Agree with the analysis in here around the OBR - as a creation of Osborne it’s not ideologically neutral. Also the urgent need for “narrative certainty”

The good news from Gorton & Denton is that it shows (despite media attempts to suggest otherwise), that a crisis on the left is the political force, not surging support on the right. Crises on the left, while not a good thing, can be solved on the left. Reform can be put away. Clock is running.

I’m a dual national, half my family are dual nationals, my brother-in-law is currently going through the naturalisation process with the Home Office, and neither I nor anyone I know had any clue about this until a small section of the media started reporting it *last week*

This is so grotesque. Something very, very ugly is festering in our nation. It’s bleak, distressing, frightening.

Football. Depthless misery to limitless elation in four days. Fucking hell. #arsenal

It is the right occasion for the @arseblog.com classic on.soundcloud.com/edWGULfrEUzr...

This is extraordinary. I love hearing about inventions like this, a reminder of all the brilliant, talented people motivated by doing good in the world - and that it pays off.

In a few years time there’ll have to be a thorough assessment of what happens when you fill the government of a major country with actual, bonafide lunatics.

This was encouragingly quick. One less pop-up trying to flog the UK to Peter Thiel.

Bloody hell, not even the Nazi ex-king actually got arrested. The crown coming for a sibling, bit of a throwback to the Plantagenet period, this. 🍿

Ffs. Now incontinent madness. I really don’t see how this gets turned around quickly. #arsenal

This is what happens when you don’t have your shit together and can’t dominate through good, skilful, impressive football and instead just try to edge dis-jointed wins. #arsenal

I really wish we didn’t have to have the gratuitous god-praising & sky-pointing after every goal. Apart from being annoying, it’s also idiotic, the logic being that all the pious Sky-pointers on the opposing team must be hated by god. As well as Big Vic - god detests him. #arsenal

R.I.P Robert Duvall. The Apostle is one my all-time faves from him. He also directed it.

Display an album that was important to you when you were nineteen.

This might actually help, rather than hinder Reform. Farage has always preferred having a movement to his right which can push the agenda in ways which are risky for him to do personally, while also giving him the opportunity to present as “moderate” & look more attractive to wavering Tories.

Initial reaction was too extreme. It’s just not very good, and forgettable. All the praise & nominations are completely unfathomable though, my expectations were miscalibrated.

Sinners may truly be one of the worst films of the last 20 years

Of all the unnecessary acts of self-sabotage committed by Labour over the past year, this may be the stupidest. It really says something when the sanest arguments come from David Davis. Handing over the NHS to Peter Thiel really should be a resignation event.

City are going to catch us, aren’t they?

Why do I…? It’s not enjoyable, it’s never enjoyable. It’s only ever intensely stressful. It leads to system inflammation in a man of my jaded years. What am I doing? #arsenal

Hasn’t really been happening for Eze, has it? #arsenal

This ref is far, far too card happy. Someone’s going to get sent off. #arsenal

One of the most haunting images from my childhood. Still find it traumatic - triggering on my timeline!

The British public has footed the bill for a programme of capital accumulation, industrial blackmail & tax evasion that is out of control & unfair. It’s only fair that billionaires are not given tens of millions in public subsidies, nor permitted to move their wealth offshore at taxpayer expense.

If they don’t want to waste a crisis, I would like to see the gov’t start at ground zero with a complete renovation of politics; particularly given the trend of fragmentation: Lords - PR - party funding - gifts/donations/second jobs - media ownership & regulation - foreign influence.

Extraordinary, excoriating comments in here from OFCOM’s former director of standards. It’s been clear for some time now that (in common with those in other sectors) the regulator is not functioning. There needs to be a complete review, maybe even a replacement regulator.

Not only is this appalling, dishonest & reprehensible, it is also, as Sunder demonstrates, utterly incompetent politics. My benefit-of-the-doubt meter is now sputtering at zero & leaking oil. There needs to be a change of leadership; it’s very clear.

I’m not sure I am going to continue to be able to watch football while Gary Neville is still in a job. The rage, the blood pressure is just too extreme.

Liverpool. It’s a conspiracy, this is a fucking conspiracy.

Brown is one of those figures who has been so much more impressive post-pm than he was as pm. The Labour Party is still searching for an adequate successor.

Last year @kibblesmith.com posted asking people to check out his back catalogue. I bought this one, my 8yr old has not put it down since. 2nd photo is where I found it when walking into the room - open & well read, as always. Some great work to be discovered on Bluesky!

Powerful essay, defence of journalism, demand for morality, argument for politics, warning against Fascism from someone who lived through it and died hearing the sound of its drums on the wind. A wonderful final piece to leave us.

You do have to question how Brown, Blair @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social and others failed to notice, over all those years, just how utterly self-serving & disinterested in the fortunes of his party & country Mandelson obviously was/is.

This is a masterpiece of the form.

“I am certain that we are reaching peak screen addiction, that we want our communities to be more vibrant, that we crave a sense of possibility and purpose and that we need to feel the wind in our sails again”. A few spontaneous thoughts on this from Peter Hyman…

Oh! Havertz at left 8. Retro.

For anyone in Los Angeles, there's a special screening of our new film Fantasy Rising this Saturday the 31st at the Laemmle Theater, Glendale. Featuring @pvbrett.bsky.social @scottlynch78.bsky.social @matociquala.bsky.social & many others. www.laemmle.com/film/fantasy...

This! We have one in Folkestone and hardly anyone I speak to knows it exists - get down there!: sunflowerhouse.org.uk/folkestone-r...

Sunday

Good to see Tony Benn’s 5 Tests of Democracy in here, from @peterhyman.bsky.social - an invaluable point of reference which I endeavour to keep top of mind. Try applying them in context of this week’s events, for example.

Excellent, excellent deployment of “mook”, memorably featured in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. I would like to see this more often, there are far too many mooks, and they are rarely identified as such. Vance is, indeed, a summit specimen in the genre.

Thank fuck for that. As always, though: statement should have been stronger.

I would like to nominate Mark Carney as the Leader of the Free World. It can’t be this crumpled Lucozade bottle.

Bessent is routinely discussed in the media as some sort of sanguine, stable finance minister; a pragmatic “Wall St guy”. Yet every time he opens his mouth it drips with contempt for Europe, & America’s allies. I would prefer that Bessent is reported on as he presents: a hostile bad actor.

Jesus needs to be starting 9 from now on. #arsenal

I find the CL nights so much more satisfying than the nerve-shredding endurance contests in the premier league at the moment. Both teams come to play, and we always bring fluid, creative football. #arsenal

“neither can the new world acquiesce in what the US, Russia and China now threaten: a return to the 19th-century arena of spheres of influence and great-power domination” Every word of this from Gordon Brown - I do wish he had greater involvement in front line politics.

Where this can get rapidly worse over the horizon, is if/when more of the Trumpists assume power in Europe (Reform, AfD etc). Gov’t needs to be clearly spelling out the danger, with reference to what has happened to the US, but I suspect hasn’t out of fear of upsetting the US. This is urgent now.

Love the Bluesky-wide debate this morning on “what we got right and wrong during the rise of the Nazis”.