The U.S. Has Ditched Professional Diplomacy The first priority is Trump’s image, not national interests.

It is interesting to compare to the UK with the political appointment of Mandelson and others.

foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/21/t...

Also I rather suspect the academic achievement gap - boys now trail girls substantially in the aggregate - has a lot to do with these sorts of attitudes pushing male teachers out of primary school education.

It is bad and false to tell boys and men that they aren't and cannot be nurturers.

Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo

This is so heinous, I do not know what to say. This shit devastates me.

Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/w...

Verge headline: Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want by Elizabeth Lopatto Illustration of a brain melting in the sun

"In the place of problem-solving technology, companies have jumped on successive bandwagons like NFTs, the metaverse, and LLMs. What these all have in common is that they are not built to really solve a market problem. They are built to make VCs and companies rich."

Read more: buff.ly/Yu2AUFy

You're looking at velvet malachite, Cu2CO3(OH)2.

A few warnings:
Please resist the urge to touch it to feel how soft it is.
Absolutely /do not/ lick it.
Keep far away from any Supermen.
If a wingéd creature emerges, do not agree to any pacts.

Let's talk about the science here.

Don't know why but I'm suddenly overcome by this urge to divest myself of dollar denominated assets

Important thread. Top civil servants like Robbins always prefer the stiletto to the axe.

The Great Tolkien Reread: The Hobbit - Lawyers, Guns & Money [A previous version of this essay appeared on Asking the Wrong Questions in October 2010] The most that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor fellow doing it […]

The Great Tolkien Reread: The Hobbit

Well, I can now officially state that the 2 pale horsemen of AI & Private Equity caught up with me, and as such, I was made redundant this month. A solid innings of 7 years.
If you know of anywhere in need of a particularly sarcastic Snr PR Manager, please do cattleprod them in my direction.

Well let's see how this strategy of telling "white liberals" to "fuck right off" works out in the local elections

I think that particular train has so long left the station it’s gone through the channel tunnel and is currently close to marseille.

He's just so bad at being in charge. They've actually done some good things but it's as if they're embarrassed to shout it. If he falls it should be for that, not for manufactured faux outrage. It's all so boringly trivial.

Wow. They’re so thick it’s almost impossible to credit.

We do not have 'rational policy' now. We have a government with a patchy policy record that has set major traps for itself in the 2027-9 fiscal events. The rightwing press are not why Labour have shed half their votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens - those voters do not read it!

Morgan McSweeney: resigned for telling the Prime Minister to make Peter Mandelson US ambassador.

Olly Robbins: fired for not telling the Prime Minister not to hire Peter Mandelson.

Keir Starmer: completely blameless and apparently without responsibility for anything.

Nobody believed they would stick to that plan. I was fully expecting them to go "oh, god, this is way worse than we thought, we're revoking the Jeremy Hunt NI bribes" as an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM, five minutes after coming into office, and they would have been right to do so.

Associated with the colour red and based in North London increasingly looking like they've blown the first good chance at glory in over a decade, the Labour Party,,,

I'm hearing Sir Keir Starmer has kissed the badge and declared that he's always wanted to stay with his current team and has no intentions of leaving

One of the very best.

No consequences for murdering thousands of Lebanese civilians, but destroy a statue of Jesus and do jail time.

What a messed-up world!

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

We are therefore left in a curious position. The civil service is effectively saying the appointment was politically questionable, but that once made, the processes operated as they should. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister appears to argue the reverse: that the appointment was defensible, but that officials should somehow have stopped it after the fact. That he should have been told he could not have what he wanted. An unrealistic expectation of officialdom-and a complete failure in the relationship between state and elected government. Beyond the particulars, the fact of Robbins' testimony once again brings the Prime Minister's political judgment into question. It is clear that No 10 overreacted in the wake of the initial Guardian story. They could have stuck to the formulation that there was no clear pass or fail and clung to Robbins. Instead, for the sake of a news cycle and to give Starmer yet another fall guy at which to appear indignant, they handed Robbins a microphone to tear No 10 to shreds- an extraordinary act of prime ministerial self-harm. Labour MPs will inevitably be left wondering if this is just one mistake too many, albeit on an issue about which most of the public are unaware or uninterested.

An accurate summary of the current position

Starmer’s handling of the vetting story has somehow become a bigger problem for Starmer than the vetting story. Extraordinary.

The King, the Bling, and A Fraught State Visit As the UK celebrates the 100th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth this week, her pristine legacy might ultimately be seen as a steaming pile of gilded ordure that threatens to bury her descenda...

Tina Brown and the Kings visit.

Brilliant as usual

tinabrown.substack.com/p/the-king-t...

One consequence of the last week is that it will further gum up the wheels of the state (already on a go slow on many issues because officials think the PM is a goner) with people covering their own backs.

Camilla Cavendish on bbcr4 says the media would be much more forgiving if politicians were more ready to change their policies and accept they made a mistake.

Yeah, really?

“U-TURN” ever heard the media say that ?

Transcript: Trump’s Secret War Fears Leak as GOP Panics: “Alarm Bells” As Trump worries about becoming Jimmy Carter, a journalist who focuses on the imperial presidency explains why events are slipping away from Trump—and why that gives Democrats an opening.

Trump’s Secret War Fears Leak as GOP Panics: “Alarm Bells”

As Trump worries about becoming Jimmy Carter, a journalist who focuses on the imperial presidency explains why events are slipping away from Trump — and why that gives Democrats an opening.

The rather bizarre situation where a person aged 25 cannot legally buy tobacco products but a 26 yr old can.

If you want to ban tobacco, ban tobacco. /2

1. In fact, it was OR who followed process, punctiliously and with integrity — he’s literally a subject matter expert on the DV process which he convincingly demonstrated.

This makes a mockery of his sacking which appears unjustified and process-less.

On reflection, I think post the Robbins appearance, KS will have to resign — OR torpedoed the government’s line to the HoC in three crucial regards.

DPGs: Dating Prevention Goggles