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Reposted

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 23m

Opinion: The tragedy is not that these industries are evil, but they are absorbing some of the best brains of a generation at the very moment we can least afford to lose them on.ft.com/4hkFpmb

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 1h

Only two?

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 2h

Anglophones do seem to be averse to bilingualism.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 1d

Incredible stuff. Penguin and Club biscuits now have so little cocoa content their coating can no longer be described as “chocolate”.

www.thetimes.com/article/2144...

Why Penguin bars can no longer be described as 'chocolate'

Sian Bradley

Sunday October 19 2025, 6.35pm, The Times

Two of Britain's classic lunchbox biscuits have reduced their cocoa content so much that they cannot legally be described as chocolate. Club and Penguin, both manufactured by Pladis, the owner of McVitie's, have been quietly reformulated, resulting in the coating being downgraded to merely
"chocolate flavour".

This has forced the retirement of Club biscuit's original slogan: "If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club", for the less punchy: "If you like a lot of biscuit in your break, join our Club."

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 3h

Is this because they lost their Royal Warrant as "Purveyors of Alibis"?

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 5h

How do they perform in terms of storage efficiency and battery life, and recyclability?
Performance on revenue may be more a result of advertising and sales promotion

brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 7h

Sounds as if William is worried that we might decide to pull the plug on the whole monarchy system

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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 1d

1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area

2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction

3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it

Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…

4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely

[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over

5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat

[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster

Minister:
I understand your concerns…

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Nurse:
Are you OK love?

Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters

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Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian

[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]

Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love

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Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to

[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]

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Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR

[woman looks baffled]

10
woman:
I just want a bus service

Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]

[ends]

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 7h

I was very disappointed with Milliband's take on this, especially after the MSM's thinly-veiled antisemitic attacks on him when Labour leader ( bacon sandwich, two-kitchens).

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POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 12h

Europe’s leaders are in the fight of their lives.

For the first time, the summit they hold this week will zero in on topics aimed at reclaiming turf from the far right.

Here comes the EU’s first anti-far-right European Council

Housing, social media regulation, migration and defense spending are all being used by the political mainstream to curb the march of populists.

www.politico.eu

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POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 9h

European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera said Donald Trump's threat to slap tariffs on Spain over its lax defense spending made "little sense" and called for the EU to stand firm against the US president's "outbursts."

Ribera says Trump’s tariff threat against Spain makes ‘little sense’

Competition chief said the EU must stand firm in the face of the American president’s “outbursts.”

www.politico.eu

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 1d

I was looking at Reform's policy again the other day. They're proposing a £60k salary for people on ILR keeping their visa. Which means pretty much every nurse on ILR would be a risk. It's insane.

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.

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Damian Low @damianlow3.bsky.social · 10h

So Gary Neville is apparently a traitor despite employing 600 Mancunians, paying all his taxes and opening his hotel to front line workers during COVID lockdowns.

Sounds like much more of a patriot than those who criticising him who just spend their time talking the UK down.

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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 22h

More seriously, the UK Prime Minister and most politicians have made absolute idiots of themselves in linking violence around a particular football team to antisemitism, but that might be better than the alternative of riots and deaths in Birmingham in a couple of weeks.

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Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 19h

THIS.

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 19h

I hope Starmer sends a strong complaint to the Israeli government asking them to let the match go ahead, and if they refuse, he calls them out as antisemites

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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 1d

Dismantling the Institutional Review Board (IRB), that oversees all human subjects research, is bad. Really bad.

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 6d

The entire HR department at the CDC is gone. Everyone at the IRB, which makes sure studies are conducted ethically and rigorously, and the ethics office, which oversee conflicts of interest for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

‘Instability and confusion’ as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half

Trump administration says 700 notices were sent in error, while top CDC officer says ‘they didn’t think through what they were doing’

www.theguardian.com

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 1d

It is not a no-go area for Jews, just for violent Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.

brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 1d

Basic rate income tax is at its lowest since I started work in 1973.
At that time NICs were a flat rate of 57p per week, which was 7.6% of my weekly wage of £7.50.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 1d

This, this, this. If journalists don’t scrutinize this and explain it properly now then they have failed on their duty and will bear a share of the blame if such policies are enacted (most of the public oppose them and don’t I think realise what is being proposed yet).

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.

10 210 580

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.

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UK Politics @politicsintheuk.bsky.social · 1d

Refuk can win next week in the Caerphilly Senedd by-election, yet the Lügenpresse are doing zero scrutiny of the candidate - Llyr Powell - his relationship with his former boss and friend, and most importantly,
Kremlin r🐀t Nathan Gill, bribed by the butcher of Ukrainians, Putin. #ukpolitics

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 1d

Firhill for thrills, eh?

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Laura McInerney @missmc.bsky.social · 1d

Hang on… Victoria Derbyshire says no country has raised serious money with a wealth tax.

Then says Norway only got £2.7bn.

But it’s 1/12th the population of the UK!

Scaled up that would be £32bn. That’s serious money.

Now…

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brendanl2011.bsky.social @brendanl2011.bsky.social · 1d

Aren't most of the "UK" online gambling outfits based in Gibraltar or Isle of Man?