Finally, a proportionate response to people playing music out loud on their phone.

Interesting thread on yesterday's Tommy Robinson march from the Other Place👇

Bluesky has its own Gamergate, it's centered on Will Stancil, and a number of the ringleaders & participants are trans people. That is a completely insane yet factually true sentence to write, and if you understand it then we should form a support group.

Right, but does this sort of thing change a mind?

'The placards. The threats. The cancellations. Women were hounded out of their jobs for stating biological facts. Academics were driven from their universities. Lesbians were told they were transphobic ... And the BBC, rather than standing firm ... went along with it.' unherd.com/2026/05/insi...

I've done loads of these and I always end up somewhere in the bottom-left quadrant which sounds about right. Anyone listening to me can probably tell my economics is lefter than my social policy (which makes me a fascist on Bluesky).

LOL

A vote for Wes is a vote to hand the country over to Palantir. Everyone will be forced to use the Palantir app for everyday tasks, this will help identify queer people who will be sent to labour camps.

I had some bonus thoughts about masculinism over at my newsletter, including how "Gen Z boss and a mini" drove some internet users spare: helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-men-wh...

Referees as commentators is now a permanent feature it seems

The problem about pitching the Labour leadership election as a “battle of ideas” is that it’s very much not going to happen. Either Burnham wins Makerfield and it’s basically a coronation for him, or he doesn’t and it’s Wes against someone else that the hard and soft left find palatable. That’s it.

It's appalling but I don't think unfurling a banner warrants arrest if those doing so behave themselves (FWIW the same applies if a similar banner is unfurled at a pro-Palestine demo). In fact doing so is likely counter productive, these people love being made "free speech" martyrs.

OK but how many have you read of this Best Novels list compiled in 1898? (27 in my case) www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-...

There is no “free speech” in America, independent journalists, war reporters and frontline voices are constantly throttled, restricted with little explanation and even less transparency. “Appeal the decision.” Appeal what exactly? Nobody even tells you what rule was supposedly broken. 🤷‍♂️

We are slowly being squeezed out of X, shut down on Facebook and Instagram, and increasingly pushed into algorithmic darkness for covering uncomfortable realities from Ukraine.

You need to post this on X and Kemi will definitely pick it up.

Reckon I've read half a dozen books on that Guardian list which I found surprisingly high.

It's not a terrible list but it feels like it was compiled by ChatGPT with the prompt: "Give me the Guardian's 100 greatest novels." www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

💯 this👇

Yep but it won't happen with Inaction Man in charge at the moment

Very stupid piece that again doesn't know what the soft-Left is. Here it's any Labour politician the writer doesn't like which includes Gordon Brown. Brown was the pro business candidate in '92 who Blair urged to run against the soft-Left. unherd.com/newsroom/why...

Parking ticket ugh, parked on this particular road dozens of times before because the sign said you were allowed. Now I can see that the sign has been changed. It's never busy here, and I can only assume the local authority wants more £££. Hard not to be cynical with this shit.

Not actually sure Burnham should want the Greens to stand aside. He'd squeeze their vote to nothing anyway and if they back him, Reform can tar him with their policies by association.

I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter the dire threat of a Reform UK government elected on a minority of the vote

MattGPT says no

Indeed. Ultimately the only one of the five who you can even faintly say was hard done by is Theresa May, and we live in a parliamentary democracy and she no longer had the confidence of her MPs.

This shows just how the US has declined. Xi told Trump to back away from Taiwan and what is Trump’s first comment after the summit? This, he might not support an already agreed arms sale to Taiwan. He is dancing to Xi’s tune.

you’re an academic, so am I. We both know that the way to “pan” a review would be to write an alternative review. Those saying the Cass Review are flawed (and it very well could be) have had plenty of time to write their own review. Except they haven’t so all we have to go on is Cass 🤷🏻‍♂️

This wouldn't change if Rayner was leader either. Bluesky is so far from the median voter on trans issues it's laughable.

Bluesky man 😂

"Manchesterism, as detailed in a report this week, identifies the root of Britain’s permanent slide in living standards as the extractive nature of rentierism, be it buy-to-let landlords, private equity or foreign sovereign-wealth funds." unherd.com/2026/05/what...

Ha ha, I'm all for purging Bluesky liberals. That said this is a very good critique of "Starmerism" and what Burnham needs to do.👇

It's basically true

Good write up of the past 24 hours. www.dailymail.com/debate/artic...

First time I conspicuously became aware of our new Reform council is when I saw this email just now informing me they're removing the Ukrainian flag from the County Hall building.

Makerfield voted 65% Leave in 2016 (the 75th most Leave seat). Over the next few weeks, there’ll be plenty of news coverage about Brexit (reset negotiations, 10th anniversary). Andy Burnham is a rejoiner. If Reform can’t make Brexit work for them here, it’ll tell us a lot.

It would be very funny if the first thing Prime Minister Burnham did was sack Ed Miliband. I wouldn't rule it out, Miliband's opposition to new licenses is driven by zealotry.

All the "Corbyn was smeared" claims ignore the fact Corbyn had spent his entire career painting a large target on his back. He was easy to attack, just quote his own words.

Corbyn had, er, "issues" Not sure that Burnham has similar problems

To Keir Starmer

He probably thinks he'll go back to being mayor

The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians - Male and female Palestinians describe brutal sexual abuse at the hands of Israel’s prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/o...

I’m sorry man but this is bananas. Insanity. If you think Trump is the same as those other guys you have fully lost the plot.

Andy Burnham will force Keir Starmer to quit as PM by standing in by-election after by-election until Labour loses its majority.

This was the 2024 result in Makerfield, where Josh Simons is standing down to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. It's going to be really, really tough for Burnham to win it.

So a disgraced MP - sacked from the government for digging dirt on journalists - claims to be acting nobly when attempting to spark an unnecessary by-election & unnecessary mayoral election in revenge. Labour is behaving like the deposed Tories at their worst as they play these dismal games

Is Burnham's "magic" really powerful enough to win this one? Looks unlikely to me in the current climate.

Milifans are as bad as the Corbynistas

Wes Streeting's answer here is worth watching. youtu.be/_Zxcq1Wif3U?...

There’s a lot of things to dislike about Streeting’s politics but for some reason it’s easier to shout about Palantir or that he’s a transphobe. So so lazy.