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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 22h

Private equity wrecked UK high street, says Iceland Foods boss

PE model - low wages, cut staff/investment, high debt, profiteering, tax abuse.

PE devoured Debenhams, Maplin, Byron Burger, Cath Kidson, Comet, Flybe, Poundworld, Toys R Us.

Controls care homes, vets, supermarkets.
archive.ph/tJVkV

Private equity has wrecked the high street, says Iceland boss

Richard Walker says private buyers take out costs and fail to invest then sell to the highest bidder in a cycle that makes retailers steadily worse

www.thetimes.com

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 16m

I stand with Salman Mirza.

Birmingham man takes down flags because he says 'people feel unwelcome'

Salman Mirza says he wants to

www.bbc.co.uk

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 12h

We are, yes, and the weather is super-sunny and warm 😎

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 12h

Lovely. Are you there now?

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 12h

This is simply the EU enforcing its existing border controls by means of a new system, not a "threat to throw out second home owners". Again Brexiters believe that the UK should have border controls as regards the EU, but not the other way around.

Niall Ó Conghaile @nialloconghaile.bsky.social · 2d

Entirely unsurprising that the Holiday Villa 'Ndrangheta have found politcal allies at last in the shape of Reform UK.

Reform really do hypocrisy very well.

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H/T @goodclimate.bsky.social & @rolandmcs.bsky.social

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 13h

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

apnews.com/article/pope...

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

apnews.com

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Tom Scott @tom--scott.bsky.social · 17h

Farage claims Nathan Gill was a "bad apple".

So you can visualise his relationship with other leading figures in Reform as something like this.

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 14h

Church reflected.
Santa Croce, Florence, in evening sun and wine.

A gothic church facade with white, green and pink marble, reflected in a glass of white wine on a table

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 22h

Does anybody happen to know if recording your details for EES will apply when you *leave* a Schengen country for the first time, if you're already there when the system begins?

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Prof Nisreen Alwan @nisreenalwan.bsky.social · 23h

Let’s be real - this is a bit inconvenient but not a big deal in the long run. The big deal with Brexit is the economic destruction it inflicted and the xenophobia monster it unleashed.

Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 1d

UK travellers should expect "four-hour queues" as new EU border system comes into force. Brexit really is the gift that keeps giving

www.itv.com/news/2025-10...

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 22h

(Obviously someone who migrated to Massachusetts was homesick for rural Gloucestershire)

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 23h

Wow really? Same organisation? I only knew it as a pretty Cotswold village till their Covid nonsense

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 1d

Gaza journalist Maha Hussaini: “We have returned, like we’ll always do.”

A cat sits in a window. Beyond a completely destroyed city

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 1d

N.B. from a proper journal, not one of those ridiculous Great Barrington type 'journals'

Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 2d

💉 2024–25 Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness

In U.S. veterans, the updated vaccine reduced 6-month risks of Covid-related ED visits (-29%), hospitalisations (-39%), and deaths (-64%) vs flu-only group.

🔗 doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2510226

#SciComm #COVID19 #Vaccines 🧪

Association of 2024–2025 Covid-19 Vaccine with Covid-19 Outcomes in U.S. Veterans | NEJM

Amid the declining clinical severity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and diminishing public uptake of annual coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) vaccines, ...

doi.org

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Jonathan Atkinson @lowwintersun.bsky.social · 1d

And whilst people might criticise this as playing to the already converted, research shows Reform are actually vulnerable to messaging like this.

Rather than, you know, saying they have a point and you actually like flags too. 🙄

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 1d

"The barbarians are inside". Aside from the fact that Lenny Henry is hardly a barbarian, the invocation of such scornful, xenophobic, colonial language is appalling.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 1d

I realise I slightly go on about this, but I'm not sure enough attention is paid to the fact that a fair proportion of comment articles in the modern Daily Telegraph are utterly unmoored from any sense of even tenuous reality.

