Alan Colquhoun
@alancolquhoun.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.6K following 7.1K posts
Pianist, philosopher, author, ethicist, metaphysician, moralist, aesthete...🇺🇦
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alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Plain enough to cut through the bullshit, but sharp enough to keep it clean...
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Halfway up Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, at sunrise this morning
Reposted by Alan Colquhoun
mrjamesob.bsky.social
Lords Heseltine & Kinnock seem more alive to these self-evident truths than most members of the Commons. Similarly, I find thinkers with direct lived experience of far right dictatorship, Greeks of a certain age for example, crystal clear about what’s happening now.
bbcnewsnight.bsky.social
“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
I agree

Washington is on form (when isn't he?)
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
It's an insightful observation and an important point, well made.
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Saddened to learn of the death of John Woodvine

His Banquo in the Thames Television 1978 production of Macbeth with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench left a deep impression on me - quiet strength, dignity and real menace when the ghost returns

A fine actor with a remarkable, long career
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Nick Griffin even appears on the scene
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
@mrjamesob.bsky.social

Worth recalling Bill Buford’s 'Among the Thugs' (1990) — wherein he traces English football hooliganism, not just as random violence but as a recruiting ground for fascist groups

Much of today’s far right street politics grew out of those networks
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Kotulka is a happy cat (obviously)
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
There are a number of problems with your question:

Gods are plural and literally imperceptible and nonexistent

And, as I argued above, 'neurodivergent' is itself a misnomer
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
UK parliament can already pass any law it wants; the ECHR only lets individual citizens challenge breaches of basic rights and forces the UK to face external scrutiny when it tramples them

Scrapping it means giving ministers unchecked power over liberty, fair trial and protection from abuse
andrewcopson.bsky.social
The Convention on Human Rights is one of the greatest achievements of European civilisation following one of its greatest tragedies. To join Russia in leaving it would be one of the biggest acts of national self-sabotage in history and have zero positive consequences www.bbc.com/news/article...
UK will leave ECHR if Tories win election, Badenoch says
The European Convention on Human Rights has become a focal point in debates around changing immigration policy.
www.bbc.com
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
With my brother and his wife up Blackford Hill this morning...
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
@matthew-wright.bsky.social

Excellent show again today

I think people should reflect on the fact that there isn't a single person alive today who doesn't owe their very existence to opportunistic migration
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
No one is diagnosed by the revelation of a measurable neurophysiological departure from a norm

The diagnostic categories remain folk psychologically interpretive, behavioural and conceptual
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
The fashionable idiom of neurodiversity and neurodivergence has its uses:

it gestures toward the welcome idea that there are many ways of being minded

But it also suggests an empirical depth — as though careful scanners had charted the deviant neural paths of autism or ADHD — which does not exist
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Of course, one significant implication of the foregoing (linked to) argument is the grossly misleading character of the current trend of categorising some people as 'neurodivergent'
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
Unfortunately the app prevents me from forwarding this video to you

Needless to say it's terrifying and disgusting in equal measure

For me, it just accentuates the preciousness of democracy
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
You’ve been given free access to this article from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

Donald Trump’s cure for drug prices is worse than the disease

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...
Donald Trump’s cure for drug prices is worse than the disease
The problem is not greedy pharma firms
www.economist.com
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Leaving the ECHR gives up meaningful, hard won rights protection and international standing for virtually no gain in actual legislative control or immigration policy power
If one cares about truth and outcomes rather than rhetoric, there's no good reason to vote for it
UK will leave ECHR if Tories win election, Badenoch says
The European Convention on Human Rights has become a focal point in debates around changing immigration policy.
www.bbc.co.uk
alancolquhoun.bsky.social
You’ve been given free access to this article from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

Vladimir Putin is testing the West—and its unity...

www.economist.com/leaders/2025...
Vladimir Putin is testing the West—and its unity
NATO must resist Russia’s efforts to corrode it from within
www.economist.com