Patch Thompson
@patchthompson.bsky.social
🌹✊ 📸 | academic researcher | average photographer | all views my own etc.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
The classic “pouring gravy without looking influencer to campaigning for mass deportations” pipeline
January 20, 2026 at 3:01 PM
The classic “pouring gravy without looking influencer to campaigning for mass deportations” pipeline
'Embarrassing for Keir Starmer! As a giant asteroid heads towards Earth, will the Prime Minister regret not having prepared for human extinction in last year's Spring statement?'
January 20, 2026 at 12:32 PM
'Embarrassing for Keir Starmer! As a giant asteroid heads towards Earth, will the Prime Minister regret not having prepared for human extinction in last year's Spring statement?'
Reposted by Patch Thompson
The fact that the Majority of British Politics - from journalists to the PMs advisors to politicians themselves - now act and think like the myopic and widely mocked "Disaster for Ed Miliband" Dan Hodges tweets from a decade ago is an absolute disaster.
It's also all a bit...'Franz Ferdinand's assassination an embarrassment for the 'Visit Sarajevo' tourism campaign', it is certainly *true* but it is missing the point.
also, side note, but why are these deranged outbursts by a deranged racist & misogynist ‘embarrassing’ for Starmer, who’s trying to prop up a security alliance in the face of madness, and not ‘embarrassing’ for the journalists working on these stories who’ve done so much to sanewash Trump?
January 20, 2026 at 12:17 PM
The fact that the Majority of British Politics - from journalists to the PMs advisors to politicians themselves - now act and think like the myopic and widely mocked "Disaster for Ed Miliband" Dan Hodges tweets from a decade ago is an absolute disaster.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
not only is this an appalling take which attacks Starmer for the actions of a lunatic and not the lunatic, but also strays well beyond ‘unbiased’ reporting
January 20, 2026 at 9:36 AM
not only is this an appalling take which attacks Starmer for the actions of a lunatic and not the lunatic, but also strays well beyond ‘unbiased’ reporting
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Sometimes hearing the denial of paramilitary involvement in the racist violence here makes you doubt the evidence of your own eyes and ears, so having this evidence is invaluable.
👮 | Almost 50 children were referred by police under child criminal exploitation protocols following race-related rioting in NI over the last 18 months.
An IRC report last month said there was "no doubt" of a paramilitary element to the disorder.
@enddbelfast.bsky.social
An IRC report last month said there was "no doubt" of a paramilitary element to the disorder.
@enddbelfast.bsky.social
Almost 50 children referred to social services following NI race riots
Almost 50 children have been referred to social services by the PSNI after race riots in Northern Ireland over the last two years.
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk
January 20, 2026 at 10:55 AM
Sometimes hearing the denial of paramilitary involvement in the racist violence here makes you doubt the evidence of your own eyes and ears, so having this evidence is invaluable.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
I was so right about this - he's literally just a man with a phone, incapable of constructing thoughts in any format other than three paragraph tweets
Something I find striking about Zach Polanski is how - unlike the vast majority of those who played a key role in Corbynism - his politics are so clearly not rooted in any kind of deeper analysis or intellectual tradition. It's all just a surface-level synthesis of 2010s left-wing slogans and memes.
January 20, 2026 at 10:45 AM
I was so right about this - he's literally just a man with a phone, incapable of constructing thoughts in any format other than three paragraph tweets
Reposted by Patch Thompson
So many British people are clearly unaware of the downside risks and consequences of the Greenland crisis, including, many people whose job it is to inform the country about it:
Britain is underprepared for this crisis
Keir Starmer needs to make clear the stakes over Greenland
www.ft.com
January 20, 2026 at 10:45 AM
So many British people are clearly unaware of the downside risks and consequences of the Greenland crisis, including, many people whose job it is to inform the country about it:
'We must play Greece to their Rome' goes down as one of the most historically significant off-hand comments of all time.
Interesting to think that both Brexit [and timidity revisiting it] and our inability to stop lying to our voters about Trump's status as an adversary both derive from the same long standing British exceptionalist delusion that we can and should go it alone and bridge across the Atlantic.
A topic that has taken on new urgency with Trump's attacks on both the UK & the rest of Europe - to quote Benjamin Franklin, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately". Both the UK & the EU need to stop worrying about the scars of Brexit & act more boldly.
January 20, 2026 at 10:33 AM
'We must play Greece to their Rome' goes down as one of the most historically significant off-hand comments of all time.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Tell you what. Not a great time to be a mid-sized nation going it alone
January 20, 2026 at 8:17 AM
Tell you what. Not a great time to be a mid-sized nation going it alone
Reposted by Patch Thompson
The US backed the Chagos Islands deal last year. The news today, if it can even be called news, is that deals with the current administration aren’t worth very much.
January 20, 2026 at 9:25 AM
The US backed the Chagos Islands deal last year. The news today, if it can even be called news, is that deals with the current administration aren’t worth very much.
Literally calling for an AI-powered Panopticon. There is no way those Palantir contracts are being cancelled.
Shabana Mahmood here, and the vibes are not getting better.
January 20, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Literally calling for an AI-powered Panopticon. There is no way those Palantir contracts are being cancelled.
In the (not too distant) future, someone may well be writing a similar article about the Labour government of 2024 - 2029.
Interesting article from a Tory perspective on the travails of the party
conservativehome.com/2026/01/19/j...
conservativehome.com/2026/01/19/j...
