Net migration of EU nationals has fallen since Brexit while non-EU net migration has increased. Many misconceptions have arisen about this and so I will now challenge some of these, like I already have with the myth that net migration will continue to be high. (1/6)

Your periodic reminder that Jeremy Hunt’s utterly cynical, completely unaffordable, salt the earth for the incoming government tax cuts cost £20bn a year. www.thetimes.com/article/cc86...

The Times: 'Critics are likely to seize on Starmer’s earlier refusal to cut the soaring benefits bill to pay for defence spending.' The benefits bill isn't soaring. But presumably if enough people say this, it'll become true? www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/a... open.substack.com/pub/rolandmc...

Free newsletter: The dawn of token-based-billing has shown that generative AI doesn’t have a return on investment. It's too unpredictable, too unreliable, you can't easily measure the cost of tasks, and organizations are already pulling back. www.wheresyoured.at/ai-doesnt-have-roi/

Detainees at Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail said guards were denying them food and fresh water until they signed documents presented to them in English that they did not understand. TAT: [Nationalism | Weakening civil rights]

The Trump administration is preparing to allow off-road vehicles on millions of acres of national forest land. The move is a companion to President Trump’s decision on May 29 to repeal two executive orders that for decades had protected other public lands, including most... TAT: [Attacking science]

The Napoleonic tradition really does nail it sometimes.

British journalists have a duty to our country, and to all they supposedly hold dear as fearless pursuers of truth, to hold Farage accountable and challenge far right disinformation. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/...

Every single op-ed that takes US and European entitlement over China for granted is a step away from being able to deal with the modern world. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

The grim cage fight on the right observer.co.uk/news/politic...

That anyone would support Nigel Farage and Reform with these policies must surely be a damning indictment of UK media in failing to explain the implications of them to the public

🚨EXC with Lara Spirit & @dominichauschild.bsky.social Govt to slash NHS capital budget by £580m as part of cross Govt plan to pay for the defence investment plan... Meanwhile there are hospitals with roofs being propped up and a £16bn maintenance backlog: www.thetimes.com/article/cc86...

Fascinating and fantastic piece by @samfr.bsky.social on how Reform and much of the right are occupying more and more extreme positions on who is British as immigration falls:

Preparing for a long, hot, and fiery summer. Record low snowpack across the west, a looming El Nino, & DOGE driven layoffs, reorgs, and continuing chaos at Fed agencies spell trouble for the region's forests (& for all of us who like to breathe). @insideclimatenews.org @peteraldhous.com

Exactly right. What makes it worse is that Hunt was blowing up the public finances to set a political trap for the Opposition. We can criticise Labour for walking into that trap, rather than having the courage to call it out, but it was a shameful way for a Chancellor to act & has done lasting harm

Tax, ageing societies, international inter-dependency, the rise of China, social media - there's an awful lot for politics to come to terms with even before thinking of what AI might bring next.

This is an excellent deep dive by @danneidle.bsky.social on a subject I’ve been banging on about this for years. As I said in 2017, “At some point, someone will have to tell those on middle incomes that they will have to pay more tax.” flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/t...

Why are there so many Ecuadorian Farage fans on X? A weird number of users with such names as Yvonne1388552 are based in Ecuador and relentlessly push Reform propaganda www.thenewworld.co.uk/rats-in-a-sa...

Dear lord. If you know anything at all about scientists and scientific conferences, this is wild.

Horrific, unregulated, and very profitable. The companies making cash from England’s children in care | George Monbiot www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The @bmj.com asked for my opinion on the single patient record as the NHS modernisation bill heads into its second reading. So here is my opinion www.bmj.com/content/393/... That the NHS needs better information continuity is undeniable, but the programme is also at risk of repeating past mistakes

My colleagues have a report out today on civil legal aid, an important part of the justice system. Restrictions to eligibility in 2013 brought down spending/caseloads. The # of legal aid providers has continued to fall over time, and more and more areas have no provider at all

Dear BBC journalists, you really do not have to 'debate' every far-right talking point that pops up on your X feed. It is not "deeply contentious" to suggest non-white people can't be English. It's racist. The word you're looking for is racist

Premium Newsletter: The 16k word conclusion to my series of scenarios of how the AI bubble might burst, covering how Anthropic and OpenAI might fall, and the consequences for hyperscalers, NVIDIA, data centers and private credit. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-what-if-were-in-an-ai-bubble-part-3/

UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc The strategy has run out of road A 🧵 on what happens next.

Feels like I'm going a bit mad. Much of the commentary claims the guidance says police shouldn't treat people equally. It actually says they don't always have to treat everyone the same, with the explicit aim of achieving equal outcomes. Treating different people differently is...er... common sense.

