Delighted to announce that Borderlines is one of @waterstones.bsky.social paperbacks of the year!

Unzoomed #613 3/6 🟡🟡🟢⚪️⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com

Thing about this sort of answer from the BBC is that I don’t remember them adjusting their coverage much in 2022-24 when the polls were in Labour’s favour. I may be misremembering, but I thought they kept to the proportions from GE2019.

A Nazi sticker on a lamppost in my street. Thank you all of you who have emboldened this filth. Splendid work.

This is an important read

One thing we've learned from the past decade is that cancel culture was not in fact real at elite levels and you could get away with saying what you liked without consequences. If we're going to deal with the current wave of racism, that needs to change.

“And then I answered, completely still in my old frame of mind, that I couldn’t possibly spend the night in a strange room…”

Deporting groups of people, ripping them out of the society they are part of, is always ugly and cruel. I published an off cut of Borderlines about it some months ago when Americans were cheering and chanting for it. Now the darkness is spreading here. lewisbaston.substack.com/p/mass-depor...

In Naperville, IL on Wednesday, ICE surrounded a group of documented workers replacing a residential roof. ICE agents reportedly kicked over the ladders and forced the workers to jump. The episode involved a chase with guns drawn.

Saying so does not make you popular with some, but Britain cannot prosper if poverty deepens in its capital city, where so much of its prosperity begins. The government must rethink its local gov funding formula: www.onlondon.co.uk/how-is-the-l... #london #truelondon @sadiqkhanlondon.bsky.social

Spain's was the first major Western government to grant Palestine full diplomatic recognition: a powerful assertion of the need for a two-state solution. Others are now rightly passing through the door Spain opened.

Distance marker at Golders Green. The proportion between the two distances is initially surprising; the tube map really does affect one’s consciousness. Or maybe it’s just me.

Full text of prime minister's statement on the recognition of a Palestinian state www.gov.uk/government/s...

Today is World Alzheimer's Day. 1 in 3 people in Britain today will go on to develop Alzheimer's in their lifetime. We must work together to tackle this disease. Find out the amazing work which the Alzheimer's Society does today: www.alzheimers.org.uk

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

A grim read.

Unzoomed #612 2/6 🔴🟢⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com over-thought this one on the first guess. Feel a bit dense now.

What’s infuriating is that even within the Corporation itself they’ve got better examples of how to do it. The World Service coverage of British politics is usually much better. And More or Less, Outside Source, and Ros Atkins’ well-researched explainers and Analysis all provide good models.

Unzoomed #611 4/6 🔴🔴🟡🟢⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com tricky

🎵 One Trot faction, meeting in a hall/ one Trot faction, meeting in a hall/ and if one Trot faction should start an ugly brawl/ There’ll be two Trot factions, meeting in a hall… 🎵 (repeat for n+1 until you’re tired of it)

Keep seeing the meme (in response to @timharford.ft.com) that White British Londoners are no less anti-immigration than the rest of the country, they are just "outnumbered". It's not true:

The last words of Czechoslovakia’s founder TG Masaryk were sealed for 90 years, but worth the wait: “If people are uneducated and foolish, there is not much that can be done. People are glad to be foolish. Do not make it easy for them, and argue with them.” www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...

So grimy. And Meta has not an ounce of shame about it.

The pious incantations about how awful political violence is didn’t last long.

BBC continues its laundry job on the far right. Yeah, he's a violent racist but he loves his mum. It's just like the coronation really. Look at the photo- a patriotic street party. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Your Party, Our Party… very on-brand to have a split based on pronouns.

I did this a couple of years ago with the “levelling up fund” - massively time consuming, but I think the real problem is the time horizons mean governments/ministers have changed so there’s less interest www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pemb...

This is a good point. Even I, a relatively political person, have no idea how many for instance of Boris Johnson’s “40 hospitals” ever came close to existing.

Ugh. I object. I love canals (thread a couple of weeks ago for instance) - they’re genuinely a special part of English heritage and landscape. Defacing a lock with crude territorial marking, sloppy like the Joker’s smile, offends *my* idea of Englishness.

This is fun, about family myths. I have met more than one person who has claimed that their family would have been wealthy had not an ancestor lost their business or house in a game of cards in the 1880s (it’s usually the 1880s). It surely can’t have been as common an occurrence as people say!

Really pleased with this endorsement!

@stuarthoughton.bsky.social just realised that ‘Sweardle’ is an anagram of ‘Lewd Arse’.

Thank you! I too am enjoying my current book.

the guy behind the design of Meta's smart glasses to usher in a new era of Superintelligence is called (checks notes) ... "Rocco Basilico" the simulation needs restarting www.thegentlemansjournal.com/article/rocc...

Unzoomed #610 4/6 🔴🔴🟡🟢⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com

One of those mornings when giving up seems an attractive option.

Grim result for Lab in last night’s by-election in Newham (NI means Newham Independents, a local political party). As well as the general malaise, there are local factors - Labour control of Newham has been monolithic until recently but several cracks in the edifice have become apparent.

2025

Seriously? BBC?

Trump’s performance of excess, the hammy WWE stuff, seemed to persuade some - enough - Americans that it was nod and wink and nobody would really get hurt. I think Farage’s avuncular bloke in the pub persona serves the same function for some - enough - British people…

Saw at RSA and it struck a chord

Unzoomed #609 1/6 🟢⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com

Our friend the Central American Gulf Coast Toad can range in color from nearly black, to a reddish brown, to light brown like our friend here! They mostly live in Central America, but their range extends from Costa Rica all the way to central Texas! (photo by Adam Jackson)

LONDON people - do you want me to talk to you about the outlook for the 2026 borough elections? Public, private, voluntary, charity, housing, political all welcome; I had a good session this morning with one of London's largest public sector organisations. Write here or at [email protected]

Includes a chapter by me! I write about the by-election that delivered Labour’s first win in suburbia (using new campaigning techniques), a change in housing policy and important developments for a future Home Secretary and a future Prime Minister.

Awoke with an unholy mash-up of ‘Oliver’s Army’ and the ‘Friends’ song in my head: if it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year/ and there’s no danger, it’s a professional career…

A frustratingly written story as it’s not clear what the councillor regards as unacceptable about Reform - it could be some local party discipline beef, it could be that she feels the party is too far right, it could be that that it’s not supportive enough of Tommy Robinson. Tell us please!

Free speech latest.

Because America will murder you and call you a drug smuggling terrorist.

Unzoomed #608 4/6 🔴🔴🔴🟢⚪️⚪️ unzoomed.com oof.