Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jack Nicholls

@theveryliberaljack.bsky.social

78 followers 290 following 250 posts

Lib Dem, general nerdgeek, drummer, songwriter, haiku composer, beard person, bi, ENM, trekkie 🖖, very amateur cocktail designer, human rights enthusiast, trans ally 🔶️🏳️‍🌈 🩷🩵🤍 (he/him)

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 3d

Pass it on....

#thetoriesdontlikeyou

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 13h

If anyone things the Marxist left are in charge of British schools, they are demonstrating a lack of understanding current politics. And the word Marxist. And, possibly, of what thinking is.

Also, whatever their other faults, Marxists would fund the damn things better

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 1d

POEM INNIT!

If people want to leave the Tories
For us that's ok
But I would only ever vote blue
In the U...S...A

#bluewave 🌊
@libdems.org.uk 🔶️

I get Ed's angle, but a big reason I'm a liberal is that I'm very not a conservative of any kind, including the socially conservative bit of the left.

Reposted by Jack Nicholls

Alex Will Resurrect That Werewolf Pic 🔸🏳️‍🌈 @alexwilcock.bsky.social · 1d

OTD 1807: Liberal philosopher Harriet Taylor Mill
Co-author of iconic Liberal text On Liberty with her husband John Stuart Mill
(He credited her as co-author, but for some reason hardly anyone else did at the time – or even 166 years later. Wonder why? Hmm, it’s a mystery)

Harriet Taylor Mill portrait in gold dress

10 16

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 3d

Grate Britian

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 3d

Conversation at every UK party conference.

'I'm worried the party to our immediate right won't do something stupid to make us look better by comparison'

'No, they will. Trust'

I'm quite pleased our version of that is wetsuits and bouncy castles rather than the demolishing of basic rights.

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 3d

Pass it on....

#thetoriesdontlikeyou

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 3d

No, no it isn't, either in the social or medical sense. Maybe one day people will wake up to the idea that lots of politicians of the right don't like them and don't want to represent them.

The shadow Chancellor, who is now apparently a mental health diagnostician, can do one too.

Same old Tories

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 4d

Sometimes political nerdom and real life intersect in fascinating ways.

The new vibrant @libdems.org.uk orange has given me an idea for a #warhammer40000 paint scheme.

It also gave me a dream on which the three uniform colours in #startrek were purple, orange and green.

🔶️ 🎨 🖖

Reposted by Jack Nicholls

Ben Wood /|\🔶️🌿✝️ @cosmichope.bsky.social · 4d

If there's one dichotomy I would like to expunge from modern politics it's the hard/soft duality (with 'hardness' synonymous with force, unflinching certainty & swift action). What hardness doesn't signify is empathy, reflection, or effectiveness. It's the sign of someone who has stopped thinking.

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 4d

Kevin Hollinrake says the Tories were too soft in government.

If I indulge my honest reaction to that statement, I will put my fist through a wall.

Deluded, willfully or otherwise

1 2 4

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 4d

Well said. When politicians talk about being 'tough' - it's never about being so on the audience, it's troublesome other people. It's also illustrative to see who gets rhetorically set against the interests of 'the people', 'the country', 'the British people' or, my favourite, 'the taxpayer'.

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 4d

Kevin Hollinrake says the Tories were too soft in government.

If I indulge my honest reaction to that statement, I will put my fist through a wall.

Deluded, willfully or otherwise

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 4d

Civil libertarians meet round the back of the standard left-right spectrum. On this at least, we have allies in Tony Benn, Peter Tatchell, David Davis and Andrew Mitchell.

Benn said that how a government treats refugees is indicative of how it would treat everyone if it could. And it's true.

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 5d

Tories are saying they will abolish legal aid for migration cases.

It is a fundamental point of a law based system that everyone is entitled to a defence, and everything gets an appeal against the state.

The vaunted party of law and order doesn't care about law. Fucking disgraceful.

1 3 7

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 6d

I agree. Also, how are we in a place where you and I care more about the sustainability of the sensible centre-right than they do?

1 3

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 6d

Conservatism*

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 6d

I think that's true in and of itself, but the Conservative Party under KB - it would have been the same under RJ - is not conservative anymore, it's radical right, more AfD than CDU. It's just bad at it.

1 1

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 6d

Conservative, like liberalism and the labour tradition, is best when it is a broad, albeit finite, church. When they start setting criteria for who is a proper conservative, those criteria always boil down to how many kinds of people can be utterly vile to.

#liberaldemocrats 🔶️
#churchroof

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 7d

Strong start. I'll prepare the bat

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 7d

There's been a lot if politics this week, so let's do a different thing.

Friday soundtrack - three songs for your Friday, ideally linked.

For me...

Theme: UK 90s
1. Divine Comedy: Gin Soaked Boy
2. Richard Ashcroft: Science of Silence
3: Republica: Drop Dead Gorgeous

#friday #nineties

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 7d

Leading the Opposition

Step 1: Explain you are an engineer who solves problems logically.

Step 2: Open up new fronts on a culture war that is solving nothing, not least in terms of logic.

Step 3: Go up against the scientific consensus on QUITE A BIG THING🌎.

Conservatives. Yeah.....

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 8d

This is evil. Partisan politics and clever retorts be damned. This is just evil. The plan, the language, the whole thing.

Get this vile person out of Downing Street immediately. Keir Starmer, I disavow you.

1 4

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 8d

Big orange fedora with a Winning Here diamond? 🔶️🤠

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 8d

I'm not a big one on heroes. My main criterion is not what did you do but who did you inspire? Jane Goodall passed that test and then some.

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 8d

That's a fine hat

1 1

Jack Nicholls @theveryliberaljack.bsky.social · 8d

Cones Hotline II: This time is personal