h/i David Grinspoon

Calls to end 'staggering' differences in SEND cash | BBC News

Leaders of special schools are urging the government not to exclude their sector from plans to create new libraries. www.tes.com/magazine/new...

SEND training for teachers & support staff is welcome, but this works out at £400 per teacher before you even get to TAs...in the midst of a huge push away from specialist schools into mainstream? apple.news/A3zBB0cGxTDG...

🔵 This week's Tom the Dancing Bug - A BUSY, BUSY ICE ENFORCEMENT OPERATION with apologies to Richard Scarry - Brought to you by the rough and ready Inner Hive, including long-time member Brady Marsh and new member SquirrelSaver7. ( bit.ly/theInnerHive ) - READ IT RIGHT HERE👇

This is a terrific response to the dreadful paper written by a group of psychiatrists who were defending the seclusion of learning disabled people in hospitals.

🔴 Last week the Free Speech Union got a High Court writ to prevent the publication of a list of its donors So we decided to investigate who *does* fund Toby Young's outfit Wanna see? 🫣 New on Democracy for Sale: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-...

The credulity of this headline is infuriating. A) they're not removing that feature, they're geoblocking it. Hello VPNs. B) it'll take no time at all for Grok to be tricked into creating nudes and other sexualised images of real people, just as most such safeguards can be circumvented.

Final thing on this - if you suddenly announce the revival of a Birmingham to Manchester line at the same time as NPR, however buried it is in the press release, the headlines will become about that, at least in the first instance.

Thought I’d do a mega hread on NPR, partly because I’ve seen some London based commentary that doesn’t really get the bigger picture quite right imho

‘adjudicators without legal training will be making legal findings.’ Must be a risk of more appeals to the Upper Tribunal, and more of them succeeding. Thus a greater burden on the UT

There’s no getting away from it, the story is something of a downer.

"We've identified those who are immensely privileged but lack much ambition or initiative as precisely the kind of people we're after."

I wrote a little thing about how it feels to be preparing both my boys to leave the family nest One’s ready to soar One’s never going to be ready #autism #learningdisabilities #SEND #disability communitylivingmagazine.com/ian-goldswor...

NEW Death in Minnesota The significance of the reaction to the killing of Renee Nicole Good By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

Tributes pour in for Sir James Munby, the former head of the family division of the High Court, who died suddenly on new year's days -- in the @lawsocgazette. www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/mor...

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above Watching from afar further shifts in a worsening polity By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/we-are-chr... Personal Blog: davidallengreen.com/2026/01/we-a...

The right to life comprises a right not to be unlawfully killed and a right to have any killing properly investigated.

I am very sad about this. James Munby was not just clever and driven, he was also funny and kind.

"American dominance" is our new foreign policy. And it will create a counter-reaction, everywhere. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

One week after a twelve-year-old autistic child in Dorking attempted suicide for the second time, CAHMS wrote to their GP saying that their risk of suicide was low. NHS children’s mental health is in crisis. 1/2

Critically, we also need the public to support actions that enable older people to live great lives without having to drive for when they fail the eye tests. So the public need to get onboard with no pavement parking, pedestrian priority, denser housing, fewer out-of-town shopping centres, etc etc

10/10 for headline, FT, a++ No notes. www.ft.com/content/ad94...

NEW But what about international law? What happens to an international legal order when a superpower goes rogue Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/but-what-a... Personal Blog: davidallengreen.com/2026/01/but-...

In 2019 Fiona Hill, who served in the first Trump administration, told Congress that the Russian government had been “signalling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap agreement between Venezuela and Ukraine”. www.ft.com/content/dcd8...

“If a woman dares to show herself in public in any way, then she can and will be sexually harassed with the aid of genAI-driven tools that can easily turn her face into highly realistic pornography” is an absolute red-alarm human rights disaster

This on the ongoing SEND mess, by @catrionamoore.bsky.social, is a must-read www.specialneedsjungle.com/leaks-denial...

The gloves are off according to this woman - USA will take what they want in whatever way they want it because they want oil - astounding interview of Angie Wong by @lewisgoodall.com on @lbc.co.uk youtu.be/7F9N4eLP0uc?...

🚨🚨EMERGENCY EPISODE🚨🚨 Very few people can claim to have met and known 🇻🇪's Maduro, Chavez & interim president Delcy Rodriguez. Well, my guest @catheriner.bsky.social, former 🇬🇧 ambassador in Caracas, is one of them and she spoke to me earlier today. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...

How to see clearly in 2026, from Gillian Tett @financialtimes.com giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Strong thread from 1 month ago.

A gangster state at home, a rogue state abroad: and entirely because Congress and the Supreme Court have abdicated their proper constitutional roles.

OMG 😭 Huntington's is an inherited disease that's like Alzheimers + Parkinson's all in one. NOW: "once the gene therapy has been delivered into the brain... [it] injects a piece of DNA to reprogram the neuron to become a factory for its own cure." LIFE SAVING! www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhEx...

A real news outlet publishing the phrase "Grok apologized" should result in like a week-long timeout. Think about what you've done.

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

NEW When should social media posts have legal consequences? Comparing and contrasting the cases of Lucy Connolly and Alaa Abd El-Fattah By me, at @newstatesman1913.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/soc...

One of the strongest justifications for the ECHR and the Human Rights Act is that they provide (some) protection when a government wants to take punitive action against people it decides it doesn’t like - including for politically expedient, even irrational, capricious or ephemeral reasons

Less a success of the far right and more the failure of others to tell a compelling story of nationhood and belonging open.substack.com/pub/nationst...

AI companies have turned their attention to maths. Between splashy headlines and sober inspection lies a more interesting story: systems that impress and develop, yet still lean on humans. What happens when AI starts tackling maths - and what doesn’t? 1/10

Compulsive tracking doesn’t measure what really counts ft.trib.al/A97zUG0 | opinion

NEW Jane Austen as a writer about law Some notes on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, by me (And also why there is only one good adaptation of her works.) emptycity.substack.com/p/jane-auste...

Remember all the fuss when Farage was ‘de-banked’ by Coutts? Night after night on the news, little Nigel throwing tantrums about being kicked out of a posh bank. This judge has been locked out of banking simply for a court decision Trump didn’t like. Has it made the news? Nah!

Save this, it's perfect.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Turns out to be a pretty average flu year that started a bit earlier. NHS and Govt have a responsibility to communicate data responsibly and they failed this winter.

Finally, a bar I really can practise at.

MI6 Chief gives speech. Speech may contain words that are interesting. But because MI6 Chief is a woman @telegraph.co.uk prints an article about her appearance, with no mention of the speech’s content.

Haha, well, I'd say this is a new low in The Spectator's coverage of my Reith Lectures. There is so much wrong with the piece that it’s hard to know where to begin, but a few points stand out --> /1

Priceless

LAST ORDERS PLEASE! You’ve got until Wednesday 17 December to order small prints, cards, wrap and slipmats for Christmas delivery. www.gailmyerscough.co.uk