Recent posts by Global News and Politics Professionals on Bluesky

This interview with the curling lads is heartbreaking. They gave it everything. The country is proud of them.

How do you find out you’re good at curling? Like are you someone who enjoys ice skating and also sweeping the kitchen? Did these two hobbies accidentally merge at some point?

Are Team GB going to be able to rescue this? (Not super confident)

RIP Frank Prochaska: an insightful writer on how the modern 'feminised' British Monarchy had secured wider support in the era of welfare democracy + civic society than of imperial pomp & military power (even stretching that into his counterintuitive claim for the UK as a 'crowned republic')

Has an electoral coalition ever been so misunderstood?

I find this whole thing weird. Reading is good and should be encouraged but I’m not sure you’re reading for the right reasons if you’re chasing some arbitrary target. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

I actually did pay more for a dishwasher the other day that (I thought) didn't have WiFi. They all have bloody WiFi now. I really do not want my boring domestic appliances to have WiFi. ((The new one apparently does, it was just less prominent in the marketing spin. I despair)

I’d find it much easier to take this curling final seriously if they didn’t keep shouting ‘Bruce’ Or if my brain didn’t insist on playing the Monty Python sketch every time it hears ‘Bruce’.

Most nervous I’ve been about sweeping since my wife said she would be closely inspecting my dustpan and brush efforts in the kitchen #winterolympics #curling

I've been meaning to run this analysis for a while: the probability of voting Labour at GE2024 in seats *gained* by Labour was higher for people who were younger, more liberal, on the left economically, more likely to favour immigration, do not think immigration is the most important issue, etc.

We don't test new antibiotics against placebo for the same reason. Or new cancer drugs.

The man is a fucking monster.

Reform could finish third, second or first in the by-election. The route to a not very close second place is clearest

No cheating your last saved picture of a celebrity is your therapist.

Uhh

my god I need to wake up Friday morning to the news that Matt Goodwin is not an MP, I can't bring myself to feel strongly about who wins but I really, really need him to lose

Lowe's position on removing all Afghan refugees from Britain - including those whose record of helping the UK military he accepts - would be very toxically unpopular indeed outside his core group

So some not great news. I slipped on the ice earlier. Currently in the hospital waiting for an x-ray on what they think is a dislocated arm. :(

This was the second woman he left to die on the same mountain

Not convinced by this headline + Times news report late in a by-election. Whatever the issues of this Legatum Prosperity Index methodology, Goodwin actual academic career in universities (becoming a professor in early 30s) was strong + good impact outside academy too www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Gregor Townsend

Going to start watching the big curling final after Wales v Scotland ends

Pretty much everyone loses out of this. The students suing had a terrible experience and very little thanks for the sacrifice they made for older adults. The people who worked like mad to keep education going feel kicked in the teeth. And institutions just cannot afford these lawsuits.

I really love the new “consider Greenpeace in your will” advert, really well executed and perfect for its target market:

This lawsuit seems appalling to me, honestly. I feel for people whose student experience was lousy due to Covid but that's not the fault of universities. "I wanted in-person study." I'm sure you did. Nobody gets what they want in a global pandemic

If only there was a book about this!

Full of admiration for what Emma does in threads like this one. Read it, it’s interesting.

Battering England then going behind against this Wales side with an extra man is exquisitely Scottish rugby...

More than a little ironic that just before this current bout of le gastro 🤢 descended I did my hardest swim in years (3k and lots of sprints) so now every single one of my muscles aches as well as the more errrr colourful aspects of the malady.

NEW Donald Trump uses loophole to slap world with maximum legal tariffs after Supreme Court humiliation www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

I don’t vibe with this type of film for the same reason I dislike the Craig Bonds: I just think “either make a straight film about the big theme OR make a genre allegory”. Don’t go “yeah, the film doesn’t have a proper plot or consequences, but it has A Big Theme”.

I would update this projection for Alba not running candidates but it'd make zero difference...

Trump increases tariffs to 15% www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... If added to other tariffs this would breach the deal with the EU

Norstat will still have Alba on 4% in their next poll...

