Ian Betteridge
@ianbetteridge.com
He of the eponymous law. FRSA. Good at writing and sums. Degrowther, and not a fan of capitalism. Your pal. The Eye of Sauron, but for headlines. Made by socialism and immigration, which seems to annoy people. Come for the headlines, stay for the Gramsci.
Pinned
Ian Betteridge
@ianbetteridge.com
· Dec 15
People have a right to speak. They don’t have a right for anyone else to have to listen. That’s why block lists etc exist. I don’t give people the benefit of assuming good faith in the same way I wouldn’t if someone followed me down the street demanding I debate them. I’d call the cops, to be honest
Pinning this one to my profile for the hard for reading.
Granpa Elon is off his meds again.
November 27, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Granpa Elon is off his meds again.
I think we are going to have unemployment on a scale not seen since the early 1980s in the next five years, and without the safety net we had then.
Sam rather kindly calls the unemployment projection 'optimistic'. Below is the graph, it's visibly unreasonable, verging on out of touch with what's happening in the economy right now at both ends (young workers and old), it's in the 'growth in international students' bucket of not going to happen.
November 27, 2025 at 10:25 PM
I think we are going to have unemployment on a scale not seen since the early 1980s in the next five years, and without the safety net we had then.
Sigh. Every single year I end up buying something before Black Friday, only to find there's a lovely steep discount. Such as on Mailbox.org, which I'm moving all my email to. You might like it.
mailbox.org/en/news/blac...
mailbox.org/en/news/blac...
Ihre Daten. Ihre Kontrolle.
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Mailbox.org
November 27, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Sigh. Every single year I end up buying something before Black Friday, only to find there's a lovely steep discount. Such as on Mailbox.org, which I'm moving all my email to. You might like it.
mailbox.org/en/news/blac...
mailbox.org/en/news/blac...
It’s really quite an interesting thing about the skewed values of British people that 62% of them imagine people under 65 have £12k a year to put away in anything, let alone a cash ISA.
Fascinating that the cash ISA limit is the most unpopular item in the budget. I would have thought it would be unpopular but not more so than e.g. freezing tax thresholds.
November 27, 2025 at 8:44 PM
It’s really quite an interesting thing about the skewed values of British people that 62% of them imagine people under 65 have £12k a year to put away in anything, let alone a cash ISA.
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
‘The Surrealists saw colonialism and imperialism as intrinsic to fascism, and from start to finish they campaigned against both.’
Hal Foster on the Surrealists and anti-fascism.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Hal Foster on the Surrealists and anti-fascism.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Hal Foster · Tightrope of Hope: Surrealism v. Fascism
The Surrealists saw colonialism and imperialism as intrinsic to fascism, and from start to finish they campaigned...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
‘The Surrealists saw colonialism and imperialism as intrinsic to fascism, and from start to finish they campaigned against both.’
Hal Foster on the Surrealists and anti-fascism.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Hal Foster on the Surrealists and anti-fascism.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
We have a UK government intellectually and psychologically unprepared to cope with potential labour shortages or market crashes because these scenarios don't match entreched assumptions about the trajectory of the global order
Fewer workers. Fewer international students. More people leaving.
A "step in the right direction" according to the PM.
Impossible to take PM/govt seriously on growth if they are deliberately reducing it (and making the fiscal position worse) *as a matter of policy*.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
A "step in the right direction" according to the PM.
Impossible to take PM/govt seriously on growth if they are deliberately reducing it (and making the fiscal position worse) *as a matter of policy*.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK net migration falls sharply with drop in arrivals for work and study
Provisional figures for net migration to the UK show levels dropped to 204,000 in the year to June 2025.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 8:30 PM
We have a UK government intellectually and psychologically unprepared to cope with potential labour shortages or market crashes because these scenarios don't match entreched assumptions about the trajectory of the global order
Survival - for now
Five big risks hidden in the budget
open.substack.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Can't believe they're going to end trial by jury. It's one of our most fundamental rights. Literally Magna Carta stuff.
November 25, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Can't believe they're going to end trial by jury. It's one of our most fundamental rights. Literally Magna Carta stuff.
🤔
November 27, 2025 at 11:24 AM
🤔
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
"Hormone Therapy was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in suicidality over time, extending prior findings with a larger sample and longer follow-up." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Changes in Suicidality among Transgender Adolescents Following Hormone Therapy: An Extended Study
To examine changes in suicidality following hormone therapy (HT) among transgender and gender-diverse adolescents and young adults.A retrospective cha…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:37 AM
"Hormone Therapy was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in suicidality over time, extending prior findings with a larger sample and longer follow-up." www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
There is something wonderful about living in a world where, whether etched into knackered slabs of dusty vinyl sixty years ago, or a swirling stream of immersive audio data created yesterday, music still has the power to make me feel my life has changed utterly on a regular basis.
