Jonathan Atkinson

Next Gen Google AI = Mariner! 🏴‍☠️🦜😯

Think we need to be a bit more secure at the back to play against a team like this who probe our back line with direct balls. I love Ayling and he has lots of upside going forward, but this was probably a night for Fry to start..

Cabinet Office looking into Labour Together report claims, says minister Liz Kendall says officials will be ‘establishing the facts’ about report that made false claims about journalists

Makes the govt response to the Labour Together scandal look utterly inadequate!
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Podcast: James Butler, Peter Geoghegan and Ethan Shone · On Politics: Mandelson and the Private Life of Power

This @lrb.co.uk podcast with @petergeoghegan.bsky.social and @ethanshone.bsky.social does a good job of linking the Mandelson/Epstein saga into wider concerns around industry lobbying and gov't collusion.
www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

There's far more that needs to be done to ensure the benefits of economic wealth are felt by everyone. There's also a limit to what can be achieved on that score at present without further devolution - in particular around fiscal powers.

Greater Manchester is doing some things right, especially on transport and green investment, but we shouldn't kid ourselves by looking at a shiny city centre that that wealth trickles down to the 2.5m who live in the area.
fairerhealthacademy.gmtableau.nhs.uk/file/gmca-imd

Concerns about wealth inequality warrant one sentence in the BBC's coverage of Greater Manchester's 'economic miracle' yet deprivation has worsened in Manchester in the last 6 years and near 1/4 of GM residents live in the 10% of most deprived wards. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thank you for your clear analysis! My friend is a barrister who worked on the case and I'm sure she's over the moon about the result.

What the Palestine Action judgment means - and what it does not mean The High Court rules against the government, but not with enthusiasm

An (as always) illuminating post on the Palestine Action judgement yesterday from @davidallengreen.bsky.social. Highlights govt over-reach in the first instance and the remarkable efforts of the legal team representing PA in achieving this win!
emptycity.substack.com/p/what-the-p...

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REMINDER: today is England's first sun day of 2026. Make the most of it. The sun will next be visible on 23 April 2026 (though in East Anglia only) before reappearing for 6 hours in March 2027.

CURLING BEEF! CURLING BEEF! CURLING BEEF! CURLING BEEF!

(I never post Olympic videos bc the IOC will hunt you down but I am taking that risk so that you can hear the Canadian curling cursing)

Inspired I am gabbing a metal tray and throwing myself down the road

Great Britain win gold at the fast sledging on a metal tray at ridiculous speeds. 🥇

This means that even if Palestine Action ad not won on Human Rights Act/ECHR grounds, Palestine Action would have won on another ground.

No doubt this will be missed by a lot of media reporting of this judgment, but even if HRA repealed etc, Palestine Action would have *still won*.

FACTCHECK: Centrica's Chris O'Shea got blanket coverage for claiming electricity will cost more in 2030 than in energy crisis (Chris Stark: "he's wrong on this")

I asked Centrica for evidence – they didn’t reply

(Bills in crisis were >2x today, before huge govt subsidies)
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Not many people know this, but Joy Division were from Manchester. And it's good to be reminded of that.

Also Oasis.

Strong ground game in Gorton and Denton for Labour 🙄

It's great that people are confidently speaking out about these comments! Not wanted in football

This looks so cool, gutted couldn't make it!

Weird that someone with the nickname the "Prince of Darkness" turned out to be such a bad actor.

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

By the looks of this I reckon he's too high to recognise satire at this point

Seriously, how does this crap find its way into a publication? Surely the journalist can can see it's a load of half baked crap!

They made an error in the article...

"Williamson was inspired by the ambition of The Line..."

Should read:

"Williamson was inspired by a cheese dream experienced after a surfeit of diary produce too close to bedtime over the Christmas period..."

Yeah, fanbase seem pretty split on the matter 🙄

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Lift heavy eggs?? 🏋️‍♀️

Uh oh, Mandelson might actually be for it this time. The British elite have been that bothered with most of his antics to date, but you don't want to get caught doing the dirty on the Treasury. That's the last thing you want. It's like the British equivalent of messing with the mafia 😬