The number of commentators/journalists salivating at blaming Starmer for ruining the “special relationship” is genuinely pathetic If anyone ruined it- if it even really exists- here’s a reminder of who did it.

I've said for many years that the alternate timeline where the AV referendum passed would be extremely different. The 2017 GE would've been totally different under ranked choice.

DON'T BUY TRAIN TICKETS IN ADVANCE! On 1 April, the government is quietly changing the rules. Off-Peak & Anytime tickets become non-refundable after 23:59 the day BEFORE you travel. If you wake up & find your event cancelled, NO REFUNDS, even on £100+ tickets. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/far...

Danny Kruger is one of the many far right ghouls whose takeaway from The Handmaid's Tale was "Gilead sounds like a great idea" If you value your freedom, Reform need to be kept away from the levers of power

The value which most underpins the sense of Britishness is, in my opinion, fairness. Whatever position one holds on the paths to British residency and citizenship, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that retroactively changing the rules is as un-British as it's possible to get.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: an actual Online Safety Act needs to ban algorithmic content and recommendations unless one explicitly asks the site/app in question to please provide me with that content. Banning X's "for you", FB recommendations, and YouTube/TikTok autoplay is essential.

This is very convincing on why British planning is such a mess samf.substack.com/p/build-the-...

I've theorised for many years that a big dividing line in society is between people whose opinions are shaped based on the content of what's being said, and those whose opinions are shaped entirely on whether or not the content looks professionally produced. This, plus GenAI/deepfakes, terrifies me.

Something compelled me to make this

To do this once is evidence of dysfunction, but that can be explained in the hurry of a short by-election campaign. To have done it, been called out on it, apologise, but then immediately do it again is disqualifying and unforgivable.

Democracy dies in oligarchness

The unbelievable volume of Epstein file emails documenting crimes and other heinous acts is such a tell that the wealthy and powerful never even thought for a moment that there would ever be any consequences.

Wes Streeting saying on Today that Mandelson is ‘not the man we thought he was’ but the trouble is, he is exactly the man we thought, just on a much worse scale than almost anyone thought. And there is an alternative world where none of this is this govt’s problem, because they never gave him a job

O cool The hypothesis that the elite were trying to segrigate trans people from society purely to keep us as sex slaves was real, but only for trans women since they see trans men as undesirable for sex and want them eliminated which is EXACTLY THE POLICIES AND RHETORIC WE'RE SEEING HAPPEN RIGHT NOW

My lunch today is going to be leftover home made chicken curry, and leftover home made yorkshire puddings. One of the few perks of adulthood is that there is nothing that you nor the government can do to stop me.

New Swingometer post now out - my look at the Gorton and Denton by-election, taking place down the road from me swingometer.substack.com/p/the-gorton...

They didn't need to attack me this hard

This shit right here is why even if the Democrats win the presidency and the house and the senate over the next 3 years we should continue building a global economic system which doesn't have the US at its centre. Nuremberg style trials of the current regime and a generation of sanity first.

Tonight's turret meeting will be pretty awkward

A few months ago, ICE hired me I didn't sign and submit any paperwork. I almost certainly failed the drug test. I'm real outspoken about my opposition to the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable And yet, there it was, in plain English. "Welcome to ICE!" My latest for Slate

Prediction: Labour will try to do this in two weeks time, when it is least effective, after coming under attack for their own continued use of the site, which they fail to justify.

OK this is fun and I'll be very interested to see how I do

Absolutely fucking tremendous from the FT.

Not even the prompts. If you are a Twitter user in the UK and Twitter sticks a Grok CSAM image in your feed for WHATEVER reason, well congrats your device just downloaded child porn. And you are legally responsible for that.

This is particularly interesting (if you’re a nerd) because the plot you get at the end tells you a lot about the relative usefulness of different terms. Will genuinely try to adjust how I write in line with them (especially if the sample size gets bigger).

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.

I am crying with laughter so much that those weird muscles across the back of my skull hurt. I'm serious, I'm in physical distress from laughter here. Stop what you are doing and read this thread. There is absolutely no way that you will predict where it is going.

As expected, @crosscountryuk.bsky.social continues to be a national embarrassment.

Classic XC experience. Build HS2 in full.

*small domino* my mum tells me not to drink diet coke because she read in the Guardian that it causes dementia *BIG DOMINO* zoom meeting with the editor-in-chief of Neurology to discuss errors i found in multiple peer-reviewed papers

Reform UK went into Durham Council promising to find huge savings. They have managed to GROW the authority's deficit by over £11m *in the last two months*. Grimes recommends “serious consideration” to increasing council tax “by the maximum 5%.” ~AA northeastbylines.co.uk/news/politic...

When I seize power I am going to have everyone responsible for the trend of sending additional “just reminding you that you’ve not looked at something in this app” push notifications publicly executed.

X has changed their policy and now you can see where the accounts are based. Here’s an “influencer from Texas”

in this week's newsletter! I offer to you the Superhero Movie Theory of why both Labour and the Tories have become unable to govern: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/all-my-hob...

"What matters is people’s party identification not the constituency they live in....Blue Labour believe...that Labour voters in the marginal Red Wall district have fundamentally different views on social...issues than Labour voters in safe London seats. They don’t." Fab by @benansell.bsky.social

NEW The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim By me. Enjoy. emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

For people who live in Manchester... No trains from the south and east of the city into Manchester Piccadilly station for nine days over the February half term 2026 (Saturday 14 – Sunday 22). www.networkrail.co.uk/our-work/our...

Finally caught up with The Celebrity Traitors and I am now convinced that Kate Garraway is the inspiration for Moira Rose

I have eaten more Jaffa cakes than you will ever know xox

Exorcist: I'm here to remove the demon that has possessed you Me: I didn't call you Demon: I did

The take away for me from the Rachel Reeves "story" is that letting agencies need to be licensed with a binding code of conduct. Everyone working there should be DBS checked and should be a member of a professional standards body.

Hot take of the day: passkey based auth is a brilliant concept, but every single implementation out there right now is absolute dogshit, and the technology is fundamentally not ready for widespread adoption.

Taurus: Things aren’t as bad as they seem, they’re worse.

Hear me out Slow Horses but Muppets, Jackson Lamb the only human

One thing my career has taught me is that the SECOND senior management start micromanaging things which should be below their pay grade: run. It's the archetypal "I'm hopelessy out of my depth so I'm latching on to something I can control" move.

I held off upgrading to iOS 26 for a while, but I capitulated and this is driving me round the bend. I'm glad it's not just me though! www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksV...