I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Stay free
Age gating VPNs is a truly horrible idea. Teenagers deserve some kind of private access to the internet – which might mean LGB resources, or access to contraception or abortion advice, or resources to help with parental abuse.
Shutting them off puts them in greater danger. This is just bad policy.
A perfect theory. In my experience a Krokodil, though not red, would also be acceptable.
Really good and thoughtful write-up of one of the most positive changes Labour is attempting to make, this:
We are moving inexorably to the end point of electoral chaos - five parties all tied on 19% in the polls, election to be decided by blindfolded chimps chucking coloured darts at a constituency map
Sometimes wonder if what the UK needs is a thinktank that doesn't do any new research, it just repeats obviously true statements that people try to ignore because they're inconvenient.
International students cross-subsidise home students. Your pension is paid for out of general taxation.
Adverts aren't meant to be a mirror of society, but to reflect the advertiser's openness to society as a whole. A photo of 10 people, including one in a wheelchair, doesn't say 10% of the UK are in wheelchairs, but it does signify that people in wheelchairs are welcome at the venue. Likewise adverts showing men as nursery teachers, women as builders, Asian people down the pub etc -- it's saying "you're welcome here, join us". And yes, that means including black people in adverts shown in parts of the UK where they are a minority. Too often we hear that people grew up avoiding something because they never saw people like them doing it -- and adverts that show the diversity of society fix that visibility problem by saying "yes, you can do this if you want". Isn't that a good thing?
The fuss over who appears in TV adverts misses the point...
People who have come to the United Kingdom legally, played by the rules and made it their home do not need to “go home”. This is their home.
I've written to Kemi Badenoch to give her the chance to reject these divisive calls from her frontbencher Katie Lam.
A young opposition politician once compared housing policy to a game of Buckaroo! - pile on too much and the donkey throws it all off.
Have we reached that point?
I've tried to answer that in this post (and you'll find out who the politician was...)
👇 👇 👇
longwall.substack.com/p/buckaroo-t...
You can't have a successful economy by kowtowing to bigots who want to close the country to the rest of the world. It'd be nice if a politician had the brains or guts to point this out.
Right, that's it. I'm founding a new populist party of the centre called Go Outside!
“Nigel Farage is wrong in principle, his approach is racist, and we oppose it”
“Nigel Farage is right on immigration, but he doesn’t have the skill or experience to deliver his plans”
At some point, the government has to pick *one* of these narratives, instead of veering wildly between the two.
I don't think Labour's policy agenda is a winning one, but combining some quite traditional leftwing economics with, essentially, not being willing to talk about how you are leftwing feels like the worst *possible* way to govern and campaign:
My piece on racism for @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/opinion...
People are gonna care about small boats regardless of what government does. The BBC has a small boats correspondent, TikTok is awash with it.
The government’s blunder has been trying to use legal migration to fix its small boats problem. Has made public finances and inflation worse to no good end.
woman holding an iPhone with a YouTube ad displaying which says 'we will end the scam ads'
We cannot allow a two-tier system where traditional broadcasters face scrutiny, while a digital giant like YouTube is allowed to mark its own homework.
It's time for Ofcom to treat YouTube adverts like TV and crack down on the scam ads.
47% of people think immigration is primarily illegal. There were 4% irregular arrivals in March
New YouGov polling. A monumental failure of our political class to educate, a monumental failure of our media to report fairly, for a generation
think this is sort of interesting as actually.....no you probably didn't need to do "more research" into it? you just had to trust the state and local authorities to know better than you when it came to vaccinating your child? not good that the internet has killed faith in institutions!
Terrific thread by Jonathan this. Since I was born, the area I grew up in has higher employment, has got older, has got healthier, became more likely to be in the private rented sector, got less religious, got less white. There is no non-bigoted reason to think the last of those is problematic.
Getting a bit tired of hearing this all the time if I'm honest. Yes, Britain has plenty of problems. Its public services are in a mess. It doesn't have an actual transport system. But it is *not* totally broken. Life for most people is far better than ever before.
Someone needs to set up a pro-joy, pro-success pressure group, that goes around telling people who write this stuff to get a better job and go out and do enjoyable things.
The unbelievable condescension we’re already seeing today towards working class people- suggesting they don’t travel to Europe or their kids might not want to go to university and study in Europe- is quite something to behold.
The promise was change. Not enough has changed. There is no compelling plan for change. Whichever way you slice it, this is a big problem.
NEW: My latest @theipaper column on why alarmist, exaggerated warnings from private schools about Labour’s VAT policy were given so much attention - and what it says about Britain. Read here👇
Last-minute spreadsheet wars between the Treasury and the OBR are ludicrous way to run a country, a ludicrous way to run an economy, a ludicrous way to fund public services and a ludicrous way to run the welfare system www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
personal liberties like.....changing your gender, supporting Palestine, vocally opposing decisions taken by the government? those personal liberties?
"Someone needs to ask the awkward question. And in formulating an answer they should start with geography. European and British security are indivisible. They always have been." Fantastic piece by @philipstephens.bsky.social:
Column. On the mad right-wing ARC conference, and how peculiarly frightened they all seem to be of completely made up things, while somehow never really mentioning real things at all.
www.thetimes.com/article/25dc...
A number of prominent UK Conservatives' statements about Donald Trump resemble one of those news stories that begins with a magazine feature about a new age mystic who believes he can talk to bears and ends with a newspaper article about a new age mystic being mauled to death by bears.
