Disgraceful article by BBC News. It's abundantly clear from the videos what happened. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Great to see my forecasting contest featured in this morning's Playbook! Can you predict what will happen in 2026? Test your prediction skills using the link below: ⬇️ www.edrith.co.uk/p/2026-forec...

A reminder for anyone new to Bluesky (or who just wants to follow more policy wonks here) that I've made a starter pack of all the think tanks I've spotted on the platform and the researchers working at them (if you're missing and want adding in let me know!) - go.bsky.app/Geu9Jd8

It has become increasingly clear that X - a platform now actively producing explicit and abusive material against women and children - is not an appropriate platform to be using for our comms. I will keep pushing for action from the govt & relevant authorities in this area.

A justifiably scathing conclusion to a justifiably scathing newsletter from @stephenkb.bsky.social today (I also love his observation that this government can’t tell “barnacle from boat”). www.ft.com/content/0e12...

My assessment of Starmer's latest EU gambit. His rhetoric on "alignment" may be getting bolder but the trade-offs remain the same. The UK will not get much closer alignment with the single market unless it accepts free movement + budget contributions. ukandeu.ac.uk/new-year-sam...

I diverged sharply from this consensus, as the FT notes at the end of this article - although my actual quote referred not just to poor governance but to Trump's economic illiteracy, flagrant and gross corruption, and ethnonationalist bigotry. www.ft.com/content/1af2...

This government published a strategy on violence against women - but can't criticise a site undressing women as abuse & harassment It intends its opposition to racism to be central to its re-election pitch, but seems to have a merely rhetorical stance of anti-racism bsky.app/profile/sund...

If you follow this argument through to its logical conclusion there should be a UK Government channel on pornhub.

I diverged sharply from this consensus, as the FT notes at the end of this article - although my actual quote referred not just to poor governance but to Trump's economic illiteracy, flagrant and gross corruption, and ethnonationalist bigotry. www.ft.com/content/1af2...

Under the latest plans, immigrants could wait 15, 20, and even 30 years to obtain citizenship. This will effect everyone from refugees, to healthcare workers, to parents of British citizens, and many more. Sign this petition to stop this change.

Today' post : Sian, Leo and Mohamad "Bloody immigrants, coming over here, trying to save our lives....: Why limiting medical migration is totally self defeating. Please read, RT and subscribe for free. open.substack.com/pub/undercla...

I am curious as to who the "stakeholders" are who are preventing the UK government from acting against a white supremacist pornographer?

There is, to my mind, no justification for the continued use by the UK Government of X as a platform for official comms. There hasn't been for some time, in fact, but if the latest developments around AI-generated image abuse and CSAM don't change the policy I really don't know what will.

The split-screen here is unbelievable - first from yesterday, the others from 2017. Musk’s Twitter has truly driven us mad. People absorb far more of their beliefs from their social environment than they realize, and we’ve created an environment where being a gutter bigot is the baseline expectation

something like this?

You could read it as in part directed at efforts you contributed to, drawing back from calling lies lies because to call them lies coarsened political discourse.

Looking for a low-cost open goal to advance Labour's battle against misogyny? Why not a government pledge to leave Musk's platforms by the end of the month, in response to Grok and X's disgraceful and persistent contributions to the problem? @torstenbell.bsky.social

Completely block Twitter. Remove all public sector accounts. Encourage EU and rest of NATO to do the same.

I am curious as to who the "stakeholders" are who are preventing the UK government from acting against a white supremacist pornographer?

If the British government, and indeed other governments, can’t muster a fast and strong response to Twitter adding a facility enabling users to create and share AI child sexual abuse material then not sure what Musk could ever do that would actually provoke a response.

I wrote about the endless temptation successful people feel to justify and feel justified in a clearly toxic system. Happy new year. open.substack.com/pub/rottenan...

🔊 "It recognises that actually they're probably the best people to make decisions for themselves" Hannah Piggott spoke to BBC Radio 4 about our trial evaluating the impact of a £2,000 unconditional cash transfer to people experiencing homelessness, conducted with @homelessnessimpact.bsky.social

Govt is pursuing a major settlement & citizenship reform agenda which Ovenden advocates but ignores. It boasts Maria will wait 14/15 years for settlement/citizenship not 5/6. Not yet well known. Its taking on legal, ngo opinion, though median public+ esp Labour voters wouldn't say 15 years is fair

This morning Bluesky has chosen to monster this piece, but Mr Ovenden makes some really important points. /1

Soon, @jdportes.bsky.social will make his predictions for the UK economy for 2026 along with 100 other economists for the @financialtimes.com 🤔 But did his predictions for 2025 ring true? Find out 👇 ukandeu.ac.uk/marking-myse...

