Ed Podesta

A fair point well made by David Aaronovitch.

Well, that is true. Think what we could achieve if Leeds had Whitelocks *and* a tram…

Latest Meta wheeze is the giving users a choice between (a)not paying, and in exchange meta can scrape my digital profile for personal data, sell the results and use it to personalise my adverts; or (b)paying, and in exchange still having my data flogged around the world, but without Ads…

Maybe I need another coffee, but it strikes me that he’s entirely in step, that there are many many others doing similar things (Jenrick’s income has also seen supplementation from rich fellas needing access) but Mandy’s luck ran out because his benefactor was also a pederast.

In Manchester this morning and as usual I’m struck how much more buzzing, vibrant, optimistic it seems than cities over the Pennines. The lack of Mayoral powers and infrastructure investment in West Yorkshire are brought into sharp relief, in contrast.

know this is not something that could happen either in general or at least in the next few years but I would genuinely love it if a journalist could sit down with some of the powerful people who interacted with Epstein - even anonymously - so they could explain what they got out of the relationship

Because the implications of this are enormous. If this network is normal, the usual way that things get done, it means that Trump is not a blip, nor even a rupture as Carney argues. It means that Trump has figured how to upscale the venality without having to hide it.

This is so depressing. I knew Mandy had a reputation, but I’d assumed that it was at least partly driven by envy at his effectiveness. The truth is less palatable: his effectiveness emerged from the network of venality that he operated in. I’m frightened…

YouTube video by Lizzy & the Triggermen When that Man is Dead and Gone (1941) - Protest song against Hitler (Live Take)

youtube.com/watch?v=XDkh...

Given his appalling remarks about Sunak its absolutely shocking that Konstantin Kisin is anywhere near the mainstream let alone on #bbcqt

Today Fulton County, Tomorrow??? On Wednesday, the FBI executed a search warrant on the Fulton County, Georgia, Elections Operation Center.

The Fulton County search warrant & its implications for the 2026 & future elections is critically important news & not getting the coverage it merits. Read my most recent piece to get the download & understand why this is such a significant development. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

5-Year-Old Minnesota Boy Fell 'Ill' and 'Is Not Doing Great' in ICE Detention: 'He's Been Depressed and Sad' Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old Minnesota boy whose encounter with ICE went viral earlier this month, is 'ill' with a fever and 'not doing great' in the Texas detention center where he and his fathe...

“Unfortunately, Liam’s health is not doing great right now,” said the superintendent for Liam’s Columbia Heights Public Schools District. “He’s been ill. I’ve been told he has a fever. So I’m very, very concerned about his well-being in that facility.” people.com/liam-conejo-...

Funny how these guys keep turning up around Farage...

Search has become absolutely terrible across pretty much every platform. Does anyone know
1) of any web search that actually searches for the words in the search box; or
2) why no one has made a fortune by recreating the kind of verbatim search that Google used to do in the early 2000s?

(Breton great-grandad, who I actually met when I was a kid, went to study at the Vatican for a while and vividly remembered walking out into the streets of Rome one day as a youth and seeing Mussolini riding past on his horse, in thick snow, and what an image!)

Nope. It's not about 'the skills to cultivate contacts' - none of your worked examples actually operated any differently to this administration, it is just that you cannot cultivate anyone if you aren't cultivating them *for* anything.

While the DfE are pushing AI with known harms, there's also this issue to worry about.

I think, given recent events, we must all have done something pretty terrible in our former lives, and this is just a small part of the punishment!

I'd say this is going well

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.

It’s not all doom and gloom this morning.

This is going really well so far - beyond my expectations for replies, just a few days since it launched! Lots of wonderful English teachers are responding. We want more, so keep those responses coming!

Sorry, but did Trump bring peace to the Middle East & cure cancer while I was sleeping?

A really painful & embarrassing line of questions from Nick Ferrari on Trump’s “peace prize” this morning🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
@ukstoptrump.bsky.social

"You know that in January 2026, as the world braced for war over Greenland, the biggest story in the British papers was an opposition politician switching parties? Mental."

He’s never learned that trying to polish a turd will always fail, and leave you with very dirty hands.

What Don Quixote Knew

I’m not a regular completer finisher of LRB podcast episodes, as my attention wanders. But, this episode is an *absolute gem*. It’s joyful to listen to two people sharing expertise and insights about a book that sounds delicious, specially one which I previously avoided: pca.st/episode/abd3...

This is *very* exciting!

Oh my! You’re right !

Sorry but now I’ve seen the similarity I can’t unsee it…

New Tussauds exhibits look terrible!