"The storm" is still coming, right? Right?

"Weiss’s tenure as the CBS News boss, then, is not so much the fulfilment of some lifelong ambition for her, then, as a requirement of a $150 million deal that has already made her a multi-millionaire. The contractual terms of the sale require her to run this newsroom. She’s not there for fun."

Donald Trump's 2026 State of the Union will be a nightmare - here's what to look out for www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

With lots of sport on the telly, I’m once again very happy to be nap-trapped this afternoon

(That's because large food poisoning outbreaks are pretty unusual in the UK, rather than a regular occurrence like they are in the USA. Because we have functional food safety rules.)

Vg: I do hope BBC Verify can clarify this

Do they though

Should be given a yellow card for that haircut < mutters >

I’ll concede this to the Trump administration. You can no longer get Lapsang Souchong at Waitrose. That’s civilisational erasure right there 🤯

Alba Party, founded by late Alex Salmond, unable to fight 2026 Holyrood election + likely to fold. “That brings also into question the viability of a party which neither has financial resources nor the ability to contest elections" says leader Kenny MacAskill www.heraldscotland.com/news/2587543...

It’s really not *inexplicable*! As soon as you’ve gone full on anti immigration, you age no longer a progressive party!

Very much choosing to invoke my Irish citizenship today then #SixNations

It’s not entirely obvious England are going to win here

Exc: Matt Goodwin rails against the elites but is paid to fly around the world to speak with them. The Reform candidate says he's “not part of establishment”, but has given talks at the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Asset Management and Google www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

The great noticing has finally worked its way through to the cabinet.

A clearer conflict of interest is seldom seen.

Matt is doing an excellent job here of convincing us that he is in absolutely no way bitter at all about his failure as an academic.. 😉

Long read on how Labour rebalances its voice, political strategy + policies This is often tone of voice - but also content too: the settlement reforms do real harm to a million people, create a major constituencies of grievance that would be v hard to repair www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Can someone check on Howard Lutnick?

We've seen Holyrood at its best recently, for instance in the debate over assisted dying. This has been Holyrood at its worst.

My analysis on why May's Holyrood election could be a golden chance for the Scottish Lib Dems to re-establish themselves as an important voice in Scottish politics. www.scotsman.com/politics/sco...

Bit of a weird looking poll. We'll need more data. But also, this is not the first poll since Sarwar called on Starmer to stand down.

Does Nigel Farage have a problem with women? 'Reproductive rights and equality campaigners reacted in horror after Farage hired James Orr, a rightwing theologian who opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest or serious risk to health, as his head of policy' www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Entirely the wrong approach, explains a lot. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articl...

Fun though it is to identify all the flaws in the image, I think that misses the point. If someone had taken the trouble to tweak and correct the image, then it wouldn't be fascist slop. The essence of the aesthetic is that they don't care

The women's FA Cup fifth round includes Liverpool v Everton tomorrow, and Chelsea v Manchester United, which was the 2025 and 2023 women's FA Cup final. (I was at both, as a very neutral neutral fan!)

Donald Trump's unhinged 24 hours as he spirals into insane TV meltdown over tariffs www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

Another example of AI slop as the aesthetic of modern fascism: lazy, ugly, moronic

This looks increasingly desperate from Labour. Just embarrassing. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Formally, this requires legislation (+ across Commonwealth). I suspect could also be done without legislation, de facto. (An idea of how follows). It could be done without legislation, de jure & automatically, if Andrew became a Roman Catholic!, due to the religious discrimination in the Act.

This is either deliberately misleading or just ignorant/confused. Ratcliffe's "colonisation" is worse than Starmer's "incalculable damage". But they are points on a (bad) spectrum Reform/Tory settlement proposals are worse than Mahmood's. But they are points on a (bad) spectrum. Not hard.

Delightful piece this: since we moved we've got a mobile stand and the option of having the TV move rooms with you is wonderful.

Long read from Denton, where polling experts admit they have no real idea what's going to happen www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

It’s on Google, even though it is making search worse. It’s on WhatsApp, even though I absolutely do not want “homework help” or “relationship advice” from my messaging app. In the year of our lord 2026, it is everywhere. And it *doesn’t work*.

