Ben Coates

Newcastle to Nice? Berlin to Marseille? That would have been nice

It is my sincere belief that the architect for Tesco has never seen another building before

Premier Rob Jetten komt langs bij Turkse iftar in Goudse Schouwburg: ‘Lange rij voor selfie’ De Turkse iftaravond in de Goudse Schouwburg kreeg woensdag onverwacht hoog bezoek: minister-president Rob Jetten schoof aan bij het culturele evenement, dat zo’n 120 bezoekers trok.

Premier Rob Jetten komt langs bij Turkse iftar in Goudse Schouwburg: ‘Lange rij voor selfie’ www.ad.nl/gouda/premie...

Rob Jetten just made a surprise visit to the big iftar dinner in Gouda and I am torn between thinking this is a lovely thing for a PM to do and being appalled at his Steve Irwin clown boots

It was in the Tories’ 2010 manifesto

🎯

beats Lonely Planet!
🙏

By my calculation the US fuel price is now about €0.77 per litre

In the Netherlands the price is upwards of €2.28 a litre

If Americans had to pay European gas prices, Trump would be hanging from a lamppost by midnight

Good evening

Frits Bolkestein: “Hoe saaier de politiek, des te gelukkiger het land”

Actually quite tasty

No. No. NO. Stop it.

Dutch directness can be a bit much sometimes 😳

If you’re not on X any more it is easy to underestimate just how fascist Elon Musk has gone. Not just poking fun at the libs, but full on white power nationalism

You can take the guy out of apartheid South Africa but you can’t take the apartheid South Africa out of the guy

Synagogue in Belgian city of Liege damaged in explosion, VRT reports A synagogue ​in the ‌Belgian city of ​Liege ​was damaged by ⁠an ​explosion early ​on Monday, Belgian broadcaster ​VRT ​reported, citing local ‌police.

Synagogue in Belgian city of Liege damaged in explosion, VRT reports reut.rs/4aYhBmH

I think that for a lot of ordinary not-on-BlueSky Dutch people, politics is boring at the moment. Iran is terrible, Trump is terrible, but Jetten’s cabinet? Meh. Quite boring.
And that’s good. Politics should be for long periods a boring thing which most people barely have to pay any attention to

I’m also hearing good things about Stephen Blakeson

This looks apocalyptic

We have suffered our worst national humiliation since the Suez debacle, if not the fall of Singapore. This time, though, we lack the excuse of having been pressured by allies or attacked by foes. The decision to cower and plead neutrality even as Iranian proxies were lobbing ordnance at us was entirely our own. Sir Keir Starmer’s pusillanimity has left us looking weak, needy and duplicitous. And all for what? Anxiety about anti-Israel voters in constituencies like Gorton and Denton? Fear of crossing our human-rights obsessed Attorney General, Lord Hermer? Paywall down.

the UK right *really* wants Starmer to join the Iran War.

have they all gone mad, or?

There are all sorts of complicated social, economical, political reasons for Trump’s success in elections, but a big simple one is: millions of Americans get their news from outlets which will brazenly lie about what happens in order to make him look better
Who needs Pravda when you have Fox?

Nice to see, thank you - hope you enjoy it!

I find it revealing that the media organisations which seem to be genuinely thriving are mostly the prestige outlets which are willing to invest in longform analysis and deep reporting rather than the ones chasing top ten celebrity listicles

Oh, Mark. What has Trump got on you? A piss tape? Or something worse?

Just checking in on x dot com 🤪

There is literally no point helping Donald Trump. He will shit on you if you help and he will shit on you if you don't. There is no point taking any of his demands into account. Best to try to do the right thing

Just as Blair’s relatively “easy” wars in Kosovo and Sierra Leone etc encouraged him to overreach in Iraq, Trump’s relatively easy interventions in Venezuela, Syria, Nigeria etc encouraged him to overreach in Iran.
Unfortunately it’ll probably end the same way: with decades of strife and civil war

There was a time when I liked the Spectator but these days it seems every edition includes at least one article which is blatantly pro-Putin, pro-MAGA, casually pro-racism, just to ha ha own the libs.

Perhaps whoever does the next chummy panel or podcast with Gove can ask what the hell he’s doing

I wonder who he’s voting for

I enjoyed the Birds exhibition at @mauritshuis.bsky.social
this morning, curated by Simon Schama.
It’s not big - just one room really - but a carefully-chosen and thought-provoking collection of pieces, from Rembrandt to Leonardo da Vinci, Fabritius and Tracy Emin. Nice to see