Adam Smith

This is great stuff.

The front cover of The Orkney Blast newspaper which was an armed forces paper published in Orkney during World War Two. The main headline reads This Is The Invasion and it was published just after D-Day in 1944

Today is the 81st anniversary of #DDay. This is issue 178 of The Orkney Blast, published on 9th June 1944 just 3 days after the Allied invasion of Europe. The weekly paper ran for 202 issues from 1941 to 1944, for the thousands of armed services personnel based here during WW2.

I am so old that my PhD was funded by a direct application by me to the British Academy for a doctoral award, which allowed me to hilariously claim that I was an “Academy Award Winner”.

It’s such an extraordinarily awful decision. Throughout my career every time the PhD funding landscape has changed I’ve thought they’d discovered the worst possible model but each time they manage to invent something even more destructive. I can’t even begin to imagine how the AHRC can defend it.

Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, ends partnership with US government (RNS) — In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,' the pr...

BREAKING: The Episcopal Church has announced it will end its decades-old partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by the Trump admin. religionnews.com/2025/05/12/e...

Great thread, Rob. Brilliantly put. And All so very true.

"Democracy is a conversation, not a proclamation".

A thread on the rise of "authoritarian democracy": what it is, why it's dangerous and why we need to rebuild the case for "liberal democracy". ⬇️

If I were JD Vance, I would consider whether God is perhaps sending me some fairly specific messages

Robert Prevost reposted Rocco Palmo @roccopalmo · Apr 14 As Trump & Bukele use Oval to 🤣 Feds’ illicit deportation of a US resident (https://bit.ly/3ROMjnP), once an undoc-ed Salvadorean himself, now-DC Aux +Evelio asks, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?” https://bit.ly/4j700KN Robert Prevost reposted Synod.va @Synod_va · Feb 25 We continue praying together the Holy Rosary for the health of #PopeFrancis this evening at 9 PM in St. Peter’s Square, The prayer today will be presided over by His Eminence Cardinal Louis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization. #pope #PopeFrancis

Robert Prevost reposted Synod.va @Synod_va · Feb 15 #PrayForThePope #GoodNews: The Holy See Press Office has announced that Pope Francis' health is improving. Let us pray together for his full recovery @franciscus Be strong, We are looking forward to seeing you again soon at St. Peter's Square. #WeLoveOurPope

Robert Prevost @drprevost · Feb 13 Pope Francis’ letter, JD Vance’s ‘ordo amoris’ and what the Gospel asks of all of us on immigration From americamagazine.org Robert Prevost @drprevost · Feb 3 JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others https://ncronline.org/node/292716 via @NCRonline

The new Pope didn't tweet once in 2024. In 2025, he's posted 5 times, in which he:

- Criticized JD Vance's views on Catholicism and Jesus
- Posted an article opposing Trump's immigration policies
- Retweeted twice about the Pope's health
- Retweeted a criticism of Trump & Bukele's laughter at KAG.

This comment from Robert Barron, appointed last week to Trump’s WH commission on religious liberty, was spot on, only he didn’t realize it.

I want the BBC commentary to tell us about the various marching bands and military style parades. Where are they all from? What’s their function? Who can tell us?

Others being do most Labour-Liberal-Democrat-Green voters continue to go 'yeah, I'll vote for one of the three?' - a strategic advantage that Labour's 'what are the focus groups screaming about today?' threatens to undermine, who leads on best PM (currently a big Starmer advantage).

A question that I haven't heard a good answer to: if cutting migration by a third in a year hasn't changed the narrative on it at all - what would make you think cutting it by another third (or half] would?

Why on earth is it possible for German MPs to vote anonymously?

Hey! Press covering Trump!

The statute that lets him impose tariffs at will? It EXPLICITLY excludes movies.

He has no authority to do this. Not just bc of an absence of authorization, but bc the law says “you CANNOT do this.”

Do NOT say “Trump has imposed movie tariffs,” bc he did not. He CANNOT.

weapons-grade morons

The irony is the revolution against technocrats will end with officials running the councils because Reform councillors will have no idea what to do + many don't even want to be doing it.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton predicted to lose his seat in Dickson by the great ABC election analyst Anthony Green..

An illustration of how FPP goes from sandbag to springboard - Reform votes and seats in different councils:

Oxfordshire: 18% vote, 2% seats
Cambridgeshire: 23% vote, 16% seats
Devon: 27% vote, 30% seats
Leicestershire: 33% vote, 46% seats
Derbyshire: 37% vote, 66% seats

The 'it's a 1979-83 redux' fans will be delighted to know that Labour losses as a % of contests (-12pts) is the same as the Tories' losses in the 1980 locals (-12pts).

However, Thatcher's losses represented 28% of her defences, Starmer's represent 67% of the seats Labour were defending.

You can track most of the problems the country has to the fact that local government is woefully underfunded for what it is expected to deliver. Cutting it further is very much not the route to improving people's circumstances, & I hope Reform will quickly realise this in the areas they now control.

I think one of the key political tests for Reform councils is how much voters enjoy seeing politicians punching down. Because that's what banning equalities initiatives and home working often does. My sense is the appetite for it in the UK might be less than in the US.

UK I think actually has a remarkably high birth rate, given it has been government policy for eight years that having children above replacement rate is extravagant, we heavily ration IVF and we have a housing shortage.

It's quite good fun that the Quebec nationalists suffered because lots of people across Canada behaved in a really French way.

3000+ vote lead with 10 polls to go?

Yeah I think we can call this one folks

Quite the quote.

God there were so many of these…

Looking into Poilievre's electoral history, as he stands on the cusp of losing the seat he has held since 2004.

In that 2004 election he stood against the fantastically named Brad Powers of the Marijuana Party (who won 561 votes - not bad Brad).