Only Trump could unite soccer fans to take the side of a ref.

Picture and headline combos can be a tricky thing.

Here's a chart I found somewhere that explains the bad faith framing of the Alberta referendum questions - sorry I don't know who to credit. #ableg #cdnpoli

Not that I think this was Murrell's defence, but who is to say that during the years in question, the money could actually have been spent in a way more conducive to bringing about Scottish independence.

One of the best thing written about AI, carefully thinking through the absurd claim of Claude's consciousness. Perhaps not surprisingly from one of the best SciFi writers of our age. www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

AI is one issue that hasn't yet been culture-warred or in any way turned into a left-right thing.

Well. With a liberal definition of 'person'.

In this kind of junk story-writing, "but then again" does a huge amount of heavy lifting.

Bonkers story by the BBC. We are being asked to feel sorry for people making £50k+ a year by selling unregulated food! FFS … the pity point seems to be it’s about pretty cupcakes … utter middle-class mumsnet bollocks

Today's winner in the bad headline writing competition. By not mentioning the event, it makes it sound like it's 76 years since they last lost the rights to broadcast any kind of "major event".

Only three candidates in the Makerfield by-election with high enough profile to have a wikipedia page. We should obviously focus on them.

Today in reassuring news ahead of a holiday.

Gosh that's gonna take years, surely

Perhaps not the smartest Referendum initiative, as you are asking people to vote YES to say NO.

One-off rural housing is a disaster for rural Ireland so of course he's for it. Why is the local shop in bother? Why are local pubs closing down? Why is public transportation so shite? Why is there a loneliness epidemic for elderly people? People who aren't farming should live in towns and villages.

Ha! At least Finland won in the end. The worst has been prevented.

If you thought the Champions League final was perhaps a little on the low-excitement side, spare a thought for Ice Hockey fans.

Heutigen Sportreportern hat die deutsche Sprache einfach nix mehr entgegenzusetzen. www.sportschau.de/live-und-erg...

I don't, but if you are that worried about "getting caught" maybe don't tell the Times?

New preprint: Jack Lucas, @breunig.eurosky.social and I reanalyze 70,470 assessments made by 12,860 politicians about their constituents' public opinion and demographics, sourced from every available published study of elite perceptual accuracy, and our own original data. /1 osf.io/preprints/ps...

In November 2023, police discovered the decayed corpse of Tracey Turnell in Walthamstow Market. She had no phone, job, passport, friends or lovers. There wasn’t a single photo of her. It was as if, in her far too public death, she entered the public record for the first time. Who was she?

funny part about this posturing is that Reform's 2024 voters are the least likely of any party's to regularly attend church

It must come as a relief to Labour HQ that Starmer is no longer seen as a "rubbish wanker".

Sorry to be a bore, but that is not the median.

Of course, Tony Blair is not advocating you driving a bus into a brick wall. He just wants to point out that those who do drive buses into brick walls at least have an idea, a plan, an invigorating radicalism, and that is what modern traffic desperately needs.

Escape from the heatwave.

Plaid voters aren't distinctive because they feel strongly Welsh — Reform voters often do too. What separates them is the absence of Britishness. Plaid's coalition is defined less by Welsh pride than by a declining attachment to Britain.

In June, Switzerland will vote on what is so far the most radical far-right popular initiative launched by the Swiss People‘s Party SVP: capping the population at 10M (currently ≈9.1M). In this thread, I’ll break down what it’s about and how it fits into broader findings on Swiss direct democracy

So Villa win the Europa League but West Ham get relegated Mixed week for David Cameron

Thank God football is over for the summer

I can’t excerpt, every word is perfect

Counterpoint: the Enhanced Games are also very much NOT like the Olympics. Given they couldn't even get 50 participants together and most of them either never were or no longer are world class. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Donald Trump only has four women left in his Cabinet to fire...

Just did my back in while making Käsespätzle. Those pesky Swabians never told me it could be that dangerous.

I approve of this decision. Because this World Cup deserves not to be taken seriously. www.france24.com/en/live-news...

The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Coming to @ecprgender.bsky.social #ECPG2026 and working with quant methods or curious about using them in gender & politics research? Come along & meet other researchers at the @strathplacelab.bsky.social pre-conference social 🍻 📍 Two by Two Brewery 🕡 18:30, 14 June RSVP here: bit.ly/4dPyr8F

One of my hottest but most sincerely held takes is that a Referendum on PR is a contradiction in terms anyway, a clash of two incompatible visions of democracy. Whole point of PR is "largest group of voters cannot and should not deny smaller groups representation", which a No to PR result would do

Commitment to a fairer voting system is nice. But would he dare to just change it when in office. He could, and aside from all the shouting there'd be few if any consequences. Most of all, would be hard to ever change it back, unless there was a Ref/Con coalition with a masochistic junior partner.

"Thanks to this terrible electoral system which we are absolutely 100% in favour of and will under no circumstances support changing, you have no choice but to vote for us, which we will then take as proof of unequivocal support for us and use to rubbish the party you would otherwise vote for"

Breaking news: Guardian journalist walked through Streeting's constituency and met some people who like him. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Yes, I always wonder whether the reason behind this terrible under-reporting of the more important of the two votes in a Scottish election is media people not understanding the electoral system themselves or patronisingly thinking that their audience won't.

This whole will they/won't they Labour government crisis is much needed light relief during these difficult times.

Now this is interesting. Will have to wait for list vote shares at constituency level, but this could indicate tactical voting between Reform and Tories, helping the latter to hold on to a seat which they would have lost if their vote share decline had been in line with the rest of the country.

From what we can read from constituency level data, probably over 2/3 of Reform voters are switchers from Conservative. The rest could partly be down to differential turnout, but also a not inconsiderable number of SNP to Reform switchers. SNP was always a large umbrella, held together only by Indy.

Now that is a bit random. Biggest vote share loss for the SNP anywhere, and Labour gaining 10 points.

Reform and Tories combine to over 50% of the vote share. SNP wins with 35%. SNP sneaking closer to turning a bad election result into a parliamentary majority.

For the first time in living memory, turnout in Glasgow could be less than 10 points lower than the Scotland average. It has always been almost exactly or just over 10 points behind, elections or referendums. Low figures for sure but decline in turnout not as dramatic as everywhere else.

One of the main differences between this and previous Scottish parliament elections is that the average constituency winner will be in the mid-30% of the vote share now, around 10 points down on previous elections. Very similar to the 2024 UK General Election. Fragmentation galore.

That is the total outlier so far. SNP gaining vote share where they have lost 12.5 to 13% in every other constituency. And turnout almost as high as in 2021.