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Reposted by Jonathan Clarke

dag @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 20h

Looks like Maccabi have saved the UK government from the spectacle of somehow overturning an expert public safety assessment.

Either politicians make public safety at sports stadiums an absolute priority or they do not.

#AVFC

John Townley @johntownley.bsky.social · 20h

Maccabi Tel Aviv say in a statement that they will "decline any allocation offered on behalf of away fans" for next month's Europa League match against Aston Villa at Villa Park, adding that "the wellbeing and safety of our fans is paramount."

#AVFC

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 11h

So Peston failed to ask

"No British government has ever revoked permanent status retrospectively. has it"

"Has ANY government done this since Idi Amin?"

"So you want to deport most nurses who aren't citizens, simply because they don't earn enough money. Do you think that is fair play?"

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 11h

The costs of the UK’s Global Talent Visa looks a trifle high in comparison to competitor countries - largely through the Immigration Health Surcharge (which critics say is a form of double taxation as they contribute to the NHS through normal tax on their earnings)

Researchers applying for the UK's Global Talent visa face high upfront costs
Upfront cost of visa to applicant and
employer
in 2025
UK
Denmark
£692
India
£602
Australia
£405
Israel
£362
US
£305
Italy £235
Netherlands
1 £207
Germany | £170
Spain
1£144
Sweden | £117
South Korea | £98
France £84
Japan £21
£5,941
£O
£2,000
£4
Source: Fragomen for the Royal Society • Excludes ongoing costs such as mandatory healthcare premiums or fees such as language tests

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Paul Langley @paullangley.bsky.social · 20h

After more than a decade of below inflation pay rises (i.e pay cuts), very significant job losses and intensified workloads, absolutely no mention whatsoever of staff in this sticking plaster response to the crisis in UK universities.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

University tuition fees in England to rise with inflation every year from 2026

Bridget Phillipson confirmed the plans for the next two years, with fees to increase automatically after that.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Jonathan Clarke @jrlclarke.bsky.social · 19h

I realise this isn’t the complete issue here, but I just don’t see how the Canal and River Trust can look after all the infrastructure it has as a charity, as opposed to being a part of the Government, when they were British Waterways.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1d

V late to this (it’s a weekend, family stuff, etc) but..I agree with Ben. Both Katie Lam’s interview about deporting people with legal status (and the way STimes treated it) & the Christian Calgie business are disturbing egs of forgetting that ‘normal on X these days’ is very much not normal

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 2d

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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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 3d

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

The Pope tweets: "The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty. #DilexiTe"

Someone replies: "I was so hopeful I could be a Catholic again after the disaster that Francis was, guess we just get Francis 2.0 now and I am heartbroken. How do I stay a Catholic now...I don't want to lose faith but I am. You belong to someone else, not God."

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Jonathan Clarke @jrlclarke.bsky.social · 4d

She is terrific. Considered, charming and makes her arguments in a way that feels both logical and inclusive.

Eddie Burfi @eddieburfi.bsky.social · 4d

Ash Sarkar wins over Times columnist Matthew Syed re taxing billionaires.

Syed says Billionaires would leave if we taxed them more.

Sarkar says if they do, they can’t take property with them. If they sell, people won’t have to compete with them for property.

Syed “Well, that’s true.” #bbcqt

Jonathan Clarke @jrlclarke.bsky.social · 4d

I would think it is incredibly unlikely that they buy in advance. More likely, they pay some sort of option fee, with the completion only happening once the draw is done. As others have noted, the economics of this is interesting/murky.

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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 4d

Ever since I wrote this (www.londoncentric.media/p/omaze-lond...) I've been obsessed with *the British obsession with* Omaze... this is their latest house in Yorkshire.

If this new build is worth £4.5m I'm a banana. Nothing's shifting at this price, not least because of crazy high stamp duty.

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Sam Wilson @samwilson.bsky.social · 5d

For those who don’t work in youth work, it’s hard to describe how bleak it is out there.

We just pulled the rug on a generation of young people and are now shrugging our shoulders and hoping social media is the cause of all ills because then it feels less of our fault

Simon Parker @simonparker.bsky.social · 5d

The absolute bloody vandalism of austerity in one chart. Good analysis of the overall picture here.

