Anybody in the Stevenage area have available an accessible room or studio flat to rent? My daughter is starting a PhD next week and the flat that we hoped she be in by now looks like it is going to fall through. Thanks

Full house! Every train delayed from St Pancras.

Assuming we’ve not descended into some class of fascist hell in a few years time, the world will look back on today and ask itself how t.f. this happened.

Surely no-one could have predicted that this profession is a pure grift?

Just wondering, if the British government had a complete fit and decided to turn all of the social media sites off, would it actually be *that* unpopular?

On your behalf I’ve sampled the Weatherspoon’s Spice Bag and can confirm that they take the whole ‘spice’ bit somewhat more seriously than they should.

Still no sign of The Rapture. Ffs.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Ignore the haters, London is the 🐐

Leader of London Assembly Conservatives, Susan Hall, reposted a claim by Robert Jenrick about immigrants & #housing that would once have been the preserve of BNP & National Front, and condemned by senior Tories. Those kinds of Tories seem to have disappeared. #london #susanhall @josiah.writes.news

It remains a insolvable mystery as to why the LibDems, in opposition, are always able to make the kind so speeches we wish Labour, in government, would make.

Remind me, what time is The Rapture happening?

Terrific chart showing it’s often best NOT to get your money from working! Lower Nat Insurance & higher Income Tax could start to fix that & raise some cash, too

Completely non-medic observation but pre-2020 I had 3-4 bouts of common-cold, each lasting a few weeks in a normal year. Since, I’ve had many fewer and they only last a couple of days when I get them.

It's noticeable how rattled Mason sounds. He's not making an argument that the BBC has covered Reform well, he's complaining that criticism of the BBC from the left is not legitimate. This feels like a topic where a Culture Secretary could apply a lot of pressure. Wouldn't it be nice if we had one?

A lot of sensible people get squeamish at labelling Nigel Farage “far-right”, but his policy of cancelling the legal status of tens of thousands of settled immigrants can not be politically described as anything else. Reform are campaigning on a policy of cruelty & xenophobia.

News once had tens of millions of paying customers. Now it's funded by people we don’t know and who don’t share our interests. Liberal democracy won’t survive this shift.

Surely no-one could have foreseen the damage that media consolidation could have done to democracy?

I wonder why I feel sorry for royals who get caught up in this sort of thing. Is it because the only thing they’re capable of is being grifters? It’s what they were raised to do. They have no idea that there are any other options. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Last day of astronomical summer today. Autumn Equinox is at 19:19 BST. www.timeanddate.com/calendar/sep...

This piece argues we’re in not one, but three AI bubbles: 1. a financial bubble with inflated valuations, 2. an infrastructure bubble with overbuilt data centers, 3. a hype bubble where AI can’t meet its promises. Honestly, all three seem highly likely to me.

‘Wolf’ has been cried plenty of times but…

Been teaching myself how to do cryptic crosswords but my main handicap is that I’m stunningly bad at anagrams. I can’t see even the most obvious ones. Wondering if this is some (very harmless) version of dyslexia?

Dad wasn’t very interested in music. Spent much more time in Grandad’s car anyway. He had The Gallowglass Ceili Band permanently on his 8-track.

In which, remarkably, while talking about the fiscal bind, and even after Jeremy Hunt goes on about acting in the interests of the country, no one brings up the TWO NI cuts carried out largely if not solely for narrow party political ends. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

I know I keep saying this, and it probably makes me look a bit bonkers but no-one ever contradicts me in this view and it *seems* a biggie. It feels to me like an Emperors New Clothes observation…

Imagine a government that runs the economy well, governs responsibly, communicates clearly, and is led by personally decent ministers. Even then, it probably wouldn’t be polling well. It might still lose to a party that openly plans to wreck everything.

Which movie do you consider “perfect”?

The problem with libertarianism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money

Surprised and disappointed to not see Porridge isn’t at the top of this list, and more so that it isn’t even on it!

The last line of defence for freedom of expression is *checks notes* Ted Cruz.

Amazing thread 🧵 from Politico global security reporter Dave Brown ✈️ x.com/dave_brown24...

There’s a word for this, begins with the letter after B and before D

Surely every non-populist government now regret their decision not to treat social media sites as “publishers“. I posted this a while ago. If governments did this, they could allow it non-publisher status, & then declare Facebook Twitter etc to be, henceforth, publishers. bsky.app/profile/paul...

Tony Blair used to talk about the difference between the 3-second, 30-second & 3-minute conversation - the point being that simplistic policies, that poll well, collapse under the more sustained scrutiny of an election or time in govt. So what happens when there is *only* the 3-second conversation?

New post just out: "Three seconds" What links Charlie Kirk, the overthrow of the Nepalese government, the US-China trade deal, and the trial of a Romanian Presidential candidate? TikTok. Here's why it's changing politics and what that means. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

More of this please.

They don’t care about their users or their families. Your privacy is theirs to sell. Don’t like it? Fuck you! The regulators are terrified of them. They’re above the law.

ICYMI if the AI bubble bursts, every government will get ditched by the voters. The complacency on this is weird.

Trying to remember where, but Orwell made a similar point about fascism 1.0

A little bit of navel-gazing on the last twelve months of trying to run a start-up local news organisation with no investment or plan, entirely funded by readers. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-new...

Oof. on.ft.com/4gxTYSZ Markets hit record highs as ‘Fomo’ infects investors

The UK Ukraine solidarity campaign are fundraising for a vehicle for the UAV Interception Platoon of UA's 129th Separate Heavy Mechanised Brigade, working to detect, track + neutralise incoming threats, so they can deploy at speed to intercept missiles and drones. Donate: bit.ly/frontlinedef...

It might be worth reading my paper on how Europe should fight a war against Russia without the Americans, and which are the key gaps that need to be filled first www.martenscentre.eu/wp-content/u...

throwback Friday

Really appreciate this thoughtful review of "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism" by @stevepaxton.bsky.social in Theoria www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journal...

Murphy: "These things work in tandem. The Trump administration offers something to these big companies that will make their owners billionaires then in turn the big companies repress political speech or serve as Trump's propaganda machine. It's a quid pro quo that seems to be happening in open view"

A third force has awoken. 😃https://leftfootforward.org/2025/09/a-group-called-our-party-is-trying-to-take-over-your-party/

Britain must break from the grip of dysfunctional policymaking on.ft.com/4nErxVY

It’s exasperating to see all of this, but I do sometimes wonder if higher education needs a wholesale re-assessment & that ‘gradual adaptation’ doesn’t work with perfect storms. Because AI / zoom lectures / e-learning / housing crisis / rapidly changing employment market is a bit of a perfect storm

Trump’s allies now control X, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, & TikTok. They own Fox News, CBS, WaPo, WSJ & NY Post. They own Sinclair Broadcasting which has 200 tv stations and local news in 100 markets. “Freedom of speech” is now what Trump and his billionaire pals say it is.