So the candidate who left school at 16 with no A-Levels and who's spent her whole adult life vocational, manual jobs beat the ivory tower academic turned cushy media pundit, but you can be sure we'll still get plenty more casual description of the latter as "white working class".

LLMs are cathedrals that are unaware they’re building themselves.

Nearly a year into many trans people in the UK being forced to use disabled toilets or asked to work from home pending legal advice and stuff and I haven't seen a single "Izzy's boss told her she has to use a disabled toilet, here's how she feels about it" piece in the papers.

Wishing a meaningful & reflective Mark Wahlberg 40 Day Challenge to all who observe.

Just passed a church where their decoration is a crucified Jesus is coming down off the cross under his own power. okay.

Trouble! For those who minister

About to watch the final episode of the BBC Lord of the Flies adaptation. Calling it now that the big twist is gonna be that the naval captain who rescues them at the end turns out to be Ralph's dad.

This 👇

anyway the consultation shuts tomorrow, one minute to midnight UK time: www.gov.uk/government/c... Amnesty have some good guidance here. Go on: media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...

*Years and Years music kicks in again* www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A reminder that the BBC have consistently platformed Goodwin as an 'impartial' commentator.

How did early readers think about the relationship between the gospels? Repost to enter a drawing to win a free book.

Sunday Bonhoeffer: "There is so much meanness, selfishness and hatred among the nations of the world but we must overcome it. Against that we know only one mean: keep your eyes open and your hearts." 'Greetings to American Students' Notes made during his time at Union Thological Seminary 30-31

i think this MLK day the thing to focus on is the strategic focus and tactical brilliance of the civil rights movement and the way it was laser focused on a set of achievable goals

Right, off to Paris for a long weekend of food and art. Here's what's in my book bag

For some context: Jonathan Myrick Daniels was from NH. Episcopal seminarian in the 1960s, he decided to join the Freedom Riders in AL. He was killed by a shopkeeper when he stepped between him and a little Black girl. Shopkeeper was aiming a shotgun at the girl, and shot him instead.

It's a big day for those fluent in the good grammar of civility looking to deploy decorum to mask agendas of cruelty

God is working today in the committed relationships of same-sex couples

oh, I'd been waiting for this!

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, grew up to appreciate that this meme doesn't technically work because the sentence which starts with this phrase isn't (quite) the last sentence of the book.

The Book of Job is a Christmas movie

Erm.....

Really important reminder that whilst anti-asylum riots grab the headlines and dictate political responses, they are very far from the whole story

I wrote a couple of strange little paragraphs about why I liked this year's new poetry books from Dom Hale and Imogen Cassels (and, a bit surprisingly, about Shakespeare) www.spamzine.co.uk/post/spam-de...

Nesrine Malik here gets to the nub of the issue. The rise of the "sinister...malevolent" Farage to the threshold of power was enabled by a veil of plausible deniability, gifted to him by others. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Amongst the horrific news coming from Sydney there is news of extraordinary bravery. The very best of people, and the very, very worst, too.

I'm on my way to a Chanukah event. It should be a celebration but instead our community is once again mourning. I will be thinking of everyone in Australia and those around the world in the Jewish Community who know this fear and loss. We stand with you.

It sure is something watching Girl Guides protest the exclusion of their trans members, at the same time as the BBC pushes someone out for being a trans ally and routinely updates their news articles to insert transphobic terminology.

You don’t stop them by becoming them, absorbing all their desires

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

Good (also as the article says but the headline obscures, this is part of a wider and co-ordinated response which also involves the Baptists, the Methodists, and the URC)

for the record everyone should be mad *at the government* for this

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started

Sought and found asylum in the UK

I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

Wonder if she and Starmer ever ask themselves if this is what they got into politics for

A little reminder to media bookers that there are a range of Labour peers with relevant life experience and achievements across policy areas, and your contacts list for Lords PLP can extend a little beyond ‘Glasman, M.’

On the night of October 22-23 1957, the poet John Wieners composed a long poem on a single 10ft continuous scroll of teletype paper. Now Face Press have released it in a gorgeous new publication containing not just a transcription but a full scale facsimile!

How delightfully quaint some of these old Devon village names are, their etymologies lost in the mists of time.

To explain briefly: at the moment people successful in their asylum claims get permission to stay in the UK for 5 years, then have to apply for permanent residency. At that point a review of their status is done, but it’s rare not to succeed at that point unless they‘ve committed an offence 1/

Good statement from the US conference of Catholic Bishops

The story of Goodwin's "radicalisation" has an exculpatory function, sparing the blushes of those who couldn't see the obvious problems with his output ten years ago. All that really happened with him is he became emboldened by the endless indulgence of people who really should have known better.

this sort of thing makes me feel sincerely that we have fallen from grace as a civilisation

Vance is Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor made flesh

War Christmas / it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away