Masked men putting up flags and demanding that passers by who challenge them tell them where they come from is not something to be celebrated. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Masked men putting up flags and demanding that passers by who challenge them tell them where they come from is not something to be celebrated. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
The more Labour stampede right, the emptier the vacuum for the LibDems to go "Let's just ****ing rejoin the EU already!" and snaffle up votes. But it would need to be a loud, proud and sustained message. Not a policy line item on their website, but front and centre in all comms. 2025 is NOT 2019.
One of the things that gives me a flicker of hope for my country is when groups like the Quakers, the RNLI, the Women's Institute and the National Trust stand up for common decency. I just don't understand why the Labour Party can't.
Again - the reason that the Good Friday Agreement locks in the ECHR is that the UK had repeatedly been held accountable by the European Court of Human Rights for human rights breaches during the Troubles - while national courts had failed to do so, even upholding miscarriages of justice
There is, and it's exactly as you pose it. Sometimes actually, it's a bit of a relief - you're relieved of the tedium of composing a reply
Well, you're probably right, and if so, Bluesky will never have the numbers, and will never be Topp. But some people really do like to type and read, so it fills a niche. To me the problem is that it's all just a bit too cosy, but that will probably change, won't it?
Most doctors, most of the time, draw on their years (decades, in my case) of medical training & expertise to do the best we can for you. What distinguishes us from snake oil salesmen - persuasive grifters who prey on human fears to line their pockets - is our expertise & our integrity. Trust… 1/n
I endorse this message. Well said @markfergusonmp.bsky.social on why the fabric of the flag should be something to unite, not divide
How could they tell?
Real patriotism is wanting your country to be better. Real patriotism is wanting every single person who lives in it to have a stake in its success. Real patriotism is wanting the best for everyone in it. To have the best healthcare, education and life chances. I don’t need a flag outside my door
Daughter just sent me this 🤣🤣🤣
It would have seemed preposterous to write such a piece about America, but the impossible, the implausible is becoming reality. The ground is being laid for an authoritarian takeover.
All fine and dandy, but my single emotion is rage, because they closed Ashford for some absurd 'reason' and have not re-opened it for some even more absurd 'reason'. Reason, btw, has nothing to do with anything uttered by the railway companies concerned.
Entirely accurate observation
RFK jnr channelling Gove.
Uncanny - but it slightly falls down because Burns and Smithers are engaging and attractive characters
Outstanding.
Re-reading Jane Austen at the moment, and it's one of those 'it feels daft to say that Jane Austen was a terrific novelist' things.
The Times says Reform “has no track record to weigh it down”… Other than: Islamophobia, racism, inept councillors, MP absenteeism, admiration for Putin, love of Trump, brazen grifting, idiotic manifesto, dodgy donations and Brexit… the single stupidest thing the country has done in our lifetimes.
This is so wrong.
Christ above. These pitiful fucking cowards.
Here's how the real two-tier Britain works: 1. Whatever Nigel Farage says, however stupid, is looped and discussed by the media, while left-wing voices are treated as noises off. 2. Tiny far-right protests get massive airtime, while 10s of 000s gathering for Palestine or green causes are ignored.🧵
North Korean propagandists would consider this an implausible and unacceptable level of toadying up to the Supreme Leader.
Reform are a company not a political party. Reform voters don't care. Reform's plans for deportations are unworkable. Reform voters don't care. Nigel Farage is a charlatan who missold Brexit. Reform voters don't care. Etc. etc. Votes won't be stripped away from Reform by trashing them.
It would be a thousand times better for Labour and for Britain if the national debate were about whether to rejoin the EU or not, rather than how hard to punch down at immigrants. Instead, Labour chose to propagate Farage's argument for him by accepting it had SOME validity and trying to nuance it.
Profoundly important from @davidallengreen.bsky.social. The lack of meaningful restraints against executing power in our system leaves us utterly exposed in the face of a Reform government. They could do whatever they want. open.substack.com/pub/emptycit...
Waiting for a reform government and then let’s see what happens feels like an extremely bad strategy for virtually everyone
First stop motion video shot and edited by the kiddo 🤘
Do they give lessons?
