewood@pwhitewood.bsky.social · 2w ago

A shadowy network of hedgehogs and owls, operating at the highest levels of the British establishment.

Ah yes, because PRC is famous for its steadfast support for trans teens. (This is a joke just to be clear. Unfortunately, I have met people who unironically believe this.)

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Q: How do you define socialism personally? JD VANCE: I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls' sports

A similar moment for me: a person I work with at a charity shop, progressive but not at all political, told someone they were warm and personable, “like that Andy Burnham guy.”

Nathan@nwylabour.bsky.social · 2w ago

Interesting nugget of information gleaned today – my sister, a mild to moderately politically engaged young and highly educated Labour 2024 –> Green May 2026 voter, wants Zack Polanski to lose in the by-election and thinks Burnham is a big improvement on Starmer

A super important topic, I don't think gets enough attention: Are we spending public money on social and affordable housing where it is needed most. Answer - no. But we have in the past, and can do so again. 🧵

Centre for Cities@centreforcities.bsky.social · 2w ago

Public housebuilding funding should reflect where housing need is greatest. Our latest analysis shows why allocating grant to mayors, rather than regions, could better target funding at the places facing the greatest pressures 👇 buff.ly/EaZDlDA

On the one hand, this would backfire for him in the midterms. On the other hand, it would reduce the well being of, like, everyone on this planet.

Faytuks Network@faytuksnetwork.bsky.social · 2w ago

The White House has asked the Pentagon to develop options for strikes on Iranian targets that could be carried out before the U.S. midterm elections, according to The Atlantic. The planning underscores how much Trump wants to reduce gas prices.

The NSF is in almost every book about science/innovation as a positive case study. Decent chance it will be in books to come as a case study of tragedy.

Brendan Cantwell@cantb.bsky.social · 2w ago

The NSF abandoning social science and education researcher is of course a blow to these disciplines, to their universities, and a major barrier to a generation of scholars. It also surrender a large amount of influence over these disciplines to private foundations. Why does they matter?

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

Dr Dean Burnett@drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 2w ago

"By using AI, tasks like essays that used to take hours can be completed in minutes!" Sure, like how if I arrive at the gym and immediately go for a shower, my workout is done in record time. And if I throw my sandwiches straight in the bin, I can finish my lunch in under 10 seconds.

Richard Osman confirming the existence of Freida McFadeen in his in-book universe feels wrong. Like I get they r both crime authors and should definitely have at least heard of each other. But they r so different that they just do not mix in my head.

I feel like demonising a community and the hardship they may face as a “no-go zone” is also not good for “integration.” Like, a country cannot punish and stereotype its way into stronger community cohesion.

Sarah Owen MP@sarahowen.org.uk · 2w ago

It is deeply irresponsible for any politician, let alone a senior Conservative, to peddle the same far-right nonsense about Luton that we see from the likes of Yaxley Lennon and Reform.