"I think of Englishness as being mainly an ethnicity." And here I am watching Emilio Gay, Grenadian father, Italian mother, born in Bedford, representing England admirably in the Test. What a load of rubbish from Matthew son of Godwin. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Absolutely. This.

Reading this discussion on AI and remembering back to the search for the "killer app" for mobile phones probably late in the last century which we've now largely forgotten...

I am the son of two police officers so I admit I am hardly unbiased here but I feel like the fact British policing has been hollowed out by massive budget cuts over a decade ought to be a larger part of the discussion than "DEI"

Harsh, but… #Clegg

Well done @iandunt.bsky.social for not letting Reform cllr Alex Wilson take the high ground for what Farage did.

Stephen Lawrence was killed by six men. It took 19 years for two of them to face justice. Four never did. Henry Nowak's killer has been convicted and jailed within six months of his death. The two cases *are not the same*. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-o...

Read and follow Sarah Martin, she’s doing great work www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Interesting that the idea of another EU referendum is regularly discussed on broascast media as something that would cause division and thus a bad idea. But plans to deport literally millions of people are discussed as administrative questions.

William Wyler was a colonel in the Army Air Corps. He went up with B-17s over Germany (he was Swiss-German) to make documentaries. He went deaf in one ear doing it. While on leave he heard a doorman make an antisemitic remark. He punched the man out & got in trouble. The scene is based on this.

I was responsible for this (it was literally my idea while I was Product Manager for Media Playout at the BBC) and it is still my proudest achievement ever

Oh, I see, so *now* everyone in Sunderland is happy to be in Europe.

From the full story linked in comments: "The beavers have also allowed the city to scrap expensive plans to dig a reservoir and levee. 'We said the beavers can do it for a fraction of the cost, certainly more sustainably,' McCormack says."

Something I find incredibly irritating is how people criticise a supposedly new British habit of flippantly ditching prime ministers. Literally everyone here agrees it was great to ditch Johnson, absolutely vital that Truss should go, and cheered the defeat of Sunak. All show the system working!

Not voting should be illegal, and we should bring back shame in public life

This headline might give you the wrong impression, right wing commentators may leap to the wring conclusion - this is not a failure of modelling the climate crisis, it’s the success of renewable energy, pulling down the worst case temperature rise - by a whole degree. buff.ly/gjCN8AX

Thread.

FIONA HILL: The war in Ukraine has changed the nature of warfare itself. Ukrainians are now the most battle-hardened army in Europe, and they are keeping Russians embroiled in a stalemate or a deadlock. And they have a lot of capacity, lessons and equipment to impart to others.

Block politics is a rejection of building a coalition from the centre outwards. The two world views are now so divergent, what applied as basic political theory twenty years ago just doesn't anymore. The problem now is that many of the things your block demands you enact don't work.

🧵1/ Zack Polanski spouting off about wealth taxes while seemingly not paying his own fair share is exactly the kind of hypocrisy that turns people away from politics. You can’t preach tax justice while dodging the bills everyone else is expected to pay.

In a world short of fertiliser and facing extreme weather, increasing biofuels from soya and maize means there's a battle between SUVs petrol tanks and peoples' dinner plates for where those commodities end uo And someone will have to lose out www.ft.com/content/d6a0...

NEW ANALYSIS: What's going on in Spain? Spain's wholesale electricity price in early 2026: €44/MWh. Italy: €127. Germany: €96. UK: €103. Wind+solar now deliver 44% of generation. Gas sets the price in just 9% of hours, down from 55% in 2022. Full analysis: janrosenow.substack.com/p/spain-just...

Excellent analysis from my BBC elections team colleague and YouGov data guru @patrick-pme.bsky.social on what the local elections data tells us about whether Labour is losing more to Greens or Reform. Spoiler alert: its the Greens open.substack.com/pub/patricke...

The most exciting thing about all this is that they allow renters and ppl who live in apartments or who don't have driveways/gardens/their own roof to join in with the electric transition. They're also relatively low-cost, and very simple to use. Plug and play. More of this!

Top news from my clean tech/transport panels this w/e: 1. Small plug-in home batteries that let you store grid energy when it's cheap & use it later are HERE. 30% cost savings! 2. Home sodium-ion batteries are also here, & cheaper than Li-ion. 3. Plug-in solar panels are coming to the UK SOON 🎉

One of the aspects of our shift from an information to a narrative driven society is exactly this. Leaders have to be perpetually engaged. And if they are not they leave to conversation to the charlatans. This rather than free stuff is the essence of Mamdani-ism.

