To be fair, Wes Streeting would surely have people dashing to the Greens even faster!

If Downing Street / Starmer weren't told that Mandelson failed his vetting, that's because they had made clear they did not want to be told about any impediments to appointing him. And for those impediments to be made to go away.

There is absolutely no other plausible explanation.

As always, the urtext of Trump:

“The former official said he doesn't think Trump is playing ‘the sort of three-dimensional chess people ascribe to decisions like this. More often than not he's just eating the pieces.’"

Also, sadly, not amazing!

Their supporters hear this stuff and change their worldview around their leaders.

It's weird, because it also has a flavour of comparing the person to Christ, which implies you think they're good, no?

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Does, er, FIFA have opinions on host countries providing safety for visiting teams...?

Most accurate portrait of modern culture currently available

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Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google.

My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence!

go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

Bombing a girls school = unmatched skill, apparently.

Useful chart! Though a bit inevitable that there'll be some disproportion, but helps put things in perspective!

Hey, this is unfair. Those exact same people also bang on about women's shelters, never having donated a dime to one, and kids health (don't transition edition) and bone density and and... (A random jumble of concerns that all have only hating trans people as the thing in common.)

To be fair, it a silly headline on an article advocating for change in the electoral system. Which on current polling will produce an almost totally random result!

Seems worth holding back on the lawyers till a couple more polls confirm whether the effect is real, but if so, fully agree.

Why couldn't the Greens stop Reform in Gorton and Denton?

Presumably if the Left engaged by saying that if AI is capable of what is claimed it will have to be nationalised to prevent private value extraction, they'll scream, "not like that"...

Doesn't it depend on whether their *judgement* has improved rather than just a particular opinion? Look at all those patting themselves on the back for supporting equal marriage but now it's trans people being vilified insist that the far right has a good point...

Bizarrely, this post ISN'T about BORIS Johnson...

Bizarrely this Skeet could a perfect description of Boris Johnson too. (Not sure about the Kremlin-financing allegations though...)

Presumably we'll get the Conversion Practices bill, which they've promised would be published this session, before May, then?

(you can see how they might be hard to tell apart!)

That must make Chait the reactionary centrist opinion columnist...

If only I knew which was Jonathan Haidt and which was Jonathan Chait.

How is this a polling piece for the FT? You'd imagine the Financial Times would want to say if Trump is making affordability worse or not, y'know, like for real!

Chapeau.

To be fair, these people hate butch women, especially lesbians, too!

I can just imagine the right-wing fantasy that the BBC should be a push alert service warning local communities about the arrival of foreigners to pitchfork.

Ice, by Anna Kavan. A masterpiece, brutal, difficult to read, and every time I do, I discover a completely new book to the one I remember. (Oh. And the author's biography is extraordinary too.)