I wrote on the Caracas raid: an unusually large, well planned & successful operation, even if decapitation isn't the same as regime change. Also an opportunity for special forces to show their utility to Trump foreign policy in the post-GWOT age. www.economist.com/the-americas...

Not much optimism here. For anybody.

After the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, 4 CFR experts break down the challenges and uncertainty that could lie ahead—for the United States, Venezuela, and the region overall.

it's some of the world's least desirable oil, at a time when prices are at a five year low... go figure

Trump said he was going to run Venezuela. Not everybody agrees. www.france24.com/en/americas/...

UK foreign policy for decades has been positioning ourselves between US and EU and avoiding hard choices. Until Brexit and Trump, this kept us in a safe place where we could pretend we had principles and relevance. Now, we are brutally exposed and adrift.

Wasn’t expecting this. Then again, being a US poodle wouldn’t play well with French voters. Not even the fat right ones.

MTG on the capture of Maduro: “If prosecuting narco terrorists is a high priority then why did President Trump pardon the former Honduran President who was convicted…for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into America?…This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

There’s going to be a motion of censure at the UN and Starmer is going to have a decision to make.

Nige I think Russia and China might think: what's ok for you is also ok for me

Useful, if not depressing, piece in the FT on the AI bubble giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... (although I'd also like a word with whoever decided capitalisation of the first letter only was house style for FOMO)

"Whatever messes can sometimes be thrown up in a world based on democratic self-determination, it is better, surely, than returning to the time when borders can be changed by force. If the world we’ve built since 1945 truly is passing, we will miss it when it’s gone." Feels relevant this morning.

How about we stop male genital mutilation altogether?

Unfortunate timing for this optimistic piece by @stevebloomfield.bsky.social but I think he might be right. We may have seen Peak Trump and Peak Musk. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Another misplaced attack on the OBR. The government dictates fiscal policy, not the OBR. That includes the OBR's mandate and the fiscal rules. The fundamental problem is a weak fiscal position, which requires tough choices on tax and spend

One thing dictatorships (and particularly regimes that are trying to consolidate) tend to really work on is trying to maintain and extend public support Its pretty notable that the Trump admin just... arent bothering

This is a excellent piece on something that I'd noted but had largely been ignored: how the Lords conventions have collapsed under the new wave of peers. Hard to see how they can be restablished - extensive reform should be a priority for the govt as we move later in the Parliament

10 reasons to have some optimism about the world in 2026…🤞 observer.co.uk/news/interna...

At the end of each year, the @the-independent.com newspaper asks me to write a piece on what the next year holds for Russia's war on Ukraine and Europe. And each time I write it, I hope that this year I will for once get it wrong. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...

I asked the #ncfc who I support why they won't use bluesky and persist with the other one, given I'd be banned if I stood up at a ground and shouted some of the stuff musk says, and they said they'd think about it🤷‍♂️

Explosions in Caracas. edition.cnn.com/2026/01/03/a...

If Reform win the next election and do what they’ve promised they’re going to do, we’ll become a very different country that I can’t think of any parallels with. Nearest I can of is Singapore without the efficiency or Saudi Arabia without the religious fundamentalism.

There is, to my mind, no justification for the continued use by the UK Government of X as a platform for official comms. There hasn't been for some time, in fact, but if the latest developments around AI-generated image abuse and CSAM don't change the policy I really don't know what will.

Apparently the Leader of the Free World has once again correctly identified an elephant!

India's ministry of technology has given X 72 hours to report on the action taken to comply with its legal obligations in India over obscene & nonconsensual imagery www.ndtv.com/india-news/i...

This is a crime in Irish law too - if your twitter app buffered this image when you scrolled, thats 12 months in prison for possession of CSAM under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998. bsky.app/profile/dsqu...

Seriously those last 3 years are beyond eek

Completely block Twitter. Remove all public sector accounts. Encourage EU and rest of NATO to do the same.

If the British government, and indeed other governments, can’t muster a fast and strong response to Twitter adding a facility enabling users to create and share AI child sexual abuse material then not sure what Musk could ever do that would actually provoke a response.

Not a fan of Bush but he was a step up from what we got now.

Not Somali.

Well said by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/8d1f...

This is a great read. I sense that a lot of people are feeling like this. 2015 was when things started to go wrong and the past decade has been a nightmare. 10 years on, it’s time for something else.

Reform’s previous leader in Wales has just been jailed for 10 years after admitting to being a Russian asset.

I'd like to think 2026 is the year populism falls apart in both Britain and America. Over here, there are early signs that the process of populist radicalisation (and ever greater stupidity) is becoming too much for some of them and lines are being drawn.

The public are nowhere near as consumed with anti-immigrant hatred as the political class believe, but if only one side is making an argument (and has most of the press onside and sets the agenda for the broadcasters) then what do you expect? www.ippr.org/articles/the...

Typically smart piece. Worth remembering that Wilson actually increased his majority in 1966 despite a mixed economic record, but lost in 1970 when the economy was doing much better, because voters punished him for devaluation. www.ft.com/content/91e5... via @FT

Nottingham Forest ended 2025 in defeat at home to Everton, with Sean Dyche’s tactical shortcomings and the Reds’ woeful consistency coming to the fore. George Edwards was at the match #nffc thefamousclub.co.uk/2025/12/31/f...

Eighth?!!! I’d like some of what he’s been drinking. #NFFC

This sounds like something out of a horror film.

I’ve thought this for some time. “The idea that Keir Starmer is worse than Boris Johnson or Liz Truss is nuts.” www.ft.com/content/1995...

The Mod Revival Revival Revival. thecoldmagazine.co.uk/2025/12/30/y...

I love how these clubbers have taken 60-year-old looks and made them their own. thecoldmagazine.co.uk/2025/12/30/y...

The Best of 2025 at @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social. “The Tribune’s story of the year is undoubtedly Andrew Milne. When it first came to our attention I don’t think any of us knew that it would take off the way it did.” www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/the-tribunes...

We're on telly! Just a few minutes, watch below. Great that the BBC has picked up the story and continued to probe Andrew Milne's activities: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

In the 2000s, even the BNP abandoned its “send ‘em all back” policy, believing it put off many of their potential voters. Now mass deportations are back on the political agenda with a sitting MP saying “millions must go”.

Think @sundersays.bsky.social is accurate here. The UK has not suddenly become much more racist. However the (re)normalisation of open racism by "respectable" right-wing media and politicians has led to both increased visibility for open racists, & radicalisation of some "soft" racists/xenophobes

“One reason why “knowledge-rich” curriculums have outperformed “skills-based” programmes is that we are terrible at predicting the future.” Good read by @stephenkb.bsky.social

It's fascinating how despite all the evidence that a knowledge rich curriculum and the rigour of studying a subject you like in depth works, politics in so many countries is *so* determined to go 'a new invention? Maybe this time trad approaches to education should be thrown out!'

Zack Polanski offering voters fantasy solutions, says head of Fabian Society