"Seizing Brexit opportunities to deregulate" was mostly unspecified magic fairy pixie bullshit then, and it's not going to get any more realistic in the hands of a bunch of Reform clowns who don't know how anything works, don't care to learn and disdain anyone that might.

Belgian AI scientists resist the use of AI in academia apache.be/2025/10/24/b... • I shared the Dutch version yesterday and was thinking that it would be wothy of a translation so I could share it with my colleagues. Of course @apache.be read my mind. It's a good piece I think.

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...

In discussing this idea (running for VP) I've pointed out before it's not really the live issue anyway, because that's not how he'd do it. He wants to just straight-up run again himself. It's not going to be some technicality loophole where he runs a stand-in replacement.

Trump Defends Demolition Of Yggdrasil, Ancient Tree Of Life https://theonion.com/trump-defends-demolition-of-yggdrasil-ancient-tree-of-life/

This is just ridiculous — and by teaching us that waste and environmental protection laws are stupid, a great big own goal by everyone concerned. Next up: £150 fines for littering when a tiny piece of lint falls from your pocket as you take out your keys.

This is an *incredibly* good idea.

I just cannot take this shit seriously. If you're a senior Labour figure and think that the party's stance is cowardly but are too afraid to put your name on the record saying it YOU ARE A COWARD.

It's a very similar dynamic to the rise of Trumpism. Nobody on the right speaking up or saying anything, as the individual incentive was to keep your head down – but the collective cowardice ending up somewhere really bad.

I sat in the British Library reading League of Empire Loyalists, BNP & National Front literature for my book and even they claimed to promote *voluntary* repatriation. Forcible deportation was always the ghost behind those ideas, but it’s amazing that UK politicians don’t even bother to hide it.

Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.

Even just the threat of this becoming policy is going to damage the economy; Why make an investment whose returns depend on this not happening?

Via Press Gazette: "The Daily Star’s livestream of the Liz Truss lettuce has been acquired by the British Film Institute’s National Archive for a collection of significant pieces of online video. The BFI’s curator said it was “a seminal moment in British political history”"

Strongly recommended reading, applicable beyond the US. A GOP fundraiser explains the personal considerations that kept him working long after he knew he was harming his country. "I’m fully aware that any excuses at this point won’t justify why I stayed so long" www.thebulwark.com/p/my-last-da...

The regret numbers on Brexit rise in the same way Trump’s approval numbers drop. There is an existential need to improve the standard & quality of public debate; a plague on everyone’s house right now. ‘Fuck Around and Find Out’ is proving a flawed approach to running the world.

Jews in Manchester should not be attacked because of political animus against Israel. No one should have to shut up about civilians killed in Gaza, because an antisemitic murderer in Manchester. It doesn't make sense.

Because what voters really want is an unliveable world where Government can abuse their human rights with impunity. Isn’t it obvious?

There is a key moral distinction between immigration policy on new arrivals, no matter how draconian, and on people who have already been granted status, on set conditions. It is about being a country that keeps its word. If we're not that, we might as well fucking give up now.

"But what can we do more?" ask UK pundits Despite the various rhetorical dramas, the UK continues to maintain almost entirely normal relations with Netanyahu's government. Real measures are long overdue. For some ideas, see below www.gov.uk/government/p...

“The University of California will survive federal funding cuts if it must... It will not survive the sacrifice of our institutional autonomy, academic freedom, or civil rights on the altar of a specious claim to be ‘combatting antisemitism.’” jweekly.com/2025/09/24/j...

A Israeli academic asked his followers on X which sanction would really convince ordinary Israelis that they are isolated internationally. "Expulsion from football tournaments" was the most popular answer, followed by "ending visa-free travel to Europe"

Yep, that's great. Just fantastic. We were told that Starmer would lay out the patriotic case for diversity today. What we got was an article in the Telegraph, behind a paywall, about how the left failed to tackle immigration and now we all have to have ID cards www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09...

Also: how the identity of the one doing the reporting is just wholly irrelevant. (It sounds like something Olly came up with in the back of a car in The Thick of It, except significantly dumber).

Extremely recommended: this video explains how modern (EUV) computer chips are made. Unbelievable complexity and precision. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B248...