Ballroom donors won $50B in contracts after giving to Trump project, watchdog group finds. President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the gifts as a boon to taxpayers, but critics of the project say the administration’s refusal to release a full list of donors creates the pot... TAT: [Corruption]

🧵A Covid thread - but a good news one! I’m barely writing about Covid anymore because there is barely any Covid to write about. I thought it was worth celebrating this in this thread. 1/7

Story developing in Northern Ireland at the moment: Assembly members received free charging for their electric cars. should have been taxable as a benefit in kind, but the tax wasn't paid.

The longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, who was fired by CBS News two days ago after clashing with the network’s new management, issued a public statement accusing the network’s new executives of silencing employees and claiming they instructed him “to... TAT: [Controlling information]

In a social media post, Donald Trump attacks Fox News anchor Karl Rove saynig "he suffers from a completely inoperable, and totally dysfunctional, case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Put Karl Rove out to pasture, NOW. He is a LOSER, and he alway... TAT: [Suppressing dissent | Undermining democracy]

The National Data Guardian (NDG) has asked NHS England to explain how Palantir staff gained access to identifiable patient data in the federated data platform (FDP), something it says it was not aware of. www.digitalhealth.net/2026/06/data...

Very interesting @jburnmurdoch.ft.com piece this morning - how much value AI is creating is exactly the right question. The evidence from coders here suggests it’s so far creating a lot of extra output - 290% more files, 30% more software releases - but no extra valuable outputs (app downloads)

Trump has suggested his controversial ally Bill Pulte will investigate “rigged elections” while serving as the country’s top intelligence official, as the US president continues to make unfounded allegations about voting. TAT: [Undermining democracy]

Senate Republicans voted on Thursday morning to defeat an amendment sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to prohibit the Justice Department from establishing a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for MAGA allies, a proposal tha... TAT: [Corruption | Undermining democracy]

The ‌U.S. Justice Department said it had opened civil rights ​investigations into 15 medical ​schools examining potential race discrimination over their alleged ⁠use of race in ​admissions. The department said in a ​statement the probes would e... TAT: [Weakening civil rights | Attacking education]

The Trump administration agreed to strip endangered ​species protection from a lizard whose habitat overlapped the largest oil-producing region in the United ‌States, settling a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It is the latest environmental rollback... TAT: [Attacking science]

There are almost no crustaceans in the deep ocean. Not because they would get crushed, but because they would DISSOLVE. The cold & high pressure cause changes to water that make it very corrosive to calcium carbonate shells. But there's one crustacean who solves this problem with ALUMINUM ARMOR.

The Minnesota GOP, during a convention held a minute of silence in honor of Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of George Floyds murder, a black man who died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for 10 minutes as he pleaded to be released. He eventually stopped b... TAT: [Weakening civil rights]

“It’s two or three times harder than pure translation work, and they have the barefaced cheek to pay you half as much.” - fascinating on how AI has changed translators' work @sarahoconnorft.ft.com and @jburnmurdoch.ft.com:

Authoritative essay by leading election law expert. On how the Roberts Court's voting rights cases - now, most recently, the Alabama decision - have thrust the country away from multiracial democracy and toward the undoing of the Second Reconstruction. By Professor Pamela Karlan

The UK has twice as many taxes as it had in 1993. Not twice as much tax. Twice as many taxes. Yes, we pay a bit more tax, but tax has got a whole lot more complicated. Time to reverse that.

"This is grotesque, but what on earth do you do with someone like Elon Musk? "Those making judgments know absolutely sod all because they've misidentified somebody." Why has Musk set the mob on innocent British police officers? www.thenewsagents.co.uk/article/how-...

your regular reminder that Reform published a draft bill in May last year which promised to deregulate the crypto industry and cut stamp duty on transactions from 24% to 10%

the far-right X-ecosystem is digusting and evil

Just circling back to this odious individual who was at the racist riots yesterday. Someone who for years after she called for all trans men to be sterilised, as well as reams of other violent repulsive transphobia was praised and fawned over by JK Rowling, the NS and other 'centre left feminists'

The UK-EU summit provisionally set for July 13 is in doubt. This should come as no surprise to those noticing we're coming closer to the date with no announcement. There are considerable frustrations on both sides as to current talks and future plans. ---> details below

Capita launched civil service pension scheme site without ‘basic’ web security. Outsourcer went live with its troubled civil service pensions administration without a basic Domain Name System security feature www.computerweekly.com/news/3666438...

The direct results of what is widely agreed in Europe and North America to be Chinese industrial cheating. Perhaps time to see the world in a different way?

A reminder that crypto is an almost entirely parasitic industry, enabling crime, wasting the money of retail investors, energy and resources. We definitely do not need a national crypto reserve, the effect of which will be to tranfser taxpayers' £ to those already heavily invested in crypto.