A man noted the renewed efforts of Labour canvassers: “They’re sending people into mosques lately.” A woman quipped, quick as a flash: “They must be desperate if they’re doing that.” Notes from a @moreincommonuk.bsky.social focus group in Gorton and Denton… www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Long read on Denton, a seat where even polling experts don't know what will happen www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

"In many ways, Bari Weiss’s critics are right. She is not qualified, by any traditional metric, for the job she holds. She has never reported nor edited a truly major scoop … "But to judge her against those benchmarks is to miss entirely the game Weiss is playing."

An uncomfortable truth: Bari Weiss has already won. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-b...

For this weekend’s long read The fights Starmer has started to pick with billionaires and and the hard right - and whether a brutally honest, wholesale revaluation of why Labour won in 2024 is the thing that could revive their fortunes. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Great Janan www.ft.com/content/9247...

In case you missed it:

Condemning Reform, Ratcliffe and Lam's racist rhetoric is an important and very welcome shift. But it means little unless accompanied by changes to the government's own *policies* -especially the vindictive and counterproductive earned settlement proposals. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

about that "eighth in line to the throne" thing

It is by focusing on “the details of the present world” that she might spot what peers have missed. It is “the minutiae… the relationships between people… that tell you so much about the bigger things” Read my interview with Juliet Mitchell from the upcoming issue of @prospectmagazine.co.uk

🔴 NEW - Farage is losing steam and the data proves it 👇

Great piece from @rmcunliffe.bsky.social who sat in on focus group of Muslim voters in Gorton/Denton. Lots of groups bleak right now, but even more so as they felt racism had basically been legitimised recently & were angry govt esp PM, weren’t standing up to it www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Scope for someone to do some incredibly niche Heated Rivalry spinoff fanfic here.

Former Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who has joined Restore UK to support Rupert Lowe, has posted this message. This would appear to be Bridgen's openly racist response, presented as a joke/satire, to the appointment of Zia Yusuf as home affairs spokesperson for Reform x.com/ABridgen/sta...

Juliet Mitchell is the second wave feminist who challenged her peers on Freud and went on to become a psychoanalyst herself. At 85, she still sees things others miss. Read on for how she changed the way we think about siblings and why feminists hated Freud www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/philos...

Love living in a part of town where the bus timetable is a mere guideline.

Erm why is my algorithm serving me videos of a baby monkey being beaten up? What kind of radicalisation pipeline is this, I want out already

Excl: Scotland’s spending watchdog is investigating the SNP's flagship ScotWind projects amid fears the revenue has been "frittered away" to balance Holyrood budget pressures www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

It may be his way of making up to them after forcing them to go to Epstein's Island when they were little

open.substack.com/pub/davidaar...

Check out the latest episode of the pod that takes you inside the football boardroom with me and Charlie Methven... This week #SirJimRatcliffe #MUFC #NFFC #LCFC and the #UEFA Conference League... open.spotify.com/episode/129c...

"Blaming the poorest for Britain's woes would be right up Jenrick's street. There has never been a group of vulnerable people he didn't want to punch."

Has he not heard of a duty solicitor?

Travelling to the US is just not worth the risk these days.

Interestingly, this prominent piece on the BBC cites no polling evidence at all for its contention. Instead, the contention is based entirely on media chatter.

"The King’s brother has been arrested. No one in Britain, we tell ourselves, is above the law. If only that comforting assertion were true." My latest Substack - 'Britain's Secret State' (free to read) open.substack.com/pub/adriango...

The genocide deniers were always going to deny the mass rape & trafficking of girls by powerful men. They pretend to be left wing and yet over and over again their alliance is with power and patriarchy.

'Our ancestral land'? Leave us out of it!

More news from the Gorton & Denton by-election...

Just finished Chapter Five of this. You gotta play this game, and you should do it now, because the feeling of the various choices I've made on various playthroughs, ending in some very different places, while still not knowing what happens next, is really very special.

I am tired of this world-these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.