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Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 6m

It's not quite that... as A-level English is typically heavily on literature and this requirement is English language

It's still bloody silly - the migrants arriving will, as you say, speak English better than most natives

Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 9m

Means B2 level on the CEFR - essentially the level required to enter an English language degree programme

It's just another hurdle...

www.coe.int/en/web/commo...

The CEFR Levels - Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) - www.coe.int

Levels descriptions of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

www.coe.int

Reposted by Matt "Winter is here"

Emma Haslett @emmahaslett.bsky.social · 3h

This is a huge story but massively under the radar in the UK.

A US Christian legal org called the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is working to roll back abortion rights here using the same playbook it used in the US: briefing politicians, watching, waiting.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.

www.nytimes.com

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Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 4h

Without comment.

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 4h

Israel kills several Palestinians in Gaza strikes on.ft.com/3KPgE5w

Israel kills several Palestinians in Gaza strikes

Attack on Gazans inspecting homes comes days after fragile ceasefire goes into effect

on.ft.com

Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 7h

Fear

Reposted by Matt "Winter is here"

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 17h

It was backing Robinson (ditching Farage over his exclusion of Robinson) that took Musk to 80% disapproval in Britain - as that was how he secured majority disapproval from Reform, who had been the only group who approved, to go with his toxicity to Conservatives & centre-left voters

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Simon Wren-Lewis @sjwrenlewis.bsky.social · 7h

ew post: Populism and Economic Prosperity
mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/popu...
We would expect populist governments to damage the economy, and the evidence suggests that they do so in a big way. But we know from Brexit that the media typically nullifies the impact of this evidence on voters.

Populism and Economic Prosperity

Mainstream political parties normally claim that populist parties, if they ever got to power, would damage the economy. We have clear evid...

mainlymacro.blogspot.com

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 15d

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty.

If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐

There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

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Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 18h

Stop teaching English literature at all. Most kids just get turned off reading by analysing texts - the whole point of the lessons is not to create readers, nor even authors, but academics who can then perpetuate their subject by becoming teachers.

Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 19h

When it comes to Mormons and White Christian Nationalists, it's hard to know what they believe

Here's testimony from someone who left that life, and it's.... wild

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duj8...

Born Into A Hate Group: survivor tells all

YouTube video by Life, take two!

www.youtube.com

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Chuck Taggart, Private Eye @sazeracla.bsky.social · 23h

I would not have known about this had it not been for local indigenous folk there posting here.

News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: There’s a disaster unfolding in Alaska right now. And no major network is covering it.

The remnants of Typhoon Halong battered western Alaska overnight. Homes, with people in them, have literally been swept into the Bering Strait.

At least 20 are missing. No comment from any federal agency.

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Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 1d

Israeli leaders screamed their genocidal intent at the top of their lungs all the way through.

No crime in history has been so confessed to as it actually happened.

But almost all Western media outlets suppressed this.

Kudos to @scotnational.bsky.social for not being one of them.

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Matt "Winter is here" @mattrobb.bsky.social · 1d

Its a 100% standard Statham film. Nothing more or less

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Joe Walsh @walshfreedom.bsky.social · 1d

Team Trump Is Scared To Death Of No Kings: This upcoming Saturday, October 18th, is expected to be the largest peacetime protest in American history. Millions & Millions & millions & millions of Americans taking to the streets to organically reaffirm that basic American principle that…

Team Trump Is Scared To Death Of No Kings

This upcoming Saturday, October 18th, is expected to be the largest peacetime protest in American history. Millions & Millions & millions & millions of Americans taking to the streets to organically reaffirm that basic American principle that we don’t have Kings here. Yet the Trump administration is calling No Kings “Antifa.” And a “terrorist” movement. And just a George Soros “hate America” thing. Why are they saying all this? Bcuz they’re scared.

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Matt "Winter is here"

Chris Osieck @chrisosieck.bsky.social · 1d

Israeli sniper shooting Mohammad Adnan Salameh, geolocated near the Cinema Roundabout in Jenin city in the occupied West Bank, 32.461758, 35.296580.

StreetView by Mapillary in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

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Reposted by Matt "Winter is here"

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 1d

Claims he's just a regular journalist doing his journalising on behalf of the silent millions... checks out for me..

Tommy Robinson
stopped at border driving
Bentley with thousands in
cash'
Far-Right activist insulted police
officers after being arrested for
refusing to give them pin to his
phone, court hears

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Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe.bsky.social · 4d

“That’s not what you train for,” one retired Marine officer told me. (“I’m not a liberal,” he made clear.) “You’re hearing, ‘Blood makes the grass grow! Kill, kill, kill!’ in bayonet training, and then you send them to a U.S. city?”

