It's the 3rd of January 1939, your name is professor James Smith and you are staring at a drawing of a fish. It's not a regular fish. It is a completely impossible fish.

Well Professor, it's Christmas Day 1952 and you're on the phone to the Prime Minister of South Africa asking for permission to commandeer a military flight over contested airspace to obtain a fish which may or may not be unusual. For some reason he agrees to this.

"The maximum time a prisoner can spend on remand is 182 days (six months). Yet Muraisi and Ahmed were arrested in November 2024, and are not due to be tried until June at the earliest, which means they will be remanded for 20 months." Shameful. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I know it sounds weird to say it now, but the Iraq War really was the salad days of the late democratic era: we had both an extremely noisy pretence that the public had some say in the matter *and* at least some people in politics and media admitting they personally had fucked it badly.

Brilliant here, Washington Post: it’s not that the US now has a president who just doesn’t bother pretending, and the stupid hippies were always correct. It’s that America just happened to elect a guy who behaves exactly like an imperialist demon, twice, so nobody needs to admit they were wrong.

very disappointing. There is a code of conduct for Royal Society fellows - it's not a value judgement to say that Musk has contravened it! see relevant bits of code and the Royal Society stated values below.

I’m old enough to remember the late 2000s, when redpill dudes were starting to mobilize online various feminists and queer activists and historians wrote fairly regularly about misogyny as the canary in the coal mine of fascism I can still hear the crickets

In America you drop your kid off at school, get your brains blown out on the ride home, then the Vice President drops everything for a week to call you a terrorist, to slander your family, to protect the circumstances that led to your death so they can do it again. It is government by Alex Jones.

We all get that the entire political and media establishment choosing Johnson and Brexit as their best option despite knowing what that meant, in their personal and collective interest, was severe Trumpery, right? I mean, it was obvious while it was happening and it seems comical to deny it now.

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked WhatsApp messages show Labour MPs urging govt to leave X, arguing that it should "show direction to others in the UK" The MPs said X owner Elon Musk is "fascist" and that the platform's AI tool, Grok, had put "children in harm's way"

"Try and find the pleasure in your goals, and if you can’t do that then at least give yourself additional sub-goals that are aimed purely at making you (and/or others) grin." This time last year... www.girlonthenet.com/blog/find-yo...

Normal update from a political reporter in a democracy

they didn’t leak it to make the shooter look innocent, but to make the victim look guilty. not guilty of a crime. guilty of having a visibly queer wife. guilty of liberalism. guilty of opposing the regime. they don’t seek to exonerate themselves, only to demonstrate who deserves to die.

once again we are all tapping the sign

Indonesia can do it. Yet despite hard sounding words all we have in this country is prevarication and more prevarication.

How many citizens were killed by police in each country between 2010-2019: Canada: 305 France: 233 Germany: 100 Australia: 53 United Kingdom: 22 United States: 15,008

“Our” privatised utilities are nothing if not consistent: Shamelessly ripping-off their captive customers, polluting our rivers and rewarding themselves handsomely. Every bloody year since 1989. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

There are no rules, they don’t actually care about respect, decorum, bipartisanship or debate, and only pretend to do so to browbeat you into submission. Nothing is going to change until more people realise that and respond accordingly; including to the media and politicians who have failed them.

Did a really fun video with the V&A at their cool storehouse location! WAs such a delight to get to see some of really cool objects up close and chat about art ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Js3LV1KZ7M

Privatisation in a nutshell: Steal from us something we own. Sell us back an inferior service at a higher price. The most obvious example is the railways. But the pattern is the same everywhere else: water, electricity, gas, the NHS, public services, council services…

They might be able to solve this by, bear with me here, not giving the prize by someone massively likely to do something corrupt like this? Trump’s threatening of Venezuela and Machado trying to manipulate him into helping her into power didn’t begin on January the 1st.

