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Gaby Hinsliff

@gabyhinsliff.bsky.social

59K followers 710 following 1.9K posts

Guardian columnist & writer, author of Half a Wife, sometimes on telly/Guardian Politics Weekly podcast. No, I didn't write the headline. Event host & speaker https://www.specialistspeakers.com/?p=2705

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 12m

been quite the week in British counter-terrorism

Evans The Crime @evansthecrime.bsky.social · 23m

My front page story for Wednesday’s South Wales Evening Post - A former soldier who is now in charge of protecting UK energy infrastructure from terrorism and cyber threats drunkenly beat up a man in a Swansea / Abertawe bar.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2h

which makes it all the more impressive a feat really.

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2h

You might not care how China is defined, but the law does. That's the whole problem. (And to be fair I think MPs on all sides genuinely do care about the trial collapsing - it's scary and unsettling to think that your workplace might have been infiltrated)

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2h

i would go so far as to suggest we may have more of said vibe in days to come

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 7h

oh god everything would be on fire

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 7h

i know but...still? imagine trying to do this to eg Tube drivers in the UK. Anarchy within about five minutes.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 7h

admittedly i come from a country that nearly rioted when KFC ran out of chicken temporarily, but IT PUZZLES ME that 'we maybe can't pay the army tomorrow' is apparently not a dealbreaker

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 7h

As a Brit, shutdowns are one of the hardest things to understand about US politics. Every few years it's 'oh yeah we'll just randomly stop paying essential workers overnight Because Politics' like some collapsing rogue state and people just...roll with it? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Panic as US federal workers scramble to find out if they’ve been fired: ‘I don’t have email access’

Education department staff say they can’t access work emails amid the shutdown to check for layoff notices

www.theguardian.com

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 9h

Keir Starmer calling Kemi Badenoch's bluff over the China spy case in PMQs: she's made serious allegations, govt clearly thinks she can't stand them up, & so far the vibe is fairly 'person on X who doesn't know the law, arguing with a lawyer'

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely fair, can’t be doing with the hobbit business either

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

YES

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

i will never be old enough

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

i've got quite into Dickens in later life but i absolutely stand by your right to loathe him, everyone should have the right to think at least one Great Author is in fact insufferable

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

Persuasion ffs. Also a ton more of it in first year of uni.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

i hate Jane Austen, i will not be taking questions, also reading is a bit like food; nothing beats the intensity of the things you consumed when you were young. (including the things you did not like, which have i mentioned this, very much include Jane Austen)

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

Waiting to GoDownToXray (sorry). Hope you're feeling better soon Sam.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

what I'm talking about is what the thread to which you responded is about! tbh having spent years covering the fallout from that war as a reporter, the main learning i'd take from it is that evidence matters. Whether JP was involved or not with the collapse of this case, the answer isn't in Iraq.

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

I'm not going to relitigate Iraq now for all our sakes, but I do think it's a quite a leap from there to 'so Jonathan Powell collapsed a prosecution to please the Chinese and/or then got Steve Witkoff to try and save his skin' without pausing for breath

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

i think it's quite a lot of 'that's enough old Blairites coming back thankyou'/leftover Iraq grievances. Plus a whiff of conspiracism that's now lurking under pretty much everything.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

ah yes i get you now. Yes, it is very difficult, though given i'm currently listening to Chris Philp apparently suggesting that non-UK nationals be deported for expressing anti-semitic or extremist views whether or not that meets criminal threshold, hard to say where the boundaries are now

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

sure, but there are probably some parallels with stuff we do have experience with.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

sort of, but it's very clearly aimed at people who present a deadly threat to others. I think the closest thing is more like the feeling you're losing a family member to a cult.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

true, except when it's mixed up with mental health (as you suspect in a lot of cases it is) that's a lot to expect a partner to just deal with on their own.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

yup. Not at scale nor in individual cases. But it shouldn't be impossible to learn.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 2d

it's weird that we are so mental health aware in some ways, learning what to do or say if a friend or colleague depressed/traumatised/struggling with being neurodivergent etc, but absolutely no clue where to start with this one which is becoming a thing in a lot of families/marriages/friendships

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