almost hilariously bad news

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

I see the fearsome no-bullshit no-snowflake chads running America are frightened about marauding "gangs of wine mums".

Don't tell them about the book club triads or the knitting circle mafia, they'll wet themselves.

New Reuters poll finds Trump is no longer in positive territory *even on immigration*:

I may be tired and a little hoarse, but as I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up.

I can't stress enough that there is always a tweet.

Disappointed that a British groupchat scandal is like ‘a Tory MP you have never heard of was quite rude to another one you’ve never heard of on WhatsApp’ but the Yanks are just straight up ‘texted WW3 plans to random journo’. Do better, British security liabilities.

This, incidentally, is what happens when you politicise the bureaucracy and base appointments on personal loyalty to the leader. A complete degradation of governing capacity.

The NHS is improving rapidly under Labour.

You won’t hear it from the right-wing press, but the stats speak for themselves.

5 *evidence-backed* ways it’s getting better:

Musk says on X that feds must explain what they did last week — or resign Musk says on X that feds must explain what they did last week — or resign

All federal workers will shortly receive an email asking what they did last week — and that if employees fail to respond, it will be taken as a resignation, Elon Musk wrote in a post on X Saturday.

🇺🇦

Everyday comes another media story designed to make a particular group of people very cross.

Last week, The Times, GB News, and the usual Twitter accounts were fuming at the fact that the NHS hires “expensive” diversity staff 🙄

Let’s dig into the article, shall we?

🧵

1/

Reminder: Zelenskyy refused to leave Kyiv as bombs fell. Donold hid in a bunker from protesters with cardboard signs.

VAT on private school fees puts Edinburgh state schools at capacity Majority of the capital’s 15 private schools are understood to have lost pupils, dispersed to state schools throughout the city

There are around 10k private school kids in Edinburgh.

51 have moved to state schools in January.

As I've repeatedly said the effects of VAT on fees are going to be minimal.

www.thetimes.com/article/ab42...

Employing 350 local people, Alliance Healthcare is a significant employer in our area. Today I visited the site to meet with Marie Evans, Managing Director of Alliance Healthcare UK, Scott Balfour, Service Centre General Manager and @usdawunion.bsky.social
Scottish General Secretary, Tony Doonan

my prediction is that 2025 will be the year BlueSky truly comes of age as people realise their main social media feed doesn't need to be a permanent toxic bin fire

Starmer: "I think only a few months ago it would have been unthinkable for the things that have been said about Jess Philips without all political parties and the leader of the opposition to call it out in terms...to condemn it..."

That Jenrick's language is now out well to the right of Farage is further evidence for my thesis that politicians who ahem adopt a fluid approach to their views depending on the audience always misjudge it. They go overboard, they ham it up too much, they don't quite know where the full stop is.

One week apart

Excellent analysis as ever.

Was just writing a post to the same effect. I keep seeing people say Labour should do something in response. But what exactly?

Only just caught up with this, but it’s an incredibly important piece of writing for anyone concerned with the future of liberal democracy. And @hardeepmatharu.bsky.social is absolutely right - the liberal
Left doesn’t get this. It needs to, and to articulate a real alternative.

“Hundreds of thousands”

This ketamine-addled man is insane.

Elon Musk Is Posting Nonstop Falsehoods About 'Grooming Gangs' Musk’s posts, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views on X, are his latest effort at inserting himself into UK politics.

Elon Musk has posted ***300 TIMES*** about UK "grooming gangs" in the last ten days.

Including: Calling for UK government officials to be hanged and jailed; demanding the removal of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister; suggesting Tommy Robinson be released from prison.

www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

My god.

Hey Fabrizio do you plan to start posting here too?

Read the room, Zuck! Literally no one is asking for this bot-like invasion…

🚨Facebook and Instagram to Unleash AI-Generated 'Users'.

This year will be available again on 2024+1.

Brilliant news!

This afternoon the House of Commons voted on the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 👇