This and this again. Just astonishing to watch parties on all sides of this debate blather on as if no one else in the world had even thought of ID.

Enough already. Those people Reform are gunning for - they’re not the abstract, faceless creatures of fever dreams. They’re your neighbours, your friends, the people who cure and care and carry for you.

We're delighted to announce that this year's #RoadSafetyWeek takes place 16-22 Nov with the theme Safe Vehicles Save Lives. We'll provide everything you need to take part. Sign up now at www.brake.org.uk/road-safety-week Sponsored by Autoglass, Hastings Direct, Motive and Samsara.

Alexander von Humboldt taught us to try to understand the world both by looking at the data, and by going out, looking carefully and trusting our own senses. With this in mind, I wonder what he'd have made of our debate about immigration? on.ft.com/4pkDIJ8

Ahead of the paperback publication of Helen Castor’s fabulous The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, I’ve reposted my interview with her from the top of the year.

“It’s not ‘free speech’ to platform people who are talking nonsense.” 👏

Today is publication day for this beautiful thing. I hope that it will tell a broad audience what historians of science have now long recognized: that alchemy was not a superstitious aberration but rather, an important phase in the history of ideas and of manufacturing.

On a beach halfway through this wonderful book and feeling a bit sad I studied philosophy at a university so diminished by Russellian narrow-mindedness that the better part of the discipline was simply omitted. Still, better late than never. Thanks to @emilyherring.bsky.social for opening my eyes.

My limited understanding is that LLMs are trained not to tell the truth but to *sound plausible*. Which suggests we should think of them not as Artificial Intelligence but as Artificial Oxbridge Graduates.

It's a very rough heuristic, but: if you're a government arresting Quakers, you might want to sit down and have a bit of a think.

Fond memories of Shropshire life. (Clickbait: check the story in the bottom left corner.)

When I think about the fact that huge amounts of money are being made by promoting addictions that destroy lives, the immediate question that springs to mind is not “Who should get all that money?”

when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet

Had never seen this before but… genius.

Belatedly full of praise for this by @wiringthebrain.bsky.social. Thorough, carefully argued, illuminating, thought-provoking. Even if you’re not convinced by the argument (I was) you’ll benefit from having to think through your counter-arguments! No more sloppy “but everything’s physics” arguments!

This appears to be completely absurd. (The new guidance, not the article about it.)

You don’t have to have had anything to do with HS2 to recognise this.

Seems to me that the process of applying for UK citizenship is designed to crush any inkling of loyalty an individual might feel towards their new home.

Thank you to reddit poster N1ghthood for articulating so succinctly the case against replacing skilled workers with LLMs: "Currently, the only way to reliably use LLMs is to know the answer to the question before you ask it." (which sort of undermines the entire business case)

To read and absorb: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Good to see this being recognized. I'd add that a further component of both scientific racism and eugenics is simplistic ideas about how genotype connects to phenotype. Which for some reason seems to be rarely discussed in this context.

Amen

1) Prostate cancer thread: In recent years, especially this year, there's been much debate in the UK media and elsewhere (often related to experiences of men in the public eye) about prostate cancer: on the importance of testing/early treatment, and (often) calling for new screening initiatives. 🧪

Last week the Forget-me-Not Families Uniting campaigners delivered a petition for a graduated driver licence scheme to 10 Downing Street. 100k+ have now signed the petition, started by Crystal Owen following the death of her son Harvey, 17. www.change.org/p/safer-driv...

(This article produced my favourite ever "below the line" comment on one of my pieces: "Written by a university professor. Tells you as much as you need to know about the author.")

This is high art

Hardly the most pressing problem in the world, but is anyone else finding that Microsoft Word has suddenly developed an apostrophe fetish? I can't start a paragraph without it inserting them.

Every day 9 young children are killed or injured on UK roads. Today 1.5k schools/nurseries are taking part in Beep Beep! Day with 90k+ kids www.brake.org.uk/how-we-help/raising-awareness/our-current-projects/news-and-blogs/every-day-nine-young-children-are-killed-or-injured-on-roads-in-britain-2025

People are sometimes puzzled when I talk about "authoritarian democracy". This (translated into the language of an angry toddler) is what it means: It's a malign form of democracy that treats dissent as anti-democratic & uses the authority of the people ("the VOTERS") to bulldoze checks on power.

Genuine question if anyone can help: is “overdiagnosis” even a meaningful term? I think I understand misdiagnosis. But overdiagnosis?

If only I understood any of anything that’s going on so I could explain it to you all.

Working in the nhs, it's right that we should stay conscious of what's value for money. But it's simplistic to think only in terms of an ever more efficient machine. All these support value for money- •Time & space to think •CPD & supportive conversations •Meaningfully nurturing relationships

Here is a short video about Long COVID - something we all need to be aware of as it is devasting people's lives and is a very good reason why we should normalise perfectly reasonable precautions against airborne viruses. youtu.be/mqIxyammvXE?...

This idiotic cult of Musk that the media has created and endlessly recycled has done tremendous damage.

Channel 4 and its Chief Exec got a lot of publicity for research into Gen Z and democracy. But what happens when you check the polling data and the footnotes? https://theweekinpolls.substack.com/p/gen-z-democracy-and-a-problem-with

New edition of A Little History of Philosophy @yalebooks.bsky.social just landed!

This is such an important and useful challenge from @robertjwest.bsky.social. It’s gone straight to the top of my own to-do list. Plus wondering why it’s never occurred to me to do it before.

@robertjwest.bsky.social Thanks for flagging this. The title seems to me to underplay the content, from brief glance. It’s also about whether the consequentialist mindset of policy/public health really reflects how we think as citizens (ie technocracy v democracy). Very interesting work.

Helen Castor on the late 14th century, another period in British history when the powerful refused to be constrained by societal norms and precedents. 1/2

Pruned the apple cordons. Very little idea what I’m doing; and yet still suspect that’ll be the most productive thing I do all year.

“We can have all the structures and norms in the world, but if people stop agreeing to abide by them – and particularly if people in power stop agreeing to abide by them – what do we do?” Terrific interview - and a reminder of why studying history matters.

I had high hopes of this - and it’s exceeding all of them. Worth reading for the quality of the writing alone. Gripping narrative, exquisite phrasing, fascinating and timely subject… plus, as a non-expert, feeling able to trust the depth and rigour of the research behind it.

New book coming soon! ‘The Way We Talk Around Here: How organizational culture shows up in your language and why it matters’ will be published on Nov 26th. See here for more info and to preorder amzn.eu/d/3M4LHVx

I’ve never promoted this on here. Is anyone interested? It’s ever so gratifying when people are. www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Annie...

God help us all

Suspect that “clean power by 20230” is not a Grauniad typo but a prediction based on current progress.

there is no tripe for cats

Listen to Robert, people