Daniel Hannan

Britain has given so much to civilisation. Now the barbarians are inside

The poisonous ideas of Vladimir Lenin have infected our progressive elite

Contemplate those elderly buffoons in blue berets who hand out EU flags at the Last Night of the Proms. Do you suppose they have any real interest in rejoining the EU? Do they strike you as having looked into the budgetary, migratory and commercial implications? Of course not. They just loathe the people they imagine having voted Leave.

Listen to Sir Lenny Henry, who thinks that, as well as handing over squillions to the West Indies and Africa, we should pay black people in this country. So much for the notion of equality before the law.

I could go on. The museums rushing to give away legally purchased collections to people who have never owned them, and who will very probably sell them on to private collectors. The diplomats longing to surrender British territories in defiance of the wishes of their peoples. The universities eviscerating the Western canon in the name of decolonising the curriculum.

“Colonialism-and-slavery” is proffered as a binomial phrase, like “law-and-order” or “gin-and-tonic”. Few kids in our schools are given the slightest notion that the first, at least in Africa, was driven by the desire to extirpate the second. Even fewer are taught that African kings fought to defend the institution.

The Benin Bronzes, which our cultural leaders are so keen to give away, were seized to defray the costs of an 1897 expedition against a state that buried slaves alive. The British Museum, which owns most of them, dares not mention it. Instead it says the carvings were acquired during the “expansion of colonial power”

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 1d

So this concerns a bloke, right? Not a trans woman. A bloke, who could walk into a women's changing room and pull a curtain aside. It's men who are the threat, not our trans sisters, many of whom, I suspect, will go asap straight into their own cubicle hoping no-one has a go at them.

The Independent @the-independent.com · 1d

Olivia Petter was made to feel as if an incident with a stranger in a clothing shop’s dressing room was something she was supposed to simply brush off. But several bureaucratic roadblocks and a police investigation later, she finally felt vindicated

My changing room experience is proof that women need to report ‘the small things’

www.independent.co.uk

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 1d

Great side eye

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Louise, Prof/Dr @louiselocock.bsky.social · 1d

Have a photo of my sister's new puppy to lift the mood. We're all besotted.

A small golden labrador puppy wearing a blue collar, sitting upright on the grass looking intently at something

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Tanita Tikaram @tanitatikaram.bsky.social · 1d

A UK presenter shouldn’t crow about an audience’s ignorance of Nathan Gill who took bribes from Kremlin agents & was a close ally of Farage . It shows they have failed to do their job . What next , telling us that Watergate was one of the lowest points in investigative journalism 🥺 ?

Joy @joybe.bsky.social · 2d

The Nathan Gill scandal should be huge news so why has the British media been mainly silent about it? (I think we know 🤔)
Here's Fiona Bruce shutting down any mention & acting like the audience aren't interested.
#bbqt

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 1d

The new Faustian pact? Yes you can become rich beyond your wildest dreams but it rots your brain.

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 2d

The tech billionaire and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel says the antichrist is ... Greta Thunberg www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction

In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

Paul Singh @paulsingh.bsky.social · 1d

It’s not just the Jewish suitcase at the back of the hall. It’s the Muslim suitcase, the Hindu suitcase, the Sikh suitcase all sitting at the back of the hall, with many asking why they should stay in a country where both the left & right are immersed in racism & xenophobia.

The New World @thenewworldmag.bsky.social · 1d

It is extraordinary to report that, in 2025, the Jewish suitcase is back in the hall, waiting for the moment of sudden flight. I feel nothing but shame

✏️ Matthew d'Ancona

The Jewish suitcase is back in the hall

After Manchester, many British Jews are asking why they should remain in a country where they feel despised

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 2d

It is utterly surreal this is not being treated as a bigger story.

Tom Hunter @onelifestand87.bsky.social · 2d

It is embarassing not to see the BBC pulling up Reform leaders claiming that Nathan Gill was just some fan who got photos taken with Farage - he was an MEP for them & their leader in Wales while taking cash from Russia to act against the UK! Literally the very basics of your job to point this out

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Reposted by Louise, Prof/Dr

GuyDorrellEsq @thenotoriousguy.bsky.social · 1d

Someone has created an online Random Affront Generator

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