This is what Farage represents. This ignorance. This racism. This hatred. This social media radicalisation. Shame on every single politician, newspaper, hack and pundit who has helped pave the way to this vicious, stupid, nationalistic version of England. (Times - a complicit disgrace of a paper)
The only thing Flat Earthers fear is sphere itself.
It’s utterly perverse to think that Russia has any serious intention of signing a peace deal. Lavrov still wanging on, insisting Ukraine giving up land Russia has failed to seize and also leaving itself defenceless. www.ft.com/content/3851...
I've lost one of my new hearing aids. No trace of it, but I'm developing a theory, and closing in on a suspect.
Meanwhile, its kicking off on Twitter
About the only positive thing that can be said about British politics these days is that Labour, just like the Tories before them, have been unstinting in their support for Ukraine. It's heartening to see such resolve surviving across party lines, and enduring a slew of Prime Ministers.
"Cracking cheese Gromit!" Isn't that the fekking plot?
A country that will arrest you as a terrorist for wearing a t-shirt that says "Plasticine Action" has lost the fekking plot. #CooperOut
With the caveat that I'm not a woman, I suspect there is a fairly obvious flaw to this plan in terms of making women feel more safe on the streets.
"....with someone else's teeth"
Grammar police.
"No-one takes responsibility. Not the country that dropped the bomb. Not the country that failed to protect us. America never apologised. Japan pretends not to know. Korea is no better. They just pass the blame - and we're left alone." www.bbc.com/news/article... #Hiroshima
Well if some are a palimpsest of dog-ears and marginalia, so much the better
😆
😆 Yes! The indignity of being sent to the bottom by HMCS Fennel !
I'm on your side in this. The late, great Bernard Levin, than whom hardly anyone is or was a greater lover of books, used to actually tear out and throw away the pages of his holiday paperback as he went along.
Well you wouldn't do it to a nice old book, or someone else's, but what's wrong with dog-earing a holiday paperback?
The history of ICE: How Trump constructed an American Gestapo
I think a lot of them were indeed hiding their horrible beliefs (my very uncle! 😱) and they are now liberated. It's a disaster. Society is malleable - over time, frowned-upon views could have gradually been reduced at least and perhaps eliminated. Now it's a free for all.
Oh no, at this point I usually abandon the attempt entirely, and sit down with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit
I can't think of anything less enticing than this. I had to wear a jock once, and an old one is not something to contemplate with pleasure for one second. And if I want toffee, I can go and buy a packet, thank you.
If you were this restaurateur today, my email address is jay.rayner@ft.com. No promises but it might save you a £2k a month retainer.
Beautiful. A pleasant, human scale. I'm sure @dieworkwear.bsky.social would consider this a walkable neighbourhood
@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com Very much enjoyed your recent newsletter. I've not been to Nantes yet, but will try harder
And is it yet another version of that ter Borch on their wall?
Nerdy joke warning. 😁 I've been planning this since I first saw the Newton for Hyde sign.
This article, which is great, reminded me of a quote from Red Dwarf that had a big impact on teenage me: RIMMER: It's just that I'm ill at ease with the opposite sex. LISTER: It's because you see them as some alien species that needs to be conquered with trickery. They're not - they're people.
In which I argue expertise is good, actually. It’s why life expectancy has increased dramatically. It’s why we don’t see half of all children born dying anymore. Disdain for expertise is why we have RFK Jr in charge of HHS, where he’s endangering all of us.
Beautiful piece
It's a really excellent piece, and beautifully expressed.
“It's OK. I'm not for everyone.” This should be a mantra for life, not just dating.
Do
OK so feeling slightly apprehensive about this, which I suppose is kind of the point. This is an attempt at a progressive view on masculinity and on men getting laid. God help me. iandunt.substack.com/p/how-to-be-...
The frustrating thing about lots of police comms and PR is that if they responded like this the public would probably respond *better* than they do to the guff they stay instead. The public does understand that mistakes happen.
Reteti Elephant Sanctuary "On this beautiful Friday, we are so excited to introduce you to #Kimani – the little elephant with a big story!"
