Top recent posts by UK Constitutional Lawyers on Bluesky

God, the number of people who were willing to believe that the South Yorkshire police were too woke to prosecute sexual abuse cases, when in fact the police force was itself an instrument of patriarchal sexual violence. It’s like a case study in the worst excesses of the British press.

wonder if decades of mocking media studies as a Mickey Mouse subject has anything to do with this at all

Trump's 25 per cent India tariff is obnoxious and yet another gift to China. He's punishing poorer countries more than richer ones and alienating the global south. Stupidity doesn't cover the damage Trump is doing.

Yep!! PhD students are often extremely good at catching these zombie factoids because they are tenacious, buried in footnotes and have *time* to root stuff out. But at some point stuff just gets footnoted to the most prominent historian who repeated the claim, and nobody bothers to look it up.

this is a realy good piece and I can confirm that the strangest thing to me about living in America was how normalised the idea that gun violence was an intractable problem had become .

Then land-girl Thora Hird murders a bunch of Germans with a captured machine gun, taking to the barricades to defend the village until they can get word of the German invasion out. One of the greatest WW2 (and suspense) movies ever made. Absolutely not joking.

There is no serious trade expert who thinks the UK's deal with the US is definitively better than that of the EU. There are lots of generalist commentators using them for their own stale talking points. The UK did OK. So did the EU. Neither were great.

"Trump has ushered in an era in which panic rather than policy drives the global trade system. For those that ought to be able to push back, such as the EU, it has looked more like cowering to a bully." Strong FT editorial on Europe's submission to Trump. on.ft.com/3U52oag

“Nationwide launches phoneline to help people apply for benefits - as £23billion left unclaimed” I don’t normally get excited about stuff banks do but this is genuinely excellent. So much goes unclaimed that people genuinely need. You can also use Turn2Us and EntitledTo

Reform rapidly becoming the Home for Failed Tories.

Of course ICE arrested a carpenter named Jesus with no criminal record. Because ICE serves a Christian administration. www.thebulwark.com/p/his-name-i...

Hard to remember that all these US deals are being done to avert tariffs the vast majority of which the US Court of International Trade has ruled illegal. 100% baked in international assumption that either a supine Supreme Court lets him do whatever, he finds a loophole, or he ignores the ruling.

Literally never misses

But thankfully Trump is solving Kashmir "after a thousand years' (1947). Then again, he's bullshitting..

Morning Bluesky. The first big tsunami waves have hit Hawaii. New Zealand has issued an alert.

It is not entirely clear to me why everybody on Bluesky seems to hate this idea. (Except maybe they just hate anything Starmer does on principle, in which case, whatever.) You do realise that not everybody with an online platform is a far-right tech bro?

Why will l need glasses if I'm working in the Metaverse like you predicted I would be, Zuck? Zuck? Buddy? Zuck?

So much to choose from.

Incredibly minor version of this: people often write about the 1958 Notting Hill Race Riots, which took place in late August, as happening on hot, sultry summer nights: the overheated city a tinderbox of violence. Except I looked up the weather and it turns out it was cold and drizzly.

Just had the single most frustrating interaction with the department of works and pensions, illustrating yet again that the right wing fantasy of hordes of fraudsters claiming benefits willy-nilly is the greatest pile of nonsense on stilts I’ve ever heard of.

This is a horrific story: a disabled man has stopped taking his medication in order to end his life because he can’t access NHS or social care. And yet having spoken to so many disabled people left in the most dire conditions, I can’t imagine he’s the only one. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'In fact, many Jewish staff...across Scotland reject the IHRA definition, and we have come together as the Scottish Universities Jewish Staff Network. We oppose the genocide committed by Israel against Palestine and wish to do so without – as the IHRA would imply – being labelled antisemites.'

If the implied threat of violence here were coming from literally anyone but Bum Flare Man and the Lads the debate wouldn't be about how best to appease them, but whether the response should be giving the police Challenger battle tanks or Apache Longbow attack helicopters.

Exclusive: Ed Davey has met with BBC boss Tim Davie to complain about the broadcaster’s coverage, which the Liberal Democrats claim is weighted too heavily in Reform UK’s favour www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Court gives one of the founders of Palestine Action permission to proceed with her case for a full judicial review of the Home Sec’s decision to proscribe the organisation bit.ly/476gRKA

I occasionally test Chat GPT to see whether has finally become useful for looking up simple trade questions such as “what is the US tariff on x”. Can confirm it is still completely useless.

i say we fight this Tsunami in the marketplace of ideas.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada plans to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN in September, if certain conditions are met: * The Palestinian Authority commits to reforming its governance * general election in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part

🇪🇺🤝🇲🇩 Closer to the EU – fairly and in a balanced way. The EU and Moldova agreed to update the terms of their Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. The agreement will open new doors for Moldovan exporters, with EU farmers’ interests protected ↓

In which I am not impressed by Suella Braverman’s plans for leaving the ECHR. open.substack.com/pub/georgepe...

