They had a full day to craft this statement and they still couldn’t bring themselves to say “this is unconscionable and we would never change the rules on people in this way” without adding the rider “as long as they deserve it”. Who is this even for?

I’ve never seen Iain Duncan Smith slapped down better than this. Well played Ian Byrne MP. 👏

This will require a pilot programme. So, can we start with AI counselling this guy on a daily basis until it determines either that he is no longer a complete sociopath or to commit him?

Nudity, art, censorship, the media, etc open.substack.com/pub/williamp...

Labour’s endless psychodrama is fun to read about in history books but so damn tiresome to live through

decades of sophisticated political philosophy dedicated to the criticism of rights discourse, theories of alienation from “organic community,” and advocacy for post-liberal forms of “counter-politics” have all led to Donald Trump posting an AI video of himself as a king shitting out of a plane

British.

The ending of remote working on titles like RS and Pitchfork strikes me as utterly insane. Throwing away veteran contributors for what? American journalists have always lived all over the map

I notice all those brave journalists, Guido alumni, and Tory hacks, who manufactured a scandal - a dangerous one to national security, at that - out of gossip, supposition, and sticky tape, have gone ALL QUIET now the witness statements have been released and are exactly as the PM detailed at PMQs.

An inspiration to anyone who dreams of getting paid handsomely to troll college students

I like how the news will be like “while the President claiming Portland was ruled by a giant skeleton named Mr Nibbles is not strictly true, it does speak to the anxiety of many Americans”

Separating art from artists & related thoughts open.substack.com/pub/williamp...

Writing about art, finally open.substack.com/pub/williamp...

"Innocence, whether on a personal or a societal level is a dangerous fetish" some kind of loss - williampinfold.com/some-kind-of...

Trump's $100,000 skilled worker visa fee gives Britain a golden opportunity to attracted global talent. Needless to say, we're going to piss it away because we're scared of upsetting Nigel Farage. inews.co.uk/opinion/trum...

Even leaving aside the ridiculous idea of the Labour Party as radically left-wing, the Express is run by people who think Russia is a communist country???? I suppose we should be grateful as that's probably why Ukraine is getting support from the right 🤷🏻‍♂️

An odd mix of Tolkien, industrial rock & politics today open.substack.com/pub/williamp...

I don't know where this revisionism has come from about the suffragettes - people saying "if the suffragettes were around today, they'd be considered terrorists." The suffragettes were arrested and tortured, sexually assaulted and beaten by the state. They *were* considered terrorists!

It tells you everything you need to know about British politics that the only people who have ever had to apologise for Nigel Farage's long history of racism are the people who dare to call it what it actually is www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

The politics of drawing a moral line: When we need to call out racism for what it is open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

It shouldn't really be possible that successful men with reactionary conservative views like to cast themselves in the role of victim, but it's amazing how consistently it happens

Our socialism series continues with Mr Karl Marx. Big ideas! Revolutions! Manifestos! And many, many ridiculous feuds. There's much more comedy in his story than we expected

Nigel Farage doesn’t think the Prime Minister should have free speech in this country. But he’ll tell foreigners that yours is somehow under threat from the Prime Minister. He’s a whiny little liar. Always has been. Always will be.

How weird that this should have disappeared from the Telegraph archive...

The radicalisation happening of UK elites is bad, bodes ill for the future, but is also, to be clear, really really funny quite a lot of the time.

Kind of feels like a big deal that a Reform/Brexit Party former MEP has been convicted of taking bribes to promote Russian interests in Ukraine, and it feels like a bigger deal that this isn’t being treated as the major scandal that it clearly is.

Bloody hell this is seriously seriously bad!

New thing on substack innit open.substack.com/pub/williamp...

IT'S HERE. I am legit overjoyed to be unleashing this shit on the world: Origin Story Season 7 has arrived. For the first time, we're doing an entire season as one story. This is the history of socialism, from the French Revolution to the fall of the Berlin Wall linktr.ee/originstoryp...

“We apologise for any insensitivity or offence caused to the white supremacist community at this time”

It is possible to cherish the BBC as an institution while also saying that BBC News is failing very badly, day after day, in its duty to inform and that it always fails in a right-wing direction. It desperately needs to recover its integrity

We may well recognise the role of disillusionment, anxiety, anger and despair in building support for fascist movements of the past but for obvious reasons we do not now look kindly on the people who made that choice

People get in a tizzy about whether to use legal or practical or moral arguments, to deploy reason or emotion, data or storytelling. The answer is: everything. Let him have it.

entire press has gotten bullied into treating charlie kirk as if he was one of the most important americans alive and not a modestly popular podcaster

The Times these days is kind of a newsletter for transphobes. Always some new bigots on the block

"I had naively believed that humanity’s problem was an information deficit. Shine a light and change would follow. Now, I began to see, while the pen might be mightier than the sword, the wallet is mightier than the pen." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Thoughts about "home" with a sadly irrelevant title (it wasn't originally) I went back to rockville - williampinfold.com/i-went-back-...

think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)

I might change my mind when I feel less nauseous but right now I think it would be worth having less influence (if we even have any) with the US & fewer lucrative deals with tech companies just to be a bit less fucking abject

🔴Peter Thiel’s Race Science Network Extends Its Reach Into Reform UK, Conservatives and Labour A Byline Times investigation can reveal how Donald Trump’s key backer is now exporting discredited race science into mainstream politics in the UK bylinetimes.com/2025/09/18/p...

“I accept that Herr Hitler has some robust views - views with which I personally disagree - regarding Jews, trade unionists, homosexuals and so on. But he is the Fuhrer. We are going to have to learn to disagree with civility.”

Bear with me, I anticipate your disagreement. There is a clear pattern to the advice given to those who want to press back against rising racism. What it boils down to is that if you point out that racism is often being dressed up as “legitimate concerns” you will alienate people. /1

So we've gone from the shooter was trans to the shooter's bullets were trans to the shooter's roommate was trans to the shooter listened to a musical artist that sometimes mentions trans people

It is not enough for the US media to lie about who Charlie Kirk was, they have to fire people who have the integrity to say who he was

She's back for more Little Mermaid puns.

I've written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, urging them to join me in condemning Elon Musk's dangerous remarks inciting violence yesterday. As leaders, we must stand together and make clear Musk will face serious consequences for these actions.

The myth that racism is primarily driven by economic conditions must die, especially on the left. It is a misdiagnosis and a kind of excuse