January 19, 2026 at 9:31 PM
In the (not too distant) future, someone may well be writing a similar article about the Labour government of 2024 - 2029.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Reposted by Patch Thompson
which way, western student
Two extremes of student LLM usage: 1) avoid ever touching one & maybe get really into fountain pens and 100gsm paper, vs 2) build some kind of Rube Goldberg setup where a novel-length set of prompts and 10,000 lines of Python directs a half-dozen models recursively critiquing each others' outputs.
January 19, 2026 at 8:32 PM
which way, western student
Reposted by Patch Thompson
67% of Britons support retaliatory tariffs against the US if Trump imposes tariffs as a result of UK opposition to his attempts to take over Greenland
Support: 67%
Oppose: 14%
Net support by 2024 vote
Green +73
Lab +65
Lib Dem +64
Con +60
Reform +29
yougov.co.uk/topics/inter...
Support: 67%
Oppose: 14%
Net support by 2024 vote
Green +73
Lab +65
Lib Dem +64
Con +60
Reform +29
yougov.co.uk/topics/inter...
January 19, 2026 at 5:10 PM
67% of Britons support retaliatory tariffs against the US if Trump imposes tariffs as a result of UK opposition to his attempts to take over Greenland
Support: 67%
Oppose: 14%
Net support by 2024 vote
Green +73
Lab +65
Lib Dem +64
Con +60
Reform +29
yougov.co.uk/topics/inter...
Support: 67%
Oppose: 14%
Net support by 2024 vote
Green +73
Lab +65
Lib Dem +64
Con +60
Reform +29
yougov.co.uk/topics/inter...
Unleash those Brexit Benefits, baby!
Politico reports US demanding UK adopt US standards eco-system. It's not just chicken, but UK credibility and EU Reset at stake. This is way outside the agenda of the May 2025 "Econ Prosperity Deal." It must be resisted. Acceptance has no guaranteed upsides.
www.politico.eu/article/dona...
www.politico.eu/article/dona...
Trump administration demands Britain adopt US standards in trade talks
The U.S. push would derail Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union.
www.politico.eu
January 19, 2026 at 5:55 PM
Unleash those Brexit Benefits, baby!
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Kinda wild that Ursula von der Leyen is probably going to end up as one of the most important people of the 21st century
January 11, 2026 at 3:42 AM
Kinda wild that Ursula von der Leyen is probably going to end up as one of the most important people of the 21st century
Reposted by Patch Thompson
for reasons not totally clear to me, in the 60s, the annual chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (the 2026 edition is going on right now!) was covered by Dutch press photographer who all went insanely hard on it
January 19, 2026 at 1:04 PM
for reasons not totally clear to me, in the 60s, the annual chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee (the 2026 edition is going on right now!) was covered by Dutch press photographer who all went insanely hard on it
You just know the EU claret and cigar stocks are being raided during this meeting.
Now confirmed: the extraordinary summit of EU leaders to address the Greenland crisis will take place in Brussels on Thursday, 22 January.
It will start, quite unusually, at 19.00 CET.
It will start, quite unusually, at 19.00 CET.
January 19, 2026 at 12:46 PM
You just know the EU claret and cigar stocks are being raided during this meeting.
Fundamentally, Starmer is a bad political communicator. Not in terms of delivery per se, but the lack of a sense of a guiding belief in what he's saying.
January 19, 2026 at 12:17 PM
Fundamentally, Starmer is a bad political communicator. Not in terms of delivery per se, but the lack of a sense of a guiding belief in what he's saying.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Ah we see your Blue Monday and raise you a Moo Blunday
January 19, 2026 at 10:59 AM
Ah we see your Blue Monday and raise you a Moo Blunday
Reposted by Patch Thompson
Starmer has missed another opportunity to shape public opinion: the U.K. has become too dependent on the USA for our security and this must change rapidly. His statement is a defence of doing nothing.
My thoughts on Starmer's speech:
1. This was not a 'Love Actually' moment. Sir Keir Starmer stuck to the line that the UK-US relationship is crucial to UK security and brings benefits to the British people. 1./
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
1. This was not a 'Love Actually' moment. Sir Keir Starmer stuck to the line that the UK-US relationship is crucial to UK security and brings benefits to the British people. 1./
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sir Keir Starmer to give No 10 speech over Greenland row
Sir Keir Starmer is due to respond to US President Donald Trump's latest move to take over the Danish territory.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 19, 2026 at 10:38 AM
Starmer has missed another opportunity to shape public opinion: the U.K. has become too dependent on the USA for our security and this must change rapidly. His statement is a defence of doing nothing.
Reposted by Patch Thompson
It was inevitable.
Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch
Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."
techcrunch.com
January 19, 2026 at 8:02 AM
It was inevitable.
Chamberlain gets a raw deal on account of being the one who signed the papers at Munich, although he wasn't blameless either.
We should remember how much popular support appeasement had, though, and how Nazi Germany's foreign policy goals were often seen as fuelled by legitimate grievances...
We should remember how much popular support appeasement had, though, and how Nazi Germany's foreign policy goals were often seen as fuelled by legitimate grievances...
Subtweet at half of this website: the consensus among contemporary historians is that the UK's actions in the late 1930s (rapid re-armament while diplomatically stalling for time) were reasonable in the context, with the genuine failure having been "not starting to re-arm five years before".
January 19, 2026 at 10:12 AM
Chamberlain gets a raw deal on account of being the one who signed the papers at Munich, although he wasn't blameless either.
We should remember how much popular support appeasement had, though, and how Nazi Germany's foreign policy goals were often seen as fuelled by legitimate grievances...
We should remember how much popular support appeasement had, though, and how Nazi Germany's foreign policy goals were often seen as fuelled by legitimate grievances...