Sigh we can only assume Starmer doesn’t care because he’s right wing and HE will survive under a Reform government

"Sir, are you going to entrap or abandon your allies?" "I'll probably entrap them a little bit, then abandon them."

The deal provides no timeline for the resumption of inspections. And time is running out before UN sanctions ‘snap back’. Read @mgmessmer.bsky.social's latest analysis for @chathamhouse.org ⤵️

The rest of Europe has finally recognised the profound security implications of being locked into US tech systems (which can be turned off at the White House’s behest). The UK was already basically absent from these debates, but has now fully tied its fate to Team USA AI. A big mistake, I argue:

My new piece in @the-independent.com on the UK's tech prosperity deal: The deal does not only leave the UK even more dependent on US tech companies, it also once again shows how out of step the country is with tech sovereignty debates in the rest of Europe. www.independent.co.uk/voices/starm...

You’ll be shocked to hear that their recommendation is not limiting the circumstances in which AI is deployed, but rather accepting the inevitability it will occasionally have catastrophic effects.

Now that the Europeans have agreed to massively raise their defence budgets - which the US wanted (mainly?) so that they would spend the money on US kit - the US has turned around and said ‘we’re no longer selling to you.’ 🤷‍♀️

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @mlorimer.bsky.social and @mgmessmer.bsky.social on Trump's crackdown on the menace of late-night chat show hosts and the day's other stuff, plus @warmatters.bsky.social on his terrific new book "War In The Smartphone Age". monocle.com/radio/shows/...

Latest Foreign Desk Explainer on Monocle Radio, on how and why the death of a free speech proponent is being weaponised. . . against free speech. Recorded before the Jimmy Kimmel cancellation. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

New extended deterrence case just dropped.

Die EU wirft eine Chimäre von Rechtstaatlichkeit an die Wand, traut sich aber an die Paralleluniversen der Tech-Welt nicht ran. Das wird sich bitter rächen. Und wenn wir dereinst über die Gräber unseres Demokratiemodels humpeln, werden wir uns schmerzlich erinnern, was wir mal hatten:

Das, was derzeit meinen Kollegen @dunjahayali.de und Elmar Theveßen widerfährt, dürfte z.T. auch eine orchestrierte Kampagne sein. In den digitalen Kloaken genügt es ja, jemanden zu markieren und dann wird das zum Selbstläufer, in rechtsfreien Räumen, denen sich bislang keine Kraft entgegenstellt. 🧵

Pleased to be included in this issue of @theworldtoday.org. My article considers the aspirations of #Ukraine's #Africa strategy and the challenges the Kyiv is facing in competing with #Russia for sympathisers and allies on that continent.

A friend of mine was on Charlie Kirk's "watch list" of Black professors. She received so many death and rape threats that her university offered her a security detail for the walk to class. This is Kirk's legacy. You would never know it from reading all of these legacy newspaper op-eds about him.

Something I talked about in the post I did over the summer on radicalisation. It's an important factor in elite radicalisation. samf.substack.com/p/the-radica...

Want to be clear that the predictable violence against the police wasn't the only problem with yesterday's march It's that 100,000 angry racists gathered in London for the biggest racist march in 50 years, and anyone not white had to steer clear The govt can't see that because they are inadequate.

This is, I believe, the first official word from the Government on what happened yesterday in London. Not only inaction in the face of violence and hate, but a celebration of it. I passed through London twice yesterday with my two kids & what Labour seem to be missing is that people aren't just...

From an Atlantic editor. I cannot get over how the entire centrist hivemind is attempting to wish into existence a person, and a movement, that does not exist. You are journalists, you are supposed to describe things as they are, not how you want them to be!

Last US chemical weapons destroyed. We can do good things.

Viele, die das Glück hatten mit Online-Subkulturen noch nie in Kontakt gekommen zu sein, können sich nicht vorstellen wie das aussieht. Ihr müsst euch von d Idee verabschieden, d da eine konsistente, ordentliche Ideologie u ein klares, strategisches Motiv hinter Handlungen steht. Das ist es nicht.

been thinking about how the outcomes of Following The Rules™ have steadily degraded over my lifetime, quickly enough that you can actually watch them get worse from one year to the next

I think the way people have used it for contracts is the canary in the coalmine. People share all sorts of work stuff online but pre LLM chatbots, how many were honestly just publicly posting drafts of their contracts? That is such an escalation in what people are willing to put online

Palpable momentum for this: "Who would have thought that defense — which lies at the core of national sovereignty — might be the integration catalyst for bottom-up change? But with 74% positive approval, public support for the EU is at a record high right now." www.politico.eu/article/vote...

New analysis from @britishelectionstudy.com highlights a critical point I made in my post about the liklihood of a Reform election win this week. Labour's lost votes from 2024 have nearly all gone to DK/LD/Green. There is a viable anti-Farage coalition there. samf.substack.com/p/will-refor...