Janan Ganesh very sharp on why harking back to better days is so hard to rebut on.ft.com/45qCAvw

for professional development purposes, I occasionally throw a piece I'm unsure about to an LLM and ask it for a single targeted suggestion as to how to punch up the language and it continues to make it significantly worse every time

age verification discourse is constantly sliding between multiple issues: • should anything ever be age gated online • is it possible to age gate things online • is it worth the trade-off to adult freedoms to age gate things online • is the specific UK approach to age-gating things effective

This argument has been pitched at me: “calling it genocide makes antisemitism more likely.” No. Genocide committed by the Jewish state makes antisemitism more likely.

Looks like it's going to be a long night here in Kyiv, heavy air defence across the skies tonight.

We are on the ground, ready to help the countries affected by wildfires. Through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, countries are deploying their firefighters, helicopters, and airplanes, alongside the EU's own rescEU firefighting fleet, working hand-in-hand with local teams to fight the flames.

#RNLI lifeboats are crewed by brave people. I used to live near one of the launch stations, in Stromness, Orkney. When the boat went out, often in dire conditions, it felt like the whole town stopped until they were safely back in harbour. 'For those in peril on the sea' rnli.org/support-us/g...

Waiting for dinner to arrive…

Hullo....

A day visiting Prague castle & St Vitus cathedral…

It's something that I've felt for a while but feel more comfortable saying now given the last day's news cycle: Peter Kyle doesn't have the intellectual intelligence to regulate the tech sector, and doesn't have the emotional intelligence to rationally respond to people trying to tell him that

I’m researching quite a niche early 20th century subject of art history at the moment and the AI slop and its errors is insidious and pervasive. My takeaway is that you have to basically disregard much of the internet, go back to non-internet sources, books and academic papers.

United, ambitious, European security and defence 💪 18 European countries have expressed interest in loans under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, expected to mobilise up to €150 billion in investment ⬇️

Proud of y’all for the 50+ puns in the quote tweets - big shout to Masturchef - but a pal just texted me LonelyFans so I’m afraid we have a winner

As i seem to have kicked off a minor bout of posh kid name discourse, i submit for the record: Honeysuckle Weeks and her sister Perdita. Good examples of how to go "sod it" and lean into your odd names with aplomb. (Lead roles in Foyles War and the Magnum reboot, respectively)

Janan Ganesh has done a better “Britain’s not broken” than anyone www.ft.com/content/c34f...

Tension still rising between Russia and Azerbaijan. Russian police have issued a federal warrant for the arrest of Shahin Shykhlinski, head of the Azerbaijani diaspora in Yekaterinburg.

Oooh. Schools must be finished for the summer. Walthamstow isn't chocked up with traffic driving Maximus and Agnes to school.

So let me get this right, Daughter Dearest. You’re telling me we’ve come all this way….for an *album cover*??

Again, Germany & Italy, along with Hungary, Bulgaria, Czech Republic can’t agree to partially suspend israel from EU research fund as response to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Despite two israeli NGO’s concluding Monday that Israel is committing genocide. www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...

The UK recognising a Palestinian state on the basis of a two-state solution does not "reward" Hamas. It is a direct contradiction of Hamas and Netanyahu's competing visions for a one-state solution and an attempt to preserve the only model that could achieve peace. Good to discuss on i24News.

People sneering at this, have you considered that a small gathering on a slightly niche middleweight platform of terminally online middle-class, middle-aged nerds such as us might not be the target audience for this initiative?

As a former Childline volunteer, I’m baffled Samaritans thinks taking calls from home will work. Debriefing with the team or a note from a supervisor was so integral, I wonder whether anyone advocating for remote counselling has ever picked up a phone. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Banks too big and important to tax, Chancellor warned as Barclays makes £5.2bn profit in just six months bit.ly/45cKQ11 @thefca fined the bank £42m earlier this month and £40mn last November for money laundering and other failings.

Trump has announced a 25% tariff on India.

Been at the county cricket all afternoon and there is something timelessly soothing about it, especially after days/weeks/months of being immersed in online fury. Old blokes with their sandwiches. If you want to go to the loo at LCCC, ladies, come and watch Lancs play Glamorgan, there’s no queues

It's definitely possible that South Yorkshire Police were in the habit of weaponising racism complaints to harass anyone who poked their nose into the racket - it's easier & less risky than cutting brake cables or putting a rat in a desk drawer - and I hope the enquiry has the wit to spot this.

Intense nerd pleasure: I can now water the garden from my phone 😁

This is a very good point by Janan Ganesh

Back from travels. I was struck by the sheer number of protests about Gaza I saw in different towns and countries. This appears to be absolutely not 'the usual suspects' or anything like that. And rightly.

“We find destroying America doesn’t quite satisfy our special combination of moronism and selfishness, so we’d like to destroy planet earth as well.”

