Prediction market represent the industrialisation of corruption.

Well-deserved but sad, too, that it means we'll never see Khan as Prime Minister.*

Five Word Horror Story: Attend with a full bladder.

Last push for this: part two of my investigation into the financially mysterious child-safety software company into which successive UK governments have placed their unquestioning faith...

ICYMI: The UK software firm that's central to the government's plans for preventing children being exposed to nudity on mobile phones is a financial binfire.

ICYMI: The UK software firm that's central to the government's plans for preventing children being exposed to nudity on mobile phones is a financial binfire.

Whatever the event, the most irritating takes are always on Linkedin.

Chelsea, here, reading the room

My late colleague Ross Anderson once wrote “The idea that complex social problems are amenable to cheap technical solutions is the siren song of the software salesman and has lured many a gullible government department on to the rocks.” This saga has me hearing him swearing from the great beyond.

It is how it always is.

I actually stood and applauded that tackle.

No, Micah, it has not been great to watch. It's been pretty much entirely spoiled by a team having the greatest player of all time and yet electing to play like a bunch of moustache twirling villains.

Is punching someone in the back of the head not a red card now?

🚨Exclusive🚨 Two ministers filmed a video for a child-protection software firm that lost £17m in three years, made just *£112* in the UK in 2024 and gets 90%+ of its income from overseas subsidiaries that haven't cooperated with auditors for three years. 1/ theuglygame.wordpress.com/2026/07/15/p...

One for the next pub quiz: the rubes running Morecambe become the first club to face enforcement measures by football's new independent regulator. www.footballtradedirectory.com/independent-...

could write a whole book about how the tone from outsiders towards england seems to be "you all thought you were gonna win it!" while the internal understanding is "you can't even imply that we have a chance of winning it for a second or you'll jinx it".

We Bury The Dead really is a pretty damn good film.

Nothing is beneath this man. This is yet another egregious breach of Fifa's Code of Ethics by Infantino, which, if Fifa's Ethics Committee still had a modicum of independence, would immediately trigger an investigation.

The government has confirmed our story from the weekend and it looks like a potential financial issue for Everton FC. [1/3]

With impeccable timing, on the biggest day in English football for years, I have a pretty decent non-sport story coming this early evening. Tech, politics and Jesus. Look out for it.

I blogged about last week’s viral video of the pervert on the Scottish train filming some quiet teenage girls, and why it matters for the debate on young people and smartphones. I didn’t share it anywhere, but it’s top of Hacker News. This happens to me a lot. heatherburns.tech/2026/07/08/t...

Worthy winners, but the Spanish players' universal willingness to roll around pretending to be hurt really makes it hard to cheer for them.

Crawley Town continue to suffer from long crypto. Among the last acts of crypto bros Wagmi, who promised to take the now EFL League Two team to the 'Premiership,' was a three-year front-of-shirt deal with crypto firm Reef. Signed a year ago, it seems to be over after just one season… 1/

Any battery is removable if you stamp hard enough on the pervspex containing it.

The future of free speech will increasingly be wealthy people being able to say whatever they like, without any regard for truth, and then being able to fine you for saying anything they dislike, even if true.

A lot of people rightly bagging on Rajoy for being a massive racist. But don't forget, too, that he was also gigantically corrupt. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Crawley Town continue to suffer from long crypto. Among the last acts of crypto bros Wagmi, who promised to take the now EFL League Two team to the 'Premiership,' was a three-year front-of-shirt deal with crypto firm Reef. Signed a year ago, it seems to be over after just one season… 1/

They should make a Pokemon Go-style game version, where you earn points for locating and destroying each of the pervspex.

If you think it's a psychological blow updating your LinkedIn to "open to work," imagine how Peter Shilton feels each time Harry Kane plays.

New! Ny! A wonderful essay by @davidgoldblatt.bsky.social josimarfootball.com/2026/07/14/d...

This is a complete delight.

Jesus, that piece is like someone opened a brand new basketball arena and is paying people to take part in a dunking contest.

1/🧵 FIFA says its judicial bodies are independent. Yet the decision to waive Folarin Balogun’s World Cup suspension was reportedly taken by one man alone. So who is Mohammad Al Kamali -and how independent has his own institutional background been? www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

On the Ross Tucker pod, leading CTE researcher Chris Nowinksi said that NFL players are four times as likely to get ALS than the general population and four times as likely to get dementia. The next highest risk factor for dementia was exposure to lead, which increased risk by only three times.

England whenever they win

I know it is not exactly the same, but just four days ago the New York Times published a column celebrating Trump abusing his power to demand Fifa brake its own rules and allow a suspended player to play in the World Cup. Feels like there might be value in reinforcing the norm of rule-following.

All Andy Burnham has to do as Prime Minister to win my vote is to make it illegal for someone to begin reading a magazine that you bought - or had delivered - when you have not even had a chance to open it yet.

All novels should come with a small note on the back reading: "Contains [or Does Not Contain] Poetry Attributed to One of the Characters."

Having read Keefe's original New Yorker piece, I wasn't sure the story was big enough to merit a book. (I thought it might belong in Rogues rather than next to Empire of Pain.) But it really is a brilliantly told story, with the structure of a whodunnit used to deliver a history of oligarch London.

Being kind in one's personal relationships but using political power to advocate for and impose cruelty on others is that mark not of misunderstood secret decency but of a monster. Every tyrant and bully in history was capable, at least periodically, of generosity and tenderness on a personal basis.

Sympathy for Christopher Harborne who, after purchasing Nigel Farage, probably imagined he'd get at least a decade's use from him.

I think the sole notable thing about Widdecombe's lifetime of political failure is that she was one of the first mainstream politicians of the modern era to invoke her faith as an excuse for her bigotry.

Nigel Farage’s secret donor George Cottrell met Tommy Robinson at a private event after a far-right protest in London. He later attended a large demonstration in support of Robinson, previously unpublished photos show. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/... Latest from Insight and me.

"He who hesitates is lost." Italian Highway Code

New for @josimarfootball.bsky.social, by @aselliaas.bsky.social and @reporterlars.bsky.social: Fifa is spending millions on a 24/7 social media newsroom dedicated to the “President’s Vision.”

Last Wednesday, SafeToNet told me that its 2024 accounts - which were originally due by the end of Sept 2025 - would be filed "in the next few days." One week on, they remain unsubmitted.

I can't even fathom this level of idiocy. You call the globally famous Black man a monkey, he responds "Get a load of this racist! LOL!" You then delete the posts on Twitter & demand that HE apologize to YOU for calling you a racist. What???

It's a foolish, desperate move that will look worse with each passing day and, even if he wins, it will in no way put to bed all the stories of his obviously unjustifiable financial arrangements.