(Going to see a band I like) this is a cool room. I hope they start to constantly email me about every single event that goes on in here.

NERDS EYE VIEW 💡 Learn new things with @jonnelledge.bsky.social's weekly column. Discover 14 facts you didn't know about Venezuela 🇻🇪

"When the mine ran out around 1885, one might think that’d be it for Neutral Moresnet. But no: like microstates the world over, it simply shifted its economy into more contested areas..." You* asked, I delivered: a brief history of Neutral Moresnet (*Possibly not actually you)

One thing The Traitors has taught me is that the people snarking on the internet aren't lying, a lot of white men look pretty much interchangeable

"It’s worth remembering that Ernest Marples arguably did more for the motoring lobby than any transport minister before or since. And yet they hated him – for attempting to restrict their freedoms even slightly for the greater good. That, too, was a sign of things to come." @jonnelledge.bsky.social

Back in the present, I still have the instinctive urge to preface what I’m about to write with something along the lines of “obviously this is not the 1930s”. That, though, is getting harder to say with any conviction with every month that goes by....

absolutely unreal. who can possibly hit publish on that and think "yes I have done my job as a journalist and editor. this is serving the reader"

My word. The Taoiseach, in China, says "platforms can be misused and abused or they can be used for positive reasons as well..." and says that should be considered carefully "before jumping to conclusions" on whether it's appropriate for the Government to be on X.

I understand the pressures on the BBC, but Radio 4's coverage of the Minneapolis shooting is an example of "bad balance". It's all "the Trump regime says she was a terrorist, but Democrats say it was murder". The BBC has the footage. It doesn't have to treat truth and falsehood as equally valid.

I don't think this is going to be particularly controversial with anyone on here, but I wrote today's newsletter on why I'm not buying the Keminaissance:

Years ago my friend Dave’s then-four-year-old son walked into a room, looked at Dave, and said, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Daddy.”

If you haven't watched this evening's episode of The Traitors, I encourage you not to look at the front page of tomorrow's Daily Express. At least the Mail has hidden their spoiler on p.3.

“One oft-cited explanation for the region’s tendency towards authoritarian instability lies in the fact that, in 1922, geologists from Royal Dutch Shell had discovered quite an incredible amount of oil there...” This week’s New World column is on – what else? – Venezuela.

was just outside for all of 15 minutes and now alas I shall never be warm again

First newsletter of another bloody year. This week: is this really the year the western alliance finally breathes its last? Also: a brief history of the lost microstate of Neutral Moresnet.

Who governs?

has anyone heard from Lisa Nandy recently, out of interest

I don’t know. Yesterday a woman in the Bloomsbury Waitrose described the one in Granary Square as “the good Waitrose” and for a moment I thought “huh, maybe David Betz is right. Maybe we will start to see civil war on the Strand”.

“One oft-cited explanation for the region’s tendency towards authoritarian instability lies in the fact that, in 1922, geologists from Royal Dutch Shell had discovered quite an incredible amount of oil there...” This week’s New World column is on – what else? – Venezuela.

Nigel Farage had already acknowledged, generally, that many of these allegations were broadly true in 2013 and 2021. Now that there is more detailed testimony from about 30 people, he is claiming they are making up things he had previously tacitly accepted happened.

Yup, it's also just not particularly useful in understanding Trump. Yeah some of his acolytes might have a coherent fascist ideology but he clearly doesn't.

The thing about putting Yarvin on Newsnight is that it's worse than having Nick Griffin on QT. Not only are his views similar but far broader than Griffin's common thuggery but at least Griffin was a UK politician who it could be seen as necessary to have on. Yarvin is an American blogger.

The rage had receded enough for me to give King & Conqueror another go because tonight I'm as braindead as the show imagines me to be, and i am enjoying it for TWO reasons: 1) Eddie Marsan and Juliet Stevenson being genuinely delightful as Edward the Confessor and his mum; and...

They fixed the lift. www.instagram.com/p/DTLwx0qjZF...

the Onion absolurely knew what it was doing with that British food story

I have accidentally trained the instagram algorithm to give me endless posts about dying dogs and honestly I'd rather it was fascism

'British food is bad' has been untrue for like a generation and a half at this point but really sticks around in the U.S. U.S. supermarkets are inferior to their U.K. counterparts!

Me, sowing: Yes, you can republish my first book for the North American market! Yes, I'd love to do you some original material! Ha ha fuck yeah!! Me, reaping: What the fuck. Well this fucking sucks.

There’s a lot of talk about NATO’s Article 5, and what it would mean if one NATO country attacked another. There’s not nearly enough attention being paid to Article 42.7 of the Treaty of Lisbon, and what happens if an EU member state is attacked.

dunno if anyone's mentioned but it's actually snowing in London

@stephenkb.bsky.social Okay. So. Vikings. Is the point that the group we generally refer to as Vikings were not in any meaningful sense a group, making it roughly akin to the Roman notion of Germans?

"The third possible reason for Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland is that it looks really big on the map." Feels like a good week to push this again

Some bad news this morning: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

So, about that new role of mine... I've joined Infosecurity Magazine as Deputy Editor on a six-month contract. Please clap. www.infosecurity-magazine.com/profile/dann...

I have a hunch that if you or I were running a website doing this the "urgent contact" would involve door rams and handcuffs so I struggle to see why it can't be slightly more pugnacious than this.

imagine a cheery BBC news report in 1938 breezily asking "which countries could be in Hitler's sights after the Sudetenland?"

Here’s a fun top five: things that are consensus among historians but are essentially unknown by the public. Richard I, a bad king of England. Roman Empire, fell in 1453. Paul, more important than Jesus. Witch burning, a modern phenomenon not a medieval one. Britain last invaded in 1688. Yours?

A lot of people criticising this, but I am choosing to believe that this is finally the anti-Richard I film that England deserves.

Writing this I had to look through Grok's mentions. Earlier I counted around 8 requests PER MINUTE featuring "bikini" and "her". Thousands of women and girls stripped each day. I found users stripping dozens of women per hour, from female celebrities to gym selfies. www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...

job news. This month I'll be filling @tomsasse.bsky.social's large shoes as the Economist's public policy editor, based in the Britain section. I'll be focusing particularly on the most interesting question in politics at the moment - what's gone wrong with state capacity and how to fix it

*Whiney Starmer voice* Sadly you must give Bluesky your card details before you can DM & show your knickers to the Knicker Inspectors before you pee because we're protecting women and chiiiiildreeennnn *5 minutes later*

"In several important respects, though – political; moral; in which interests he was happy to fight, and which he kowtowed before – Ernest Marples was both cause and symptom of a country about to get onto the wrong track...." Wrote for the I Paper about one of the villains of 1960s transport policy

sorry I'm late handing work in, the dog kept headbutting me so that I'd scratch his ears

amazing how the entire machine can pivot within 24 hours. no need to slowly upsell the argument; just issue new marching orders

god, the "Starmer's actually just too smart and thoughtful for you people and your 24 hour news cycle, you dolt, you fucking imbecile" people are *extremely* irritating

Look, he had no warning this topic would ever raise its head and it has never come up in the past, so it’s very unfair to expect him to formulate a position or response in advance.

This is not the first time he's ended up in a slightly watery version of what is nonetheless the right position. But why does it take him so long? It feels like even the Prime Minister is waiting to get quotes signed off. But that can't be right, surely