Kemi Badenoch calling Greenland a "second order issue" while Labour leaders hide from it is another datapoint for how UK political elites are intellectually and psychologically able to cope with an imploding global order that no longer matches the world they grew up in during the 90s and 00s

Nobody in The Moral Maze gets eaten by the Moral Minotaur, which is a fundamental flaw in the programme.

Use thetruesize.com to compare the relative size of countries by dragging them across the map. So in the case of Greenland we have this ⬇️

Someone buy one for Trump. “This accurate, colour-coded map shows all areas according to their actual size.. features a brief discussion of the tendency of traditional maps to show countries incorrectly in proportion to one another” www.schofieldandsims.co.uk/product/106/...

Something wonderfully ironic about this announcement coming from the most terminally online person in Westminster.

So on X, Musk is now quote-posting Grok-generated images of Keir Starmer in a bikini and telling the world that the UK wants to ban free speech.

Just to be clear, this is a headline from today, not 1-10 years ago.

Impossible to disagree but it's very difficult for ministers to have a public discussion about this given the UK's reliance on the US for defence and its strategy towards Ukraine, let alone its almost total reliance on AI and Big Tech as the tool for public sector reform and boosting growth.

Newton was no angel. Nonetheless, it's a bit much to equate him with someone knowingly distributing CSAM and trying to foment racial civil war. I'm not sure throwing Newton under the bus is the best way to defend the Royal Society.....

Badenoch is fascinating. So busy fighting culture wars online that she considers the very real potential for the break-up of the military alliance on which the UK relies for security to be a fringe issue.

With the growing outrage about the government being a tyranny because they’re considering shutting down X, which recently started producing non-consensual sexual images of women and children not as a bug, but as a feature, it’s worth asking - why? What do they gain from X? I think I know why.

Fairy nuff EU demands ‘Farage clause’ as part of Brexit reset talks with Britain - as.ft.com/r/a876ac5a-8...

The "u-turn on benefits" was a dropped proposal because they were doing it all in the wrong order. Better support for employees and employers to make and use "appropriate adjustments"... Give it a couple of years, then... "oh look, fewer people out of work and on benefits"... #R4Today

In discussions of age limits on social media, Badenoch is happy to recognise the rise in mental health problems. When talking about benefits she takes a different line. #BBCLauraK

Former Trump envoy Keith Kellogg: “Zelenskyy is a tough son of a bitch. He's stubborn. He has his opinion. He's unafraid to say that. He knows how to use media. “We in the United States have not seen a leader like him since Abraham Lincoln.”

Going to be good for all those oil executives and workers going out there to “rebuild” the industry.

Oops. “US citizens in Venezuela should leave the country immediately… “There are reports of groups of armed militias, known as colectivos, setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence of US citizenship or support for the United States.”

Common Sense, published 250 years ago today.

This second-order issue (Badenoch) could be a first-order issue next month or never. And she's talking about waiting until Trump moves in. #R4Today

The pro-government rallies in Iran are nearly all middle-aged and elderly men. youtu.be/uwUK2ZpFjUk?...

We are in a bad moment, and more bad will undoubtedly come, but the need to push back, the need to confront and challenge the empty hate of the Trump administration, has never been more clear.

The response to the ICE killing of Renee Nicole Good is not what the White House was expecting. Like with their hiding of the Epstein files, part of the fundamental problem they are facing is that the stories the Trump administration has built their movement on are being shown for their emptiness.

It’s time we started taking Trump’s threats seriously. God forbid if Greenland is attacked, the UK should immediately sanction the Trump Organization and think twice about whether we want US forces on our soil at all.

One thing I don't see discussed is the likely huge instability of the post Trump world given that the Trump world was created not through negotiation, after careful analysis or thought but through coercion, threats, bullying, blackmail, etc. These are not conditions for things that last.

The threat to shut X in the UK is a threat to the whole far right ecosystem. They're going to throw everything at stopping it because they know it would cause them almost irreparable damage. That's not the case for more moderate voices on left and right who have choices..

