Ben Combe

This, all of this

A bbc news headline from today reading “two more horses die on final day of Cheltenham”

Is this normal? It doesn’t feel like it should be normal

This was a great session yesterday. Catch it up to hear explorations of why some men get pulled into the Manosphere

Had flashbacks to when I was (decades ago!) a young guy trying to get to grips with what this thing of being an adult man actually meant to and for me

Empathy both ways is key here

Lin-Manuel Miranda has so much to answer for

Badenoch said if she was prime minister HMS Dragon would have left a week ago. Presumably with its doors hanging off and with no weapons onboard.

Like New Labour getting rid of the hat thing in the Commons, this is one of those changes that makes you go "fucking finally!"

Specifically comparing the 2026 Oscars (especially Best Picture) with the 2024 Tory leadership election

I’m so tempted to write a long thread about what this year’s Oscars can teach us about democratic campaigning in 2026

Labour MPs just voted to expand free school meals to half a million more children, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty.

The Tories and Reform UK voted against.

Only Labour will give children growing up in our country the best start in life.

In case you ever think the public is paying attention to what happens in Parliament - Ed Davey has attacked Trump in almost every PMQs he's done and still less than half of people think he's anti-Trump.

The fact that they’ve opened a Pret in Westminster Station is both a savvy business move and a crisis for my personal finances

Section from the Chilcot Inquiry operational guidance saying: You should be concerned if the real world is sending you the following signals:  The desired end-state looks increasingly unachievable.  There is divergence between what is actually happening and understanding of it at the strategic decision-making level.  There is a gap between public rhetoric and our ability to deliver. Does the narrative lack credibility?  Available resources fall short of the ambition; and there’s no flex should something go wrong.

Following section from the Chilcot Operational guidance, from after the first image saying: Decisions are being made, but some parts of the Department or Government aren’t implementing them.  Additional commitments are being assumed without full exposure of the implications at the strategic decision- making level – the tactical tail is wagging the strategic dog.  Something is obviously wrong, but no- one is questioning it. You should be concerned if decision-making is displaying any of the following tendencies:  Collective understanding feels more like ‘groupthink’ than a rational assessment of the situation based on diverse viewpoints.  No-one is applying critical thinking to the options; or it feels like you’re working off a best-case scenario.

Third and final image from the Chilcot Operational Guidance about signs you should be concerned by, saying: The strategy is weak; poorly articulated; unchanging when everything around it is; or being re-written constantly without ever being finalised (and with no evidence that it can be or is being implemented).  Effective decision-making is clearly impaired by structures, processes or tribalism (for example, people are fighting their institutional corners rather than thinking about the national interest).  Excessive self-confidence (‘hubris’) or inertia are shaping our involvement (‘something like this worked before, so will again’).  The timescales for decision-making are being compressed by politics/military planning rather than by real world developments.  We aren’t stopping doing the things that aren’t working.

Given how the next days & weeks could go, as well as the Government taking heed of the cautions Britain has learnt the hard way, which it is, it would be good if the Official Opposition and unofficial opposition did too

The extent to which Kemi & Nigel and their outriders dismiss this is shocking

A copy of The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss, propped up on the knees of a weeping idiot.

Fuck you, Patrick Rothfuss, for your beautiful book about trauma and carrots

Sheltering together during war reminds us how precious life and community are. I’m writing this from Tel Aviv... I was meant to welcome a group of New Israel Fund supporters to see the work they… | ... Sheltering together during war reminds us how precious life and community are. I’m writing this from Tel Aviv... I was meant to welcome a group of New Israel Fund supporters to see the work they mak...

My old boss @daviddavidi-brown.bsky.social is currently in Israel sheltering from drone attacks, but even through that he found time to write a beautiful peace about the necessity of @nifuk.bsky.social's work.

Mercy begins in the womb.

www.linkedin.com/posts/david-...

This is awful news. I met her once when she was a PPS - my boss had to miss a Health Question at the last minute because she was ill. Ashley found our office and came by the check on her. There's no reason she had to, she just wanted to check in. We need a lot more people like her.

Labour are boosting the economy everywhere in Britain, building a new industry to sell to the world, and cleaning up our air. Reform are committed to cutting jobs in clean power. Their policies will cost jobs, increase natural disasters, and make your kid's air more harmful. That's the argument.

Net Zero is important for climate change and it's a good target, but good jobs, cheap power, and clean air? That's something everyone can get behind.

Anyone who wants to spend money on other things can say they'd pay for it by cutting Net Zero, so if we put Net Zero front and centre they get to make that argument. I think we can win the fight over clean energy, but framing everything around Net Zero is too detatched from people's lives.

Net Zero is a huge long-term win that will lead to better lives, cheaper bills, and fewer natural disasters. In the short-term it requires spending money, and while that is beneficial, it is also easy to attack.

A general rule of thumb - if you think something is both good policy and good politics, you should interrogate it twice as hard, because your instinct will be to think that something you want will also be popular.

This article cites no Labour policy changes from the Manifesto, because there haven't been any. The DESNZ and DSIT budgets are skyrocketting and the Industrial Strategy put £30bn per year into clean power. The idea that Keir Starmer has abandoned net zero has no basis in evidence.

Parts of my life that are directly, materially worse because of choices made by George Osborne:

Finances (70k+ of student debt)
Health (still waiting for that MRI)
Work (there are good people at IPSA but that system sucks)

Just off the top of my head

No, Labour have not put out an attack van. Nevermind the contents, there's no imprint!

After a day of canvassing in a super-marginal by-election where I saw some truly baffling Green tactics, someone the thing that has me most concerned is that trains at Crewe go into and out of platforms both ways. Surely this is a disaster waiting to happen?!

If there’s one thing I want from the Great British Railways app, it’s mandatory listing of which trains are peak, off-peak, and super-off-peak

Image shows part of the front page of the ‘A University of the Air’ White Paper, published in February 1966.

60 years ago, the ‘University of the Air’ White Paper set out a radical vision that still drives us today: your background or location should never be a barrier to education.

That became the @openuniversity.bsky.social, proving that great education truly can reach anyone, anywhere.

In the past 2 days senior(ish) Reform politicians have called for:

- opponents to be murdered
- to undo the sexual revolution and a regulated sexual market
- mass purges of the civil service
- to undo renters and workers rights
- mass deportations

This is a party that is entirely spinning out

This would:

Bring back fire and rehire
Make it easier for bosses to take workers’ tips
Make it harder to take bereavement leave
Make it easier for companies to cover up sexual harassment

And that’s just the Employment Rights Act

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor post-arrest picture hung in the Louvre Everyone Hates Elon, a protest group, placed He’s Sweating Now — taken after King’s brother spent 11 hours in custody — in the Paris museum

The crucial difference between this protest and the Just Stop Oil ones is that this is funny and theirs made people angry: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor post-arrest picture hung in the Louvre

www.thetimes.com/article/9cb8...

Here’s my reply to your letter yesterday Zack Polanski - a reply that took you three weeks to draft