I know RUK ignores NI, but surely there should be more public horror and indignation about the fact that not 6 months ago part of the UK saw a pogrom that drove an ethnic group (the Roma) out of a sizeable town

Interesting to see Professor Betz choose to list this article - on the War in Ukraine - as one of his more recent research outputs. The Hungarian Conservative, no less.

Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

The Starmer strategy is visibly 'just hold on for Senator Fungible (D-Somesuch) to win'. Which...god which European diplomat was it who said that Europe needs to stop having to rely on 60,000 cross-pressured voters in PA?

At this point, the Pentagon could announce that the city of El Dorado had been seized in a lightning military strike and some breathless BBC live reporting would ask 'What will this mean for gold prices?'

Less than twelve hours to go from 'We got him. Mission accomplished. The Operation is over' to 'We have more strikes ready. We run the country now'. Who would have thought it?

Not the actions I'd expect from the winner of the Fifa Global Peace Prize, tbh.

Trump will de-escalate, free Maduro and work tirelessly to re-establish the rules-based international order as soon as Starmer and Reeves explain to him that the tax increases required for rapid rearmament play badly on the doorstep in the Red Wall™

Yet again, begging someone in the government to start calling Nigel Farage a quisling.

How is that strategic partnership you signed in October going, guys?

No one supports a war in Venezuela btw

Push notifications from a COD developer's wildest dreams, here.

there is simply no rest for the wicked, so I have just published my first newsletter of the year - in which I answered as many of your horrible "would you rather" questions as possible: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/i-answered...

They've been useless, cruel and have all the charisma of wet cardboard. Fundamentally, it isn't that much of a mystery why they're so unpopular.

Keir Starmer: 'Can't Stand Me Now'

Begum left the UK *a year* after the Isis Beatles were frontpage news and after other countries had gone 'yeah, we are passing specific "don't go there" laws'. So much of our politics is driven by a Conservative party that values little beyond a doomed attempt to save its own face.

Shamima Begum was the beginning of something in so many ways, one of which was 'the last government's inability to just do its job properly (in this case by passing legislation that would have allowed it to prosecute her here at home) and instead going 'no option but to undermine all our rights'.

in all seriousness, this is exactly why Sajid Javid revoking Shamima Begum's citizenship was so abhorrent. It's irrelevant how savoury a character Shamima (or any individual) was - opening the door on the principle of citizenship as a gift rather than a fact just wasn't ever remotely worth it.

It's four days away, that's not much of a prediction.

Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it

Grim. ("CSAM" is Child Sexual Abuse Material).

One thing I didn't manage to squeeze into my recent video about Christian Nationalism is that Reform UK advisor James Orr has (naturally) launched a podcast. And no-one is listening to it. Regularly struggling to break 1,000 views.

Nearly 30 years of working in that intersection between the benefits agencies and the people who claim benefits (as well as personal experience) confirms to me that when people trot out that stat about more benefits being never claimed than claimed fraudulently, it is undeniably true

I enjoyed speaking to @fieryparticle.bsky.social and @polprofsteve2024.bsky.social about MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN, and its relevance for the politics of today open.spotify.com/episode/59aX...

Not an expert, but this doesn't scream 'Russian naval supremacy' to me.

Nigel Farage said that the 'Raise the Colours' campaign was a "grassroots movement driven by ordinary people”. Kemi Badenoch said they should be "welcomed" as a symbol of "unity" Now the campaign has pivoted to racially abusing migrants and intimidating charity workers on the beaches of France

Again with the completely rigid obsession with set pieces. Not surprising from an Arsenal fan, I guess.

Yikes!

Very welcome news today that the UK will join the Erasmus+ programme in 2027. This will enable greater opportunities for study abroad and contributions in UK universities, and is something we called for in our most recent Manifesto.

We basically got this instead...

These captchas are getting really advanced.

George Osborne 2: Destructive Boogaloo

I know we all love a bit of armchair IR posting here on Bluesky, but this is just sad.

Not holding my breath on these insights tbh

On the latter, when asked if he supported the comment about Lammy by Chris Parry, Reform's candidate for Hampshire and the Solent mayor, Tice said he was not familiar with the comments, adding: David Lammy is a cabinet minister.... We challenge him."

I'm been at a Richard Tice press conference at which he: • Refused to say whether he still believes Nigel Farage's school accusers made up their claims, calling the row "old news". • Refused twice to condemn a Reform candidate who said David Lammy should "go home" to the Caribbean.

A completely unhinged post from the head of Norway's oil fund: to hunt down the "leaders" of groups resisting AI implementation in companies and "remove" them archive.ph/r0u2r

Maybe the bigger question is how someone I've not heard anyone say anything positive about in 15 years has become so well connected.

Well, this isn't at all concerning... 🤡

A 'whole of society' effort would, of course, have to include a significant effort from the state to improve material conditions for the majority of the population... www.irishnews.com/news/uk/defe...

It's good they include a generic politician in here so we can gauge how much is sincere comment and how much is just anti-politics sentiment. It's still sad that nearly 30% of people fall for it though and pretend they have an opinion on "Mel Stride."

of course the song’s called wichita assistant referee, these days

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things

This site is not full of consummate media critics, it is full of people who would have spent the 1950s scoffing at television

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

the 'context':

nothing can put a bigger smile on my face than reading that Microsoft has to scale back its AI ambitions because NOBODY uses copilot.