The Bishop of Birmingham has written to the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick about his comments about Handsworth

Thing is, if you want a conversation about integration, maybe it's worth talking about the policies that support integration, rather than your fleeting impression of the colour of people's skin in an area you came to do a Tik Tok video.

Interesting research - albeit confirming my priors. What the blog describes as "Christianism" is very recognisable - far right use of phrases about Christianity that are entirely dislocated from Christian doctrine.

Stamford Hill exists and co-exists because Handsworth exists and co-exists. Stamford Hill is only safe if Handsworth is safe too.

This is Shuranjeet Singh, standing in the allotment at St Michael's C of E Primary School in Handsworth, Birmingham, where he is a governor. I'm sure that Robert Jenrick can immediately tell by looking at him that he's working tirelessly on integration. IIRC, he has a Masters from Oxford.

If politics are going crazy in several European countries one after the other, I think it is time to go past blaming the failures of individual political actors (and there are quite a few, both in the UK and France) to looking at the systemic pressures our political systems are failing to deal with.

Tbh I’ve been wondering when someone was going to notice.

Someone shunted several cars into each other and then into the back of my car that my brother was borrowing. No damage to my car (let’s hear it for towbars), but obviously I have to report it to my insurance company so they can charge me more in future for no reason.

I'd not say I'm current, certainly can't say for certain - but my reaction was "Nothing". I haven't seen anything that does what I'd think might be necessary.

That every TV spot and discussion I have seen about the NHS has been about 'winning the next election' not 'so what, exactly, are we spending this money on and is that a good idea?' again shapes which MPs get rewarded and also forces smart MPs to sound stupid when they speak in public.

Wednesday’s @thetimes.com cartoon times.newsprints.co.uk/morten-morla...

A game on my system just updated, and required 76Gb of additional free space in order to do it. That's mental. Reminded me of when I thought "Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi" was excessive, requiring seven 3.5" high-density floppy disks (i.e. 10Mb, or approx 0.0132% of the update)

We’re heartbroken to learn that Dr Jane Goodall has passed away, aged 91. Dr Goodall was one of the true conservation giants of our time. Let’s honour her legacy by choosing to make a difference in the world - by protecting it. Thank you, Jane, for everything you did for our planet. 💚

Endorse this piece When I was an expert on an EU group, the UK legislative & policy framework from the 1960s race relations (later equality) acts were seencited as 'best practice' in Brussels I pointed out it also took organised bottom up anti-racism, ppl changing views, & leadership from the top

The grown-ups who know their stuff speak on paracetamol, pregnancy and autism. www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/n...

This more optimistic reading feels right to me. Ignore the positioning. Trump's shift seems rooted in the facts on the ground and the strong possibility that Russia's summer offensive has culminated in another stalemate, and hence failure.

statistic of the day

"Black and Asian people have increasingly equal opportunities to reach the top, but a viscerally and unacceptably unequal experience of public space" - @sundersays.bsky.social asks in @easterneye.bsky.social: 'Why are we going backwards on racism in Britain?' www.easterneye.biz/racism-in-uk...

The four flavours of the UK’s remaining news organisations! Only one of them has to scrape a toddler’s breakfast off their office desk every morning.

*Chef's kiss*

👇🏻

Love this.

A man genuinely came up to me on the street and said the Fabians were part of a new world order of control. Baffling that they can fit it in between pamphlets on prison reform.

A little bit of navel-gazing on the last twelve months of trying to run a start-up local news organisation with no investment or plan, entirely funded by readers. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-new...

"always thought of myself as a reasonably sophisticated consumer of news and able to spot online fakes" Easy to say, but how can you be sure? I've been working on a clinically-proven methodology that does exactly that 🧵

the obvious explanation for this is that until at least 1260 BC, the people of the outer hebrides lived for several hundred years and that their heads were interchangeable, much like lego figurines. the real mysteries are when they lost these abilities and how we can help them get them back

A credible and implementable strategy on small boats and asylum. First thing I've seen from any organisation that clears that bar. Excellent work.

The definite article.

Willpower alone is unlikely to defeat distraction machines with algorithms that constantly adjust to steal attention. We explain why this should concern economists

Despite easily being the most British fighting vehicle ever developed, the mock-Tudor AT-AT programme was sadly cancelled due to budgetary concerns

IIRC, when this kicked off I saw a presentation from the digital team behind this on their strategy - standardisation, absolute minimum customisation, modular, good interfaces...because it was always going to be temporary and needed to be broken up. Essentially, what everyone should do anyway 😁

I read the lede, clicked through and went "Wait, what? This is nowhere near as funny as usual..." and then realised it wasn't actually from @roberthutton.co.uk

This may be terrible in so many ways...but it is such an effective political trap.

A while back I "vibe coded" a little site that aggregated tech news from 40 odd sources I curated, including newsletters. Worked absolutely fine. Randomly last night the AI deleted my database of sources and replaced it with ones of its choosing.

Slightly diminish a book: Sandpile

I'm not in any way complacent about Reform's prospects, but there's some hard-biting reality waiting around the corner...

Live scenes at @instituteforgovernment.org.uk: "A reshuffle you say? I'll get the content pack ready..."

Because most politicians are tacticians who can't see beyond the end of the week, and a lot are just not that bright, they might be celebrating having claimed a senior Labour scalp with this. They shouldn't be. Have they / are they / will they meet the same standard?

There’s a dormant London Centric Twitter account I set up and barely used, which still has all the default settings including notifications. Anyway this is the second time today it’s pushed a Tommy Robinson tweet at me. Given millions of Brits will have the app, god knows how many are getting this.

Outstanding news that should be shared.

I could use some help - I have a money-saving suggestion for Hampshire Highways and Highways England. They keep printing up signs with expected dates for roadworks completion, which is somewhere between wild optimism and hubris...but I want to come up with the best alternative.

A highly underrated strategy...

This was the best discussion of LLM tech I've heard, and I say that as a former director of policy at the chartered institute for IT. Tbf, in the first 5 minutes I worried it was going to be like every other naff AI discussion that these days I try to avoid - but I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Is the next President of the United States going to have to abandon the Oval Office and just use one of the other offices? At this rate, by the time Trump’s term ends, any attempt to remove the tacky gold junk is going to do structural damage.

Bought a calculator for the youngest for secondary school and OH MY GOODNESS are they both CHEAP and AMAZING! I'm pretty sure you could have run a global thermonuclear war or whatever on this thing when I was at school. Always surprises me, even though I know it.

I am developing a theory that sketchwriters act like boron rods in the nuclear reactor of our public discourse (they stop the reaction getting out of control). (1/3) thecritic.co.uk/what-a-silly...

Reality bites. Not sure how easy it will be for Trump if he decides vaccines are ok now.

Remember interacting with Darren Jones a few times when he was first elected, being impressed, thinking he'd only get better with experience. I think this is a good move for him, for No10 and for the country. Also, he's 38. He's still got a lot of career ahead of him.