Daniel Harkin
@danharkin.bsky.social
Reading the outrage about jury trials on here you’d be surprised to learn we are in the minority for having them in the first place. Getting rid of jury trials is not going to improve anything: moving towards an inquisitorial system is what would make justice cheaper and more equitable.
November 25, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reading the outrage about jury trials on here you’d be surprised to learn we are in the minority for having them in the first place. Getting rid of jury trials is not going to improve anything: moving towards an inquisitorial system is what would make justice cheaper and more equitable.
Miliband 2.0 May ‘26
November 24, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Miliband 2.0 May ‘26
It makes me a little sad he can’t imagine why a healthcare professional would have this attitude *regardless of their actual views on the matter* simply out of an interest to make sure someone accessed the care they needed.
Why is transphobia the default state for so many arseholes?
November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
It makes me a little sad he can’t imagine why a healthcare professional would have this attitude *regardless of their actual views on the matter* simply out of an interest to make sure someone accessed the care they needed.
Labour are astonishingly bad at asking members for money immediately after doing something shitty
November 23, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Labour are astonishingly bad at asking members for money immediately after doing something shitty
Me this morning: how do I watch the ashes.
Me two minutes later: no point
Me two minutes later: no point
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Me this morning: how do I watch the ashes.
Me two minutes later: no point
Me two minutes later: no point
Just a warning that if you put up your Christmas decorations before Christmas Eve, although I might like your Instagram post I’m actually tutting.
November 21, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Just a warning that if you put up your Christmas decorations before Christmas Eve, although I might like your Instagram post I’m actually tutting.
My favourite pastime in the UK is competitive feeling vaguely miserable and uncomfortably cold in your own home.
BREAKING: Millions of households will see a slight rise in gas and electricity prices at the height of winter after regulator Ofgem outlined its next price cap
November 21, 2025 at 9:02 AM
My favourite pastime in the UK is competitive feeling vaguely miserable and uncomfortably cold in your own home.
Reposted by Daniel Harkin
There are lots of ways to make the argument for higher pay. The public love NHS doctors! Talk about skills, other nations, squeezed wages! But elephant in the room is the BMA and consultants are (whisper it) often from privileged circles and get lost in the rhetoric of entitlement and inequality.
November 20, 2025 at 4:08 PM
There are lots of ways to make the argument for higher pay. The public love NHS doctors! Talk about skills, other nations, squeezed wages! But elephant in the room is the BMA and consultants are (whisper it) often from privileged circles and get lost in the rhetoric of entitlement and inequality.
The way the left has suddenly decided it is against tax increases is exhausting.
Either you support a tax on wealthier people or you don’t.
on.ft.com/44azcE6 Rachel Reeves under pressure to scale back Budget raid on expensive homes
on.ft.com/44azcE6 Rachel Reeves under pressure to scale back Budget raid on expensive homes
November 20, 2025 at 11:37 AM
The way the left has suddenly decided it is against tax increases is exhausting.
This article says land value taxes are impossible to implement and then, in a footnote, says that Denmark has a land value tax. I’m kinda in awe of the brazenness.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
The failure of the land value tax - Works in Progress Magazine
Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.
worksinprogress.co
November 18, 2025 at 5:48 PM
This article says land value taxes are impossible to implement and then, in a footnote, says that Denmark has a land value tax. I’m kinda in awe of the brazenness.
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
worksinprogress.co/issue/the-fa...
Current Labour Party sure loves signalling how right wing it is before caving in to a horrified PLP, managing to look weak and heartless all at the same time - a well known recipe for electoral success.
November 17, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Current Labour Party sure loves signalling how right wing it is before caving in to a horrified PLP, managing to look weak and heartless all at the same time - a well known recipe for electoral success.
I once had a paper rejected because someone had argued something similar in the 1980s. In French. The reviewer did not give the name of the work and I’ve never been able to trace it.
November 16, 2025 at 9:53 PM
I once had a paper rejected because someone had argued something similar in the 1980s. In French. The reviewer did not give the name of the work and I’ve never been able to trace it.
Or maybe AI doesn’t have perverse incentives to reject as many papers as possible.
This is what happened when AI acted as both author and reviewer - a study found AI peer-reviewers accepted fake AI-generated papers 4 out of 5 times. We need #PeerReview to be better, and human oversight is more vital than ever!
#ResearchIntegrity #AI #AcademicPublishing #ResearchSky #AcademicSky
#ResearchIntegrity #AI #AcademicPublishing #ResearchSky #AcademicSky
AI peer reviewers are fine with AI-fabricated papers
Study finds artificial intelligence reviewers accept AI-generated scientific studies 4 out of 5 times
cen.acs.org
November 16, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Or maybe AI doesn’t have perverse incentives to reject as many papers as possible.
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Is this going to be the new pastry tax? Will they manage somehow to do a budget even more unpopular than hiking the basic rate and still not raise enough money to fix anything?
Evening.
November 16, 2025 at 7:03 PM
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Normally I can rationalise away right wing rhetoric by Labour figures but Mahmood describing her reforms as a “moral mission” Is genuinely sickening.
November 16, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Normally I can rationalise away right wing rhetoric by Labour figures but Mahmood describing her reforms as a “moral mission” Is genuinely sickening.
Basically sums up this government’s approach.