Man’s totally cooked

Olaf Scholz' traffic light coalition in #Germany never had a chance. The new government, despite giving itself €1,000bn to spend on defence and investment, needs to cut another €170bn until 2029 from the budget.

Just found out my yearly mammogram was all clear after two operations for pleomorphic lobular carcinoma in situ last year. Now coming down from the massive adrenaline reaction when the nurse phoned with my results. Feel this calls for a celebration with my favourite photo of a snuggly bumbarrel.

Incredible that “giving your children a screen to watch at the table” comes below physically abusing your child

Is it because they didn't have vans to drive the wild boars across the mountains in?

I am joining @migrantvoice.bsky.social and standing #UnitedAgainstDivision. I hope many more people will join with their campaign over the week and share their pics and videos of solidarity with migrants, and all marginalised communities, against the hate and vio6 we see thrown against them.

Would certainly capture the essence of its almost inevitable descent into purity tests and infighting.

This is horrifying, as you’d expect. I had been wondering how anyone was continuing to justify this to themselves, and the answer seems to be a relentlessly angry barrage of deflection, blame and denial.

Woke up to an email from our tech partners about an error we just could not figure out ourselves. Turns out it was because it requires Vanity Caps on certain dispay text. That one is ABSOLUTELY going on my list of pub stories for other techies.

Alastair Campbell on Robert Maxwell, proprietor www.thenewworld.co.uk/alastair-cam...

Exactly. Britain isn't plunging towards disaster. The only reason it might is if we believe ridiculous grifters saying that it is. www.ft.com/content/c34f...

Looking forward to the next Enlightenment.

Even when the Trump administration does the right thing, it does it in the most tortuous and damaging way possible, causing immense unnecessary strain and worry to the most dedicated and well-meaning people. A confederacy of dunces.

A must-read: one of @sjwrenlewis.bsky.social's very best pieces (and that's a high bar).

Ah yes. Summer. When Cutty Sark Greggs becomes a tourist attraction.

Just spitballing here but maybe the EU cynically but correctly realises that Trump will break any deal in a month or two anyway so it doesn’t actually matter?

"No wasps were found, officials said" abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...

I wouldn’t want to influence anyone who could be influenced by an influencer.

Crazy to me that this girl named Lorraine invented quiches, but history doesn't even remember her surname.

Today's gerrymandering news in Texas; the close of Justice Kagan's dissent in Rucho v. Common Cause, the 5-4 decision that green-lighted partisan gerrymandering in 2019

I don’t know. Maybe I should start a new journal. I’d call it “Papers That Interest Me.” The only grounds for acceptance or rejection is whether I think to myself “Hmm, that was interesting” after reading it.

sorry, I cannot let it lie: I do believe this is one of the worst articles I have read for a while. I don't know how The Times allowed it through. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/... Set aside the quite dreadful use of "rearranging the deckchairs", appalling cliche that no editor should allow 1/

So lovely to see this spread on Who Wants Normal? in this month’s Disability Review Magazine. I chatted about writing 80,000 words on an iPhone, trying to make the British media more diverse, and why this book definitely has more jokes in it than my first.

The most significant news today

I will be using at least three of these as my character name in future JRPG playthroughs

NEW: ChatGPT allows Google to index chats users share using the Share functionality - presumably misinterpreting "make this chat discoverable". The result? Frank admissions about sex lives and drug dependencies. My latest for @fastcompany.com www.fastcompany.com/91376687/goo... tip @techmeme.com

US scrapping of de minimis is very bad news for small businesses around the world, and for consumers to see the benefits of global trade. But part of a global trend. www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

"All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain." tomlehrersongs.com

We really are now quite far into "don't create a state power that you wouldn't be happy to see in the hands of Donald Trump or Jeremy Corbyn"

Interesting deal. South Koreans don’t have to pay any more should they be slightly interested in American cars. US customers get stuck with a 15% price increase on all the cool stuff coming out of South Korea.

Oh no. Internal comms have discovered Canva.

If you speak more than one language, do you find yourself dropping words from different languages into a sentence without thinking because it "fits better"?

Not if the apostrophe’s in the wrong place, it doesn’t. 😱

UK will recognise Palestine as a state in September bit.ly/4meHDEV by which time it may have no viable territory left

Superb and scathingly sceptic post (by ⁦‪@bryce.lol‬⁩, natch) on Morgan Stanley’s prediction of a $3tn data centre capex boom. on.ft.com/3U4pHks

It's very clear that UK governance does not think more than two, three moves ahead at the most. The increasing power of Oxbridge (and a handful of others) will mean much more economic and social concentration, and there's just no ideological or practical preparation for that.

This is brilliantly forensic and spot on about the different experiences by generation in terms of access to income vs access to wealth in the UK.

35 people, families with children! How in hell does anyone, even Braverman, try and fearmonger about children unless they are actively aiming, particularly in the current climate, to provoke violence against them? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...