Andy

Slightly amended so I can fit this here: I am writing to you as an immigrant who chose to make the UK my home. As someone who is now also a British citizen. And as a German-born historian who understands where the complete normalisation of the far right can end. I write to say: For shame! I first came to the UK in the 1990s for a visit with my grandmother. Objectively, much was backwards here. No mixer taps in the bathroom; awful ‘bread’; and strings had to be pulled to switch on lights. But however I felt about this, my own string had been pulled: I loved this Cool Britannia. It was quite possibly then that I decided that the UK was to be my home. When I arrived to settle here permanently, I made a choice: to contribute my skills, my knowledge—all I have to offer—to this country rather than another one. I am deeply disgusted by your comment today that immigration has done ‘incalculable damage’ to the country. This is the language of the far right. It is insulting, hateful & will fuel xenophobia. And it is just wrong. Migration is a normal part of the human existence. None of us would be where we are without it. Open your fridge and you will see migration. Immigrants help make the UK tick every single day, whether we clean toilets in our hospitals or provide care for the elderly; whether we empty our bins or carry out cancer research. We are mothers, sons-in-law, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbours and colleagues. I ask you not tell me that you do not mean me. I know that you do not—at least not primarily—mean a white woman from Europe who has a PhD. But who do you mean? And, much more importantly, who do you think those racists who were engaged in riots on our streets last summer think you mean? Anti-immigration narratives have defined UK policymaking for the best part of two decades. And fundamentally so. They were the key driver in delivering Brexit, for example, and, as such, have directly limited the rights and opportunities of British citizens.

This obsessive focus on immigration as the ‘problem’—that is the real problem. And it is consistently delivering poor outcomes for the UK. Instead of tackling this, you are choosing to consolidate it, sowing divisions along the way. You may point me to polling and tell me that this is what voters want. Do they? I am not surprised at all that over 50% of voters might say they want to see immigration reduced if that is the question they are being asked. What we need to know is what they would answer to the question: “Would you like to see immigration reduced? What this would mean for you and your local community is XYZ.” That is not how surveys can ask questions, but governments absolutely can choose to make policy using such a more informed position. Prime Minister, you continue to talk a lot about making the tough choices. But let’s be clear: setting immigrants up as the ‘other’, as a scapegoat—describing us as a threat ‘pulling the country apart’, a ‘squalid chapter’, a risk that might make the UK an ‘island of strangers’—these are not tough choices at all. These are the easy choices. They are the choices that populists make who have no solutions to the real problems a country faces. What I would like to know, Prime Minister, is what you will do when your policies lead to the implosion of the UK’s Higher Education sector. What you will tell communities when they can no longer provide any care for the elderly. The policies you announced today will not solve anything at all. They will have exclusively negative impacts. For those immediately affected; for our communities; and for our economy. Being pro-immigration—it is progressive, yes, but the much more crucial point is that it is also the most pro-UK policy approach that any politician in the country can pursue. And you are choosing to do the opposite. This, Prime Minister, is the real damage—and it will be very calculable indeed. Tanja Bueltmann

My letter to the Prime Minister. #immigration

This is happening under Labor/Labour Governments.

They’re meant to be the Governments that take us *away* from fascism…not towards.

Outstanding

I’ve heard that before…

Just call it ‘Ramsay Highway’

Who's the worst #Neighbours Shane?

LIKE for creepy,T-shirt under suit "lothario"

RT for hapless ex-con "inventor"

#AgesAgosNeighboursToday

Dubai influencers share near-identical videos with footage of Dubai crown prince | LBC Videos featuring the caption ‘I know who protects us’ have been circulating on social media

I had no idea until this all started that the UAE licences and pays many influencers to live there and write positively about the regime.

That puts a whole new spin on things.

Propagandists in pocket of regime.

It's why all the messaging is the same.

www.lbc.co.uk/article/duba...

