Dishonest! I hate this “the law hasn’t changed, we’ve just clarified what it always meant” thing. Did you think women’s rights didn’t change when the US Supreme Court merely clarified what the Constitution “always meant” on abortion? Of course not.

genuinely why doesn't Google Maps have a setting you can tick that says "I will not in fact die on the spot if I have to walk for over 20 minutes and would prefer a walk and a tube to somehow seventeen buses"

he feels a sense of solidarity with a fellow leader who’s way too online and doesn’t do her homework before wading in

Jordan@jordanpfot.bsky.social · 4h ago

Why are you commenting if you don’t know the specifics of the case!!!!!

Why are you commenting if you don’t know the specifics of the case!!!!!

Andy Burnham Accepter@jorisbinned.bsky.social · 5h ago

Hello I'm an idiot

The thing that really grinds my gears about this is the dishonesty. The biggest implication of this guidance is that trans people will have to live their lives very differently. But they are entirely absent from this framing. You'd be forgiven for thinking this didn't affect them at all.

Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 8h ago

Our code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx

To be fair, “Councillors and council elections don’t matter” are a load-bearing part of the “Kemi Badenoch is doing well and the Conservative party’s prospects under her are looking good” thesis.

Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 8h ago

It's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.

an unfathomable amount of stuff has got better over the last 40 years - hell, even over the *last 15* - and anyone convinced it hasn't does not remember or know what things were like 15 or 40 years ago.

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 14h ago

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

I think if they were going to go with “look, we knew about his past, but he’s entirely reformed, and we’re sticking with him”, directly from Kemi Badenoch no less, the least they could have done is reached out privately to Luciana Berger to let her know and have a conversation with her about it.

Liam Hoare 🇺🇦@liamhoare.com · 9h ago

It doesn't say much for the Conservative Party that this is the quality of candidate who wants to stand for them now—and that they're willing to defend his selection.

New: Luciana Berger, who was one of the people targeted for racial harassment by the former Neo-Nazi who has now been selected as a Tory council candidate, has described how Kemi Badenoch has 'got this very, very wrong' www.jewishnews.co.uk/jewish-labou...

Berger slams Badenoch over selection of ex neo-Nazi candidate who targeted her - Jewish News

In a post on X, Berger said Badenoch had 'got this very, very wrong' after Joshua Bonehill-Paine was confirmed as a Tory council candidate

jewishnews.co.uk

I recall we had a period of time where the response of Starmer and Cooper to concerns about these groups was ‘I like flags’

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · yesterday

Leaders 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.

In all seriousness, the detail here is totally shocking

I’ve been a Burnham sceptic but - as a non-expert on this area - this seems like a pretty deft way to handle some pretty tough politics

UK Prime Minister Updates@downingstreet.bsky.social · yesterday

🗣️ PM @andy-burnham.bsky.social: "Britain’s prisons crisis has its roots in a failure to add sufficient new places between 2010 and 2024. Just 500 places were added and 23 prisons were closed. As a result, the system is now dangerously close to capacity and we are running the risk of...

Jeremy Hunt fought like a lion, a great expense, to hold his seat. Wakes up, sees Grant Shapps and Gavin Barwell are persona non grata in the party, but this guy is not. Presumably goes straight back to sleep. Wild.

feels like a harder case to make in the age of AI (unacknowledged in this intervention)

This is, imo, absolutely the consequence of politicians, media figures and others being actively unwilling to condemn this behaviour

Charles EP Murphy@cepmurphy.bsky.social · yesterday

news.sky.com/story/nhs-st... stereotypically this has been seen as Old People, but not only would the old people of now have often been born post-Windrush, lot of this will be younger people who've always lived in a diverse Britain. The guy with a pregnant wife likely millennial at oldest

saying this not as a dig to Paul but as a general point, but it does worry me that we've ended up in a world where the two options are seemingly "leftist bubble" or "oh hey the nazis are here" - surely we should be able to have a politically heterogenous platform with tight rules on hate speech etc?

Paul Bernal@paulbernal.bsky.social · yesterday

The new CEO of Bluesky wants to change Bluesky from being a leftist bubble. The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with being a leftist bubble: the idea that everything has to be all-encompassing and suitable for everyone is a trap. 🧵 1/4

Its quite hard to know what, exactly, will actually lose someone their licence if 59 points, driving while disqualified and no insurance doesn't. Its not juat dangerous - its clear contempt for the law. We should treat car crime like any other crime

Jon Owen@anotherjon.bsky.social · yesterday

"I'm getting fed up with getting pulled by you guys, so this one will result in a complaint," says the driver with 59 points on his licence. 59 points, and still driving, and he didn't go to prison. The system is broken. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One of my lessons from the last few years is that maintaining a firewall against the absolute crank loons is far more important than ever, and it’s so depressing to see so many prominent politicians with the exact opposite takeaway

Lord Manderly, you have received the Petyr Baelish award for Most Baffling Accent

there’s a new baby pygmy hippo at Edinburgh zoo and the instagram commentators are already trying to get it cancelled

I think this is absolutely correct, from *checks notes* current Finance spokesperson and author of the 2026 manifesto, Michael Marra.

One reason I'm so opposed to early selection is it means the sorting process is essentially done in advance by teachers/parents and so kids aren't even given a chance on the route that leads to the high status and well paid jobs.

*to the tune of Born in the USA* High on their own supply

Who Targets Me@whotargets.me · 2d ago

Here's the spending share for the final week before the Mayoral by-election. Feels like a big miss from the Greens to spend so much for just 12% (and elimination) in the first round. They're usually more conservative in deploying resources when they're not going to win.

Deeply embarassing for editorial standards at The Times to not just have to correct such an error, but then to not even spot their own columnist produce such a mad sentence repeating it

think Covid and what we should have done about it is always going to struggle not to be an emotive topic, but it doesn’t help that Bluesky combines a reasonably good cross section of British politics from left to centre-right with the worst of the American left and we all speak the same language

Roused myself from my post-election summer lethargy to actually pull together a summary page for the Scottish Labour leadership election: ballotbox.scot/scottish-lab...

Scottish Labour Leadership Election 2026

Background Fresh from their sixth Holyrood election on the trot of losing seats, Scottish Labour are headed into a brutal leadership election that simultaneously everyone expected but no one knew …

ballotbox.scot

every now and then I remember the whole ScotPol media/political bubble is posting away merrily on X every day, and I think John Swinney doesn't get enough heat for doing less than nothing to shift it

Jordan@jordanpfot.bsky.social · 3d ago

I think the call might be coming from inside the house, mate.

This is clearly a real divide in the Scottish Labour left - but stepping back, this sentence is crazy. Not only did Monica Lennon back the GRR reform bill, but every Labour MSP was *whipped* to back it! The movement has been entirely on the other side in the last four years!

RDCK98@comradekenobi.bsky.social · 3d ago

Reading this, and thinking about the 2026 election where activists boycotted campaigning for Scottish Labour and LGBT+ voters held with SNP on the constituency and Greens on the list, wondering what on earth the theory of victory is from left-wing transphobes www.heraldscotland.com/news/2642848...

(I get that Bluesky is very obviously the Wow We Loved Lockdowns website but I think it's absolutely fine, five years after the fact, to wonder if we got the balance right between "protecting older people" and "making sure younger people weren't getting entirely shafted", arguments are allowed)

A smaller thing that irritated me about COVID was seeing all the screens and table wiping in buildings with no ventilation, from otherwise smart people, a good 12 months after we knew airflow was key.