when I hear Starmer speak about immigration and race he's spitting in the face of the Labour voters I knew growing up in Manchester, who put themselves on the line against the National Front - and often the police - in the 1970s and 1980s.

The irony of the Blue Labour rhetoric is actually how prejudicial it is about the white working class.

So many adverts for smart tech are just profoundly depressing.

I should add that becoming more like the political parties that your voters hate is not a good way to keep your voters. Which is why after nearly thirty years of voting Labour, I’ll be switching to the Greens or Lib Dems.

Current situation appears to be that Shabana Mahmood has made life hell for any Labour canvassers meeting voters to the left of the far right between now and May, in exchange for gaining zero votes because no Faragist is ever going to vote for the Labour party

I in general love how living a transnational life is arguably more common than ever but policymakers still treat your needs, desires and concerns as essentially mythological middle class nonsense

Absolutely. An iron law of whether a statement about immigrants is true is that it should also apply if you just use the word “people”. (A test that many claims on the liberal side also fail!)

At the

Good lord this man is an idiot

It can't be emphasised enough that the Government's current approach: - Increase ILR to 10 years, - Increase Asylum ILR to 20 years, - Removal "immediately" if your home country becomes "safe," - Loss of permanent refugee status, Is exactly the sort of thing they dismissed as radical extremism.

It is a very good piece - especially on the importance of a healthy public sphere.

My favourite Singapore thing is that the GDP stats are an official secret until they are announced. Back in the 80s a civil servant accidentally released them and was prosecuted for it. The even weirder thing is that it made no difference to his career long term and he is the current President.

It is weird how much travelling in this country is just making a short term interest free loan to a train company/government.

Policies like this pretend they’re about “control.” What they actually do is choke off the very stories that make this country stronger. They don’t see the scared kid who might grow into a doctor, a teacher, a neighbour, a parent. 4/8

And because of that chance, I’m now a British citizen, an emergency medicine consultant, a husband, and a father of four. My whole life, my real life, unfolded here. This is home, heart and bone. 2/8

I came to this country as a child refugee. No English, no certainty, no idea what my life could become. Britain gave me refuge. Not on a timer, not with conditions attached, but with a chance to grow roots. A thread 🧵 1/8 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Labour seem to now come up with a new kamikaze nosedive operation to alienate social liberals while failing to attract Reform curious voters every month. Then back off again in face of anger from progressives and failure among social conservatives. A doom loop which may yet kill them off altogether.

Hard to think of a clearer sign that big tech has lost its mojo for innovation than the fact that Valve (~350 employees ~$5-10 billion estimated revenue) has apparently outmanoeuvred both Apple & Meta on VR, when Meta Alone lost ~$17 billion on VR/metaverse spending in the last financial year

Thinking about my own father, who arrived in 1946 with the Free Polish Army - when would Labour have sent him back to communist Poland? How could he have done anything to build a life and have children in the UK if he had had to beg to stay every two years? Disgusting. www.bbc.com/news/article...

We're basically just rerunning the entire Brezhnev era, waiting for a Gorbachev to put us out of our misery I hate repeating my own childhood, I'm too old for this

I can speak only for 'elderly long-time Labour voters in the Northwest' - i.e. my relatives - but there is a real and deep feeling of rage about his adoption of the right's language on immigration and race among them.

AI destroying meritocratic/open recruiting and pushing organisations towards recruitment based on signalling provided by either personal connections or prestige qualifications is simultaneously very cursed and also an increasingly probable outcome

To the tune of "Pink Pony Club" "Woke Baseball Pope!" 🇻🇦

me normally: fuck me, Europe. what a terminally cucked continent. we're all so fucked. no one recognises the basically lifethreatening systemic threats to our democracy that we are surrounded by. everyone's granny is a violent racist. it is all so shit me when an American even hints at agreeing:

It's true. If Labour raise income taxes, the party might slump to around a quarter of the vote, and its PM and Chancellor might be even more unpopular than Rishi Sunak in 2024 or Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 - wait, sorry, just got an email from Ipsos with some new polling, I'm sure it's nothing important.

Also we need to be real that one of the benefits of cycle to work was that it allowed you to effectively get a bike with what was in effect cheap/no-interest finance Take away that option in a country with a huge car finance industry and that money will just end up buying cars for cashflow reasons

Update. Government now briefing via the guardian they will not be lowering the thresholds for additional/higher tax rates.... ...so what was it all for? Weeks of pitch rolling for...what? To annoy literally everyone and the bond market for no reason?

something quite bleakly funny about Rachel Reeves apparently being extremely good at chess when her entire tenure as Chancellor so far has basically been "well this seems like a good choice right this moment.......let's not think about the further implications of that choice for even one second"

Starmer isn't Britain's worst ever prime minister, but he is Labour's worst ever prime minister and it's not even close

This this this. This is what I've been saying all along about the biggest problem with AI

Lowering thresholds so people pay higher/additional tax rates earlier in their earnings is *functionally the same* as increasing headline tax rates. Voters are not stupid, they'll know that their take home pay went down the month after Rachel Reeves was on TV! Trying to be too clever will backfire

If the FT story is correct and they're walking back from Income Tax rises then I genuinely give up. Every government of my adult life has been a cowardly shuffle of dishonesty on taxes, spending, and immigration, hurtling towards ever worse outcomes and praying something turns up.

Minded to think the market (etc) reaction will end up causing them to have to u-u-turn. Quite an achievement to u-turn (repeatedly) on your budget before the budget

people are so stupid, it's obvious the Bond markets are tanking because they don't know how to bring him back after he died in No Time to Die (2021)

“We’re not like Liz Truss” “We’re not like Liz Truss” “We’re not like Liz Truss” “We’re not like Liz Truss” “OK, we are like Liz Truss.”

"Liz Truss will return in multiverse of madness" level government Start the clock/get the lettuce, they've gone and rocked bond market credibility again for no reason

🚨NEW BLOGPOST🚨 On how Westminster's drama addiction intensified, and why it is undermining the government that should have checked it. Brexit and Tory drama got the system hooked on adrenaline, and Labour is stuck playing to the same rhythm. open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

Does feel awfully like ten years of chaos has resulted in a political class that just has no idea how to govern, or what the difference between headlines and policy is

NEW PAPER: ACTUALLY DOING FUSION I am intensely cynical about most things, but I've seen enough innovation now to believe that we are actually not that far off from making fusion happen. Our paper today lays out how. /1 www.stonehavenglobal.com/future_for_f...

America being the most crypto-brained country in the west makes sense when their traditional banking system is like *this* Even in the UK (which is hardly the Estonia or Singapore of efficiency) you can send a penny or several thousand sterling instantly between accounts fee free

If he does run I really hope his campaign slogan is "Chaos with Ed Miliband".

Paradox of redistribution will eat us all alive

I made this meme 11 years ago today. knew it’d come in handy again.

The Right Honourable Edward Miliband, member for Doncaster North: "but I don't think I want to be PM" The crowd: "Chaos with Ed Miliband!" "Bacon sandwiches in Downing Street!" "Chaos with Ed Miliband! Chaos with Ed Miliband! Chaos with Ed Miliband!"

you may not like it but this is what positive masculinity looks like