Simon James
@jim1132.bsky.social
Happily re-learning the value of expertise, courtesy, and humour after the barking years.
Sad to see LibDems jump on the prison panic bandwagon. "We know some prisoners must be released earlier, but not them, or them, or him, or her, or them, etc..." is an infinite loop that destroys public trust. Also potentially dangerous, as it throttles arrest/prosecution/sentencing at the other end.
… And utterly sick of the spectacle of Tories able to casually swat aside the damage 14years of austerity has done to public services #Newsnight
Trump is trying to pull off a US-style version of the Tiananmen Square Massacre coverup where everyone in China who remembered what happened on June 4, 1989 knows *exactly* what they must not admit and is utterly terrified to speak the truth. I never imagined seeing such abject cowardice in the US.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago😮 Trump's nominees are the most pathetic men in the world 😮 During a hearing, Blumenthal made Trump nominees squirm by asking them who won the 2020 election -- a question they refuse to answer -- but then Schiff upped the ante by asking them *who won the 2016 election.* Here's a supercut:
News: Microsoft disclosures and Bloomberg analyses suggest that OpenAI's $24.1 billion in revenue accounted for 70% or more of Microsoft's FY26 AI revenue, and more than 7% of its entire FY26 revenues. Microsoft has spent $261.3bn in capex since 2022. www.wheresyoured.at/news-microso...
Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · yesterdayAnalysts estimate that 70%+ of Microsoft, Google and Amazon's present and future AI revenues are from Anthropic and OpenAI's compute spend and model sales. Outside of two unsustainable AI labs, demand barely exists, and they've massively overbuilt capacity. www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-deman...
Death Of Stalin stuff. It's the gravitas of the staging and the ludicrousness of the words
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h agoholy shit -- Schiff ties Trump's judicial nominees in knots by asking them who won the 2016 before *before* asking them who won in 2020, which results in them sounding like election deniers about Trump's victories!
If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future. The @theguardian.com just published an amazing piece about my book, "The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy." Coming August 18! www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
theguardian.com
Spot on ⬇️ "Reform UK remains almost entirely a party of grievance. Rather than offering a vision of a more prosperous, productive or communitarian Britain, it doubles down on punitive proposals." https://national.thelead.uk/p/nigel-farage-end-of-reform-as-we-know-it
It's the end of Reform as we know it
A bad few months for Nigel Farage's insurgent party has shown their true colours
national.thelead.uk
Forget "Don't be evil"; Google's true motto is a form of vulgar spidermanism: "With great power comes no responsibility." The internet's *de facto* boss is an absentee landlord. 1/
"Farage called the Clacton by-election to avoid the investigations into his ‘£5 million gift’ from the crypto billionaire Harborne & other questionable ‘gifts’ ⌛️ From the timeline of events it’s clear that he broke the rules regarding gifts 👨⚖️ He wants Clacton voters to judge him" via Barry Howard
This is Elon Musk, a techno-oligarch with 241 million followers on TwitterX, spreading and amplifying Ceuta-linked right-wing disinformation, with one message reaching 9.9 million views and the other 7.9 million as of right now. 1/4
Badenoch represents double-down conservatism. Never apologise or moderate. Insult your opponents. Patronise journalists when challenged. Contradict yourself, lie, whatever it takes, but never back down. And that's how you end up creating an extremely avoidable Tory antisemitism scandal overnight
Nick Robinson is corrected by his own colleague, Jeremy Bowen: Iran is NOT talking to the Americans. #r4today This is so basic and so well known. How come Robbo fails to understand something so fundamental?
Mrs Thatcher deepfake Kemi Badenoch doesnt like deepfakes. #r4today
Yes 14 years of failure. "Give the Tories a break, they were doing their best". #r4today
The prison building budget got splurged on the PPE VIP lane? #r4today
The UK politics story you can see from space, Farage's mysterious payments and Reform's other funding travails, remains curiously off-limits to the BBC. Omission is collusion, guys. #r4today
Another upbeat energy article by Ambrose E-P in the Telegraph that also slaps the Tories over their green energy stance. archive.ph/Ypxmt
Has Gianni considered bribing his staff? It seems to be the FIFA Way. #r4today
If/when Putin pegs it, and someone not quite as evil emerges as Russian leader, it might happen Justin (ditto Trump/USA). #r4today
“.. Trump has leveraged his control of the federal government to instead escape the scrutiny that every other modern president, not to mention every other regular taxpayer, has been subject to.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...
If Liddle was such a brilliant, irreverent writer, how is it that the only time his work was ever passed around was as an example of the latest witless, leaden offensive shit from Rod Liddle? His obiturists talk up imaginary columns he never wrote and refuse to address the terrible ones he did.
Phil Free@philfree.bsky.social · yesterday“He may have been delightful to his friends but he should be judged on what he put out into the world & that was bile by the bucketload.” Liddle to be celebrated - @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/brokenbo...
David, if you want this charm offensive to work, your dad should sit for an interview. Maybe with an unemployed ex-60 Minutes reporter. He can make the case for giving CBS, CNN and TikTok to a guy building an AI surveillance dystopia. What could go wrong?
Opinion | What to know about David Ellison’s embattled bid to acquire Warner Bros.
David Ellison’s embattled bid to acquire Warner Bros. doesn’t make much financial sense. It might still be a win for the Ellison empire and its bigger global plans.
ms.now
Freedom of the Press Foundation@freedom.press · yesterdayWhat a great platform to publicly deny promising Trump a CNN overhaul or $20 million in free advertising in exchange for merger approvals. Or to speak out against his bullying of journalists you employ or want to employ. Weird that you didn’t do any of that.
These people are criminal thugs and should be treated as such.
Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · yesterdayLeaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.
Does she realise Dunkirk wouldn't have even been possible if French forces had surrendered as opposed to fighting a rearguard action which allowed the BEF to assemble in Dunkirk and the evacuation flotilla to be formed?
Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · yesterdayThe war. It always comes back to the war. That happened long before they were born.
Is BBC News alarmed by being used by those who rode the wave of a Moroccan influx into Ceuta, by the rightists who amplified it and by those who initiated it? I don't remember your reports including an observation that simply being in Ceuta gives you no access to mainland Spain and Schengen. #WATO
Chaos for Reform in the last 24 hours: Nigel Farage’s military Channel plan faces legal backlash Tice is under investigation Farage’s comeback story keeps shifting. Unity talks with Restore are collapsing into public infighting. Yet some people think they are the answer to Britain’s problems?
🔴 NEW 🔴 Campaigners are now demanding a parliamentary investigation into Reform MP Sarah Pochin following a donation to her office by food industry millionaires. 📝 @desmog.com & @goodlawproject.org report 👇🏻
Investigate Reform MP Over Donation, Campaigners Demand
Sarah Pochin, Reform UK MP for Runcorn and Helsby, is facing pressure over a £5,000 donation from food industry millionaires that stand to benefit from her campaigning. According to an investigation ...
desmog.com
Something for Labour to learn there from Badenoch in the @lbc.co.uk headlines. Just say you were going to do something but stuff happened, and the UK media won't touch you.
11:15am yesterday, our village. Are these the first migrants from Ceuta to reach Dorset? A number of young lads in Cub Scout uniforms leapt out of a minibus & invaded Jill’s shop. They had no idea what Apple Cobbler was and taunted Simple Sally with their woggles. Deport. Now.