My latest.

puck.news/what-the-tro...

Portlandia

As Trump masses troops outside blue cities in the name of protecting federal properties, current and former members of the military grapple with the question of which orders are legal—and resent being...

puck.news

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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · 1d

13 October 1939 | Dutch Jewish girl, Carla Irene Witteboon, was born in Amsterdam.

She was deported to #Auschwitz from Westerbork in August 1943. She was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.
-

The ruins of gas chamber & crematorium III: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJQ8

A vintage black-and-white photo of a young girl standing outdoors against a brick wall, looking upwards and placing both hands on their head.

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it's Candy Love @candylovely.bsky.social · 2d

Rev. David Black who was shot multiple times by ICE with rubber bullets speaks.

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Greg Jenner @gregjenner.bsky.social · 1d

This is a huge moment in linear broadcast TV. When I began my TV career in 2005, even history documentaries were expected to get 2 million viewers

Michael Savage @michaelsavage.bsky.social · 1d

Last month, something unusual happened in TV - none of the main channels got a million viewers at 9pm. The bigger problem was it happened a 2nd & 3rd time soon after.

Another unwelcome landmark for linear TV & our shrinking shared TV experience.

Does it matter?

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/o...

‘It was a binding experience’: TV producers mourn decline of hot 9pm slot

UK broadcasters used to rely on big audiences at 9pm, but as viewing habits change, figures are falling below the 1m mark

www.theguardian.com

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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 1d

No Kings Means No Paychecks.

Literally saying if you don't pay fealty, you don't get YOUR OWN TAX MONEY BACK. You really couldn't write a bigger advertisement for this thing.

I swear if the elected Dems fold before this.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Bessent: "No Kings means no paychecks. No paychecks and no government."

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Chris Grey @chrisgrey.bsky.social · 1d

This deserves more attention than it has received.

Gove: "we were too anxious as a government to secure those deals in order to show that Brexit was working".

Exactly as so many of us warned at the time, and as the government denied at the time.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/country-and-...

Michael Gove admits that post-Brexit trade deals were bad for farmers

Michael Gove has admitted for the first time that the Australia and New Zealand trade deals negotiated by the former Tory government did not protect Britain’s farmers.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk

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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 1d

Rupert Lowe on Nathan Gill, former Reform leader in Wales, who has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from pro-Russian proxies:

"I had absolutely no idea. I was new to the European Parliament, Nathan had been there for years alongside Farage - they were very close."

Shots fired. ~AA

Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
I have received A LOT of questions about Nathan Gill, having sat as a Brexit Party MEP alongside him in Brussels and Strasbourg. He was also the Reform leader in Wales. For those who don’t know, he has pleaded guilty to taking pro-Russian bribes over a number of months.

Obviously, I had absolutely no idea. I was new to the European Parliament, Nathan had been there for years alongside Farage - they were very close. He was the head of the delegation of our MEPs, so with the whip ran the day-to-day affairs of our grouping and organised activity in Brussels/Strasbourg. He was one of just two MEPs from the previous term Farage allowed to stand again.

He seemed particularly interested in Russian/Ukrainian developments which I found peculiar. There was one event, right at the beginning of our term, which he asked me and other MEPs to attend. Due to his position in the grouping, I agreed. It had a very pro-Russian slant, with individuals who claimed to be close to Putin there. For obvious reasons, I did not attend another such event.

I thought his obsession with that part of the world was strange, but given his years in the Parliament and position in the party, I didn’t think there was more to it. Other MEPs also found it unusual, but we just got on with job.

So to journalists asking, there is my response.

It is disgraceful behaviour, treasonous behaviour.

I am ashamed to have ever sat alongside him.
7:44 AM · Oct 13, 2025
·
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Views

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Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 1d

60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children.
These are their names.

@washingtonpost.com July 30, 2025

www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera...

60,000 Gazans have been killed. 18,500 were children. These are their names.

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one per hour since the war began.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Matt "Winter is here"

Borners @borners.bsky.social · 1d

Seriously why the shock? The Scots dismantled the British nation in 1999, every single Scottish MP since has been elected on a variety "plunder England through Barnett/Sewell/Independence with benefits/Gerrymanders tickets".

Mark McGeoghegan @markmcgeoghegan.bsky.social · 2d

Analysis in @thetimes.com by @leaskyd.bsky.social & Anna Dowell of the sharp decline in British identity uncovered by the Scottish Social Attitudes survey.

With comment from Sir John Curtice on the polarising of Scottish politics and from myself on the decoupling of Scottish and British identities:

Why Scots are losing their British identity

With only a quarter of respondents to the Scottish Social Attitudes survey identifying with Britishness, Scotland faces a generational political split

www.thetimes.com

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