That's the face of an Israeli Arab lawyer after a police raid. The reason is in the fourth paragraph: "The raid was launched following a noise complaint filed by one of the officers involved, who lives nearby." www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Biscotti was hit by a car. She was bullied on the streets. Humans in the area wanted rid of her. She even had a bacterial infection eating her nose away. Look at her today. Like a whole new dog. She can’t stop smiling and worried face is gone ❤️

Gas set Spain's electricity price 55% of the time in 2022. In Jan–Apr 2026: just 9%. Rapid renewable buildout means renewables increasingly set the marginal price instead - delivering structurally lower, more stable wholesale prices. Sign up to my new newsletter for more: janrosenow.substack.com

A Greenlandic taxi driver says he was offered $200,000 to sign a petition saying he wants Greenland to be American www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...

🚀 Heat pump sales are surging across Europe and high fossil fuel prices appear to be a key driver. Q1 2026 data from the European Heat Pump Association shows: 🇩🇪 Germany: +34% 🇫🇷 France: +21% (300,000+ units in just one quarter - the largest market in Europe) 🇫🇮 Finland: +71% in March alone

This is bananas. So someone is blocking the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass anniversary next year because the event has become too ‘disruptive’ and host to ‘political activism’? Satire is truly dead. Has this person ever read any history?!

As there are a lot of newbies on Bluesky recently (welcome to everyone!) two major suggestions: 1) Unlike on X, a Like will not influence any algorithm. If you want to make a post be read by others, REPOST (Likes are irrelevant) 2) Unlike on X, to block someone is really waterproof. Block, 1/2

How infuriating to hear the chairman(?) of Asda on the Today programme implying that land use for solar farms might significantly hurt UK food production. It's nonsense. Golf courses use more than solar ever will & beef/lamb production is huge yet provides a tiny fraction of our protein & calories.

Not this year, although in some by-elections in places they already control, there are small signs of falling vote share/tactical voting. Bigger test may be next year, eg district elections in counties they already control. Q is whether you can maintain insurgency while being in charge

Thoughtful and provocative piece from @paulmason.bsky.social htsf.substack.com/p/not-so-bel...

BREAKTHROUGH: SaltX Technology and Holcim have produced Portland-quality clinker - the core ingredient in cement - using a fully electrified process. No fossil fuels. The goal is now a pilot plant targeting Europe's first fully electric cement facility by 2028. www.globalcement.com/news/20714-s...

The rules are very clear. MPs are required declare gifts like this soon after being elected. The election was back in July 2024. If an MP owes their personal security to a multi-million pound benefactor, you have the right to know.

In 90% of Bond movies the bad guy is either a sociopathic billionaire or the Russians. It's presumably why Amazon are finding it so hard to find a script for their Bond that Jeff Bezos will let them make.

I got inside a European AI energy summit in Brussels last month, and the mood among gas industry players was buzzing. The UK and EU are about to unveil regs determining whether Europe's AI boom can be gas powered - even if its a disaster for the climate. Will they bow to Big Tech pressure? More👇

Confused by media reports about the tipping point of the Atlantic Ocean's overturning circulation #AMOC? Carbon Brief has an excellent explainer about a serious risk which might strongly impact your future: 🌊 interactive.carbonbrief.org/amoc-explain...

Don't think Denmark gets credit for doing in 8 years what Norway did in 22 (going from 0% to 80% share of electric vehicle sales) robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/?la...

Beyond surreal for a *Green* party to be advocating for fossil fuel subsidies that would directly harm the poorest people in the world.

Subsidising energy consumption in the face of both a short-term supply shock and the long-term need to decarbonise. Bad for the economy, bad for the planet, bad for the world's poor. And *if* you favour a wealth tax (I am sceptical but there's a case) spending it on *this" is just idiotic.

Chelsea and Man City in the FA Cup final. No other English clubs have systematically ignored, bent or broken the rules like both have done. In terms of trophies won, no other English clubs have been as successful over the past decade and a half either. The moral of the story - is that there is none.

Absolutely. This.

this is great info to show to people who claim solar panels harm nature... #renewables

UK government vastly underestimated the climate impact of artificial intelligence, it has emerged, after officials raised their estimate of carbon emissions from AI by a factor of more than 100. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

I've got a better idea @nytimes.com. How 'bout we stop digging up and burning fossil fuels 🤔

Great news that 56% of new EU city buses are battery electric. ⚡️ Worrying though that 4% are hydrogen - what a waste of money! And what’s the betting that they won’t be operational in a few years?