Michael Maibaum

I dunno the phrase “that email was a waste of electrons” has been around for ages. A lot of slang is performative anyway so.. so what? So many real things to worry about…..

It is just slang for electricity. Might be all kinds of real reasons to be worried but slightly stupid slang isn’t one of them.

Yet the tone of her announcements today will move forward his agenda.

Wow. And fully deserved. Shame on the Labour Party.

Confiscating jewellery from survivors of a war zone makes you look like a fucking Nazi. And the obscene thing is, that is the intention. It's there to look appropriately harsh. Indecent. Filthy. A moral stain. And no-one of good character would have ever proposed such a thing in the first place.

We should stop the boats because it's dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it's wrong and cruel.

Controlled migration is good for the country, helps build our economy and diversity strengthens our communities. (1/6) 🧵

Labour MP Simon Opher - "We should stop the boats because it's dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it's wrong and cruel.

"Measures that create bureaucracy and insecurity do not offer clarity or strengthen control – they cost money, waste time and weaken the system."

There is no evidence that stripping refugees' rights one by one will have any impact on people crossing the channel.

Taking jewellery from refugees is akin to painting over murals for refugee children.

These repugnant ‘deterrents’ did not work for the Tories, and they won't work for us.

@lizzicollinge.bsky.social I hope to see you also objecting to this abject pandering to the far right.

Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system

The Prime Minister said in September that we are at a fork in the road. These asylum proposals suggest we have taken the wrong turning.

The idea that recognised refugees need to be deported is wrong.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Correctly, I think the Labour Party is best understood as the performance of a centre left political party put on by several political strategists but (unwittingly) in a manner akin the producers.

The impression given by a morning scroll is that the politics of Europe and North America has largely become a performative sideshow detached from real life (though not of course if you are one of the designated 'victims')

It’s not been thought through at all. It’s back of a fag-packet hate stuff, that’s all. Incompetent as well as viciously horrible.

Question on Monday

Is it now your principle that every Ukranian refugee in Britain should leave, must leave once it is safe + that they will all be made to leave?

Dismal appeasement of the far right.

Yes but also a bank would do AML checks and slow down the transfer as a result (this is not a bad thing)

See also podcasts. Especially tech ones.

St Mary's Isle (also known as Conister Rock or the Tower of Refuge, Manx: Kione y Sker or Creg Voirrey) is a partially submerged reef in Douglas Bay on the Isle of Man. Prior to 1832 the rock was the property of the Quane family until John Quane, Attorney General of the Isle of Man, presented the rock to Sir William Hillary, in his capacity as President of the Isle of Man District of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to build the Tower of Refuge. Since then the custody of St Mary's Isle has been held by each president of the local lifeboat association.

Submarine on the surface island…

SUPERB and angrily unvarnished response, by former BBC chairman, Lord Patten.

"I don't think that we should allow ourselves to be bullied into thinking that the BBC is only any good, if it reflects the prejudice of the last person who shouted at it." ~AA

The truth about impartiality at the BBC And the hysteria of the current "crisis"

“When I was [at the BBC], at the height of Boris Johnson’s strength, that fear was ubiquitous. Scripts were sometimes written with a view not solely to their impartiality or truth, but the management of perception of impartiality from one side of the spectrum.“ @lewisgoodall.com

The fact that the BBC has made serious culpable errors does not negate the point that there is a real and concerted right-wing media campaign to destroy it. Both points can be true at the same time and the campaign would not end even if the errors did.

Yep. Not happening that easily - but designed molecules are quite exciting (see Google AI designed molecule for increasing immune response to cancer). Much like other tech will open new possibilities and approaches- but no magic wands either. Just like sequencing didn’t answer everything

Yes. Shame they increasingly sacrifice that for false balance and fear of upsetting the right. This is an opportunity (change of leadership) but the cause risks reinforcing the fear - especially with current BBC board

Ignoring the actual apparent appeasement of right wing viewpoints, the journalism has got worse and worse even if the job to be done was attack the left!

It is so depressing. My lifetime has been watching greats like the Today programme, Panorama, Newsnight et al. gradually turn into 'false-balance' wrecked shells of their former selves. And interviewing turn from actual questions to attempts to generate few-second gotchas instead of actual insight

So much this. I'd actively prefer my company had more mid/west-coast offices. East coast (and Toronto) just aren't long enough flights coming back. Maybe they could circle for a while?

Panorama made a stupid editing mistake. But compare this to the deliberate and systemic attempt, sustained across years, to ensure that BBC output aligns ever more closely to the demands of economic power. Against your straw of bias, I raise you a haystack.

My ask of any science enthusiasts who tell the story of Rosalind Franklin:
Don't make her life be about the DNA debacle. She died far too young, but she was a promising scientist in her own right, a mentor and scientific author.

Not for Watson or Crick, but for her legacy.

They do.

Hmmm something is missing from this article. Maybe *someone*. Maybe someone infamously left out of much of the early credit. Good to see we are better than that now 🫠