Still reeling from the Stanford report on Brexit. Reduced GDP by up to 8% and investment by as much as 18%. The UK Treasury would have £40 billion more each year if Britain had remained in the EU. Devastating self-immolation.

The power of ordering from an indie bookstore!

The man last time rocking the small white coffin of his baby — murdered by a precise russian missile strike in Ternopil. The men having power to bring real peace and punish the aggressor — choosing instead to punish the victim, pushing Ukraine toward capitulation. Two worlds.

Brave, beautiful Georgia! 🇬🇪

🙄 Oh well, at least we got the lies out there first, that’s the main thing.

It's unsurprising Trump is trying again to blackmail Ukraine into surrender. Keep in mind that Ukrainians have always been clear-eyed about the fickleness of the US as an ally. Ukraine has never been a US proxy. It fights for its independence and sovereignty and a US betrayal won't change that.

Finally, a thread on Bluesky that warns the soul.

Apropos for today

Wow. Mesmerising!

Hamlet quite for today: ‘Foul deeds will rise, though all the earth overwhelm them to men’s eyes.’

With . . . What? Feelings?

A sloppy editing job is poor form and bad journalism, but let’s stop pretending the BBC in any way was misleading viewers or undermining Trump’s character by creating an untrue narrative.

NEW The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim By me. Enjoy. emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

What the husband @mjowen174.bsky.social says is true. It’s been a bit quiet in my shop lately. If you’re looking for #Christmas cards and gifts please have a look at my website. gailmyerscough.co.uk A repost would be lovely too.

Happy 56th anniversary to “Sesame Street,” which made its broadcast debut #OnThisDay in 1969.

Pithy summary

"Seizing Brexit opportunities to deregulate" was mostly unspecified magic fairy pixie bullshit then, and it's not going to get any more realistic in the hands of a bunch of Reform clowns who don't know how anything works, don't care to learn and disdain anyone that might.

Great to know Trump is still moving. That’s great. Very reassuring. Soon they’ll be reassuring us he’s breathing.

A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women 🧵

Brilliant - and a warning

Notable

This is why history teachers are so important. This poor man thinks that unless you’re descended from fourth and fifth century immigrants, you’re not English. If only they’d studied the Norman Conquest at his school, he’d know you have to be a descendant of French Vikings.

Also, journalists should watch for who stops clapping first when the PM gives a speech. That’s where the real news is.

This is so grim. apple.news/AYGSac6XNSWu...

Astounding.

Great investigation of the Nazis, racists and criminals mobilising the flag-on-lamp-posts movement. This is the kind of journalism that the national media could and should have conducted: manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-...

All this whingeing about wanting your country back. I’d quite like go back to 2012 when I felt proud of this country, but we don’t have time machines and we can’t recreate that world because grifters broke it all from 2016-2024. As Cormac McCarthy put it, “When things are gone, they’re gone.”

I guess that’s fine if they’re the ones to move out

Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community. Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.

A majority of voters, and a plurality of white voters, think that Reform is a racist party with racist policies.

It makes me angry because I know it would have infuriated my father and his mates. Nothing on this Earth annoyed them as much as people who had not been there trying to muscle in on the action - and appropriate what had gone on. He'd have despised it all and them in particular.

Something I can't get over with the Sarah Pochin comments is that it's not just racist, it's also pathetic? Like oh wittle Sarah doesn't like the wittle adverts is it? Get a grip, you're a grown woman and member of parliament, stop being a snowflake and find a real problem to deal with

Another reminder for this: Yesterday's blog post. Education researchers publish obviously false claims about internal exclusion. Part 1 andrewold.substack.com/p/education-...

It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once: — Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing — Against raising the minimum wage — Buys foreign imports because they're cheap

Great thread explaining truths about manufacturing and importing that many people would benefit from understanding

Looks brilliant!

Ah yes, we take keeping our waterways clean very seriously in the U.K., don’t we. Doesn’t matter who you are. Unless you are dumping millions of litres of raw sewage / in that case carry on. But we won’t have coffee in our drains.

Honestly think Trump is now lost to his dementia/cognitive decline. We are all living with his delusions, and at the mercy of his manipulators, until such time as he’s replaced.

“The truth no longer matters, all you have to do is go viral”

Yep I agree. We have a duty to students to protect the ability to learn without selling it out to AI. Also from a Ed point of view the best use of technology in schools is in making information accessible for example speech to text or changing font sizes, or captions. AI isn't teaching anything.

I was reminded of this post from 2017 which, it serms, is at least as relrvant now as it was then. If we build a system based on assumptions of inability, the system will reproduce underachievement. horatiospeaks.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/i...

This is why we can’t have nice things. A lengthy article claiming to analyse the problems with U.K. growth which fails to mention a)14 years of increasingly wasteful government under Tory rule and b) Brexit. It’s not just unserious, it’s ‘small state’ propaganda. apple.news/AfyExr4KRRam...

The double blow of “VAR is bad” + “now I can’t even appear gracious in my VAR is bad position”. Read Daisy Christodolou’s excellent book on VAR, people!

First, they came for the puppies, but I did not speak up.

1/2 Torturers also say this. 2/2 Different point. By this logic Vance himself should stop complaining all the time. Everything has been handed to him, and yet he’s a grievance machine.

This just a few weeks after many of Robinson’s supporters were doing Nazi salutes and shouting Nazi slogans at his march in London. Absolutely insane stuff.

Big "Hurrah for the blackshirts!" moment for the Express.

Tonight in #WestCork

Trump Asks JD Vance To Research Whether President Allowed To Kill Vice President https://theonion.com/trump-asks-jd-vance-to-research-whether-president-allowed-to-kill-vice-president/