a bluesky politics poem

Design legend Margaret Calvert is 90 today. Look at that cake! If you've ever admired a road, rail or metro sign in Britain it's likely she had something to do with it. One of Britain's design heroes - happy birthday to her. Photo by: @oshgallerylondon (IG) Cake by: mybaker.co

***My substack is live*** My first newsletter has just gone out - looking at how the Home Office managed to make things worse for refugees and put them at greater risk of homelessness, just as everyone said it would chamindajayanetti.substack.com/p/the-home-o...

Thoughts from a Labour MP: “We have to face up to the fact every single one of them is fucking useless. Andy’s strategy has been a disaster. Angela has bottled it. Ed clearly a hiding to nothing. Wes is AWOL. God knows what Catherine West is doing. I am not quite sure how we ended up here.”

Prime with ads. Just how Kubrick intended.

Our aid cuts have been just as severe. It won't kill as many people because we spent less to start with, and focused a bit less on health/food programmes. But we've got nothing to be proud of here.

This'll be outstanding

As I said last week, I'm starting a substack focused on social affairs, public services, policymaking etc - and I'll be launching it soon I've given it the unglamorous but self-explanatory name Policy Matters. Free for now, and for a while yet I imagine Sign up here! chamindajayanetti.substack.com

as part of my research, i interviewed a large number of writers & editors who've argued that the trump movement is a fascist one & called for a robust response i'd like to thank everyone who took the time to talk to me www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united...

Had Hillary won, and gotten to pick 2-3 SCOTUS justices, you’d be living in a different country. Roe and the VRA would be intact. Citizens United would be gone. Political gerrymanders would be unconstitutional. Racial ones wouldn’t. Trans people would have a constitutional right to use the can.

May? June? This thing is staying closed till October unless the Iranian government is at high risk of being overthrown in a revolution.

It does seem like a lot of the business analysts are refusing to recognize that the logic of war is rather different than the logic of markets and this is, in fact, a war - however indirectly waged at the moment. 'How long will the war last' - well the mean war duration is more than a year.

Whatever you're expecting... it's not that

Her comments are pure antisemitism. Kicking her out should be the easiest call in the world.

is... is this inflation...?

“Much of the ideology peddled by the far right in the 1970s – then seen as way beyond the political pale – is now seeping into the mainstream.” @kenanmalik.bsky.social on today's threat from the far-right - not the NF/BNP, but the likes of Hannan, Yusuf and Jenrick observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

I remain, Sir, Ever yours,

This entire pointlessly destructive war so far has cost the US military around $60 billion, which is around twice the amount cut from USAID which saved millions of lives.

But this war really has come to me with that "hard, set, stony quality, as if tomorrow has already happened." Iran will obviously close the strait. The strait will obviously take a long time to open. Energy markets will obviously be roiled for months beyond that. 3/ bsky.app/profile/bret...

Politico: "Badenoch will speak to media around 10.a.m...to unveil her party’s new 'Plan for Drivers.' It includes the eye-catching plans to abolish 24-hour bus lanes to ease traffic congestion" Ludicrous policy. Buses are used by millions of people every day. This will make all their lives harder.

It’s like sitting in the back seat of a taxi driving incredibly slowly towards a cliff and the taxi driver has turned around and is talking to you *and* he’s talking fucking nonsense

One of the ways the current crisis feels exactly like March 2020 is there’s so much “the vibes are great!” chatter from the political class but the general public is going “no. The vibes are off”.

GFC-level crisis incoming - fun!

Really think the game being played with futures markets is leaving a lot of folks unprepared for the future which now seems functionally locked in. If supply is down 10m barrels a day, then demand will, eventually, have to conform and that is going to be unpleasant.

Last week's live show, free for everyone. Then next week: SEASON NINE

Happy 80th Birthday to Tim Curry, a guy who treats every single part like it was the role he was born to play.

Tim Curry, the absolute legend, turns 80 today. This man took huge swings.

what 350k will get you in carlisle, newcastle, edinburgh, & london

"politicians need to be straight up with the public" ok, how's this - you cannot have the entire country look like midsummer murders & have a gdp per capita higher than bulgaria, that is not a type of economy that exists

If you're wondering how the blockade is landing, this has been making its way around the naval nerds today

Readers of Striking 13 have had a year's head start on the govt's plans to use statutory instruments to secure dynamic alignment with Europe. The newsletter acts like an editorial vehicle for me to call people a cunt, but sometimes I accidentally put news in it open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

A great result this evening for Hungary, the EU and yes, Ukraine A disaster for Putin, MAGA and their far-right allies 🇪🇺🇭🇺

Marathon diplomatic talks that could have been an email

Though the real people that need to learn the lesson really are the median voters: THIS is why you do not put unserious fools in charge of the government. THIS is why 'he talks like me' (= he tells it 'like it is') is not a good qualification for president.

We're watching a bunch of guys convinced that everyone who had their jobs before them were just stupid slowly discovering - without learning a damn thing - that there were in fact very good reasons why no one did the 'obvious' thing before them. This is why.

For comparison, the JCPOA ('Iran Deal') payment that everyone in MAGA excoriates was $1.7bn. The $2m-per-ship toll regime on the Strait would generate at normal traffic something like $40bn *each year* for Iran (120 ships per day at $2m per split 50/50 with Oman).

The long-running tension between climate-crisis Greens and conservationist NIMBY Greens. Do you want to reduce carbon emissions or do you want nice fields?

was that Melania speech one of Iran’s demands

this is a really useful overview of the nuts & blots of the iran conflict @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com @bretdevereaux.bsky.social youtu.be/r4BEy1uKPE0?...

Like I am looking at headlines right now and not one of them reads, "Oh shit, we might have just killed freedom of navigation, the foundation of the global economic order." They are all variations on 'both sides declare victory, ceasefire is fragile.'

My expectation for this war was 'everyone loses,' but to be honest, if those terms hold and Iran gets to pull in $40bn a year from the Strait to fund their proxies and build their nuclear program - if this is the deal - then honestly the Iranian regime simply...won.

So the terms of the ceasefire, if they held beyond the end of hostilities, would be Trump giving Iran something like 25-Iran-Deals worth of cash *per year* in exchange for not limiting their nuclear program at all, apparently (they have not promised to give up the HEU).

On consideration, I think if the deal stands along the lines that have been reported, with Iran continuing to extract its tolls and without making any other concessions, I'd say this is probably the worst the United States has ever lost a war. Truly a shocking outcome, if it holds.

Ok on a serious note, it cannot be exaggerated how bad formalized Iranian control of the Strait is for the world. The entire global economy rests on an American guarantee of free commercial shipping. That guarantee is gone. We don’t know exactly what will happen but none of it will be good.

My sinking gut feeling yesterday was that we had just witnessed America's Suez Crisis moment...and that feeling is not going away today.

a short thread of every Hamlet i have watched in 2026:

It'll be like all his isthmuses have come at once 😓