Lavenham Teacher
@robknapp.bsky.social
Primary School Assistant Head Teacher, politics obsessive, Oxford United fan, wildlife enthusiast and lover of science fiction.
the sex purge movie is apparently terrible but I really want to see, like, bad standup in the sex purge universe. jerry seinfeld being like 'you know how sex day is coming up, and then you get a cold?' www.rogerebert.com/reviews/one-...
One Night Only review: Pull out from this sex-negative rom-com
If this is what it takes to get a rom-com greenlit these days, maybe we should just let them die.
rogerebert.com
- We believe in second chances! - So you think refugees deserve a second chance at making a life? - Not like that - Young people who’ve made mistakes shouldn’t be punished? - Nope - Benefits to help people get back on their feet? - Ha! - So who do you believe in second chances for? - Nazis!
I love that the image strongly suggests that at some point in their chequered history Bilbo and Gollum solved crimes together, and that Bilbo was the maverick and Gollum did things by the book.
Kotaku@kotaku.com · 7h agoOh no, he's hot! https://kotaku.com/the-hobbit-magic-the-gathering-bilbo-baggins-2000721931
Unbelievable hypocrisy from Badenoch - she attacked Starmer for putting Louise Haigh in cabinet (conditional discharge and £100 fine) but defends Bonehill-Paine (five year prison sentence). Obviously the reliably hopeless Justin Webb failed to make this point to her on the Today programme…
The Conservative Party tried to turn the reformed Neo-Nazi saga around onto Jewish communal organisations by suggesting that they could facilitate a meeting between him and them. The Board of Deputies and the JLC have rightly told the Tories where to go. www.jewishnews.co.uk/board-and-jl...
(I think air travel is also a lot better over the last 40 years. Certainly; it's cheaper, more destinations are available and the checking in/security process is far better than it was in '05 when I started flying regularly)
Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 22h agoFood, 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.
Not to go all Joxley, but the utter collapse of a sense of community pride and social responsibility within the Conservative party is at the heart of their current woes.
Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 16h agoIt's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.
ConservativeHome’s leader today: conservativehome.com/2026/08/05/i...
I believe in second chances - but not for former neo-Nazis | Conservative Home
Again, I reiterate that I am all for second chances. But there comes a point in which one cannot extend the generosity of yet another attempt. Bonehill-Paine - I believe -, despite what he has done si...
conservativehome.com
Kemi Badenoch is doing well, and it is hard to- nay, impossible - to imagine that a different Conservative leader, making different choices, would not be in a better place right now.
Daniel@deargodwhaat.bsky.social · 17h agoThis is just such a mental incident? It's one thing for him to slip through the cracks, another for the party leader to actively support him??
Quite impressive to completely undermine your own defence and insult most of your party's elected officials in the same sentence.
Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 16h agoIt's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.
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
Fairly sober testing report from the AI Security Institute: they gave internet access and removed some guardrails from latest AI models and found without them they were capable of potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...
That Joshua Bonehill-Paine is a suitable Tory candidate but Grant Shapps and Gavin Barwell have been excluded is quite a good indicator of how many seats the Tories will realistically regain at the next election.
The state of this. A lovely day out for Badenoch and Philp, playing dress up and making pronouncements about early release schemes - having left the country with one hundred available men's prison places, after fourteen years in charge. You read that right. One hundred places.
At every future medical appointment, attending Dr should open the conversation, loudly, with "I see you previously refused treatment from my colleague owing to racism". I'm only v slightly exaggerating here. Social norms rely on shame as a central enforcement mechanism. We need to bring back shame.
This is what happens when anti-racism norms erode, and elites bear a lot of the responsibility for norm erosion, as they have disproportionate power to set and enforce norms
Charles EP Murphy@cepmurphy.bsky.social · 2d agonews.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
This aligns with the point Steve Richards makes on his podcast today that the commentators may love her but Badenoch is pursuing the wrong strategy if she wants to win a GE
Tom Roberts@tpgroberts.bsky.social · 2d agoAbsolutely crackers, extremely self serving as a defence as there is absolutely no chance she'd extend this same benefit of the doubt elsewhere, which becomes obvious in the, factually incorrect, statement on early release she can't resist tagging on at the end.
Rather puts Grant Shapps being rejected as a Conservative candidate into perspective.
Former neo-Nazi activist selected as Tory candidate for Somerset council election
Joshua Bonehill-Paine, creator of satirical Crewkerne Gazette, has convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP
theguardian.com
The war. It always comes back to the war. That happened long before they were born.
Ask them how HMS Ocean, sold in 2018 ended up as the cover model? Deeply researched?
it's a big club and you ain't in it
Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 2d agoThe Times, one of the leading voices when it comes to 'protecting women and girls' calling a man who assaulted his young pregnant girlfriend, said he would rape the kids if he was a teacher and called for child sex abuse porn to be legal, 'brilliant'
Absolutely unbelievable how solar power has taken off worldwide during the Hormuz oil crisis. You don't have to hand it to him, but Trump may have done more to finally kick off a global civilization of effete librul solar users than anyone else in the West
Diane Abbott here speaking at a Stop Some Wars rally, calling Putin's continuing brutal war against Ukraine "the NATO campaign against Russia". FFS. youtu.be/SMBjoiMskxA?...
Diane Abbott MP
YouTube video by StoptheWarCoalition
youtu.be
We are in the third drought in five years. We have the National Trust and NFU - those radical types - sounding the alarm on unprecedented temperatures. But so little from any single figure in politics talking about the climate crisis.
Interesting piece on the results of the first three months of age-related social media policies in Australia
More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds
The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.
theconversation.com
Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.
A huge issue for the populist right in adopting Christianity so heavily as a identity marker against Muslims, is that the core theology of Christianity very explicitly rejects their ideas.
@lastpositivist.bsky.social · 3d agoFrom a historical perspective it's a genuinely strange state of affairs that the Church of England turns out to be too woke for much of the modern right. But really it just feels like: having a consistent moral code that demands taking Lessers and Outgroup seriously is impossible for populist right.
Just about to start this masterful tome by @alanallport.bsky.social . I adored the first book when I first read it a few years ago I have no doubt this will be just as good. Also, lovely to read a historian whose politics I don't find highly questionable 😂
All pre-ordered now as I adored Material World and I had no idea of how important the economics of pre orders are.
Ed Conway@edconway.bsky.social · 3d ago✍️ The two things no one ever tells you about writing a book... My latest substack, on the weird world of "blurbs", the significance of preorders and... a rare, special limited-time offer! 👇 edconway.substack.com/p/at-least-o...
