Back in November I told Westminster's women and qualities that the UK government needed to get off X. The committee's chair @sarahowen.org.uk is completely right - X is not an appropriate channel for comms. Quite the opposite

Absolutely outstanding.

The Peptide Craze in the US. It's reckless and unfounded. erictopol.substack.com/p/the-peptid... Today @nytimes.com @jasmine.bsky.social goes deep into the use in Silicon Valley, the supply from China, and the reasons this biohacking is popular t.co/lQXUBHNEaG

“Black losses”. Deaths from causes unknown. Seven million cleaner fish have died at Scottish farms since 2020. The government doesn’t publish the totals. It tok one man three years of FOI requests to uncover the toll. Find out more: www.theferret.scot/m...

The BBC keeps calling the imperialist actions of the US 'unprecedented'; I wonder if they know anything about the history of Latin America in the last 200 years or so.

Historic Environment Scotland's bizarre obsession with restricting access to the Radical Road should finally be put in the bin by council planning officials. parkswatchscotland.co.uk/2026/01/02/h...

Several French government ministers have reported the unlawful production of sexualised material without consent to the police and prosecutors. The UK government, which published a high profile strategy on misogyny just before Christmas, has yet to say or do anything www.politico.eu/article/fran...

Kind of, almost snowed in. #ohwell

We are an absurd and wonderful species.

Just discovered a new cocktail. I may not make it into 2026 at this rate.

The Equality Trust's new report on unelected power shows just how the House of Lords is a lobbyist's dream, where the wealthy can vote on laws that govern us all.

Interesting from Oxford NUJ. oxfordnuj.wordpress.com/2025/12/18/w...

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

Energy firm makes ridiculous excuse to customer about why they can't fix their smart meter. Performs sharp U-turn under scrutiny. gairlochtimes.org.uk/octopus-tell...

🚨 THE RESULTS ARE IN 🚨 After a week of voting on 32 of the worst people in the tech industry, we have a winner! The Worst Person in Tech for 2025 is… 🚀 ELON MUSK 🎉

Completely and utterly false. www.theferret.scot/lord-offords...

It's the last Wester Ross Round-up of the year. You might think the news would slow down in the run up to Christmas. Nope. gairlochtimes.org.uk/a-humpback-i...

Not going to do full pass this week but just to note some rare new entries in the gifts from non-uk sources category - boxing tickets for Chris Webb and ticket to an event at Mar-a-Lago for Nigel Farage. www.theyworkforyou.com/interests/ca...

Feverishly working on this

oh my GOD

🚨David McLennan is Reform UK's first elected councillor in Scotland. He won a by-election in Whitburn last week. He claims to be a retired police officer, but David actually left the force after being charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, we reveal tonight.

“FixMyStreet is a classic for a reason.” What lovely words to discover said about FixMyStreet by the 2024–25 Fellows of Newspeak House for their Political Technology Awards grant making exercise. www.societyworks.org/2025/12/15/f...

The most frustrating part of this whole thing is that the Registers of Scotland could, if they were more public spirited, just publish these figures. It should not require people to pay extra to get basic info that is ordinarily disclosed. andywightman.scot/2025/12/you-...

We (@crossdale.bsky.social, Christina Pantazis, @roxana-pessoa.bsky.social, Tiê Franco Brotto and I) present the first academic peer-reviewed article, studying the criminalisation and repression of climate and environmental protest as a global phenomenon. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Free speech, baby

Depressing yet utterly unsurprising that it's taken two weeks for any media to report that the editor of The Times has been arrested and charged. Any newsroom trying to claim they had to wait for indictment doesn't seem to apply that logic to literally any other arrest/initial court appearance.

I see the number one TV show on Amazon Prime in the UK is... All 15 seasons of Neighbours.

The same bug players take the cash from Google, and what happens to small, independent publishers? pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/go...

💡 It's windy and dark out there. Fear not! The Wester Ross Round-up is here to shine a little local news light: gairlochtimes.org.uk/screen-machi...

Morning! Here's something exciting we've been working on: WriteToThem Insights www.mysociety.org/2025/12/11/n...

🔴 REVEALED 🔴 The Institute of Economic Affairs – the anti-state, anti-climate pressure group that "incubated" Liz Truss – was bankrolled by oil giants and Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. 📝 Exclusive findings from @desmog.com 👇

Today we are launching the Scottish Public Spending Dashboard, a collaboration between the FAI and JRF. This is a new tool allowing detailed government spending figures to be accessed and analysed by a broader set of people. Learn more below:

Former Chair of IPSO arguing for right of press to be unfair right now, in response to calls for better regulation. "We don't want all our media to be like the Today program or The Guardian." What a bizarre take.

Excellent work > "If discovery now shapes small-business survival, then competition, fairness, and urban regeneration can no longer ignore platform ranking systems." laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-google...

Absolutely amazing chart from @peterkellner.bsky.social's piece in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social today: www.thenewworld.co.uk/peter-kellne...

Starmer is getting destroyed by deep-fakes on TikTok it seems. www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/deepfakes-...

New Home Office impact assessment finds that cutting skilled and social care visas will cost the UK up to £10 billion with a central estimate of -£5.4 billion. It would be good if this got even a fraction of the coverage devoted to the endless debate about boats, flags and Turkish barber shops

Delighted this piece is now live on @theverge.com: I've spent months investigating how a supposed war against the "censorship-industrial complex" has been used by the US right to wage war against misinformation research – and free speech itself – across the world. Please do give it a read.

"AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more." pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...

Just watched the film Tomorrow War. It's like someone without any sense of what made Starship Troopers great decided to remake it in the most earnest way possible, sans humour, intelligence, satire or irony. Still has lots of dumb aliens being splatted. 2/5.

Who decided that Santa hangs about in a Grotto? You would imagine that with him being magic and everything that he might ensconce himself somewhere a bit more salubrious. Especially given the amount of entertaining he does.

"Politicians become dependent on the wealthy not because the money actually delivers votes, but because they believe it does. " data4democracy.substack.com/p/money-does...

SUTR SCOTLAND ANALYSIS PIECE: Falkirk unites against the far-right, Inverness humiliates the fascists Anti-racists and anti-fascists across Scotland scored two crucial victories today.

I thought it was just Brown that was allowed to do interventions.

Interesting. www.disabilitynewsservice.com/watchdogs-si...

How much of your Christmas Shopping can you do in Wester Ross? We put together a special guide to help. gairlochtimes.org.uk/shop-wester-...

Trump's national security strategy is out and some of the Europe sections are shocking. "...the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism." www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Spectacularly screwed up and petty. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...