This is an important and sobering read about a 1943 American pamphlet warning citizens what fascism in America would look like. Every bit of it is happening now open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

The federal government seceding from the union is a new one

UK government exempting itself from flagship cyber law inspires little confidence

Labour councillor thinks that the murder of a woman - with plans that political parties in the UK are specifically looking to emulate - shouldn't be political. Labour have no intention in every challenging the far right - which is why they'll be next to follow unless we stand up to them.

It wouldn't be a proper Orwell prize if it wasn't Orwellian.

I am delighted to tell you that Michael Gove is one of the 2026 judges for the Reporting Homelessness Prize.

Indonesia blocks Musk’s Grok chatbot due to risk of pornographic content

How many women have died with “fucking bitch” ringing in their ears? Don’t let the misogyny get erased here

The immigration doom loop in full swing. Chasing the xenophobes is a doomed strategy both economically *and* politically. (1/3) archive.ph/pyVLg

Murder, not execution. Sorry, this is scoldy and pedantic, but "execution" implies means "the carrying out" of the orders of a legitimate authority. The clear thing here is that death squads are carrying out extra-judicial killings of political opponents.

Watch: police arrest peaceful protester at Jewish anti-genocide protest www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/20...

Over and over again the story is the same. Building social housing works, building renewable energy works, building schools and hospitals works. Government can do good things. The Thatcherite consensus of mewling self-imposed incapacity is wrong.

BBC and Sky increasingly appear to be making excuses for Trump's actions, usually in the form of a post-interview quip before they rush on to the next item claiming 'run out of time'. 🙄

new footage shows Renee Good smiling at Jonathon Ross saying "That’s fine dude, I’m not mad at you" as she got out of his way. then he shot her three times in the face and called her a "f***in bitch".

The shooter calls her a "fucking bitch" right after shooting her three times. He shot because he was pissed off, not because he reasonably believed he was in danger. Also, he is filming while handling his weapon at the same time?!? Was he even looking at where he was shooting?

"This is the front line of a culture war." — Anushka Asthana, describing protesters confronting ICE agents No, these are people confronting an authoritarian administration which murders innocent people without remorse. That is not culture, that is fascism. #c4news

Yup. I've been waiting over 12 months for them to assess my reassessment claim. Going to start another legal challenge if they don't sort it out. I think they're doing it to everyone who has ADHD ASD and MH disabilities. Bastards

Vigil/press conference featuring six city councilors ends with an “abolish ICE” chant and the Portland crows circling overhead.

If as many popes singled me out and told me I was shitty at Catholicism as have told that to JD Vance it would for sure make me stop and think. In my case it would make me think “woah, that’s weird, I’m not Catholic” but in his case it mostly seems to make him think: “what murders can I justify?

Did Britain's focus on discrediting lawyers and fixers accused of pursuing false claims in Iraq ultimately obscure credible evidence of civilian harm, leaving many Iraqi victims of British military action without investigation, recognition or justice? aoav.org.uk/2026/ghosts-...

The murderer’s name is Jonathan Ross. www.startribune.com/ice-agent-wh...

My anger at having to stand outside my kid’s school for two hours to ensure none of their classmates, parents, or teachers get kidnapped by my own government is only slightly tempered by the amazing outpouring of support from other parents and especially neighbors who stand against this bullshit.

Charity Commission investigating Sex Matters following formal complaints https://www.thepinknews.com/2026/01/07/sex-matters-charity-commission-investigation/?utm_content=1767921600&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

YES this is such a misunderstood dynamic and it drives me crazy

Long waits for disability benefit claims unacceptable, MPs say

Translated: "It's actually good that we killed her because she wasn't human."

Finished Le Guin‘s ‘The Lathe of Heaven’ today. Such a captivating novel with which to begin the year - the type that a reader is likely to ponder on *long* after the closing pages (oh, & the final paragraph is beautifully crafted). So a fine time to listen to this informed & animated discussion 👇

AOC: This has now become what we feared most about ICE for a long time—that it would be used as an anti-civilian force with no accountability. At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.

"Abolishing ICE is not enough. They must be held accountable." this is what i want as the party line it's time, the base want it, & i genuinely think the public are ready for it