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David Chriscole @devilishaccord.bsky.social · 6d

This is brilliant. Every time some eejit tries to silence @zackpolanski.bsky.social and put him in a box, he just has none of it and punches back with the truth. They really hate it!

Keep going Zack! 💚

Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 6d

Carole Malone, "Youu can't say what women's rights are because you're not a woman"

Zack Polanski, "You're not trans are you. We can all say you're not that thing so you can't have an opinion" 🔥

"You can still have an opinion from listening to people"

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Professor Peter Matthews @urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · 6d

I think this dull story about GPs and drop-in services in Scotland actually speaks to a bigger change in devolved governance in Scotland. There's an argument that in many policy areas since 1999 Scotland has actually been small-c conservative...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

GPs raise questions over SNP plans for new drop-in services in Scotland

The Royal College of GPs says it is not clear how the new services, promised by John Swinney, will be staffed when the GP workforce is smaller.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 7d

Really great @stephenkb.bsky.social column today.

on.ft.com/3KOUh07

Key para.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 8d

I bang on about this a lot: I think the combination of a global pandemic, underregulated internet/SM, collapse/corruption of trustworthy media, plus now unregulated genAI, is a wildly toxic environment for radicalisation & mental health. We see the results of that in our politics & lives every day

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 8d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 9d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 9d

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

www.desmog.com

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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 9d

🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle

12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain

When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up

1/3

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Ed Morrish @edmorrish.bsky.social · 9d

you know that critique of ai that says it’s like taking a forklift to the gym and expecting to get stronger? well this bit of that guardian article about people using chatgpt in dating apps kinda proves it correct

Which is why the man who greeted her inside the pub – polite, pleasant but oddly flat – felt like a stranger. Gone was the quickfire wit and playful rhythm she’d come to expect from their exchanges. Over pints he stumbled through small talk, checked his phone a little too often, and seemed to wilt under the pressure of her questions. “I felt like I was sitting opposite someone I’d never even spoken to,” she says. “I tried to have the same sort of conversation as we’d been having online, but it was like, ‘Knock, knock, is anyone home?’ – like he knew basically nothing about me. That’s when I suspected he’d been using AI.”

Rachel gave her date the benefit of the doubt. “I thought maybe he was nervous,” she says. But she’d been “Chatfished” before, so when the gap between his real and digital selves failed to close on their second date, she called it off. “I’d already been ChatGPT-ed into bed at least once. I didn’t want it to happen again.”

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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse @whitehouse.senate.gov · 12d

Ten years, more than ten-tupled.

Bar chart depicting India’s solar electricity generation increasing exponentially from 2014 to 2024.

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Jonathan Clarke @jrlclarke.bsky.social · 12d

As someone who can still remember the price list from Sheffield Student Union bar circa 1997, I can confirm that going out is a lot more expensive.

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 13d

"15 years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity. Now Poland is growing twice as fast as we are," says Kemi Badenoch.

Any ideas what may have happened in the interim?

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Vanessa is the name of the Doctor! @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 13d

Reminder that basing funding on graduate income incentivises unis to close courses like nursing (too poorly paid), and to discriminate against female students and most minority ethnic groups (whose earnings on graduation are lower than white men).

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 13d

'Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls.' 1/3

Badenoch’s number caps plan would cut 100,000 university places

Tory leader to use conference speech to attack ‘debt trap degrees’ and pledge more money for apprenticeships

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 13d

Though I'm a Musk biographer, I can't make the following claim with certainty—only contend that it's informed speculation.

I don't think Musk thinks *we're* in a simulation.

I think Musk thinks *he's* in a simulation.

Take a moment to process what that means about the value of human life to Musk.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 13d

This is among other things a product of how far UK Conservative and Reform Party MPs and Spads have become so marinated in Right wing American social media that they have adopted its view of unis as a source of radicalisation tempting youth away from the moral purity of National Conservative thought

Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 13d

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls, reports Patrick Jack #edusky
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/badenochs-number-caps-plan-would-cut-100000-university-places

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Jonathan Clarke @jrlclarke.bsky.social · 13d

Everyone likes the idea of apprenticeships in theory, but most are in retail, hospitality etc, and not in technical or engineering as people expect. 50% dropout is a problem for potential employers and suggests it’s not working for kids either. We need a lot more options for 18+ education.

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