My favourite current Reels genre is the folks who post the slo mo of Al Maktoum saying how safe they feel in Dubai because of him. It's definitely a paid influence op, perhaps the most transparent of all time.

I don't think "they won't win an election" is a good comms strategy for their opponents, but practically, the way the Greens currently win elections (charismatic candidate + 3,000 volunteers per seat + overwhelming ads blitz) doesn't scale to a General.

So we still have a news organisation that can handle a massive global story properly, reporting from every part of a complex multinational event with expert, informed and impartial correspondents - amazing that a medium country like UK can do this. The BBC is an amazing asset for us and the world

Omfggggg

Some guy popped up in my Instagram a few weeks ago with the usual moaning about Britain, selling all the family's stuff, and heading off for a "better life". They flew to Bahrain yesterday.

trump's promise of indiscriminate violence: "...to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere..."

Anthropic should do what other Americans who are a bit uncertain about America's role in the world do and come to Europe for the summer to travel about a bit.

It was one of the experiences of my life to study alongside military folks at grad school, particularly those transitioning into civilian life and trying to get their heads around the new challenges that would pose them. I did try to get them to hate America a bit though.

The addition of "-ie" to most surnames in an English sporting context is fine, but less so for Will Jacks.

Big digital ad buys were also part of the party's approach to the seats they won in 2024. Question is whether it scales to many more target seats a few years from now.

The Tories wouldn't have been in government and wouldn't have got Brexit though without the confidence and supply support of the bloody DUP between 17-19!!! Literally among the most sectarian things a government has ever done (but Northern Ireland doesn't count of course).

For the UK and other democracies, it means working out how to take back sovereign control of your media and information environment.

I'll try and write a bit about this but the Green digital ad strategy looked like an extension of their GE2024 one. They really go all in on places they want to win. Much bigger than their opponents.

Every time I'm back in London, I watch the ITV News at 10, and boy do they need to move Robert Peston on.

Per the ads I've seen, I'd say there was a big opportunity for either the Greens or Labour to re-state some policy positions and delivery track record relevant to the voters of the constituency. One sticky policy idea would be worth its weight in gold versus the deluge of tactical calculations.

One thing the Claude Code/Codex moment will probably lead to is that orgs who haven't traditionally had the resources for a developer will want to hire one to help trial experiments that'd never previously have seen the light of day.

Hugo Wils of the Communist League must be royally effed off the Morning Star endorsed the Greens.

After many years on the same 4G phone deal I "upgraded" to a 5G one and, on arriving in London, things are not good.

Osborne's political career is a rap sheet.

Just as there's an AI bubble in AI there's an AI bubble in AI grants too. Some people getting good money to work on some extremely hypothetical four-layers-removed from the actual problem stuff.

Always quite fascinated with Semafor, which claims profitability and $40m turnover a year, despite having no subscriptions or ads (other than for itself) and doesn't license content elsewhere (I don't think). How do they do it?

This is an absolutely insane take. As far as I'm concerned writing exists because it's hard to convey the four pitches of grunt humans actually need across time and space.

One of the "people saying this" is literally a Reform Party ad that ran across the country over the last week. Is that Badenoch's source?

Nigel Farage is running a Trump-style rally in Swindon. The venue's name? MECA.

The flipside of this is interesting too - the Tories used their meetings with/connections to Modi in ads and posts in west London (Uxbridge etc) for years. Everyone's been weaponising this one way or the other for years.

Fwiw, @whotargets.me had this three days ago, so if you're not following, you might wanna.

Look, it's not really the point, but Polanski also said that a world without borders isn't practical at the moment. So the idea that he "now wants it" really isn't true.

A committed Restore Britain member it seems.

A very lame duck feeling about Trump already. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...

I know someone who had a startup (now doing something else) using AI to do this for the last few years. The tech didn't seem to be the issue, but the sales challenges and risk appetite of the buyers really is. Who can they trust to do it? Can they afford to be first?

For all the concern about Palantir, don't they seem incredibly vulnerable to AI coding? They're basically a systems integration consultancy with some dashboards. It's going to be hard to justify paying £75m contracts for that.

This is such a richly layered video.

Watching the rugby in the Gaeltacht. Better stay ciúin.

One reason is US organised labo(u)r is weak, particularly in tech, so they don't really see the convulsions coming for them. If it does happen, most countries in the world will have to put up barriers to prevent total social meltdown. China (or France, or Germany) deals with this very differently.

In this ad, Laura Trott says "hundreds of children in the UK have been killed because of social media". This is not a claim I've heard made before. Anyone know the origin?

Economic impacts of this are interesting - total commoditisation + low prices for consumers, possible disaster for AI companies and the US economy, maybe good for fast followers (including EU tech), everything else still pretty unclear.

Always like a post along these lines, because then you go check the domestic polling and it's not quite the same story (similar vein to "If only Macron could serve another term", think folks abroad, but hardly anyone in France). Carney's doing fine, but only thanks to a recent uptick.

The new Representation of the People Bill ignores digital campaigning entirely. In that absence, here are some policy ideas for better regulation of political ads in the UK. They'd lead to more transparency, trustworthiness, competition and fairness. whotargets.me/en/better-re...

I guess Reform thinks there are enough Green/Reform/anyone-but-Labour waverers to go on the attack in Gorton?

I was always hopeful we'd have the capability and capacity to work with election observation missions in vulnerable democracies, but I wasn't sure it'd happen. Such good work by the @whotargets.me team.

"that feature is out of scope, but your life...?"

The greatest sports TV deal in history. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

Platforms, some of the wealthiest companies in history, don't have to take this money! Or they could require some meaningful transparency! But of course they don't...

Mmm pav bhaji (why aren't these available on every street corner? What are we even doing?)

Musk fragmenting the British right this morning. Lowe Faragemaxxing in Barbour and mustard cords.

There are real trade-offs involved in deciding how best to handle political advertising, but Meta and Google's "ban" on political advertising is unjustified and favours bad people. Worst of all, it doesn't even work, as Hungarian independent media has shown. lakmusz.hu/2026/02/10/d...

Meta and Google pulling out of political ads in the EU has made it harder for the Hungarian opposition to be heard. The platforms are a long way from perfect, but they're not Orban government owned or controlled in the way much of the rest of Hungarian media is.

A correspondent writes...

Hey ChatGPT: "Vibe code me a social network so addictive and rage-inducing that everyone leaves all the others and joins mine, which I then shut down, freeing everyone of the entire concept".

The Employment Rights Act means some changes to what unions need to know when a member joins. Here's what you need to do get started: jointogether.online/post/2026-02...