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Will Cooling

@willcooling.bsky.social

3.2K followers 300 following 12K posts

Writes & Hosts the It Could Be Said substack & podcast; https://itcouldbesaid.substack.com/ Has contributed to a variety of outlets on politics, sport or pop culture Contact email is w.cooling[at]gmail.com All opinions his own & not of any employer

itcouldbesaid.substack.com

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Reposted by Will Cooling

Missing The Point @missingthept.bsky.social · 2d

“Dear God, protect our officers from the frog.”

a guy in a frog costume standing facing a line of police and ICE agents in Portland

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Reposted by Will Cooling

Daniel @deargodwhatnow.bsky.social · 8h

Might be an unpopular opinion here but I do believe in parliamentary democracy, and you shouldn't functionally ensure state bodies have no accountability to it

Prof Christina Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social · 14h

🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

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UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation

Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Reposted by Will Cooling

John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 12h

ME: Now Mom, just remember, there's a lot of disinformation and AI in your social feed and your friends' Facebook.
MOM: I know! My friend sent me this crazy post where someone used AI to make an image of a giant frog fighting Army troops!
ME: ... okay, no, that one's ... goddamit, Portland.

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 11h

Damn. That would have been a sweet pairing

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 11h

Did Funk ever have a program against a Heenan managed wrestler?

Reposted by Will Cooling

Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 12h

I for one wasn't aware they'd even started.

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 13h

More and more confidence that Farage is due a painful correction if the mainstream parties can just start throwing real punches at him for a sustained period

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 15h

I'm amazed that having had high inflation on-and-off for ten years we're still tolerating babytalk about cost of living crisises rather than making politicians (or commentators for that matter) be specific about why they think we have high inflation and what they will do to tackle its causes

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 15h

I think a big problem across politics is the language of politics has become so dumbed down that it's narrow politicians thinking. We let them get away with talking about things being better, easier, bigger, reformed, etc without forcing them to explain what they mean by these quite empty words

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 16h

Is that true? No one has the local authority experience of Blunkett or Darling. Starmer and Reeves both far less experienced than Blair and Brown. Etc etc

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 16h

I mean...he would be a more successful PM if he were more self-aware about what others thought about him, and had a bit more ego about his administration being successful

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 19h

Tbh don't need any words after trying...

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 20h

People point to the Tories broader record in government but them leaning on Ofcom to leave GB News alone despite its repeated regulatory breaches & its star presenter being a political rival of theirs may actually be the thing that dooms them

Naturally, Labour are refusing to correct this mistake

Ben Fenton @benfenton.bsky.social · 20h

If a news organisation is making -200% margin after five years, it is not a commercial operation and should be assumed to have a different purpose.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 22h

The channel lost £33 million to communicate its content to a large audience
www.business-live.co.uk/enterprise/g...

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Reposted by Will Cooling

Ben Fenton @benfenton.bsky.social · 20h

If a news organisation is making -200% margin after five years, it is not a commercial operation and should be assumed to have a different purpose.

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 22h

The channel lost £33 million to communicate its content to a large audience
www.business-live.co.uk/enterprise/g...

GB News suffers huge loss despite doubling revenue and growing audience

The TV channel, whose well-known presenters include Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, fell to a pre-tax loss of £33.4m in the year to 31 May, 2024

www.business-live.co.uk

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

We'll seen when parliament is back because the schedule for getting the new Code of Practice laid before parliament has badly slipped

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

It's not even that is it. I was in Oberhausen & Amsterdam just before lockdown, and there were loads of fun dive bars. But they were completely inaccessible for wheelchair users, and some of them were so crowded as to be a fire hazard even for non-disabled people. Good regulations have a downside

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Oh there's another late night fallback...

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Or you know, pay people to go voluntarily....

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Not sure £1 energy bills help with tackling climate change lol

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Worth remembering that Labour MPs sat on their hands as the British Government basically did the same to our international development ministry at around the same time - what little money is still in the "international aid" budget is overwhelmingly spent in the UK

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

I mean...it wasn't outside her control to read the room beforehand

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Furlough was deliberately set at 80% of income, up to a certain amount. Now that was probably too high a percentage, given the savings that could be made by not having to commute.

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Don't think so, *waves hands at the world*

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

Taxing WFH workers would encourage them to restrict spending, which would lessen the demand pressures in the economy that first caused shortages and then malformed it as people engaged in online fads. It would also make it easier to unlock, as tax cuts create a feel good factor

Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 1d

It's amazing that still no Tory will criticise funding the covid response by additional borrowing rather than emergency taxation. It would be self-evidentally reasonable to say that those working from home should pay additional taxes for furlough, loans, UC uplift, & support for frontline workers

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