The great thing about delaying hard decisions is that you never have to make them and it all turns out fine in the end (Ed - pls check).

"Larry Summers believed he was oppressed by the American elite" is both ridiculous and deeply revealing about how these men see the world

It is crazy that there is no testing or licensing regime for these things, dozens of deaths later. A drug which had such serious mental side effects would have been withdrawn instantly

Important to understand the Epstein stuff and the fascism and the corruption are, in a lot of ways, really all the same story from different angles: powerful men who can and do abuse vulnerable people around them because they can, and because systems of elite accountability catastrophically failed

“Households hit by the two child limit” and “households who will be disproportionately hit by taxing salary sacrifice” are both “Labour 2024” voters. Keir Starmer managed to get “the dream electoral coalition for Blairism” but he is too embarrassed by success to govern for and with it.

GNU Terry Pratchett

Reform infighting and incompetence has real-world consequences: Kent Fire Authority left unable to take spending decisions after Reform kicks out Chair and Vice Chair www.bbc.com/news/article...

Trump is incredibly unpopular here! including amongst Tory voters. What are they doing?

Can't believe there are conversations about ending the BBC. This is like listening to a family calmly discussing whether to shoot it's dog, or burn down the house.

10 Nov, bombing in Delhi 11 Nov, bombing in Islamabad

I really don't think people appreciate just how bad Reeves's first year as Chancellor actually was

You spend hours refining your queries to try and approximate what could be accomplished in a fraction of the time by.....reading or looking at a table of contents Like, my dude, there is a reason people do this for a job

At this rate, by the end of his term Donald Trump will be suing four billion people around the world for insufficient fealty.

Under which law?

I fear we are seeing in the UK what has become abundantly clear in the US: for all their power and privilege, elites and institutions are absolute cowards in the face of right-wing authoritarianism. Weak, weak, weak, as Tony Blair once said

The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.

Mail Online reports Nigel Farage says that the BBC may have no future. He imagines bringing to an end century of public service broadcasting in the UK - because the populist politician and his US political ally Donald Trump do not want the BBC to survive No thanks, Nigel. No thanks, Donald

There are many subtle and complex arguments one can have about the future of the BBC — but I guarantee you that no other channel or streaming service will be as committed to factual programming, children’s education, history shows, religious discussion, poetry, arts, or state of the nation debate

The BBC: quite a big deal.

Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.

It is fantastically BBC to have the DG resign over mis-quoting Trump mere days after Trump experienced an absolute tidal wave of terrible election results.

No more noble British tradition than resigning over some nonsense everyone is only pretending to be angry about rather than all of the actually bad things you've done.

‘A new service called Objector is offering “policy-backed objections in minutes” to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes.’ Another reminder that AI can be used for things you don’t like as well as things you like…

I'm guessing the BBC 'scandal' has been big on X this week as this was the first I had heard of it...

The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. Political leaders across the spectrum must defend it.

The bbc does not need to reflect the balance of bias and opinion in *american* society because America is so different from us, in terms of religiosity, demographics, firearms and frankly wealth

Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …

One thing not being said - indeed, I think everyone misses this - but the requirement for the BBC to show impartiality and balance relates to the politics of *this* country, there’s no requirement to show some mythical balance globally, only to report the truth without fear or favour.

What a stitch-up www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

On Donald Trump's attack on the BBC this PM, Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey: "It’s easy to see why Trump wants to destroy the world’s number one news source. We can’t let him. "The BBC belongs to all of us here in the UK. "The PM [and others] should be united in telling Trump to keep his hands off it."

I quite like the BBC

Losing both the director-general and the very obvious heir apparent as the result of such an orchestrated attack is truly existential stuff for the BBC. It’s also a *massive* challenge for Lisa Nandy, who has so far failed to impress anyone as culture secretary.

The BBC when there is a real scandal: takes years to do anything, drags its feet, is very defensive The BBC when the right wing goes for it: has a panic attack then throws itself on its sword immediately

the right winger who was appointed to lead the BBC in the hope of appeasing right wingers has been driven out by right wingers for not appeasing right wingers enough and the BBC has the chance to do the funniest thing ever

Just absolutely classic BBC. You've just broadcast the most successful programme of the year, uniting Gen Z kids online and Boomers on broadcast in a return to appointment television. And instead of celebrating, your DG reigns due to a made-up right-wing scandal.

The BBC's senior leadership resigning en masse over one dodgy edit in one programme, simply because the right wing press demands it, tells you everything you need to know about where the power really lies in that relationship

Be clear, the American far right are coming for British democracy.

New post just out: Why the criminal justice system should be top of No. 10's "shit list". No part of the public sector is more broken or brings with it greater political risk. As we saw these past two weeks. It desperately needs a new approach. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/f...

…in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie homes.luddy.indiana.edu/ccshan/for/f...

the Iranian drought story is insanely undercovered. foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/07/i...

bluesky branding refresh unveiled

The small inefficient taxes are always going to be subject to the risk of behaviour change. For example, what if people decide that the next government might unpick the pension changes so just let the money pile up in bank accounts for a few years. Few are really constrained by the 60k/year limit.

OVER A MILLION USERS DISCUSS SUICIDE WITH CHATGPT EVERY *WEEK* what the fuck are we DOING here

This conversation between ChatGPT and the young man it encouraged to commit suicide is just...my god www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...

Pure distilled essence of 1979-2025, here. I’m loaded and loving it but somehow I can never shake this mortal terror that somewhere, some poor wanker might be eating a free cheese sandwich.

Terrifying Tales From The Master of Terror and Author of TerrorTome, Garth Merenghi (aka Matthew Holness) in Lancaster tonight

The world’s first trillionaire initiated a move that has left more than half a million people dead, most of whom are children.

[opens customer support chat] "this chat uses AI to solve your query. AI can make mistakes" jesus christ i am going to set my computer on fire

Holy hell