Brilliant. An expat im Dubai has a startling revelation, by @stephencollins.bsky.social

Daily Mail headline: IRAN WAR: DAY FOUR U.S. lambasts 'hand-wringing, pearl-clutching' Starmer as Kemi says he's 'scared' of his own voters

The Sun: INACTION THIS DAY PM wont hit Iran back Rift grows with US Prez

Have we woken up in America? The deeply unpatriotic Daily Mail and Sun seem to now be supporting a menace of a foreign leader over our own govt and national security. They are really only loyal to their own vested interests. Which are a direct threat to our own. The routine betrayal is sickening.

It’s a running joke in academia that Matt Goodwin is bad at maths.

This sort of thing is why: the combined Labour/Green vote could have split in any way possible and Goodwin would have finished 2nd or 3rd. He did not lose because progressives coordinated. He lost *in spite of them not doing so*.

This was really interesting. Charting the relative racism of Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, Reform, DUP over time.

They noticed!

Incredible. The Labour government's best policies, scarcely talked about by the media... and Reform want to tell everyone and draw everyone's attention: "Look everyone, look, look what Labour did here!"

As well as being vile little fascists, these people are also really, really, really dumb.

A reminder, one day ahead of a by-election in which the Greens are favourites to defeat Reform, that the Daily Mail owner's wife recently donated £50,000 to Nigel Farage's party

Sign. Near an old railway station in Devon. "Great Western Railway NOTICE. It is forbidden for vagrants, beggars, itinerant musicians and females of doubtful reputation to enter these premises." There's what looks like a black drainpipe next to it, but this is actually the station's old 1940s "soda funnel" where country urchins from the area waiting for their fathers to return from war by rail would gather around and collectively suck a shit, early version of orangeade, made from carrots and soil, out of the bottom of it.

FFS, just go ahead and ban ALL the best people, why don't you.

Holy Moly!

A telescope image of Jupiter. Its stripes clearly visible

An image of the quarter waxing moon

An image of Uranus. A bright circle among many stars

The blue oyster nebula very faintly visible among many stars

Clear sky for the first time in weeks, so captured Jupiter, the Moon, Uranus, and a bonus blue oyster nebula.

There’s a planetary parade and you can see Venus and Saturn too but there was too much haze in London for the telescope to play ball

www.iflscience.com/six-planets-...

Prior to 2015, if any candidate for elected office had begun a public statement or tweet with this sentence, he or she would have been laughed out of public life.

Now, Americans re-elect them as commander-in-chief. I will never allow myself to become numb to his insanity.

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...

Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling.
If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Activists from the anti-billionaire campaign group "Everyone Hates Elon" went to the Louvre museum in Paris where they hung a framed photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble on February 19.

Nigel Farage accused of ‘Maga stunts’ for saying he was denied access to Chagos Islands The Reform UK leader flew to the Maldives for a day despite not having permit to visit nearby archipelago

Nigel Farage accused of ‘Maga stunts’ for saying he was denied access to Chagos Islands
Reform UK leader flew to the Maldives for a day despite not having permit to visit nearby archipelago

The Crossness Pumping Station in London

The Crossness Pumping Station in London, built in 1865, is a Victorian sewage facility famous for its ornate ironwork, cathedral-like interior, and role in revolutionizing urban sanitation infrastructure worldwide history.

Probably. Dairy milk isn’t allowed to have the word chocolate on anymore as it doesn’t have enough cocoa solids

😢 oh no, how come

Please share far and wide I need to give @desdemoor.bsky.social the send off he deserves

www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/funeral-fo...

It feels like the start of their McLaren era all over again

Stroll: ‘yeah look at our combined 32 race victories’
Alonso: ‘I think you’ll find none of those are yours’

Kinda weird that the party that controls the House, the Senate, and the White House claims there's rampant voter fraud.

Again, I think the request is that we assume that besides this remark he was perfectly normal and therefore, how could they have known?