Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence

The significant year on year fall on boat arrivals is broadly unreported by BBC or other media. It has less to do with imminent government changes currently going through than a fall in "push factors" that is Europe-wide

“Women don’t want to shag me because I support bombing brown people 😔 the ‘tolerant’ Left”

Revealed: Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision Guardian investigation uncovers decision by UK security officials to deny clearance before Mandelson took up role as US ambassador

EXCL: Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to US - a Guardian investigation by Paul Lewis @direthoughts.com & me

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay

I remember a certain historical Franco-British collaboration on securing a foreign waterway critical for trade…

Not making this investment now is just backwards thinking.

It is absolutely incredible that HMRC thought (and still thinks) that it is acceptable to tell every sole trader in the country that they have to file digitally, but that HMRC isn't providing any means to do, that you probably need to get some software from somewhere, and that it sucks to be you.

When Angela Rayner underpaid £40,000 stamp duty on her flat, Richard Tice said it was "morally completely indefensible” and she should immediately resign if she had “any moral decency”.

Now we learn he personally made £91,000 in excess payments by failing to pay the tax his company legally owed

Your regular reminder that the US had a pain-stakingly negotiated and workable deal with Iran when Trump came to power, but he tore it up. He's now desperately trying to secure a deal much worse than the one he set aside.

The old man in the brothel; one day it will end

Vance:

"We want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do. I'm not telling you exactly who to vote for."

Vance 20 minutes later:

"Go to the polls at the weekend. Stand with Viktor Orbán!"

‘Get a grip’: How Iranian embassies mocked Trump’s vulgar threat

‘Get a grip’: How Iranian embassies mocked Trump’s vulgar threat https://aje.news/vzunky

You can still be shocked can't you, even after years of this shit. That sentence chilled me to my bones. To see an American president say that. To see him boast about it.

You can really tell America is winning this war when the president panic posts “open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards” at 5 am on Easter Sunday along with an extension on their deadline

It is genuinely abhorrent that a major festival would choose to book a headliner who released "Heil Hitler" *less than a year ago*.

The muted outcry to it is truly chilling, too. We are deep into an antisemitism crisis that too many people want to ignore or deny.

We did not start this war and we refused to commit UK forces to offensive operations exactly because of the impact on families and firms in the UK. Those parties (Reform and Tories) who actively supported this conflict do not get to pretend they care about those consequences now.

Listening to people with knowledge would have saved you the effort to learn the facts the hard way

Yes, the “people” are the problem… not the energy-wasting businesses and the politicians who protect and subsidize them, of course.

This is the second major fossil fuel crisis in 5 years. If this is not a wake up call to transition to renewable energy, I don’t know what is.

Periodic reminder that Anglosphere isn't a real thing.

It gets really awkward when you point out that most English speakers aren't white (Hello India and Nigeria!) Then they say, no it's more about English systems of government and education, then you point out that Nigeria and India have those too

I hate the framing of this being “backed by voters” when clearly 61% don’t agree with the policy! It’s their own assertion! Just because a middling group may be swayed in the future, they haven’t been for now

Cannot judge how much impact this will have in operational terms, but it certainly looks like political signal from Spain that will provoce the US - but also underline the value of the European allies for US global operations:

The meme-ridden discourse of our era is no longer fully capable of communicating the scale of the crises we face.

I love the research, love the distilling and planning and narrative creation but could not be arsed with actually putting it on paper

given the modern conservative fascination with Sparta it's at least a little funny that they've engineered a situation in which Persia is able to level a dramatically uneven battlefield by forcing the conflict into a narrow pathway

Spain's renewables build-out has structurally decoupled its electricity prices from gas markets. Gas now sets the price in only 15% of hours, compared to 90% in Italy.

Countries that invested early in clean power are far less exposed to fossil fuel price shocks. Those that didn't now pay the price.

About to vote in the Dutch local election, which provides an opportunity for me to bitch about a moral complaint: it is illegitimate for governments to demand a photo ID when voting if they won’t give you one for free

Peak absurdity: