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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 9d

Pretty sunset last night

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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 10d

I'm in Santorini feeding the cats

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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 12d

Good thread on a very interesting discussion.

Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 12d

This is a great discussion. What it makes clear to me is that Ezra Klein is lost right now in a way that TNC isn't, and I don't mean that as a dunk.

The past 9 mos, most of us have been navigating w/o magnetic north. Across a range of disciplines, heuristics we took for granted no longer apply.

Opinion | Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bridging Gaps vs. Drawing Lines

www.nytimes.com

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Bat Krown 🦇 @katbrownwrites.com · 17d

“An emotional research team became tearful as they described how data shows the disease was slowed by 75% in patients.”

What an absolutely incredible, joyous achievement for everyone involved. Hurrah for science and scientists! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time

One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that could transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC

www.bbc.com

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshksi.bsky.social · 17d

when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

Screenshot from New Yorker interview by Isaac Chotiner with Cass Sunstein

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20d

i will concede that if you want to influence other people addicted to X, X is worth using. but if you want to influence the actual public, text-based social media is a fool's errand.

Shadi Hamid @shadihamid.bsky.social · 23d

One of the biggest mistakes left-of-center pundits and influencers made was decamping to Bluesky. They made themselves irrelevant, shrunk their audiences, and dramatically lessened the positive impact they could have on our public debate at the precise time we needed it most.

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Paul McNamara @mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social · 21d

Recommended, not in a „worthy initiative” way but because it’s proper interesting and informative journalism about London and nobody else really does it.

Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 21d

A little bit of navel-gazing on the last twelve months of trying to run a start-up local news organisation with no investment or plan, entirely funded by readers. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-new...

One year of London Centric

A selection of our favourite stories that you might have missed — and a quick note from Jim.

www.londoncentric.media

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 22d

Lol. How well did the last govt insulting load-bearing parts of their electoral coalition work out for them? Like they watched what the Lib Dems did to the home counties and wondered what it'd be like if the Greens did that to the two dozen largest university towns.

Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 22d

Right. My students working two part time jobs and/or having an hour and a half commute to uni because they have to live at home due to the cost of student accommodation lack drive and vigour. Sure thing, Peter. The UK Govt still haven't a clue about the realities of universities today.

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 21d

Tony Blair used to talk about the difference between the 3-second, 30-second & 3-minute conversation - the point being that simplistic policies, that poll well, collapse under the more sustained scrutiny of an election or time in govt.

So what happens when there is *only* the 3-second conversation?

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 21d

New post just out:

"Three seconds"

What links Charlie Kirk, the overthrow of the Nepalese government, the US-China trade deal, and the trial of a Romanian Presidential candidate?

TikTok.

Here's why it's changing politics and what that means.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

Three seconds

TikTok and the future of politics

open.substack.com

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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 21d

This is incredibly sharp on TikTok, distraction and politics. Current UK government is communicating on terms that no longer exist

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 21d

New post just out:

"Three seconds"

What links Charlie Kirk, the overthrow of the Nepalese government, the US-China trade deal, and the trial of a Romanian Presidential candidate?

TikTok.

Here's why it's changing politics and what that means.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

Three seconds

TikTok and the future of politics

open.substack.com

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John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · 24d

Trump's use of the attention economy, by Peter Hyman peterhyman21.substack.com/p/trump-the-...

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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 24d

Strongly agree. The days of just getting to the end with lines to take are over

Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 24d

This from @georgeeaton.bsky.social is interesting, and am inclined to agree the Streeting/Allen view that allowing ministers to make distinct arguments that work for them is better suited to both nature of the 2025 comms and public’s desire for authenticity.

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 24d

We should also probably avoid basing our politics on information systems that reward outrage and where the truth has zero value.

Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 24d

this is really good from @stephenkb.bsky.social. It's about leadership on the norms we've embraced: racism is unacceptable; the UK is a multicultural country and so much the richer for it. We need to live those values; leaders need to lead on them www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Starmer and Badenoch are handling the far-right march all wrong

A look back to the days of Enoch Powell suggests a better model

www.ft.com

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 24d

This is outstanding. And, while research doesn’t get much of a hearing these days on identity issues, everything in it is consistent with piles of research. Anti-racism norms don’t drop from the sky. They are built and buttressed by elites drawing red lines. They can be eroded when elites don’t.

Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 26d

superb column from @stephenkb.bsky.social

“racism does not diminish through rising GDP but through the willingness of politicians to argue against it….”

www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Starmer and Badenoch are handling the far-right march all wrong

A look back to the days of Enoch Powell suggests a better model

www.ft.com

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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 25d

Bear with me, I anticipate your disagreement. There is a clear pattern to the advice given to those who want to press back against rising racism. What it boils down to is that if you point out that racism is often being dressed up as “legitimate concerns” you will alienate people. /1

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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 26d

Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity
2004: A year
2010: ~ a month
2015: ~ a week
Now: A day
ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪

Line chart showing that there's been a rapid escalation in how quickly the world installs a gigawatt of solar power capacity.

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Duncan Robinson @duncanrobinson.bsky.social · 26d

it's so miserable

Will - Absolute Shower 🇺🇦 @showerabsolute.bsky.social · 26d

HS2's Colne Valley Viaduct, now Britain's longest railway bridge, with elegant 80m arches over the lakes, designed by Grimshaw Architects. They provide the first three pix. Not shown: the 4m noise barriers that I bet didn't stop a single NIMBY complaint, but do now remove any view from the train.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 26d

Not that anyone in politics listens to research, but there is a bucket of research (including some excellent recent studies) which show exactly this. Voters listen to leaders and respond to what they say.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 26d

As I say, it really does demonstrate why political leadership on racism matters - a non-trivial chunk of people will follow where leaders of their big party move. Heath and Wilson proved that in 1968, and Starmer and Badenoch are proving it in 2025.

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Mark Byrne @markobroin.bsky.social · 27d

Hahaha

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The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 27d

Dublin photography: A city that has vanished yet feels strangely familiar

Mick Brown's exhibition The Days That Were In It provides a photographic record of Dublin’s street life

www.irishtimes.com

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Simon Cox @simonfrcox.bsky.social · 27d

this didn’t happen at the height of the Brexit referendum. I don’t *think* it’s happened since National Front were at their peak in 1970s.

This is organised racist intimidation & movement building, and it’s happening because Labour Party leaders have not opposed that campaign.

Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 27d

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them.

This is getting very dark, very quick.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 28d

The core problem for Starmer is that what made him Labour leader and prime minister was his ability to judge what the audience in front of him wanted to hear - to work out which narrative would get him to the next step on the board. But you can't run a country on storytelling.

David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 28d

Good enough at politics to become PM. Not good enough at politics to be PM. The election campaign was either dishonest or deluded. Presented with any chance of wiggle room over taxes or Brexit, he went out of his way to remove it. Failed to take multiple opportunities since and ignores the PLP.

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Michael Senters the Sigillite, ABD. (Yang Wen-li stan) @mikesenters.bsky.social · 28d

There are very, VERY few people who are equipped to talk about this shooter correctly given the brainrot written on the shell casing. You have to understand so much of online culture to get it and also understand how that culture is both connected to and separate from real world ideological spaces

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 29d

Pet parrots which typically live alone (whilst those in the wild live in large flocks) were given the technology to call each other. They would use it for up to three hours a day, and developed favourite friends 💔
on.ft.com/3K05vhS

When a parrot wanted to connect with a distant friend, a touchscreen showed a selection of other birds available online. The parrots learned to activate the screen, designed specially for them, by touching it gently with their tongues rather than pecking aggressively with their beaks.
"We had 26 birds involved," said Hirskyj-Douglas. "They would use the system up to three hours a day, with each call lasting up to five minutes." The interactions ranged from preening and playing with toys to loud vocal exchanges.
"When we went through the data, we found that most of these parrots had favourite friends," said Hirskyj-Douglas.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 29d

5 parties on more than 12%, winner gains seat with under 30%. Results like this used to be rare, freak outliers. Now they are routine (there was a second just like this yesterday). Electoral chaos.

Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 29d

Newmarket East (West Suffolk) Council By-Election Result:

➡️ RFM: 29.7% (New)
🌳 CON: 25.0% (+4.1)
🔶 LDM: 17.2% (-3.1)
🌹 LAB: 15.3% (-8.3)
🌍 GRN: 12.8% (New)

No WSI (-19.2) or Ind (-16.1) as previous.

Reform GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2023.

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