Which then takes you back into the familiar territory of pleasing nobody - winding up the left for a policy that potentially doesn’t make that much difference in practice
November 16, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Basically sums up this government’s approach.
I’ve now gone down the rabbit hole reading about TfL zonal fares to see if Stephen or Steve is right.
A rare bad take from Steve. Tonight he will be visited by the vengeful ghosts of Ken Livingstone, Dave Wetzel and Nelson Rockefeller until he repents.
At least they are getting coverage for once. Good for them.
Fares are expensive and people will find ways to avoid them no matter how theatrical you make the barriers.
I'd prefer to see a single flat fare paid on entry like the NY system (something they get right).
Fares are expensive and people will find ways to avoid them no matter how theatrical you make the barriers.
I'd prefer to see a single flat fare paid on entry like the NY system (something they get right).
November 14, 2025 at 2:22 PM
I’ve now gone down the rabbit hole reading about TfL zonal fares to see if Stephen or Steve is right.
The logic of one visible tax rise hasn’t changed and it’s just a gutlessness to abandon it. ((1) you don’t have loads of different losers, (2) you don’t rely on lots of flaky measures to get your fiscal headroom). It also seems like we’re going to repeat this next year and the next.
November 14, 2025 at 2:07 PM
The logic of one visible tax rise hasn’t changed and it’s just a gutlessness to abandon it. ((1) you don’t have loads of different losers, (2) you don’t rely on lots of flaky measures to get your fiscal headroom). It also seems like we’re going to repeat this next year and the next.
I know we live in an age of woeful customer service but the never-ending issue with @eon-next.bsky.social and its inability to produce a final bill has really been up there.
November 14, 2025 at 2:00 PM
I know we live in an age of woeful customer service but the never-ending issue with @eon-next.bsky.social and its inability to produce a final bill has really been up there.
Turns out it *was* all about the toilets.
November 14, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Turns out it *was* all about the toilets.
While I’m strongly in favour of PR this is selective and spurious. Tell this to the Israeli Knesset. No system is extremist-immune.
The Dutch election proved what we've been saying for ages: that PR voting systems tame extremist parties and expose them.
FPTP in Britain has delivered Reform's agenda without them needing to get anywhere near Number 10.
The Temper Trap author Stuart Donald for @politicshome.bsky.social.
FPTP in Britain has delivered Reform's agenda without them needing to get anywhere near Number 10.
The Temper Trap author Stuart Donald for @politicshome.bsky.social.
November 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM
While I’m strongly in favour of PR this is selective and spurious. Tell this to the Israeli Knesset. No system is extremist-immune.
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Moreover, in the 2017 election basically everyone voted for either of the two main parties. And Labour still lost.
Also the Brexit referendum is a cautionary tale of the unexpected consequences of non-voters coming out to vote for the first time.
Moreover, in the 2017 election basically everyone voted for either of the two main parties. And Labour still lost.
Also the Brexit referendum is a cautionary tale of the unexpected consequences of non-voters coming out to vote for the first time.
Also, this is a low turnout off-year election in a city where the population is overwhelming Democratic and from progressive demographics, and in a country with an unpopular right wing incumbent. I would be wary of generalising from this to contexts where some or all of these things aren't true.
Perhaps it worked for him (don't know enough about US politics to know) but it's an all too familiar hope on the part of the British left - one that, time and time again, is sadly dashed when the results are counted and the analysis is done.
November 8, 2025 at 3:13 PM
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Moreover, in the 2017 election basically everyone voted for either of the two main parties. And Labour still lost.
Also the Brexit referendum is a cautionary tale of the unexpected consequences of non-voters coming out to vote for the first time.
Moreover, in the 2017 election basically everyone voted for either of the two main parties. And Labour still lost.
Also the Brexit referendum is a cautionary tale of the unexpected consequences of non-voters coming out to vote for the first time.
I heard the craziest combination of conspiracy theories last night: that white replacement is a policy secretly orchestrated by Israel, to turn America and Europe into Muslim majority countries. I am still trying to get my head around it. (Maybe I shouldn’t even try.)
November 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM
I heard the craziest combination of conspiracy theories last night: that white replacement is a policy secretly orchestrated by Israel, to turn America and Europe into Muslim majority countries. I am still trying to get my head around it. (Maybe I shouldn’t even try.)
It’s a bizarre feature of this government that their “we’re hardnosed austerity fetishists” messaging has been successful … Just with precisely the people who are turned off by such messaging, whereas those it is aimed at don’t believe a word of it.
A government that did a wealth tax that literally brought people to the streets to protest against it, but is, somehow, having its lunch eaten by people calling for wealth taxes!
Terrific column by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social- this is essentially a Milibandite government, but one that is so in denial about it that it can’t even appeal properly to the coalition *for Milibandism*:
November 8, 2025 at 11:29 AM
It’s a bizarre feature of this government that their “we’re hardnosed austerity fetishists” messaging has been successful … Just with precisely the people who are turned off by such messaging, whereas those it is aimed at don’t believe a word of it.
Why in TV shows do characters have their medication in bottles with screw tops? Mine always comes in blister packs. No moodily staring into the middle distance for me either; I’m always searching for wherever the pill has sprung to.
November 8, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Why in TV shows do characters have their medication in bottles with screw tops? Mine always comes in blister packs. No moodily staring into the middle distance for me either; I’m always searching for wherever the pill has sprung to.