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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 5h

Plus the blue is the wrong colour, but that might be a dodgy photograph!

David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 5h

Incorrectly drawn flag, as usual ... not reversed or inverted, but just wrong.

Top right diagonal red bar of the St Patrick saltire should come to a point beneath the blue, not alongside it.

Farage has done this before - some patriot! 😀

The official specification design for the Union Jack flag, from the Flag Institute

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 5h

Like most of Trump's deals - that's why he is such a failure.

If he can't bully you or cheat, then he loses. The story of his life ...

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Electoral Reform Society @electoralreform.bsky.social · 5h

Nobody can predict the next election. But you can choose a system that behaves predictably – one that translates votes into seats in a consistent, transparent way.

The danger of choosing a voting system that works for you today

We all have a party we lean toward. Maybe we’ve stuck with them for decades, maybe our loyalties shift with the times. But when it comes to how we elect our parliament, our choices sho

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 6h

The art of the deal ... obvs 😉

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 6h

Nads has always had her head easily turned by bottom-dwellers with dodgy hair ...

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 6h

The irony is that most of the people taking the piss because of the hypnosis thing are massive tits already ...

Being attacked by Tice is a rite of passage for any potentially moral person with a bit of integrity.

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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 1d

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

The only thing they do that is clever is pick genuine problems that everyone can see are real, but then lie about the causes, and propose unworkable solutions based on those lies.

But because people can see the problems are real, they look no further ...

David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

Once you get this far right it's all about negativity - resentment, spite, bigotry, envy, and every other vice you can throw in.

Just bitter, out-of-touch people who think they represent the mainstream, but are just howling into the void.

We've all seen the damage when they get their way.

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

He presumably satisfied whatever the requirements are to get the licence (the article implies that he did) so it just looks like a classic bit of IT/bureaucratic incompetence, as opposed to some massive conspiracy or systemic failure ...

David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

Surely having a meeting with Trump cancelled is a bit of a result?

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

The most shocking thing about this is that MTG has found a partner ... living with that degree of vitriol is not easy.

Reposted by David Hardstaff

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 4d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

To be honest, that window into another world is one thing I miss most about not having my father around any more.

His lifespan of 1904 to 2000 saw essentially our entire modern world emerge ... as the cliché says, "what a time to be alive!"

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

Yes, grandparents are the downside - I only ever had three (youngest 1892), and two of them were gone before I was ten. Had two of them not made their mid/late 90s it would have been even fewer!

David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

That does beat me overall, though - I fall at the last hurdle, as my great-grandfather was born in 1839, so a mere 120 years before me! 😊

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

It is quite an old name - we think it comes from Hardstoft, which is a small hamlet on the Notts/Derbys border, near Chesterfield,and the vast majority of us were living in that area for centuries, although more widespread nowadays, of course!

David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

My father did at least meet his granddaughters, which I'm pleased about, but sadly neither of my kids remember him, as they were two and a half and thirteen months when he died ...

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

Perhaps the "late" thing is in our genes - my youngest was born when I was 39 and my father 95, so she is 134 years younger than her paternal great-grandfather!

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

It also gives me an uncle killed in 1916 flying test runs for Thomas Sopwith, and another uncle who had pilot's licence number 880 in 1914 ...

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

I'm the result of my father's second marriage, so he was 56 when I was born (fortunately he made 96 in the end!) but he was born in 1904, and my grandfather in 1865.

So I was only the third generation in a century!

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 1d

As things stand, yes, but you can use the system as the basis for spinning up a more robust ID, which would fit the "right to work" remit without completely reinventing the wheel.

Unless it's too badly broken, of course.

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 2d

Oh sure - it's all about data. That's why DOGE never found any cash, because they weren't really looking for it - they were amalgamating datasets, removing ringfencing, and collating as much info as possible about everyone.

That's what that was all about - a quick in and out data hack ...

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David Hardstaff @davidhardstaff.co.uk · 2d

Absolutely - the 13 deportations that have been prevented by the ECHR in the last 45 years are well worth using as an excuse to remove a whole host of other inconvenient regulations that are costing businesses money through having to treat people properly.

Oops, did I say that out loud? 😉