Seriously. Fuck Nigel Farage.

Reading "Step by Step", Churchill's newspaper columns from 1936-39. Thoughts 1) Churchill was committed to the League of Nations as a means of settling disputes. 2) He understood that if sanctions (on Mussolini) were to work, it had to be at risk of war 3) His grasp of detail was immense.

Targeting medical staff is a war crime.

"The rationale for the war on Iran is incoherent." "Yes. So, we have the authority to stop it..." "Oh, well, I wouldn't go that far!"

Still brooding on the, er, idiot talking about how (basically) you can't get a good argument on BlueSky, whilst adopting stylistic pretensions for his posts. As if the whole point of social media is posing whilst being an asshole (excuse my French).

'How was it,' the historians of the future will ask, 'that these vast, fairly intelligent, educated, and on the whole virtuous communities were so helpless and futile as to allow themselves to become victims of their own processes, and of what they most abhorred?' Churchill 'Step by Step'. Quite.

Churchill was not a warmonger.

This is such a rambling and roundabout thread. The significant takeaway seems to be "I prefer X". I'll be blocking anyway, as life's too short to wade through this.

The effectiveness of the League of Nations as under scrutiny in 1936 much as the effectiveness of the UN is today.

What trump needs to know ... ... If you win by cheating, then you didn't win. You were never as popular as you thought you were. Nobody loves you, you just coerced them.

An intermittent reminder that VCRs have not been made for over 10 years. If you have family memories on VHS, vhs-c, super 8 etc and you've not converted them to digital yet, you're at fairly serious risk of not being able to.

I'm old enough to remember Dan Quayle spelling "potato" incorrectly.

www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/p... why even pretend the constitution applies any more? There are de facto no checks on executive authority, no accountability. Protests from Dems amount to "Oh, I say!"

If anyone has any ideas about how to make my fly-on-the-wall "Governance" series made, hmu.

NEW The extraordinary ‘settlement’ agreement between Trump and his own government A complex high-value fund is being created without legislation or oversight by a court By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

I can imagine voting alongside someone who previously voted for Reform but has seen the error of their ways. I can't imagine voting alongside someone who previously voted for Reform but is now happy to vote for Labour because Labour has shifted. And I really can't see that this is that complicated

@monkemma.bsky.social - one for you?

One of the reasons @jasperfforde.bsky.social is one of the people whose work I appreciate. Liz did too.

The picture of Napoleon in "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis doesn't take much imagination to apply to Trump.

If you fancy reading something that's basically a sermon on "The Man of Lawlessness" (2 Thess 2) ... here ya go. paulfernandezexilefromgroggs.substack.com/p/we-should-...

Hertfordshire Health Walks has recently completed Hertfordshire’s Dementia Friendly Accreditation, showing our walks are even more inclusive and welcoming for everyone. buff.ly/ipBdoij

They are killing us. Each of the UK’s richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in eight days than someone in the bottom 50%. Since 1990 bottom 90% of population has cut carbon emissions by 26%. Top 0.1% increased theirs by 53%. Govts do little to curb harms by the super-rich.

One of the lessons of the Trump era is that a written constitution isn't enough.

Who will bell the cat? If you're saying such and such "must" happen without specifying an agent to carry it out, you're wasting your breath.

The BBC and UK’s billionaire controlled media want to get rid of Starmer. Then destroy whoever replaces him. To force a General Election and foist their puppet Nigel Farage on us. No thanks .

Well, you know how it is: Tories/Republicans destroy, pillage, & corrupt, and Labour/Democrats get like six weeks to fix EVERYTHING THAT WAS DESTROYED before the media starts calling for them to be sacked to put those nice Tories/Republicans back in office. Because they give free money to the rich.

In 1952, Richard Nixon's career was nearly derailed by revelations that he had access to a slush fund of $18,000 -- less than a quarter million today." People used to give a shit about that kind of thing, you see.

So the next thing Trump will do is start a war with Cuba to distract from the war with Iran.

So it sounds like Burnham is facing the political and economic reality that the Labour government had to face, which led to the electorate sense of betrayal. The alternative to Starmer was a mirage.

Unreal. Now that Trump dropped IRS lawsuit, DOJ just announced a new slush fund for alleged victims of "weaponization." Two Qs: *Will there be *any* congressional oversight? Most reporting suggests not. *Would payments to J6ers violate 14A? Raskin explains here: newrepublic.com/article/2105...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Look, in world terms building high speed railways is just not that unusual. Our inability to do this without massive complication is embarrassing.

All these huge data centres that will burn massive amounts of energy and use loads of water for cooling... ...what will they provide for us that we don't have already?

This is presumably why they would rather he went and played golf on Saturdays.

#JustSaying (2)

13, plus a few others abandoned. Not great for someone with a literature degree, I suppose...! www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

Son is working at grassroots level (for no money!!) to get Bristol's local artists a higher profile. youtu.be/qzjhn_wSytE?...

Recently finished or soon finishing a PhD in forensic #linguistics, speech sci or lang & law? Did you know the Int'l Journal of Speech, Language & Law has a section dedicated to PhD abstracts? If you'd like to share your findings with the wider field & practitioners, do consider submitting to us.

The “man of lawlessness” is a term derived from 2 Thess 2:1–12. He is often identified as the Antichrist, a figure who will oppose God, reject his law, and exalt himself as divine. This person is described as being completely lawless, considering himself above all authority and moral constraints.

It's Gen Z who can't put their phones down, is it?!

🔥

Well, put it this way, if Burnham makes it into parliament (against resurgent Reform, locals annoyed at his opportunism, any dirty tricks, an aggressive progressive assault by the Greens who would probably face Starmer than Burnham across the floor of the Commons) ... he probably deserves to be PM.

A depressing thing about the Trump regime is that it's not the Democrats in general who are calling him out, nor even the mainstream media, but independent media outlets. Democrats and MSM are entirely too comfortable with Trump and his regime pillaging the country.

If you're from the US, with respect, stop talking about five alarm fires. They've been burning since at least 2020, and probably longer.

Truth doesn't matter (to the Tories and GOP). The only thing that matters is the feeling. "The reality is, how does it feel to you?" is postmodernism.

Just had a tin of sardines (in sunflower oil) on top of a tub of tabbouleh and I think I've just found my new favourite lunch.

Who is going to be the next PM? Wrong answers only.

Listening to @therestpolitics.bsky.social 531. I guess it's kind of encouraging that @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social is saying the same sort of things that I'm thinking.

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