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @mgmessmer.bsky.social and Robin Brant on China's big parade and the day's other stuff, and our On This Day historical feature gives it up for the Most Serene Republic of San Marino. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

so I loath the whole 'British cuisine' discourse on here but chaps, the first curry recipe was published in a British cookbook in 1747 (ie before the USA was a country) and the first Indian restaurant opened in 1810 (before we burned the White House down), curry is as British as Rehan Ahmed

I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset. In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia. In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)

‘Zeitenwende’ has transformed German attitudes to defence. But it will take more than increased spending to deliver a more effective military.

💡Two super useful resources for when academics (or journalists!) are being targeted - and for institutions to be prepared. (We are underprepared…) 1) expertvoicestogether.org/researcher 2) researchersupport.org #ECPRgc25 @ecpr.bsky.social

‘Zeitenwende’ has transformed German attitudes to defence. But it will take more than increased spending to deliver a more effective military. Read @mgmessmer.bsky.social's latest analysis for @chathamhouse.org ⤵️

I wrote about the German rearmament challenge: Germany has been through a huge social, cultural and political shift - but despite a huge increase in the defence budget, challenges remain. The government faces a tough dilemma: www.chathamhouse.org/2025/08/will...

The BBC has done a deep dive into current activities of Russia’s RT network, extensively citing research from me, @rhyscrilley.bsky.social @m-deceit.bsky.social et al in our new (free-to-download!) book. @oupolitics.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

People find this weird because half my job is reading/talking/thinking about crime, but I hate true crime & think morally corrosive is exactly right. I’ve had victims tell me things that have happened to them I’ll remember for the rest of my life. This stuff shouldn’t be a source of entertainment.

AI could help prevent nuclear escalation – but only if its risks are better understood, warns @mgmessmer.bsky.social. www.chathamhouse.org/publications...

German media reporting that it has cost €80million, almost half of which went in overtime pay to border patrols, to keep less than 500 people from crossing the border. That’s not inefficiency or incompetence, that’s corruption.

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @mgmessmer.bsky.social and John Everard on what to expect in Anchorage, San Marino's threatened Eurovision flounce and the day's other stories - and Jill Kastner on her fine new history of great power subversion, "A Measure Short Of War". monocle.com/radio/shows/...

My new piece with my first reflections on the longer-term implications of Trump's AI chip deal with Nvidia and AMD: www.chathamhouse.org/2025/08/trum...

Anyone who belongs to any minority group needs to be aware that what is being done to trans people can and will be done to them. In a decade we have been stripped of our rights to exist in public spaces by a press campaign and a well funded lobby.

And here we go: Not a deal, but a deal to try to force a deal without European involvement. This allows Putin to feign good will, and Trump to back away from a largely empty sanctions threat. Not a good day for Ukraine, I’m afraid. (A quick 🧵) nytimes.com/2025/08/06/us/… /1

I think about this all the time - it was so hard to find a job when I first graduated, then things got a bit better in ca 2018 or so and now things are getting really bad again. Very fun!

It also blows my mind to see people around my age act like it was awesome to be in college and then a young adult in the late 2000s and early 2010s Did they somehow miss the part where no one could find a job? did they memory hole that? i mean i too enjoy MGMT but that didn't really COMPENSATE

There are a lot of horrifying photographs of the damage and human toll at Hiroshima. But it's still this one that sticks in my mind the most. Noboricho Elementary School, about 1 km from ground zero. School children were an important source of data about the bomb's mortality. 98% fatalities.

It is a miracle that nuclear weapons have not been used in the 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must work to ensure they are never used again.

I assumed this was satire

Farage told Anya Propp on C4News that people arriving from countries like Afghanistan should be sent back to Afghanistan so I guess that’s the end of the asylum system and the refugee convention under Reform.

If government wants to hear about “efficiency”: as all of us have to buy out time to do any research, since unis overload other work & often don’t even notionally cover research, we’re ALL made to apply to those things. So we’re all spending weeks writing apps rather than doing actual research.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks a significant escalation but not a shift in Moscow’s strategic outlook – one rooted in resisting EU and NATO influence in the Black Sea. Read @galipdalay.bsky.social and Natalie Sabanadze's latest for @chathamhouse.org.

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. Quentin Peel and @mgmessmer.bsky.social on Trump's tariff countdown and the day's other stuff, plus my letter composed on a recent visit to Prague. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

Precisely this is what I try to highlight in my research regarding the military tech industry with VC backing. I can't stress enough that this raises huge ethical questions in the context of defence. My short policy brief based on my longer research here: www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/policy-h...

When is the last time you sent someone a (quick) email to tell them you appreciate their work? It takes only a few minutes and means a lot to people, junior or senior, (pony) famous or not. Particularly important in today’s world, where people get so much negative feedback from anonymous trolls.