"I have a theory that I'm Banksy. When remember - do a little art and then erase my memory Men in Black style." -Nicolas Cage

Now it's all starting to make sense.

(can't make it because I'm in France)

Gah, would love to attend this. There is a question I'd like to put to this community. If you are attending, I wonder if you might be willing to ask it?

This looks v interesting but I'm in France, doubt I can make it. Open to public is a really nice touch

More, America has democratic governance party and a fascist coup party. That's not a sustainable situation that Dem-leaning voters can be expected to navigate through to safety. When Dems had/have fed power, they need to be willing to use it to break the fascism, or voters can't ultimately help.

As I remember they were allowed a brief honeymoon, but not for long

The vultures are circling, they sense the time is coming

It is rather conspicuously Noticed but not exactly confected, imv - in the sense that everyone always knew

Maybe Mandleson's appointment bringing the govt crashing down is that sort of consequence. Or perhaps it's a more Westminster story with not so much to do with US interests

I'd be ok with tight lipped public responses fronting a more realistic and urgent underwater peddling to get prepared. But if keeping the Trump sweet priority means we do things which increase our US dependence and give Trump kudos and leverage e.g. buying US weapons and splurging honours, we lose

Maybe it's a matter of which diplomatic norms one chooses to prioritise under pressure

Did we keep to diplomatic norms though? I mean I'm not saying I wanted a rap battle, but from my pov it's more like we compromised heavily on diplomatic norms to avoid upsetting Trump

Yeah
bsky.app/profile/nmwi...

Kinda, although if the cost of that is very bad decision making it's of less comfort. I guess I'd classify least bad as equivalent to good wrt decision making, even if the context means all the outcomes are gradations of bad

It's equally easy for us to excuse bad decisions made for bad reasons that turned out badly, rather than expecting even marginally more effective leadership

Congrats to Tim Cook, whose obituary will feature extended quotations from the president's uh praise

😯

This is the way 👇🏻 Or you can go timid/centrist, and forgo the passionate rallying of the anti-regime majority on the hope that's less bad that riling up the regime base would be. It's literally a political choice for the Dems to make

bsky.app/profile/chad...

old enough to remember this kind of Cold War propaganda

(not a Corbyn fan, don't care about the hat — but there seems to be a clear institutional bias at the BBC, and lack of accountability, which should concern everyone)

"Voters must forgo their personal preferences and interests and coalesce behind the Dem candidate, because we must all stand strong together against the evils of Trumpofascism."

"Sounds great! So the Dems are finally gonna lead the charge?😃"

"Lol no, dumbass"

Gotta wonder what marked Mandleson as so essential to the role that it was worth taking these heightened risks

bsky.app/profile/nmwi...

Shocked face

Worried all this Peter Mandelson business is going to distract from whatever the hell Keir Starmer's policy agenda is, and could undermine confidence in him with his supporter.

Gotta wonder what those skills were in this case
bsky.app/profile/nmwi...

bsky.app/profile/nmwi...

I suppose that operationally, the question for Robbins to judge was "does the vetting raise any issues that the PM does not already know, so already decided are ok". And given the bad stuff was mostly public domain already, it was easy to smooth it around to a "no, he already knows this stuff"

Ahem
bsky.app/profile/runn...

They don't know meme: "They don't know I have a fully scalable agentic workflow"

"They don't know I have a fully scalable agentic workflow"

"What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."