Let's be clear on the Twitter/X situation: every single politician, government function and public entity that has an account on there can stop using it whenever they want, and can delete that account whenever they want. Only Ofcom can ban the site, but anyone can leave at any time. And they should.

Graham's all about 'protecting women'

Except that as per usual for this government, they end up in worst of both worlds because they bestow the swastika bikini app with some residual legitimacy while deriving absolutely zero benefits, not clear how exactly their posts on there can be said to be 'contesting the battle of ideas'

In my case similar but the TV for the Spectrum was black and white

We got round this issue by connecting the Spectrum to the old black and white TV. Playing chuckie egg II in colour for the first time was a revelation...

The telly had four mechanical channel buttons, each tuned using a screwdriver in a hole in the middle. We used the fourth one to connect the ZX Spectrum computer until Channel 4 was launched at which point it became a huge bone of contention with my eldest brother and the computer was banned.

China is run by engineers, USA by lawyers, and Britain by people who studied PPE at Balliol College

“BBC will stay on X to try to stem ‘flood’ of global misinformation” - This argument doesn’t hold water, by staying on Musk’s cesspit platform you only legitimise it as a place to find factual information. It provides the opposite! www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

BBC Verify as well www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/...

For those keeping score, Bellingcat, The New York Times Visual Investigation Team, & Washington Post's Visual Forensic team have all published analysis showing the ICE shooter wasn't in the path of Renee Nicole Good’s vehicle when he shot her, contradicting statements by the President & his cronies

New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant “This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.

Border Patrol agents showed up at Roosevelt High School, three miles from yesterday’s shooting. The agents went onto school property and handcuffed two staff members. They also used chemical weapons on bystanders and many sought shelter in the school library (source: MPR). And now…

Shut it down.

I have been saying for years and years, there are too many people in important IT positions who have no IT experience nor any IT qualifications. and this problem goes across all political parties. (see Post Office Horizon case for classic example)

I attended a J1 at Holyrood where some MSPs were trying to understand DPI regarding an evidential scan. It would have been hilarious how wrong they were had the stakes not been so serious.

Not a new observation but there are nowhere near enough people who actually understand tech in parliament or government. We are increasingly dependent on / held to ransom by tech companies and IT infrastructures and the people charged with ensuring we stay safe have absolutely no idea how to do so.

Labour is in government. It has the opportunity, and frankly the moral imperative, to take the lead here. It should announce an orderly departure from X, with a clear timetable, and alternative sources of information for those who have relied on the Nazi child abuse platform until now.

I call on my party and my government to remove themselves entirely from X and communicate with the public where they actually participate online and can be protected from such illegality.

No evidence here to suggest the ICE officer who executed this woman was in any danger. She turned the wheel away in order to drive round him. And if he had been in danger from the vehicle, shooting her would not have removed that danger, as shown by the vehicle continuing and no officer being hurt.

Orange jumpsuits might be more appropriate. Participating in the distribution of child sexual abuse material is a crime. There are also several lawyers listed here. Wonder if their bar associations might also be interested in whether they are violating ethical obligations.

Stepping back, this is very much why I suspect Starmer won’t survive long-term: the entire structure of government is essentially incapable of decision-making, even on cut-and-dry issues such as this That’s just not sustainable, politically or practically

I hope this reaches our politicians. I've written to my MP, Edinburgh Council and plan to contact MSPs and more institutions today.

New on @labourhame.com: Labour Hame editor @dhothersall.bsky.social, a former Twitter addict, says that while he understands the motivation of staying on a platform where vital communities of support and engagement have been built and prospered, it is now morally unjustifiable to remain on X.

I am extremely confused as to why the UK government and police are saying Grok’s mass-scale CSAM generation is an issue for Ofcom. This isn’t about X failing to moderate CSAM, which is an Online Safety Act issue. It is about the company and its technology being actively involved in its generation.

Every single one of these homes started construction under Labour. In terms of actual policy the Greens have slashed the number of Council homes to be built in the future by to 728 from 3012. Nothing like stolen glory.

It’s almost as if Polanski and the Greens are just making up populist left policies as they go along without thinking them through beyond, “yeah, that’ll sound good, let’s run it up the flag pole and see if it flies.”

👏

Brilliant last line

The final one is

Weirdly, if you ask Grok to take a photo of any Twitter/X manager and show what the person would look like if they had no dignity or self-respect, it just shows an unchanged picture.

I like how Elon looks like a clown even without any makeup

Absolutely fucking tremendous from the FT.

At this point the government putting out statements demanding that Musk stops Grok from producing illegal images feels deeply insufficient. We should at the very least be seeing individual perps facing the full force of the law, but also the government withdrawing completely from the platform.

ZX History - January 1980: The Guardian covers the launch of the ZX80. #zxspectrum #retrogaming

The immediate question is whose interests does it serve for this to be leaked? I don't think it helps McSweeney.

OTD: the current President of the United States tried to overthrow the government. oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/items/3a1eea...

Absolutely. I’ve always been uncomfortable about the level of dependency (rather than partnership) that’s been allowed to develop - but now it’s unconscionable. I get that it’s a tough line to draw, but the failure to do so adequately has led us here.

The Daily Telegraph has a hilarious story about Scottish Labour MPs wanting Streeting to replace Starmer, based on anonymous briefings from two English MPs. So of course the online left has shifted into that special mode where the Telegraph is temporarily classed as an accurate source. Laughable.

This chart documents one of humanity’s greatest achievements, in my view. We just lived through the fastest population growth in human history. It would have been impressive if food supplies had merely kept pace — but on every continent, they grew even faster than the population.

The two greatest evils known to mankind, A.I. and the person directly in front of you in line at the post office, have finally teamed up. We’re done.

Labour increased taxes on the wealthy in the form of IHT reforms and the Greens OPPOSED them. Labour cut the winter fuel payment for those on higher incomes and the Greens OPPOSED it. Meanwhile Polanski's wealth tax proposals don't even work according to the Greens' own think tank.

What X is allowing Grok to do is unlawful or regulatory-illegal in multiple jurisdictions, creates clear DSA violations, and continues despite regulator scrutiny. The images do not need to be pornographic, non-consensual sexualised or intimate depictions are enough.

I absolutely understand the tightrope-walking UKGov has to do with respect to horrific US foreign policy, because the UK's defence is deeply dependent on the US and NATO. And I get that it's hard, and expensive, to change course on IT infrastructure. But we really need to stop doing these deals now.

The thing I don't get is that the politics of banning X or Grok should be quite favourable. If there is one thing lots of the public really hate, it is noncery, so saying "we are banning the Nonce Porn machine" and then attacking e.g. Farage as pro-nonce when he criticises it should land quite well.

In addition to the Ofcom inquiry as to what the platform is doing to prevent its own production of the unlawful material, there should be a dedicated team making arrrests + charges + a comms campaign about that being unlawful, arrestable and chargeable

Alex Salmond at Wimbledon x1000

Election year. Expect all sorts of Scotttttttllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaand shit to occur.

Sorry, but an extra bank holiday for the footie is just a damning indictment of how badly Scotland is being served by its government, and the fact that the main opposition parties will undoubtedly cheer along for fear of being labelled killjoys is equally damning of them. Utterly pathetic.