Sumption does go on, but he is right about two things: Lucy Connolly got what she deserved and it shouldn't be a crime to express verbal support for a terrorist organisation (Oh and the Banksy they've chosen to illustrate is stupid.)

Reasons for Israel disqualifying the operation of international NGOs that provide essential humanitarian aid in the OPT- affecting MSF and many other orgs - include expressions of support for any of the international court cases against Israeli soldiers or leaders apnews.com/article/gaza...

I'm sure that the EU and UK will now take decisive action in response to Israel starving Palestinians of aid and support. Won't they? Won't they?

Badenoch caption competition

"simplistic solutions to challenging problems that just don’t stand up to scrutiny" .... Oh, sorry, you weren't talking about Labour's approach to migrants and refugees then?

Well, Starmer and Reeves rather remind us of bosses most of us have had, don't they?

Quite poor of the BBC this, relaying Robert Jenrick’s interpretation of what a social media “like” means in order to keep this story simmering.

So Jesus has a t-shirt that says “I belong to Jesus”. Well I suppose it does #arsvilla

Citizenship is a right, not a privilege.

Worth noting re "kafala" (@stephenkb.bsky.social ) that economists, including leftish ones, have long been advocating for it under banner of an openness-rights tradeoff (see @brankomilan.bsky.social, @drodrik.bsky.social, Martin Ruhs, Posner&Weyl) and pol philosophers (Carens, me) have pushed back

In which Phillips argues for mass citizenship-stripping and deportation of those who say things she doesn't like.

Hard to see how it wouldn't be perfectly legitimate for Ukraine to try to kill Putin though. A: he's despatched hit squads to try to murder Zelensky. B: he's giving orders to kill large numbers of Ukrainian civilians.

As I said, back in 2020

It's beginning to look like kafala, everywhere we go...

Best 5 fiction read this year Fatma Aydemir, Djinns Aleksandr Tisma, The Book of Blam Romain Gary, La vie devant soi Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Silence du choeur Maggie Farrell, Hamnet

I wrote down some thoughts about charitable donations (probably in response to the growing number of effective altruists I encounter). crookedtimber.org/2025/12/29/s...

I've been doing this as a comedy bit for years, but I do believe it; before I die, I will see the establishment of a Royal Commission on Britain's failure to attract sufficient immigration, and many of today's broadsheet ethnonationalists will be on it

Le Cercle Rouge. Just watched. Excellent!

Looks as if our rights and freedoms are just bargaining chips in a game in which our politicians compete to demonstrate how tough and authoritarian they can be. Here's how I saw things going back in 2019

My annual list of blog posts, articles and other internet things that I enjoyed or found especially interesting this year: thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/29/b...

French, it does your head in: On écrit bien « ils se sont appelés » mais « ils se sont téléphoné ».

Are the people calling for citizenship stripping and deportation for historic tweets in any way related to people who think it an outrageous violation of "free speech" when the police ask them or their supporters questions about their historic tweets?

Heritage tomatoes, heritage carrots, and now, I hear, heritage Americans. Though the latter don’t sound so veggie-friendly.

Ballroom dancing is popular now as a hobby. If you were from a certain class in Britain 50+ years ago, your parents would send you to classes to learn an essential social skill. I hated it and failed to learn but was warned that might damage my prospects, LOL!

There are probably many fewer racists now. The trouble is we’ve created a climate where the racists aren’t isolated and feel it is their right to spout abuse. And much of the noise around “free speech” aims to foster just this

I should be clear that this piece is basically a riff on Sergey's arguments about Putin.

My reaction to the videos constantly flips between “this person is crazy” and “each of us, in our multiplicity, is a unique individual”.

Rousseau’s Confessions … well sort of

All ready for tomorrow

Anecdote: convo with UK employee of US company. UK staff increasingly reluctant to travel to US for meetings, pushing back. Proposed data requirements for ESTA the final straw.

Unless people have close family to visit, being barred from Trump’s America is no great hardship. Wealthy Americans might suffer from a ban from Europe rather more.

We went to see “The Voice of Hind Rajab” yesterday. It is about the Red Crescent in The West Bank who are trying to save a five year old girl, who is in a car in Gaza that has been attacked by the Israeli army. >

Arrest looks pretty dubious to me, since obviously “I support the PA prisoners” ≠ “I support PA”

This is a great book, and far too few people even know of its existence. Colin Grey, Justice and Authority in Immigration Law. (Bloomsbury 2015).

Adam Smith on Donald Trump: "that absurd self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour."

On the one hand, good luck to them. On the other, they're often getting citizenship via ius sanguinis of countries that are also making it harder for people who have lived in them for years (and might even have been born in them) to acquire citizenship.

Well, if he hadn't lived so long he might not have damaged his legacy quite so badly as he has with Gaza

Important to realise that one of Alice Sullivan's demands in her legal letter to University of Bristol is for the university to withdraw its Trans Inclusion Policy profalices.co.uk/wp-content/u... (the policy is already listed as under review by the university www.bristol.ac.uk/inclusion/lg...)

Christmas Day is 5 Nivôse, the day of the dog

Bristol in the news with a bit of lawfare from the "gender criticals" who seem to have deep pockets for this kind of thing

The lack of coverage is disturbing

Judging by the screenshots posted into my timeline (which, admittedly, dilute the beneficial effect) being blocked by James Austin has been an excellent thing

The immigration hostile environment encourages overzealous over enforcement because there is no penalty in that direction. But there are severe penalties for under enforcement.

I'm old enough to remember when @samuelmoyn.bsky.social thought "liberals" were overreacting to the threat posed by Trump

This will not have the political effect that this journalist and politicians expect because when many poll respondents are asked "is immigration too high?" too many of them hear "are there too many Muslims (and other brown people)", to which the answer in their heads is always "yes"

Looking on the bright side for Germany, there's a good chance that had she committed such murders in the US, Trump would have pardoned her by now.

How depressing is it that "normal" politicians can now utter this disgusting word? @stephenkb.bsky.social

I've been puzzling over this piece from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com but one thought I have is that if mainstream parties hadn't been "intensely relaxed about inequality" (P Mandelson) when there was some growth, they wouldn't be facing such abandonment from those at the sharp end now

After six years in court and a reported £1m+ spent on legal fees, Allison Bailey – co-founder of LGB Alliance and a friend of JK Rowling's – has lost her appeal against Stonewall. Bailie tried unsuccessfully to prove that Stonewall had caused her chambers to drop her for her gender-critical views 🧵