Rick
flipchartrick.bsky.social
Rick
@flipchartrick.bsky.social
Nottingham-born West Londoner. Author of Flip Chart Fairy Tales blog. Patient #NFFC supporter.
Reposted by Rick
Brand safety disaster imminent...
January 16, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Rick
Genuinely baffling. Focus is onTory-Reform fighting, giving Labour breathing space and opportunity to look like grown ups in the room - so some Labour cabinet members decide better strategy is to brief and mimic infighting - to what? Wrest the chaos narrative back? 🤦‍♂️
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Cabinet allies urge Keir Starmer to sack Wes Streeting for disloyalty
Ministers say the Labour leader should learn from Kemi Badenoch’s decisive action against Robert Jenrick and dismiss his outspoken health secretary
www.thetimes.com
January 16, 2026 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Rick
January 16, 2026 at 8:10 PM
How simply having a lot of people watching can curb the ICE violence.
For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention.

The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.
Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping.
Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.
www.ms.now
January 16, 2026 at 8:20 PM
Already a bit sceptical of this @realbaddiel.bsky.social cat programme. Opening scene has a Bengal Cat on a sofa and it’s making no attempt to destroy it.

www.channel4.com/programmes/d...
David Baddiel: Cat Man
David Baddiel hosts the purr-fect combo of kitty cuteness, cat calamity and feline fun
www.channel4.com
January 16, 2026 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Rick
I passed my PhD. If I gave my PhD certificate to my stepmother’s cat, that wouldn’t make her a doctor.
January 16, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Yep. This will solve two decades of productivity stagnation.
at last we will be free from the backbreaking drudgery of ordering pizza from a menu and even counting how many people the pizza is for www.theverge.com/tech/863365/...
January 16, 2026 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Rick
A highly revealing profile, in really quite a few different ways:
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
The long read: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enter...
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2026 at 5:10 PM
I don’t know what Jenrick thought he was doing here but it sounded like a petulant schoolboy snitching on his old mates.
Jenrick accuses Mel Stride of presiding over “the explosion of the welfare bill”

Priti Patel “created the very migration system that enabled 5 million migrants to come here - the greatest failure of any British government in the post-war period”
January 16, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Ah, the Fail Whale.

Those were the days.
Today is a good day. Some of us are old enough to remember...
January 16, 2026 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Rick
NEW: Jonathan Ross, the ICE thug who murdered Renee Good, was NOT TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL according to police reports. He was taken to the Federal Building. He was NOT INJURED. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...
January 16, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Rick
NEW PODCAST: Why isn't the NHS improving faster?

@helenmiller.bsky.social, @maxwarner.bsky.social and Olly Harvey-Rich examine the latest data on NHS performance, progress on waiting lists and the big challenges around staffing, winter and flu cases.

🎧 Listen here: ifs.org.uk/articles/why...
January 16, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Rick
Jenrick defection probably the dumbest thing he could have done. He could have been the top race science guy in the tory party, but now he's going to be a run-of-the-mill race science guy who needs to impress guys who believe a secret sect of Brown people control the traffic lights
January 15, 2026 at 5:07 PM
I think yesterday could make Kemi Badenoch and break Robert Jenrick.
January 16, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Rick
Letters to the Times on Jenrick’s defection to Reform.
They are very much not impressed. And make the point that switching parties without triggering a by-election is not democratic.
So he can shove his bullshit sense of ‘public duty’ where the sun don’t shine. Or take his choice to the voters.
January 16, 2026 at 7:27 AM
Farage is vulnerable here. Very difficult for him to distance himself from Trump. Too much evidence of his simpering sycophancy.
Germany’s far right loosens its embrace of Trump
As public opinion in the country increasingly turns against the U.S. president over his threats to seize Greenland, the AfD is seeing the downside of its strong alignment with him.

www.politico.eu/article/germ...
Germany’s far right loosens its embrace of Trump
As public opinion in the country increasingly turns against the U.S. president over his threats to seize Greenland, the AfD is seeing the downside of its strong alignment with him.
www.politico.eu
January 16, 2026 at 7:26 AM
Reposted by Rick
Germany’s far right loosens its embrace of Trump
As public opinion in the country increasingly turns against the U.S. president over his threats to seize Greenland, the AfD is seeing the downside of its strong alignment with him.

www.politico.eu/article/germ...
Germany’s far right loosens its embrace of Trump
As public opinion in the country increasingly turns against the U.S. president over his threats to seize Greenland, the AfD is seeing the downside of its strong alignment with him.
www.politico.eu
January 16, 2026 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Rick
January 16, 2026 at 7:20 AM
Reposted by Rick
"Brexit has so far proved a major disappointment. Sad to say, this was always inevitable given the nature of the beast" - Jeremy Warner writing in The Telegraph

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...
Time to admit the truth: Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure
Leaving the EU has reduced Britain’s GDP by up to 8pc, according to a devastating US study
www.telegraph.co.uk
January 14, 2026 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Rick
My most unhinged take is that we should get nukes. Germany should get nukes. Italy should get nukes. Britain should get more and better nukes. For god’s sake, Poland should get nukes. (Not you, Spain.) Thank you for your attention to this matter.
January 16, 2026 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by Rick
And given they said a Nobel Peace Prize couldn't be transferred, they should now revoke it.

And next year don't use Grok for their due diligence.
January 16, 2026 at 7:05 AM
That’s it!

One of the most cynical and self-serving MPs.

Jenrick is like Johnson without the wit.
Jenrick saying he's "put aside personal ambition" too join Reform is the single most shameless statement I've ever heard.

If he "put aside personal ambition" he'd disappear. That's all there is.
January 15, 2026 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Rick
'There's always a tweet' hardly applies here as there are 5000 of them, several speeches, interviews, the lot
January 15, 2026 at 7:51 PM
I’ve just awarded Clovis the Nobel Peace Prize.

Utterly inappropriate because he’s a complete thug but….
January 15, 2026 at 10:18 PM