I’m not reposting that Farage clip because nobody needs to see his face in their timeline again, but flexible working is brilliant and I will not hear otherwise. It’s a total game changer and supports so many people in work 1/

‘A friend in London talks about the mystifying phrase she keeps hearing these days: “This is not America, this is not who we are.” But this is America, this is life, and this is how human beings behave. American exceptionalism will not save us.’ Yiyun Li on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

U.K. might lose a prime minister because a guy who worked for him knew another guy who hung out with Epstein. Meanwhile the U.S. opposition party is telling our President, who was Epstein's best friend, that his secret police should get better training so their public street murders look less messy.

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs xkcd.com/3204/

The question to ask now is WWND? (What would Nigel do?) If he gets into power why wouldn’t he flood the Lords with Reform peers?

‘Pollsters measure anxieties, newspapers amplify them and politicians recycle them as if prejudice were a natural resource to be responsibly extracted.’ @judeinlondon.com on the state we’re in, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Absolutely

A new paper in Science suggests that primates (a bonobo male) can engage in "secondary representation" or "pretense", similar to children drinking pretend tea at a tea party. whyevolutionistrue.com/2026/02/06/c...

‘A friend in London talks about the mystifying phrase she keeps hearing these days: “This is not America, this is not who we are.” But this is America, this is life, and this is how human beings behave. American exceptionalism will not save us.’ Yiyun Li on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

I just signed a petition calling for an urgent investigation into Peter Mandelson's dealings with Palantir. Did he use his position as UK Ambassador to benefit the US spy tech firm? Sign now: www.foxglove.org.uk/campaigns/ma...

'Daisy, Daisy': www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Dismaying… the dark ages commence www.theguardian.com/law/2026/feb...

Happy Rabbie Burns birthday! Happy Burns Night! Here's a good example of how he elevated the everyday words of Scotland and showed the world that it was possible to speak love in ways that were simple but certain and unmistakable:

‘The Wars of the Roses foreshadowed the Tudor polity, with its court-focused nobility, gentry more directly answerable to the Crown and monarchy raised to a new level of adulation.’ Chris Given-Wilson on what really caused the Wars of the Roses. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

🚨 BREAKING: Keir Starmer has called on Donald Trump to apologise for his "insulting and frankly appalling" comments about British troops in Afghanistan 👏

Even when George IV is overseeing the Royal Navy’s suppression of the transatlantic slave trade, he is still technically profiting from the labour and sale of enslaved people. This is something the government are aware of and they’re concerned about how it looks.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

I just signed this petition calling on Prince William to end the rent on Dartmoor Prison while it remains empty and unsafe and save millions in public money. It only takes a few seconds - please add your name. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/pr...

I got very choked up in class today showing my students what James Baldwin had to say about Shakespeare: “the greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. he could have done this only through love…”

A lot to engage with here… ‘This Could End Very Badly’: A Human Rights Lawyer Fears a New Age of Impunity www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/m...

Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has died. She was 95.

Clever cow recorded using back-scratching tool for first time

‘Writing shakily about England’s putative glory did not encourage Auden. His mad evocation of England hurt him into exile.’ Colm Tóibín on Yeats, Eliot and Auden. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Buckley increasingly lived off the fumes of his celebrity. He was at ease trading barbs with Woody Allen, and his high camp theatrics were compared to Andy Warhol’s by Hugh Kenner, a National Review colleague.’ Thomas Meaney on William F. Buckley. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

BREAKING 🚨 Saruman has been invited to sit on Gaza's Peace board!

Watching GB News or reading the Telegraph you realise there is a slice of right-wing opinion that would happily betray this country.

‘The Xi ideology is a fusion of Leninist politics, Marxist economics and nationalist foreign policy. Xi Jinping Thought sits in the tradition not of Mao’s quotations but of Deng Xiaoping Theory.’ @tomstevenson.bsky.social on the rise of Xi Jinping. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

It's cool that these guys just use pepper spray casually now, against people who are wholly within their rights, without a moment's hesitation. Several shots of them using it as they climb into their cars and drive away, not even a pretense of urgency or need. Just a parting "fuck you" to them.

