Badenoch is more prepared to hold Reform to account than Chris Mason is. No other party could have nutty anti-vaxxers conspiracy theorists musing about the King's cancer without the BBC interrogating them. Mason couldn't even raise the proverbial eyebrow.

One of my least Blueskyist opinions is that there should be more conservatives in academia, as well as the Arts. There should be more liberals and socialists in the military and police, as well as more trans columnists. Intellectual diversity is good in itself, not only for representation reasons

Whisper it quietly, but this could well be the most dramatic electoral shift in British history.

The Right really misunderstand Nietzsche, which is weird as he is more fascist-adjacent than the past generation's revisionists claim. I guess they just can't bring themselves to accept his correct point that Christianity at its core is (and is the core) of radical liberal universal equality.

My favourite Galbraith quote: "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

Ironically I think the very thing that is normally her weakness - being way too online - might have been her strength here

"My project will be complete when the Labour party learns to love Peter Mandelson." Tony Blair might have to wait a little longer on that front.

Newly released emails from Mandelson to Epstein - “I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. "It just could not happen in Britain... fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can." www.thesun.co.uk/news/3665359...

Oxford nimbys are worried about a landslide of sunshine.

A Jewish cemetry dating back to the two centuries before 1290 has been found near the Barbican www.thetimes.com/uk/london/ar...

My hunch is that if Zack Polanski's Greens or the Corbyn Party were platforming quite this level of crank madness about cancer in the Royal Family, they would get quite a lot of heat for doing so

Plaid Cymru supports net-zero. It once pledged to make Wales fully renewable by 2035. It wants to support Welsh farmers. So obviously, it’s opposing solar projects that could power 174,000 homes and provide a lifeline to Anglesey farmers. My latest NIMBY Watch, for @capx.co:

a very bleak development in terms of my view of the world in the last few years has been both ‘the Israeli govt is much worse than I thought and deserves an enormous amount of criticism’ and ‘yeah a lot of people geniunely are just low-grade antisemitic’ both apparently being true.

I really enjoyed this @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social pod about Covid & MAHA, but one thing it repeatedly revealed is a habit of liberals that drives me crazy. A short 🧵.

I know I make light of it, but honestly being a black man in philosophy ain't easy. Being so often surrounded by racists (editors who reject my papers), liars (reviewers who tell editors that my papers should be rejected), and frauds (analytic philosophers) takes its toll.

A Friday visit to #RejectionIsland, this week for a rendezvous.

Absolutely this.

Shot. Chaser.

Somebody on LinkedIn said what we're all thinking.

Sadly, an accurate and fair assessment.

The sheer volume of worst-possible-faith response to Dunt's anti-manosphere post (accept rejection without catastrophising; build a social life; treat women as people; focus on improving yourself) makes me think the Left doesn't really know how to respond to young straight men having sexual desires.

Consequentialists be like:

It could be a Lowry painting...

The rapidity at which this ilk (e.g. Katie Hopkins, Delingpole) went from despising the proles to fashioning themselves as their tribute is astonishing.

The thing about the Epstein disgustingness that strikes me hardest is that hundreds of rich old men raped underage girls and the only person currently in jail for that vile behavior is a woman.

I'm sure the Free Speech Union will be all over this.

Having lived in both it seems to me that one thing that is genuinely different between the UK and the USA, as nebulous as this sounds, is that the UK just seems much more *hopeless* than the USA. There is just this pervasive sense that our governing class is entrenched yet totally out of ideas here.

The public's appetite for Boris may not be overwhelming.

Just another case of He said/She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She She said. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Commentators: 'Labour's wasted its first year in office'. Ed Miliband:

The social democratic case for more government involvement is that it can make long-term plans better than the market. This is true, except for the problem that the market rewards long-term plans much better than politics does, and (we) social democrats really don't want to admit this.

I really can't understand how the Monbiots of this world can passionately argue that people having two homes massively drives up house prices, *at the same time* as saying more housing can't drive down house prices. Schroedinger's double-think.

My outlandish prediction that Starmer will not be the Prime Minister by the next general election isn't looking quite that outlandish now.

Pussy Riot on the steps of City Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, unfurling a banner that says IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE RUSSIA. #NoKings

It's only a democracy if it comes from a specific part of France.

Wales-away pub in Brussels, with the profound quote 'Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.' Iain Duncan Smith

Idiotic Nimbyism by Caerphilly Council to block this expansion. Apparently the brewery/pub is 'in the wrong place' - the place being literally a few meters from the main road that runs through the town centre. caerphilly.observer/news/1050478...

Never take seriously those who ridicule low income people for having a smartphone or laptop. “If they’re so poor how did they buy an iPhone???” Because they’re trying to escape poverty, not the 1700s, genius. If you think basic tech access is unnecessary or a luxury, survive a month without it.

Feed it into my veins! www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

The Tories are so screwed

He pulls an encyclical? You pull a papal bull. He sends one of yours to vespers? You send one of his to compline! That's the Chicago way

Once you've reduced immigration, closed some universities, accepted Brexit is permanent and told everyone how patriotic you are - what then? How are you growing the economy? Improving public services? Reducing poverty? Etc etc...

One thing's for sure, these election results prove that my analysis was right all along. Labour's only electoral hope now is to change course and present a policy platform that just happens to align precisely with my own personal politics.

Would recommend.

Perched. Fact.

Sobering article on Israel/Gaza, in the New York Review of Books. archive.ph/zP2rW

There's simply no reasoning with Nimbys. Might I suggest that having reflective rectangles in an empty field is not akin to Auschwitz.

I turned on Newsnight for the first time in a long time and the try-hard jaunty tone too much to bear. It's not meant to be entertainment.