Kinda weird for the government to behave like there's a shortage of firms that want to take the government's money and there's some desperate need to make their contracts less onerous

Lucy Fisher@lucyfisher.ft.com · 23h ago

EXC: UK govt is “stripping back” onerous public procurement rules in pro-growth shake up of system, Louise Haigh tells FT Overhaul will make job creation/skills development the only ‘social value’ requirement for biz competing for Whitehall contracts worth £90bn annually www.ft.com/content/9878...

I'm trying to understand the mindset of someone who quotes this absolutely perfect dunk in their column and expects that it will bolster their case.

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 12h ago

Now, I *am* a nobody but @seamas.bsky.social is a bestseller so surely Joanna is just showing herself up here.

Not even Rayo's best full back

Nizaar Kinsella@nizaarkinsella.bsky.social · 12h ago

Rayo Vallecano full-back Pep Chavarria is expected to join Chelsea. There's a huge admiration in the player from Xabi Alonso.

It's just so absurd to demand the public judge the public life of a public figure based on how nice they were personally to you

Mic Wright@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social · 22h ago

It’s all going well over on Substack notes…

Not speaking ill of the dead is how Jimmy Saville got something approaching a state funeral.

I've yet to see any explanation as to how Russia is "at the door" that was not (a) incredibly vague and (b) acknowledged their current war has been a failure

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2d ago

With Russia at the door and the US backing away, Europe has to build its own ‘way of war’

Liberals complaining about the coarsening of the discourse when people fail to show due deference upon the death of a professional discourse coarsener.

You would have thought being a massive documented misogynist piece of shit would put you beyond actual public eulogies from anyone who calls themself a feminist but transphobia is the most powerful brainworms humanity has yet discovered

Pretty sure they shut their Northampton works and after a management buyout they make shoes under a new brand (Solovair)

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler.com · 3d ago

I don’t want to pick on this person but you can still buy Dr Martens that are made in their English factory using heritage materials and high quality Japanese-made Levi’s 501s that are just like the ones they made in the 80s. These are less popular than the cheaper, lower quality versions.

“‘Manchester’ has been a metonym at least twice in the last two hundred years, escaping the orbit of a more generalised ‘North’.” I explore the achievements and failures of the current Manchester model.

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2d ago

‘Between 2015 and 2024, nearly a billion pounds of public money was lent on favourable terms to developers who built almost no affordable housing – almost two-thirds of it to one company.’ @harrystopes.bsky.social on Manchester, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/au...

Taking this and shoving it under the nose of anybody who says that the problem with GCs is that they're misandrists or otherwise just too feminist.

tubular bellend@crungler.online · 2d ago

where there's one,

i’m never gonna be able to fire a cruise missile yet the question of using my tax dollars for them has never been up for debate

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

We’re delighted to announce that Pro Revolution Soccer will be going weekly once we return this Friday. This week we’ll be talking about the Infantino saga (god knows what else will have happened by then) and previewing the EFL season.

If the topics of the current exhibition and their wider historical context are of interest, you can download the East India Company at home book in full for free from @uclpress.bsky.social or as individual chapters (no subscription needed) from JSTOR. Very much enabled by @leverhulme.ac.uk . 3/4

The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857

The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 explores how empire in Asia shaped British country houses, their interiors and the lives of their residents. It includes chapters from researchers based in a ...

uclpress.co.uk

Also notice here now this response was autonomic and universal, white blood cells swarming en masse to reject the foreign contamination. Not just the MPs but the assorted miasma of journalists, columnists and think tankers. The Court, basically, protecting its own.

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 2d ago

Sure, but it was never a question of whether she was right or wrong. All the MPs and the press knew very well she was correct, because they see it all the time. The point was that some insolent upstart tree-hugger had no business running her big yapping mouth, where the public can hear. The end.

Sure, but it was never a question of whether she was right or wrong. All the MPs and the press knew very well she was correct, because they see it all the time. The point was that some insolent upstart tree-hugger had no business running her big yapping mouth, where the public can hear. The end.

One of the many delusional things about that Allister Heath's nonsense in The Telegraph the other day about just sort of leaning into climate change was the idea that life in Northern Europe, other than requiring aircon, would essentially continue as normal:

Graham Jeffery@grahamjeffery.bsky.social · 3d ago

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It is so obvious that some form of general taxation is the best and fairest way to pay for social care, it is obvious it should be a nationalised service, not a hodge podge of private providers

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · last wk.

And this is a useful overview of how other countries deal with the costs of social care www.thetimes.com/article/eb46...

Gotta wonder who exactly @amnestyuk.bsky.social think donates to them.

Marcus 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧@marcusjdl.bsky.social · 5d ago

@amnestyuk.bsky.social I’ve supported you before but given your shameful cowardly and transphobic statement about trans people I won’t be supporting you again

@amnestyuk.bsky.social I’ve supported you before but given your shameful cowardly and transphobic statement about trans people I won’t be supporting you again

Got to laugh at Trump and his entourage clearly grifting Infantino into his own destruction

With this bit, Andy Apologises Burnham, could just have his Home Secretary tell the Met to knock it off arresting people for holding signs, wouldn't even have to lift the proscription on PA. Not gonna though, is he

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · last wk.

Do the police generally warn people not to commit terrorism because they’ll be arrested if they do? And if they don’t, would we say this is different because it’s deeply idiotic, as well as insulting and insanely authoritarian

No one ever says this about poor people and existing regressive taxes, do they? "Why we must abolish council tax!" citing a renting family paying for a big home they don't own

Topher Kai@topher.gay · last wk.

If you have a 2 million pound home and can’t afford your council tax you are living outside of your means Have you considered stopping buying pret?

Sure, no one could ever automate a manufacturing process, could they?

Rachel Coldicutt@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · last wk.

So one of the problems of announcing policies via social video is that you end up saying stuff like this

It’s astonishing how liberalism in Britain just laid down and died, probably around the time the spooks went to the Guardian office and smashed those hard drives. If this had happened in the 2000s, half of the press and parliament would’ve been up in arms. Now, hoping it all just goes away, at best

Left wing people, are they human? Neil Kinnock says maybe not

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · last wk.

Do we think the public would agree that Sir Keir is “Extremely honest”

Feels like the era of cheap Summer mass tourism is becoming increasingly impossible to sustain. Southern Europe too hot to be comfortable, further north maybe wildfires, jet fuel barely making it out of the Middle East, domestic holidays almost always wildly expensive...

In the travel section of *TODAY'S* Times 🤦

By the by, but having Smiths, Tony Wilson, Hacienda or Bee related stuff on the walls *in Manchester* is basic AF, tacky, a regional version of Life, Laugh, Love.

Marcus 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧@marcusjdl.bsky.social · 2w ago

I know but he still has a plaque on the wall of Number 10 North, of the Smiths, a member of which is Morrissey a thing he really didn’t need to do

Ah yes, many a prosecutor has been caught out by the famous 'Clacton loophole', where something stops being a crime if a majority people in Clacton don't mind it

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

‘If voters think I’m a crook, they can get rid of me’ say Farage after stopping a process that would have better informed the voters.