16 October 1938 | A Hungarian Jewish girl, Klára Boda, was born. In July 1944 she was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. --- A short video showing the ruins of gas chamber and crematorium III: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJQ8

Went to see this guy talk last night. Utterly captivating, hopeful, inspiring. Yes it makes you sad for what came after him, but as he kept saying, things can change and they can be better again.

Since the UK Labour (I repeat, Labour) is about to do a most myopic anti-decarbonization move in the name of higher defence spending, worth remembering that electrification and heatpumps are not a trivial way to fight fossil aggressors abroad while supporting people with affordability

How to respond to Russian escalation vs Europe & Ukraine… my latest commentary, just gone live… www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The more Putin escalates his attacks on Europe, the more Europe should support Ukraine | Timothy Garton Ash

Moscow’s imperialist strongman believes decadent European democracies can be cowed. Our job is to prove him wrong, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash

theguardian.com

Analogue crypto

CNBC@cnbc.com · last wk.

Pokémon card values are soaring. What collectors should know before buying or selling

This... the attacks on research funding and foreign students in US universities... all opportunities for us, not being taken.

Colin Elves@colinelves.bsky.social · last wk.

The UK could really take advantage of this if, you know, we weren’t governed by idiots.

How a black dog can banish The Black Dog. After my wife Colette died in 2020 a dog (Nico) was why I got out of bed in the morning, got dressed, left the house, met other people, established a routine (dogs love a routine), and found a way to be in the moment (dogs love that too). Great piece.

Ian Martin@ianmartin.bsky.social · 2w ago

This, by @questingvole.bsky.social, is the absolute dog's bollocks. Beautiful writing. substack.com/inbox/post/2...

She wants to make it harder for those women to settle here.

Alasdair Mackenzie@alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is almost certainly true, and the UK fails women refugees in multiple ways, including by refusing safe routes to come here, wrongly rejecting asylum claims, barring family reunion & not recognising trafficking victims promptly or at all. If only Mahmood had the power to do something about this

Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.

'Which taxes do you want to raise instead?' should be the default question to anyone who calls for reductions in immigration.

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 3w ago

Good thing that this couldn’t have been predicted almost a year ago <runs bitter victory lap> and the government didn’t just blithely carry on doing the same thing. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/718...

First day as a vampire hunter: This is easy lol First night as a vampire hunter: oh no

Will keep boringly saying this (no disrespect to OP): it's not a health surcharge. It's not hypothecated to the NHS; you can't choose not to pay it and thereby eschew healthcare. You could equally call it an education or roads surcharge. It's using the NHS's sanctified status to rip off immigrants.

Emiliano Mellino@mellino.bsky.social · last mo.

The UK government is making upwards of £4.9bn in profit from visa fees, citizenship fees & the immigration health surcharge. Meanwhile, people are getting into thousands of pounds of debt or going without food just to afford to these immigration fees. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

‘We cannot allow race to be reintroduced into our politics. We cannot allow Briton to be set against Briton.’ Bravo Rishi Sunak www.thetimes.com/article/e89d...

Rishi Sunak: Britishness must not be turned into a DNA test

I worry that the immigration debate is going far beyond arrival numbers

thetimes.com

These are thugs being thugs, not legitimate protests

The Guardian@theguardian.com · last mo.

Lifeboat station in Portsmouth forced to temporarily shut after far-right action

This by Helen Miller ( @theifs.bsky.social) makes 2 points: - lower migration (as many of us have long said) will be bad news for public finances - OBR doesn't (directly) assess impact of migration *policy* changes - and it should www.ft.com/content/3efb...

The OBR needs to give us more clarity on migration

Minor revisions to immigration figures can complicate the government’s fiscal strategy

ft.com

Bill Bryson on the RNLI in "The Road to Little Dribbling : more notes from a small island" (2015)

a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes

A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Michael Clemens@mclem.org · last mo.

The US President's new proposal to tax international students has been approved by the White House for release this week. It's an unprecedented $100,000 tax on int'l grads who stay to work after graduation on Optional Practical Training (most grads do), a crucial bridge to remaining by any channel.

Reform being quite genuinely a foreign plot against the nation is one of those amusing ironies that also makes me sad.

Byline Times@bylinetimes.bsky.social · last mo.

🔴 NEW Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties By @mc00.bsky.social Read below. ↓

🚨Christ - Whistleblowers warn the newest version of Claude may lose (take?) control of itself and place *me personally* in a simulation where 1979 Sigourney Weaver wearing her Alien costume (but also Ghostbusters “Zuul” eye makeup for some reason) tazes me in the ass & balls until I starve to death.

So so the solution to right wing populism is mass immigration…we’ve been doing it all backwards. 🧵

Giles Wilkes@gilesyb.bsky.social · last mo.

It's always the way, isn't it giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.

Big fan of how Russia can shut down a major UK port for half a day with just 5kg of cocaine and 100 severely divorced men.

If someone acts on their 'concerns' by attacking people in their homes and by biting and throwing rocks at cops, no one should assess if those concerns are 'legitimate' or not. That violent behaviour waives any claim to 'legitimacy'. The phrase comes across as justifying violence, not condeming it.

Lizzie Dearden@lizziedearden.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Legitimate concerns" is starting to feel very "you had people that were very fine people on both sides"

All joking aside about the response from the Electoral Commission to Reform's blatant admission of law breaking, this is exactly how the far right gains a foothold in democracies. Institutions failing to understand the gravity of the situation and acting accordingly.

Wrote a thread about what has bugged me in assessments of the Russian threat to the #EU. TL;DR: all assessments that start by assuming current political situation & NATO willingness/capability are fundamentally flawed. Period of maximum danger comes if far right takes power in large EU countries.

Janne M. Korhonen@jmkorhonen.fi · 2mo ago

I agree that an invasion is unlikely for now, but the linked doesn't even address the scenario where overt attack could become a real risk: a situation where the Kremlin judges multiple major NATO countries are simultaneously unlikely to provide effective help. (It has a few misunderstandings too.)

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 the Trifecta: Fatty, Beardo, Weirdo@coldwarhost.bsky.social · 2mo ago

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

Sometimes, in the middle of all the grime, technology does something beautiful. It's the app that gives you the reverse of addiction. It makes you look up. Makes you stop to listen on a walk. It makes you observe the things around you, and care about them. It is a public good.

Have you discovered the magic of Merlin?

[FREE TO READ] A free app has propelled birdwatching into the mainstream, offering a portal to a hidden world

ft.com

To anyone who does not live in Paris but visits the city at regular intervals (as I do), the transformation has been staggering: Paris has been reclaimed from cars. It can be done, and could be done in London too. It is all about political will and taking the risk of being unpopular - for a while.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“Paris has embarked on a grand transformation, planting 155k trees, adding hundreds of kms of bike lanes, pedestrianising 300 school streets and banning cars from the banks of the Seine. Parking has been turned into green space…Fewer parents fear their child being run over when they walk to school.”

Solar eats everything. And it is glorious.

Dave Jones@cleanpowerdave.bsky.social · 2mo ago

That new methodology makes it possible to estimate solar installations in Africa. And with the 6 month lag, we can already estimate full-year 2026. This shows 17 GW of solar was installed in 2026 - a 45% rise y-o-y. Equal to around 100,000 solar panels installed every day🤯