Just a cosy little human interest feature chatting to people who went to support a far right racist criminal thug What on earth is the BBC up to?

I have rarely seen such unadulterated bollocks. I loved Twitter, it was so important for my job. Then a mad megalomaniac took it over and made it so no one would see my posts unless I paid him money - and even if I did that I would be submerged in nazi hate. But yeah this is our fault.

I think he means Brexit was worth it even though it made OTHER people poorer. Twat.

Power is the rock on which truth founders. The mainstream media, with a few exceptions, is a single-issue lobby group, whose purpose is to assert the rights of capital. Here's what I've learnt about the industry in 40 years in journalism. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Wikipedia: ▫️Free ▫️Sources at the bottom ▫️Full edit history ▫️Discussion page to check controversies ▫️Openly stated editing policies Academia: "This isn't trustworthy!!" AI: ▫️Literally none of the above and, usually, the complete opposite Academia: "I guess we have to embrace this!"

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

It melts my head that X is still used for official Government communications, and, catching up on today's news and the fact we have a foreign billionaire inciting violence on our streets, it's clearer than ever that this should end. I raised this in Parliament last week 👇

This exchange says it all.

Tellingly, this is all very much a subplot on Today. Anti-extremism really struggles to get any kind of purchase in the mainstream debate. There is no discussion about whether the govt should come off X, because that would entail the journalists conceding that they shouldn't be on X either.

Seems @ofcom.bsky.social really dropped the ball with new rules on in-contract price-rises. Last time I had to get a new telecoms contract, the big players mostly did CPI/RPI (= vaguely reasonable) + 3.9% (= pure money-grab). Now they add on whatever the hell they want — e.g. 13% here from EE.

The message should not be that political violence is bad because it targeted a good guy who was “practicing politics the right way” (which Kirk definitely was not). Political violence is bad because it inherently corrodes the democratic polity, because it makes democracy impossible.

Keep thinking of arguments for why it would be completely insane to dump a prime minister with a huge majority just 14 months in, and also about how if he's not going to say a single word in opposition to the kind of shit we saw today then I no longer feel convinced by any of those arguments.

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

The simple way to reconcile these two things is to recognize that the first is a bad opinion & the second is an outright lie

Extremist murders by ideology, 2013 to 2022. www.pbump.net/o/reassessin...

We cannot move forward or escape this nightmare until mainstream figures finally admit that there are many, many people on the right - including some of its most powerful voices - who are openly seeking violence and tyranny and exploit every situation to move it closer.

Poor Cooper. Must be so sad to have big plans for how many more lives you can utterly destroy, and how many marginalised groups you can demonise, and instead you see someone even worse take over the role.

National Trust member? Here's your annual reminder to vote in the AGM to keep out the "anti-woke" dickheads Restore Trust keeps trying to plant on the board. The recommended resolutions and candidates are all OK, so follow the emailed link and it only takes 30s. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...

It’s official - “Nigel Farage is right, don’t vote for him” is a demonstrably awful strategy for Labour. Boosts salience of immigration, costs votes on the left, doesn’t persuade any voters on right (why would they accept a crap knock-off when they can have the original?)

I'm so tired of tapping my "Trump is already and openly rigging the elections and if Dems don't go nuclear to stop him nothing else they do will matter" sign I just vaguely gesture in its general direction. via @drjennings.bsky.social

Destroying government records is illegal and the people doing it should face grievous consequences. The attorneys overseeing it should be disbarred.

This is all so dangerous. Starmer needs to step up - urgently - and make the alternative case; the case for immigration, the case for respect and dignity, the case for not become a cruel, shrivelled-up nation of threatening, flag-waving, prejudiced wankers.

Folks think you're crazy when you talk about the worst Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history, & it just keeps coming:

Unprecedentedly wild corruption, on a scale that would have ended any other presidency in the post-WWII era, happening right in front of us, every day. Folks look at you like you’re crazy when you say we’re in the midst of the worst Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history, &, well 👇🤷‍♂️

Violent or destructive left wing protest is framed as delegitimising the protesters' stated cause. Violent or destructive right wing protest is framed as emphasing the need for urgent action on the protesters' stated cause. As always, right wing men are treated as elemental forces without agency.