Jonn Elledge

Governments have limited time, energy and political capital. Weakening property rights to bring a few tens of thousands of homes back into use would use all of them. I'd rather they poured that into getting *hundreds* of thousands of new homes built. Just Build Homes!

katharine you just posted this on a public forum just wanted to make sure you were aware of that

yeah don't trust that, it just summarises the internet and throws in lies, it is not a good basis for decision making

Ahh that is good - forgive me, not been following housing as closely as I once did

Don't remember the specific report but that's likely a classic example of the "small numbers that sound big" fallacy. I think the number of "buy to leave" flats in London was something like 20k? Which sounds *huge*. But it really, really isn't, London needs to build that every four or five months.

We absolutely need to rewire Right to Buy. At the very least it shouldn't be a losing prospect for councils, to remove the disincentive to build.

Never found the "Oh they'll just pass the cost on" argument convincing either tbh. Rents are set by supply and demand not landlords' costs. Might be frictional issues from landlords existing the market but in the medium term it shouldn't make any difference?

wet liberal that I am myself I don't actually think Terror in the sense of political murder is a good thing, really. But I do think terror in the sense of the ruling class having a healthy fear of being torn limb from limb if they abuse their privileges is valuable yes

Unironically think that high profile punitive sentences for the worst rogue landlords should be part of the mix. Have high standards, enforce them enough that landlords are scared to breach.

I did Liverpool! Had to cancel York due to lack of interest alas. Would happily do more if asked, i LOVE the sound of my own voice

no goal - just wanted a sense of relative engagement before I wrote it down in a column

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨
Is the Conservative Party dying? – Plus: What the Manchester terror attack means.
@joshglancy.bsky.social joins @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, @jonnelledge.bsky.social and @nndroid.bsky.social to discuss 👉 linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

#ukpolitics #OGWN #podcast

unless you're in Falmouth in a couple of weeks I think I'm currently out of book events! there will be more I'm sure

yes but while I acknowledge that when I post the link myself it feels kinda shitty to do it when someone else is kind enough to share it

this will literally haunt my dreams

there’s this weird idea a lot of people seem to have about how all of us writers and artists must secretly want to use AI and are merely resisting temptation for ethical reasons, and like, no, it’s not hard for me to resist drinking the bowl of Piss With Glass In It actually

he is, but this is a game in which people who know they're clever often end up going "therefore I can spot traitors" when no, no they can't

I assume people say it all the time they just don't put it on tv because these people are not Canonically Clever like Fry is

"the greatest detective who ever lived" did he live though

I've watched like eight versions of this game and this is the first time anyone saying "remember guys by definition we know NOTHING and all suck at spotting liars" has made the edit

is anyone else slightly taken aback at Stephen Fry talking sense on this game? sort of expected he'd be tripping over his own Cleverness more

ME: Now Mom, just remember, there's a lot of disinformation and AI in your social feed and your friends' Facebook.
MOM: I know! My friend sent me this crazy post where someone used AI to make an image of a giant frog fighting Army troops!
ME: ... okay, no, that one's ... goddamit, Portland.

WHICH OF YOU MONSTERS IS "CHOOSING" RATHER THAN MAKING THE OBVIOUSLY ETHICALLY CORRECT CHOICE AND BUYING BOTH BOOKS

A good day! Hampton Court to Staines. Plus faffing walked about 15 miles. Over five (I think) walks over the last couple of years we've done the Thames Path from Erith to Staines. It's good!

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

Now you don’t have to choose! Both of

@jonnelledge.bsky.social History of the World in 47 Borders, and

@lewisbaston.bsky.social
Borderlines: History of Europe in 29 Borders,

are 99p on Kindle at the moment. (Only 2.6p per border…)

I for one wasn't aware they'd even started.

Reminder that the best defence against authoritarianism is ALWAYS absurdism. It doesn’t matter how natty your jackboots are, nobody looks scary when oppressing Creatures.

ah we passed some time ago - having a well earned pizza in Staines