November 25, 2025 at 6:34 AM
There is something wonderful about living in a world where, whether etched into knackered slabs of dusty vinyl sixty years ago, or a swirling stream of immersive audio data created yesterday, music still has the power to make me feel my life has changed utterly on a regular basis.
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Yup. A lot of publishers made a great deal of money from affiliate ecommerce revenue. How much? Well, in 2024 Future made over £303m, 38% of total revenue. That easily eclipsed advertising (£225m).
Fuck me, RIP to Future's business model, I guess
OpenAI unveils a free shopping research feature in ChatGPT that delivers a personalized buyer's guide, powered by a custom version of GPT-5 mini (Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 24, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Yup. A lot of publishers made a great deal of money from affiliate ecommerce revenue. How much? Well, in 2024 Future made over £303m, 38% of total revenue. That easily eclipsed advertising (£225m).
Remember the happy days when you could install software on your own hardware which let you do pretty-much anything you wanted with it? And all without the hardware maker trying to sue you? Good times, man, good times.
web.archive.org/web/20060823...
web.archive.org/web/20060823...
IpodPort < Main < TWiki
home download documentation mailing lists wiki IRC forums daily builds CVS builds feature requests bug reports patches
web.archive.org
November 24, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Remember the happy days when you could install software on your own hardware which let you do pretty-much anything you wanted with it? And all without the hardware maker trying to sue you? Good times, man, good times.
web.archive.org/web/20060823...
web.archive.org/web/20060823...
Clever use of what I think of as the "Deliberate Betteridge Maneuveur" here.
(There figures of £331m seem to be about £260m too high)
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
(There figures of £331m seem to be about £260m too high)
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reform UK claim to have saved £331m at English councils – but do the numbers stack up?
Experts say councils face limits on cuts as Reform’s savings on IT deals, office moves and EV projects are disputed
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Clever use of what I think of as the "Deliberate Betteridge Maneuveur" here.
(There figures of £331m seem to be about £260m too high)
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
(There figures of £331m seem to be about £260m too high)
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
I've seen this image enough now that I feel like I should point out it's fake.
November 24, 2025 at 4:12 AM
I've seen this image enough now that I feel like I should point out it's fake.
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Are you looking for a christmas present for a creative person? Hoo boy do we have the auction for you. Hundreds of creatives from 20 countries are raising funds for people fleeing Genocide in El-Fasher, Sudan. Huge names, huge items! Bid here! app.galabid.com/creatives4su...
Art by @raafaye, insta
Art by @raafaye, insta
November 23, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Are you looking for a christmas present for a creative person? Hoo boy do we have the auction for you. Hundreds of creatives from 20 countries are raising funds for people fleeing Genocide in El-Fasher, Sudan. Huge names, huge items! Bid here! app.galabid.com/creatives4su...
Art by @raafaye, insta
Art by @raafaye, insta
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
This is a lovely and insightful bit of writing by Charli xcx on her new substack itscharlibb.substack.com/p/the-realit...
The realities of being a pop star.
According to my experience...
itscharlibb.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:30 AM
This is a lovely and insightful bit of writing by Charli xcx on her new substack itscharlibb.substack.com/p/the-realit...
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Here's the Health Secretary Wes Streeting explaining that a clinical trial of a safe drug used in the UK and across the world for decades is necessary in order that it can be banned.
He wants to be PM.
He wants to be PM.
November 24, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Here's the Health Secretary Wes Streeting explaining that a clinical trial of a safe drug used in the UK and across the world for decades is necessary in order that it can be banned.
He wants to be PM.
He wants to be PM.
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Not content with selling out Ukraine to Russia and thereby putting the security of America’s allies at risk, the Trump regime is trashing the reputation of US science and risking the health of its children by rewriting the CDC website to suggest a link between vaccines and autism
November 23, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Not content with selling out Ukraine to Russia and thereby putting the security of America’s allies at risk, the Trump regime is trashing the reputation of US science and risking the health of its children by rewriting the CDC website to suggest a link between vaccines and autism
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
I do think it's worth addressing that the intellectual lodestar of this government is a gibbering idiot.
There are some truly unhinged bits in the piece about Glasman, as to be expected when dealing with Glasman, but seriously what the actual? That's...one hell of a conflation of terminology.
November 23, 2025 at 4:30 PM
I do think it's worth addressing that the intellectual lodestar of this government is a gibbering idiot.
Reposted by Ian Betteridge
Mark Zuckerberg is profoundly evil. This has been incredibly obvious for a very long time
November 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Mark Zuckerberg is profoundly evil. This has been incredibly obvious for a very long time