If I take antibiotics to clear up my chronic knob rot, the knob rot wins - so I'm watching my cock turn green

Word!

‘Fiona Hill: “The UK needs to think of its own sovereignty”’ www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

AFAIC anyone who voted for Brexit has no right to be complaining about any of this. If you buy the snake oil you shouldn’t be surprised that politicians keep pitching it to you

It’s fair enough to blame politicians, but sadly voters aren’t very willing to contemplate the kinds of reforms we would need to do anything about it. It’s a fundamental failure of political representation; a political system failure

A few things; no one political party ever says- I’m ashamed we have food banks so here’s what I’m going to do to address this. 2. Tories complaining about increases In minimum wage like it’s greedy but can’t answer how people can afford basics otherwise. 3. Corporate greed; supermarkets/ energy etc

*“I suppose the sensible course of action would be to say absolutely nothing pending a full legal process, and certainly not declare within seconds that our guys were definitely blameless.” “You’re joking?” says Stephen. “You bet I am!” I say. “Pass me my phone!”* www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

The sheer scale of ppl seeing a woman get slaughtered by a man saying misogynistic slurs are he does so & falling over each other to claim she was asking for it by backchatting him is pretty upsetting! Worse that most will go straight back to pretending they're Not Bigots Just Protecting Lil Ladies!

X is paying Reform UK MPs while its AI produces sexually explicit images of children and women, the public deserves answers. Will they return the money they’ve earned from the platform? 1/6

Some important new government policy that Native Americans might be interested in:

Trump: “We’ve always had a strategic right to the Dogger Islands.”

The BBC is doing it again. On both the Radio 3 & Radio 6 news it reported Vance's story about that video of Renee Good's murder and denials of it, without telling us the facts. It should have the same approach to weather forecasting: "some say it'll rain, some say it won't. Who can tell, eh?"

One reason I'm so negative on Badenoch's Conservatives is that they've American-internet-brained themselves into positions that were always obviously terrible. This is from the start of October. thecritic.co.uk/if-something...

We have finally reached the Ultimate Absurdity Singularity where white people are accusing Native Americans of being immigrants.

The Norwegian Nobel Prize committee has been forced to make a statement, declaring that the prize cannot be transferred. It's hard even to comprehend how stupid this has become

“Trump has given an honest account of how he sees himself: not so much a national president as a global emperor. Now those who oppose him have to be just as honest.” Latest column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

NEW: The Iranian regime has sustained its nationwide internet shutdown, likely to disrupt protest coordination and obscure the scale of its repression. Widespread protest activity has continued to take place across Iran amid the internet shutdown. 🧵(1/8) Read more: isw.pub/IranUpdate01...

I mean yes, yes it is. And it’s a good thing. Like preventing the sharing of calls for racist murder.

Who’s gonna tell him that 1/ having Trump’s America as a neighbour is a highly undesirable state of affairs 2/. Russia is America’s neighbour….separated by just 2.4 miles. You’d think he’d remember that given he met Putin there (instead of arresting him per the ICC warrant for war crimes).

Jeremy Shapiro replies “Only Donald Trump could make us miss hypocrisy… He has expressed American interests as imperialism, white supremacy, and resource theft without any hypocritical moderation, implying there is no end to American rapaciousness This is worse than a sin; it is a mistake”

When you are the incumbent government, your re-election strategy is downstream of your governing record, which is what you should be preoccupied with now.

There is no clear opposition leader - and Western fixation on the shah’s son misses the point. Iran is young: most were born after 1979 and want rights, accountability and more freedom. Concessions may buy time; but the deeper question now is what Iranians want (and who can deliver it) 5/5

Watching JD Vance since he entered politics has really made me understand the kind of person that led Dante to write about someone so monstrously amoral and treacherous that his soul could fall straight to Hell while still walking around alive and well.

New analysis of the economic impact of Brexit is clear cut ➡️ it was bad. The author breaks it down ⤵️

Jesse Ventura emerging from South Minneapolis like some old testament prophet to curse a mad tyrant is why you just can't give up on America www.youtube.com/watch?v=udSU...