They're investigating the victim's wife, the victim's friends, the mayor and the governor too, but no, they're not even going to glance in the direction of the murderer.

MLK was only 39 when he was killed. Growing up, I thought that was old. But I’m 43 now and I’m stunned by the burden he shouldered at such a young age. I’m also a lot more aware of how hard it is, at any age, to carry the hopes and dreams of an oppressed people on your shoulders, as so many do.

When “Operation Raise the Colours” started attaching flags to lampposts, you couldn’t analyse it in the media without the reply, “it’s just people innocently expressing national pride”. Now the same people are travelling to France to intimidate refugees. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Donald Trump's peace board invitation is a gift for Vladimir Putin - but it will disgust Ukraine. “So invading your neighbour is apparently no barrier to being an arbiter of peace” news.sky.com/story/donald...

Machado has also disgraced the prize. The committee should withdraw its award

Adam Tooze gave the inaugural 𝘓𝘙𝘉 Autumn Lecture, ‘Electrostates, Petrostates and the New Cold War’, at the New School in New York City on 27 October 2025. Watch the lecture in full here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLnx...

NEWS: Canada just checkmated the United States. Breaking with the U.S., Canada has struck a major deal with China: Ottawa will cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for dramatically lower tariffs on Canadian farm products.

Just want to stress that this was a woman who was simply trying to get to a doctor's appointment.

For anyone in the Crowborough area concerned by the new far right’s hostility to people seeking asylum:

Last week, we announced a plan to make child care universal. Today, applications are open for pre-K & 3-K. If your child is turning 3 or 4, apply now for the fall at: myschools.nyc

Oil billionaires profit. Workers struggle. Immigrants are scapegoated. ICE enforces fear. We deserve better than an oil oligarchy, and are proud to join Sunrise Movement in their call to: End wars for oil. End ICE. Stop the climate crisis. And tax billionaires out of existence.

1/2 Nothing indicates the moral fibre of our right wing politicians better than this story. A former Tory Chancellor tax dodger … Nadhim Zahawi defects to Reform UK after peerage bid ruled out by Tories www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

‘Xi Jinping has no clear deputy, no predecessor looking over his shoulder and no obvious rivals. He is, in the historian Geremie Barmé’s phrase, “chairman of everything”.’ @tomstevenson.bsky.social on the rise of Xi Jinping, online now from the next issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Please understand what it means when journalists are evacuating their family members out of town. In any other country, we would be approaching "foreign sanctions" territory

The Norwegian Nobel Prize committee has been forced to make a statement, declaring that the prize cannot be transferred. It's hard even to comprehend how stupid this has become

Peston Rigby and Kuenssberg should all be in jail for being “enemies of the country”. Former prime minister Liz Truss chews the fat with her muse Dan Wootton. It’s crazy stuff www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/con...

Our Spanish immersion daycare here in Minneapolis has put up 5 signs in the entry way saying it is private property, ICE isn’t welcome, ICE requires a signed Judicial warrant to enter, and that that they use E-verify in hiring. Fuck everybody from Trump down to his voters who made this our reality.

Keir Starmer promised to abolish the House of Lords. Instead he’s appointed Matthew Doyle, the man in charge of his, um, brilliant comms. It’s been a repeating story for more than 100 years app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/72007/...

Astonishing that Corbyn has had nothing to say about the protests in Iran - and the brutal regime crackdown.

Matthew Doyle handled No. 10 comms for 9 months. He's spent 27 years in spin. We know nothing about his views or values. So who better to sit in the House of Lords. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/wes...

German astronomer Martin Brendel took the first photograph of an aurora #OTD in 1892, at Alta fjord in northern Norway. Here’s the photo, alongside one I took from my back porch in Chicago, of all places, back in November. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️

David Dimbleby has raised an uncomfortable question: is it just possible that our royal family is....plain greedy ? www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/monarc...

How should a newspaper behave when its own country is at war? The Israeli newspaper @haaretzcom is both revered and reviled for the path it has chosen. My long read profile of a remarkable institution www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...