Real jobs: 1. Drilling and mining. 2. Manufacturing . 3. Real estate 4. Finance 5. Crypto 6. AI 7. Being President Woke parasites 1. Teachers 2. Health professionals 3. Independent journalists 4. Professors 5. Human rights lawyers 6. Regulators
Our conversation over the last couple of days suggests a complete moral breakdown, at a national scale. Instead of sympathising with far-right protests, politicians should be fucking challenging them. inews.co.uk/opinion/star...
Even in 18th and 19th Centuries mockery was allowed
He’s so painfully stupid, it’s unbearable listening to his incoherent bollocks and the fact that he’s in charge of America is probably the dumbest thing to have ever occurred in the history of dumb things. I’m so tired of stupid.
We forget, amid all the noise, how incompetent Putin is. Would've been a piece of piss to keep Trump onside, pause for a bit, rearm, undo sanctions, reap the economic benefits, then simply restart the invasion a year later. But he just couldn't help himself. Master strategist my fucking arsehole.
Lovely painting! When on song, Reynolds was a truly great artist. He was clearly beguiled by Kitty Fisher
Legal? Pah! Who cares? Who's going to stop him? Congress? The Supreme Court? Not a chance.
He must be pretty pissed off. For years he comes here, works his socks off, and gets no love. Only now. when he's on the way out, does the effing crowd show any warmth
The final scene would have been David Davis showing up without any documents to Brexit talks with Barnier
She's a stunner, and I think she'd probably agree. Gentileschi was pretty chuffed too, I'd guess
🙂
Carl Sagan on why books are human’s greatest invention:
“… trams are nothing new on the streets of Bristol. The city was one of the first in the country and indeed the world to install a tram network, and at its heyday it was the envy of many other cities” Good history lesson on Bristol’s extensive old tram network: www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol...
My film education was through Moviedrome. That type of curation, the sense of event, is needed now, in an age of streaming, more than ever.
“Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.” — A. Whitney Griswold
#booksky
1. One thing you need to realise about the British Establishment is that it uses clowns to express its deepest desires. People like Rod Liddle offer a kind of deniability - "lighten up, he's just having a laugh". But they deliver a closer representation of its truths than any sober editorial.
I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy. I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.
Ridiculous. My brother lived in Penge in the 1970s and there were already people there who pronounced it with a French accent.
My reading, perhaps entirely wrong, was that Tony's gut feeling was revulsion, but when faced by Melfi his intellect forced him to say that he didn't care what he did in private. The guy did get whacked though, and unpleasantly.
It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this
yikes!
We will be properly honouring ‘Daniel Hannan Day’ on Tuesday with all the requisite pomp, circumstance & documentary evidence of what an irredeemable arse he is that you would expect. Elevating our world’s wrongest man to the House of Lords will always be the essence of Brexit. Do join us…
The Enlightenment. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
I cannot emphasize enough how needlessly cruel the UK immigration system is to ordinary people who want a family life together and aren't well-off already, and anyone wanting to make it worse should be shunned.
Rogier van der Weyden's Deposition, one of the greatest works of all western art. Maybe the greatest. Tragedy in a box. Incredible.
Rogier for me
One of the lovliest
ICE just arrested Brad Lander, the NYC Comptroller and one of the leading candidates for Mayor, without grounds. He was conducting routine immigration court work, escorting individuals from hearings. He asked ICE for their warrant - well within his legal rights. This is political intimidation.
City of New York needs to sue ICE for violating the Constitutional rights--not only of a US citizen but of a duly elected city official.
This is the last thing the BBC needs
British multiculturalism - day to day, on the ground - is a successful experiment. The UK enjoys a shared set of political facts, as represented by the non-tribal backlash over Partygate/Truss. The British obsession with irony & suspicion of sincerity provides some protection against demagoguery.
And enough both sides ism. I love Tim W, and I know he’s in pain, and I know he’s a lovely man, and I know he’s from Minnesota, but this “everyone just needs to be nice to each other” overlooks the fact that only one side is fomenting rage and violence and violation. They deserve condemnation.
Excellent corrective to some of the mad speculation that's airing at the moment
The intersection of Rue du Colonel Moll and Rue des Colonels Renard in the 17th arrondissement illustrates the evolution of streets in Paris: 1) the unchanged parking street, 2) the street with widened sidewalks (and reduced parking), and 3) the "school street" model (albeit with no trees here).