“AI is basically sucking up all human knowledge and throwing it back at us - and charging a price.”
Talking Heads founding member David Byrne speaks to
@faisalislam.bsky.social about AI and its impact on creativity.
#Newsnight
So many bits of the British state now seem dysfunctional or sclerotic, the country faces immense external challenges, the political environment is both fluid and toxic, but a badger replacing Churchill on bank notes is somehow seen as a grave national crisis.
This is a frustrating column by Martin Wolf - which is sadly typical of a lot of economics commentary on GB energy.
It does identify some of the key causes of high electricity prices - including Britain’s high exposure to gas prices and rising network costs. But there’s a lot it leaves out…
Not the big story from the Mandelson files, but I just find this astonishing.
Here is Peter Mandelson, having been fired as US ambassador in September (and presumably knowing what else could come out re Epstein), making threatening noises about employment rights and how he "expects to be treated"
The competence issue matters because what is at stake here is not, as many commentators claim and, no doubt, some political activists and voters hope, that Labour need to respond to the by-election defeat with a ‘lurch to the left’. Setting an immigration policy which is fair, rational, and consonant with economic and demographic needs is not, in itself, ‘left-wing’. Operating an efficient and humane asylum process is not, in itself, ‘left-wing’. Making a clear distinction between immigration and asylum policies is not, in itself, ‘left-wing’. To think otherwise is to cede the idea that these are somehow ‘extreme’ propositions and that the policies of virtually zero immigration, mass deportation, and the near-total rejection of asylum seekers advocated by Reform and others are the ‘norm’ or ‘moderate’.
As @chrisgrey.bsky.social says, rejecting Mahmood's plans would not be a "lurch to the left" but simply about restoring a basic level of (economic, political and administrative) competence.
chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/real...
20 years occupying Afghanistan wasn’t enough to break the Taliban who are now stronger than ever, but sure the Iranian regime would surrender in a week and let DJT pick its leader. What were these people thinking.
The gulf between what people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East & what Tony Blair thinks people think of Tony Blair commenting on war in the Middle East is positively Badenochian.
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage want Britain to blindly follow Trump into this illegal war, even though the President has no plan for what comes next.
There is nothing patriotic about outsourcing Britain’s foreign policy to Donald Trump.
To see the right in the UK demand the country follows a US leader in his requirements for tribute to aggression with no plan devalues them and their arguments on any foreign relations. The radicalised traumatised right of politics resemble the revolutionary left of my childhood.
"It breaks my heart": UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher says "we're seeing staggering amounts of money, reportedly a billion dollars a day” being spent on the Middle East war, rather than addressing the world’s “huge humanitarian caseload.”
In the second half of 2025, one man accounted for almost 40% of all money donated to political parties in the UK: a crypto-billionaire who lives in Thailand.
Britain desperately needs to rewrite its party funding rules.
observer.co.uk/news/the-sen...
The Rightists currently trying to goad Starmer into joining the military attack on Iran will be the first (and loudest) to moan about displaced Iranians coming over here.
“Unconditional surrender” was the Allies’ demand in WWII. They backed it up by occupying Germany, Italy and Japan.
Is Trump prepared to send hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Iran, a nation of 93 million people, and to risk the resulting casualties? If not, this is simply bluster.
Here's Kathleen Stock on autism. I read it so you don't have to
This is a real video from the official White House account on a war that is currently killing people. I don’t know how the US is going to come back from this.
The post was “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY. 🇺🇸 🔥”
A sickening society is clear in these statistics
So why is it not in the news?
Powerful wake-up call from @chakrabortty.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
New post just out:
"Sovereignty for sale"
The UK is uniquely exposed to the power of US tech monopolies - from Palantir to AI and cloud services.
Why is it so dangerous? What are other countries doing? And what should we do?
(£/free trial)
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...
Just shows how much contempt Reform has for their own supporters. This is a policy that helps the kids of the wealthy educated liberal elites they claim to despise. And would harm the types of constituency they do well in.
FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?
Deluded. Labour lost about ten points during the course of the 2024 campaign. A strategic triumph it was not.
Much to my surprise, I have also become a tech sovereigntist. Tech fundamental to public and security systems should be under our control (sometimes in cooperation with similar countries- not US).
The current sovereign AI strategy is shockingly weak.
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...
Does anyone think that this - effectively describing people who came here at *our* invitation to work in care homes as would-be parasites on the welfare state - is what she meant?
Your regular reminder than a large majority of voters - and overwhelming majority of Labour voters - favour giving settled migrants access to the welfare state after five years or less. The Home Secretary is not reforming rules in line with public opinion. She is doing the opposite.
Jansen Ganesh is on fire in this column on the UK’s role in the Iran conflict
www.ft.com/content/eaee...
kind of crazy that if you have enough money and don't like what you see in the media, you can just buy up every film studio, news station, and social media app and change it
An economically, politically and morally bankrupt strategy.
Bad for individuals, bad for families, bad for businesses, bad for public services, bad for integration and cohesion.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
This
Europe Abandons Both Integrity and Influence on Iran in response to Trump’s strikes, European leaders have created an alternate reality to escape their hypocrisy. My piece @ForeignPolicy foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/03/e...
We've gone from Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn Rule that he articulated to Bush - “If you break it, you’ve bought it” - to the Trump rule: “you break it, they own it.”
