Fine piece with useful references to current research literature for those who want to explore further.

I'll be going to this, despite the risk of Billy Bragg singing/trying to look like Jeremy Corbyn for some reason www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The fantasy is that the money comes from him, and everyone has to play along. Sad.

This has been the story almost without interruption since we started getting regional povery stats about thirty years ago. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Unhinged from the Times. Not a shred of evidence in the article that Jewish groups have been "frozen out". Plenty of Jews will be marching against racism on Saturday. Unfortunately no evidence the Board of Deputies/JLC care. archive.ph/wip/zZbn9

Listening to a new-to-me Tony Coe recording from 2007. Thinking about how I once heard him play a sublime, perfectly crafted bebop solo on Cherokee (at the Charlie Parker Ko-Ko tempo) *on bloody clarinet* at the Bull's Head in Barnes. What a musician.

The main takeaway from this entire fiasco today is that this Republican Party can never be trusted with foreign policy & national security again in any of our lifetimes, if ever.

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My selfish but quite serious objection is that it is a wonderful thing when people are able to drop into a gallery or museum for half an hour just to look at one or two things, and that sort of visit depends on minimal faff. So yeah, this could make everyone worse off.

Happy to see that the train guy gave a heartfelt apology today. I think it is important to spread a sincere apology as widely as the original condemnation.

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'Le socialisme est l'individualisme logique et complet.' (Jaurès)

It's great that the Grdn has picked this up. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ma...

Now then now then

Yeah Bruce!

Je viens de voir passer sur X "nul n’est censé ignorer la loi". Je me souviens de "nul n’est sensé : ignorez la loi!" Mais ne sais plus qui en est l’auteur : Thierry Jonquet ? Jean-Patrick Manchette ? Langue et ponctuation sont deux sœurs siamoises.

Well, I am not sure what my analysis here is worth, but here is my 7,500 word primal scream of a military historian's take on the War in Iran. My best summary: this war is dumb as hell. acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m...

"In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is 'attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake.' And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done."

I agree 100% with Steven Vickers that authors will be falsely accused of using AI in the coming years. In particular, authors like myself whose works were stolen to train AI systems are at risk. When we write in our own unique styles, AI trained on us will quite likely flag us as using AI.

And I guess my question to this bit is "why should we prioritise fairness to political parties having the fund raising rules changed, over fairness to the British public in excluding foreign money?"

£300,000 a year still seems quite a lot?

Yes I think! Maybe self-serving as an example think tanker, but Westminster think tanks are much smaller and lower capacity than I expect many people imagine. And the Greens especially poorly served relative to their potential influence.

LABOUR WANTS TO TAKE YOUR MONEY AND GIVE IT TO BAD PEOPLE.

Mood www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9x...

Mood.

You really should read this thread from someone who has been writing excellent pieces about this for years.

Neither Claude nor any other LLMs detects targets, processes radar, fuses sensor data, or pairs weapons to targets. Its Maven. And Maven= Palantir artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/kill-chain

I just heard a trailer for this and it sounds brilliant! Annnnd, the Cuttleslowe Walls were very much not the only walls in existence, they were just the most notorious. Physical barriers between council estates and nearby owner-occupied estates were very common www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Have you visited ‘The Yeats Sisters & Irish Design’ exhibition, inside the newly refurbished Printing House? Recently, Dr Billy Shortall set eyes on this depiction of the building, designed by artist George Atkinson and printed by the Cuala Press in 1919. Did you know... (more below 👀)

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Amen to all this. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Actually an exceedingly good point. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Important report out today. Child poverty isn't just bad, it causes a lasting earnings penalty. Perhaps some gap is not so surprising. But I was shocked by the scale of the penalty persisting even for children who go to university, get the same degree and work for the same firm.

www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur... Une série radio indispensable pour découvrir comment certains français ont participé aux crimes commis par l’Allemagne nazie à l’Est de l’Europe. Et comment, après guerre, ils ont caché cette engagement. Quatre émissions ponctuées d’archives inédites.

I've been listening to this: it really is excellent, with amazing archive materials, and as grim as you might expect.

We are so thankful to the family of Adrian and Celia Mitchell who have donated their library to our bookshop in Kentish Town. The two cultural colossuses have an incredible collection - including many first-edition books. www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/poet...

Cars playing chicken at junctions and on narrow streets when you're cycling.

I'm a bus driver and tbh mate we don't care. In fact if a bunch of people are getting off and their all walking past going "thanks drive, thanks drive, thanks drive" and I feel obliged to reply thanks very much thank you cheers etc to each one it's a pain in the arse. I'm on the clock, just get off.

In the 1970s I once did a Peter Lorre all-nighter at the NFT! Kept dozing off & whenever I woke up it was still, of course, Peter Lorre, so I got all the films confused in my head.

Died on this day in 1964, (alas): the always wonderful Peter Lorre. In 2014 I wrote about him for the Telegraph (this is reposted on my blog, so no paywall required).

No, BBC, that's not "more on this story"...

Regular reminder that nothing he says really has any meaning, it's all just words, and nobody knows witch (sic) of his words actually correspond to reality, if any

At least I get to repost the greatest headline the Independent has ever run.

The mess the Middle East is now in can be largely traced to one factor: Donald Trump's belief a) that international political negotiations are like New York real estate negotiations (they're not) and b) that he is a supremely skilled negotiator (he's not). 1/n

"What's your favourite book of the Bible, Robert?" "Tough one. I think I'd have to say The Best of the Bible"

I think No 10 understand necessity of significant compromises - esp on transitional cohort. But it would be disappointing if there weren't at least 2-3 ministerial resignations *if* the tripling, quadrupling (and quint/sextupling) of settlement to 15-20-25-30 years really was railroaded through.

'Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?'

Trump: I’m going to put ICE in the airports, where they will target and arrest all the illegals, especially Somalis, because I hate the Democrats Headlines: Trump puts ICE officers in airports to ease long lines, provide relief for weary travelers

Though pretty low for an authoritarian regime... so there's a little silver lining.