(This is just whining from someone who failed to deliver because both he and the machine he was part of had neither a plan for government nor any idea how to actually deliver anything when in government. Just a pound shop Dominic Cummings).

Astonishing that we've been reading right-wing commentary this week about how the UK is too permissive in its grants of nationality. Thank goodness for the work PRCBC and Valdez-Symonds are doing.

🚨 We're hiring an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Economics Only 5 days left to apply. See details 👇

THIS! THIS! THIS! Also the reflexive reaching for right/far right framing of "special interests"(like Amnesty UK's 200k or the National Trust's 5m members? or 6.4m trade unionists?) vs what "real people" need.

I agree this is very much worth a read if you want to understand why this government has made such a mess of its first 18 months -if this is the caliber of thinking/analysis in No 10. Just deeply confused, paranoid word salad. (1/2).

Just like the Tories, Labour's centrist hacks think themselves omniscient and infallible - they cannot fail, they can only be failed. So when they do fail, they blame everyone else. We saw it with the Tories, and it's already started from the Starmerites with this idiotic dreck: archive.ph/rHoXA

not very impressed with this article ..but perhaps explains many of the problems with Starmer's Downing Street operation.. just had a go at it on Times Radio

You'd think the British government (and everyone else still using X for 'reach') would not want to be known to be frequenting a platform that carries and actually generates child porn. And yet they keep posting there.

Well, this explains a lot about Labour's travails if little else. Verging on conspiracism. Hate to break it to politicians of this and all future generations, you will be governing in a complex society. You need to factor that into your operating model. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

I agree this is very much worth a read if you want to understand why this government has made such a mess of its first 18 months -if this is the caliber of thinking/analysis in No 10. Just deeply confused, paranoid word salad. (1/2).

It astonishes me how over the course of a single year, Britain’s overton window has shifted so far to the right regarding immigrants and trans people that its media and increasingly terminally-online elite class are able to be openly bigoted

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

Grok's new "feature" that allows users to undress women in photos posted to X is a new low for the platform. If you're somehow still active over there, I urge you to let this be your final straw.

From me today: The descent of Liz Truss and into full-on totalitarianism.

So much this. I hope that in 2026 people start taking an online nationalist right general election victory in 2029 seriously. The consequences if it happens will be across the board disastrous; far, far worse than anything that has ever gone before. By a country mile and then some worse.

This is both entirely correct and misses the point completely, which is that the 'online weirdos" are effectively writing Conservative and Reform policy & have significantly influenced the government's own worst and most xenophobic policies. Trump should have taught us not to laugh this stuff off.

What the war against London really is about. V good by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social #Giftlink And on a different note: A v Happy New Year to everyone!

This is both entirely correct and misses the point completely, which is that the 'online weirdos" are effectively writing Conservative and Reform policy & have significantly influenced the government's own worst and most xenophobic policies. Trump should have taught us not to laugh this stuff off.

Results of the 2025 Forecasting Contest are out! 374 valid entries, 27 who beat the wisdom of crowds - and one winner... Congratulations to ‘Firestone’, a manager at TfL, who beat the entire field! Full placings and detailed stats at the link. www.edrith.co.uk/p/results-of...

Mon panel en Val d’Aoste sur le système monétaire international legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2025/12/3...

Well, I can't pretend 2025 was anything other than a truly horrific year. But as one of life's optimists, I'm going to build on some of the (very few) good things I've done this year. More of these! My top 5 in no particular order...

I see the President of the United States is attempting to instigate a pogrom.

There are now also rather clear orders and advisory opinions by the ICJ laying out that this is in breach of international law

"Immigrant Derangement Syndrome is a top-down phenomenon, not a broad popular movement. It reflects the perverse obsessions of MAGAdom, with racism a key component.' To state the obvious, this analysis by @pkrugman.bsky.social also largely applies in the UK/Europe. substack.com/home/post/p-...