Bo Jacobs Strom

“The Homeland” Is War on America: The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti In the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact: the culture war is an actual war.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: With the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, "Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact—the culture war is an actual war"

From @theguardian.com

The New World asked me to speak to some British trans women about what life has been like for them over the past few years - here's what they had to say, in their own words: www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/221a7418-1fc2-4753-830f-33bd8c178c6b?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8#myft:notification:daily-email:content She said that against a backdrop of tougher immigration rules, she wanted the UK to be “a magnet for talent”, pointing to newly announced plans to waive visa fees for some businesses bringing in experts to work in priority sectors and for top scientists and researchers joining UK universities. However, Reeves also confirmed that the government remained opposed to rejoining a customs union with the EU, and was instead looking to make progress on more modest plans relating to food and farming; electricity and energy trading; and “some form of youth mobility”.

All fine - every Chancellor says this.

But won't move the dial when PM/HomeSec tell migrant workers and foreign students their presence is a "squalid chapter" & are changing rules so as to kick them out.

HMT understands damage of current trajectory but needs to act, and soon.

This is the best speech, just from a pure rhetoric perspective - its sophistication and persuasiveness - that I've seen a politician deliver in a good long while. Really recommend watching or reading the whole thing.

The Carney doctrine Open comment thread on the PM's Davos speech

Mark Carney's speech really is terrific: full text is here and very much worth your time.

The Carney speech is v good.
More generally, I think it’s important that the UK & EU recognise that this is a new world. And waiting for the mid-terms or 2028 and things to get back to ‘normal’ isn’t good enough.
Need to build the capacity & resilience to be less reliant on the US for security.

🚨Today’s Labour Market stats are out

Here's a short thread on the key trends 👇

ah right, yes there is that

I mean we should all get password managers but why now in particular?

indicates a problem with the metaphor of “political capital” as some limited quantity thing you can only spend down. in fact like actual capital if you invest it smart and fast the returns can compound

The top seven would all feature in my top 10 of all time, others would probably be return of the obra dinn (probably top 3), outer wilds, and one of portal 2 or grim fandango to round it off

Of those I've played (all bangers btw):

1. Disco Elysium
2. Papers, Please
3. Hades
4. Fallout: New Vegas
5. Half-Life 2
6. Pentiment
7. Baldur's Gate 3
8. Wolfenstein: The New Order
9. Balatro

YouTube video by Federal Reserve Statement by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG...
www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

As Alex Harrowell says, the saving grace of the Office for Budget Responsibility is that they are the only people prepared to tell the British public the truth about immigration.

The immigration doom loop in full swing.

Chasing the xenophobes is a doomed strategy both economically *and* politically.

(1/3)

archive.ph/pyVLg

Very much so, also maybe I missed it but surprised there wasn't more talk about this at the time, given how much decline of the high st (and to a slightly lesser extent pub closures) have featured in narratives about the red wall etc?

The irony is that the economic integration of immigrants is an area of policy where the UK currently does really well internationally, certainly a lot better than most of continental Europe. It would be a tragedy if that was to come to an end. 4/4

This arrangement thus not only damages migrants own earnings, but labour market dynamism and productivity growth overall. Furthermore, by trapping migrants in lower-paying jobs these policies risk creating a segmented migrant/non-migrant labour market, further harming integration. 3/

The reason is simple, linking immigration status to firm sponsorship makes it much harder to move jobs - one of the main ways people improve their earnings and a key source of productivity growth in the labour market as people move into better and more productive employer-employee matches. 2/

New evidence showing permanent residency strongly increases migrants labour market performance. Meanwhile the UK government is making permanent residence much harder to come-by, instead keeping people on temporary firm-sponsored visas. This is not a good way to build a well-integrated labour market.

Always look under the bonnet of polls before reaching sweeping conclusions.

Even in this poll, left bloc voters are (a) less likely to say they'll vote(b) more likely to say don't know. Ergo more are taken out the sample and/or re-modelled.

Many left bloc voters aren't switching, they are hiding !

Forensic analysis of objective video evidence. This is how you serve readers searching for clarity.

Loved Marty Supreme. The flashback is highly divisive but key to the movie and to Marty, both of which exist and only make sense in the shadow of the Holocaust — which in the 1952-3 setting isn’t old news or a Hollywood trope. 1/x

A new paper by George Borjas—who served this past year in the Trump White House designing some of its anti-immigration policies—claims to display evidence of ideological bias among researchers who study immigration.

doi.org/10.1126/scia...

🧵 Thread—>

BBC Newsnight giving a softball interview to a far-right blogger who identifies Jews by "the name and the nose". Any comment @boardofdeputies.bsky.social? I won't hold my breath.

Threatening to strip someone of their citizenship is no joke That this Labour government seems to find Alaa Abdel Fattah’s predicament a laughing matter is unconscionable

Excellent piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social. UK citizenship is a right for those who qualify, not a privilege. If you have it, you are entitled to the full protection of the British state - at home and abroad. What you believe and what you say are entirely irrelevant. Anything else is despotism.

A justifiably scathing conclusion to a justifiably scathing newsletter from @stephenkb.bsky.social today (I also love his observation that this government can’t tell “barnacle from boat”).

www.ft.com/content/0e12...

And the reasons for that are not hard to find - Starmer’s unpopularity among left-liberals is the logical, arguably even intended consequence of 18 months of comms and policy which alienates and angers left-liberals while winning over no one on right. This is the cake his team have baked themselves.