Nigel Biggar does not have 'utterly moderate' views on the British empire and he is telling on himself by insisting that he does. 'Views' itself is a revealing choice, suggesting to me a person driven far less by original research than they should be, if they are going to write on this topic.

Does anyone have an ETA on the declaration in G&D overnight?

Allister Heath has been listening too much to the moanings of the Duke of Argyll

Increasingly sick of Chrome's perpetual drain on my computer's resources and its constant lag which they don't seem to have a mind to fix. Does anyone recommend the browser they use as an upgrade from chrome??

Nobody could have predicted this

It is a catastrophic misfire that our national conversation about tech regulation is focused on age limits and not on using state power to build a cordon sanitaire against the fascist rot which has overtaken the three largest social media providers

Infrastructure projects provide the framework within which investment can take place. Build the train where you want the investment to happen.

No council in Scotland is raising their council tax this year by less than 5%, some councils in double digits! - the inevitable outcome of ScotGov's *14%* real-terms cut in local gov capital funding!

You may not like it, but "FBI for bins" is what peak Lib Dem policy looks like

I was sceptical about this from the beginning, the spectre of Wilfried Nancy haunting my mind, and I was right to be. 9 wasted games, will take a lot of luck to not see us relegated now. Our new owners have now appointed 3 permanent managers who've all been poor. Big footballing questions ahead.

The US Justice Department withheld testimony that Donald Trump sexually abused a girl when she was 13 or 14 - according to a source who viewed unredacted Epstein files. This is the worst scandal in US history and should be the biggest news story on the planet right now. www.npr.org/2026/02/24/n...

First Past the Post is a perfect electoral system with no flaws

Has "reducing civil service headcounts and increasing private sector contracting to reduce costs" worked for any other government? www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Always fascinated by these people suggesting sex is this public thing now. I'd guess there is probably a lot *less* public sex happening now than there used to be (thanks, Grindr!)

Shocking news. Obviously one doesn't know the ins and outs, but it's hard to comprehend how such a large and weathy university as UCL finds itself unable to support a cutting-edge humanities research institute. Solidarity with everyone affected. www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...

To see Christianity brandished like this for political goals by people who do not care about it but pretend to practice it and claim to be furthering its interests, is so much more offensive to me than every single attempt anyone has ever made to disprove, mock or belittle faith in Christ.

Naming a scheme to prevent immigration after an immigrant-descended political opponent (not least with the particular emotional change of why ZP changed his name) is absolutely grim

it's so good to learn that when some people said "destigmatise mental illness" they didn't mean, like, "stop judging people for things they can't help," they meant "i should be allowed to get up late for work"

Carley has to be the most important person on the pitch every time

Unsure where the Scotland that won last week are?

One underemphasised Reform problem is that its candidate problems are its ceiling. The party is unwilling or unable to do anything about it. It will become even more clearly problematic after May when two wholly new blocs of 20+ MS/Ps try and survive the tidal wave of bad news stories like this one.

One of the most terrifying otter jumpscares you'll ever see

What, like Britain has been since his tenure as Chancellor?

ECB anti-racism reforms going well, I see

Mill-owner William Horsfall was shot and killed in April 1812 by his own workers because he installed the tech that industrialised wool cloth production. It took over 12,000 troops and mass executions to put down the Luddites. "How might workers respond?" has a bit of a FAFO potential for AI bros!

Big problem with the BBC is its sheer credulity and lack of intellectual curiosity about stuff. It feels like it has lost the will to interrogate (with rare exceptions)

Niche academic complaint: it absolutely infuriates me that the Cambridge Core repository only allows you to download individual chapters as PDFs and not whole books. Having to download 29 individual files instead of one to read or index search a book is just shoddy design!

The worst thing about being arrested on your birthday is it rules out the possibility of getting a cake with a file in it for another 364 days.

At a certain point it just isn't worth printing what he says. He's both senile *and* he has no idea what he's talking when the mic is near him. Unless he can string together these quotes and sign an executive order in one sitting, it just doesn't matter.

Watching Canada v Czechia in the Winter Olympics men's QF. The Olympics is always great for Hockey because it allows players from smaller teams to showcase their talent. For example Czechia's Filip Hronek plays for a very poor team called the "Vancouver Canucks"

Locking myself out of my office on Ash Wednesday so having to meekly go to the security office so they can stare slightly confusedly at my forehead

The pollsters yearn for the Single Transferable Vote

Fascinated by the understanding of the world which allows you to think that 50% of young people becoming tradies is a workable idea

These days [the 1840s], if you manure a croft, you'll be thrown in jail

Okay, not having a policy to do something and then deciding to do it is not a U-turn. Like that's just not what u-turn is. Allergic to engaging with the actual policy, which has some serious problems, only interested in gotcha-ing. It's not even a complicated policy to see the flaws in!

This is ridiculous. Why on earth are the government slapping dual nationals with a punitive fine for not having a UK passport? Sure as hell reads like giving fewer or contingent rights to freely move in their own country to dual nations?

Don't think you should be able to call them an interim manager because you're appointing them for half a season when your previous permanent manager was only manager for half a season

Not the main thing, but Ratcliffe's comments are v telling of public understanding of colonialism. He clearly thinks that colonialism is just when people move in numbers to another place, rather than actually grasping the violence, horror and destruction that colonising actually represented.

Direct democracy is absolutely crackers and everyone who advocates it is the same

Want to flag that Daisy lists universities and creative industries as two of the UK’s big success stories, thereby showing more economic knowledge than any Chancellor

I'm sorry but "Department for Growth" and "Department for Business Expenditure" are both bad names

These days, you can't build your economy around raw commodity imports from global networks of unfree labour and environmentally costly extraction. Hold on, I'm just being passed a note...

To be frank, it's a bit mad WB *weren't* able to successfully do a Harry Potter cinematic universe

It's tough for Starmer, given he needs to diversify his cabinet to survive, but has hitherto worked quite hard to not learn anything about the PLP, relying on his advisors to do a lacklustre job in his behalf, the most trusted of whom no longer work for him (and were giving him bad advice anyway).

Great news for those of us whose visits to london always involve allocating some time to go and have a look at some of britain's best brutalisms

I hadn't really thought about it, but as we approach the next election and the realignment that follows, reform are going to lean very hard into bringing back the worst of the no-platform campus culture war (as a pretext for their war on education)

Not to be bested by Wes trying to get out in front of the story that might keep them from No. 10, Ange has put £40k in cash in a shoebox and left it on the doorstep of the inland revenue hoping that will do the job

Say what you want about the monarchy's democratic flaws, but you have to say Charles has never been in a more perfect harmony with public opinion than over the fact that he clearly absolutely hates his brother

Spare a thought for the writers of the Glasgow Bell whose email, leading with how Sarwar had been "notably quiet" on Starmer's future, dropped at 13:18, before the BBC pushed that Sarwar was to call on Starmer to go at 13:20.