ben63.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

How could Cameron make plans for a Leave vote when there was no Leave manifesto? Which was because Cameron didn't require either side in the referendum to produce a manifesto. It was different in 1975. #bbcworldservice

submitted 16 hours ago • 1 comment

I can't take this crap any more. Before Brexit we were a rule maker. Brexit made us a rule taker. #bbclaurak

submitted 15 hours ago • 7 comments

I do appreciate a footballer who respects the importance of a very clean and tidy Wikipedia infobox.

submitted 9 hours ago • 12 comments

Brexit was a referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union. The UK has left the European Union. Referendum fulfilled. If the people bleating about "Brexit Betrayal" wanted the Referendum to enshrine their pet policy preferences, they should have included them in the question.

submitted 8 hours ago • 83 comments

The north steps up its infrastructure investment lobbying ahead of the CSR on.ft.com/3S8yP6H

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

One thing that hasn’t really been mentioned re Runcorn - and it’s obviously going to be not the biggest factor, but bearing in mind there were only 6 votes in it - is the somewhat dysfunctional current state of the north west Labour Party and therefore its ability to run a good electoral operation

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

"The senior government figure warned that the deal will anger “the two extremities” of the Brexit debate but that it “will be superb” when it is unveiled at a summit on Monday." Superb aka modest step forward as per India FTA

submitted 4 days ago • 7 comments

Something I've noticed in the last year or so: people in my part of Bristol have just started walking down the middle of the road, a lot. It's not to do with LTNs afaik - all through residential through roads with cars parked all along them, often gigantic cars

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

#bbcpm

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Much better training, support and pay to help people (back) into work might well reduce the benefits budget and the need for immigration. Training, support and pay should be the policy, and done first. Then there'd be no need for dangerous talk about strangers and cruel cuts in benefits. #bbcpm

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

My father who served in the RAF right through WWII returned damaged both physically and mentally and went through the rest of his life with very little medical help for what he suffered. Rather than celebrating the end of wars long past how about preventing them from happening in future? #r4today

submitted 10 days ago • 8 comments

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this BBC piece by Laura Kuenssberg except that it plays into a stale & misleading media narrative that everything the government does is about “winning back” votes from Reform & Nigel Farage (Labour is shedding far more votes elsewhere).

submitted 8 days ago • 15 comments

Yes. Now read from the start of the thread.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

In the spirit of @stephenkb.bsky.social ‘s image of public opinion on immigration as “I want a pony in my flat with no costs attached” public opinion on social care seems to be “I want a magical care machine that costs nothing”

submitted 7 days ago • 13 comments

Labour going hard on immigration = 1. Damaging the economy 2. Pushing pissed off left-leaning voters to the Greens, Plaid, the SNP and the LibDems 3. Offering nowhere near enough for Reform-leaning voters All in all, politically and economically illiterate.

submitted 8 days ago • 38 comments

Amidst much darkness in the news, the warmth that European nations have shown each other and Ukraine has been a true bright spot. There seems to be real rapport between the leaders. NYT reporting that Macron & Zelensky in particular have become close friends. Some scenes from today.

submitted 8 days ago • 38 comments

I guess it would be too much for them to ask whether it would improve the country rather than whether it will win votes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 8 days ago • 96 comments

The way to bring energy bills down quickly, Mr Starmer, is to initiate a properly planned and regulated insulation programme, and to transfer all the levies from people's bills to a properly designed taxation system. #bbcpm

submitted 11 days ago • 4 comments

submitted 10 days ago • 256 comments

In my experience most refugees are desperate to learn English and if they don’t, the reason usually isn’t that they somehow lack motivation to integrate but that funding for English classes has been slashed over the course of many years

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

The core problem with UK trade policy as a Brexit benefit was that it was supposed to be win-win with no pesky trade-offs, and the real world doesn't work like that. I think best to do the deal and get the short-term criticism, all part of the poisonous inheritance.

submitted 11 days ago • 5 comments

[It would be] a resigning matter if the foreign secretary, David Lammy, was shown to have misled parliament in breach of the ministerial code when he told MPs in September that much of what the UK sends to Israel was “defensive in nature”. #r4today

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

Nigel Jenney, Chief Executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC): “Our world-leading border is currently the most expensive and least efficient globally. This is a self-imposed crisis creating huge distress and significant additional costs that ultimately consumers must shoulder.” #RejoinEU🇬🇧 🇪🇺

submitted 12 days ago • 8 comments

Fully agree with Jon on this. The UK has lots of similar social security agreements with other trade partners. I’m not surprised by Conservatives being wilfully dumb on this but the Lib Dems shouldn’t blow this dog whistle.

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

#r4today

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

JFC. Progressives need to get their arses in gear. Still a majority (just) but MUST work together to prevent Nigel Trump getting elected. Altho ofc 4 years is a very long time in politics.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

This is an astoundingly good interview. The LA Port Director explains very clearly how profoundly trade is coming to a screeching halt. This summer will be tough.

submitted 13 days ago • 74 comments

You would never guess from the BBC coverage that there are almost 400 councils in the UK and almost 20,000 councillors. 23 councils in England were up for re-election on Thursday, and 1750 council seats were fought over. They represent 5%of local councils and 9 % of councillors. #r4today #wato

submitted 15 days ago • 11 comments

The new @CommonsHealth report is a robust critique of the ‘do nothing/delay’ approach to #socialcare reform. It finds too little data to answer its own exam question - what is the cost of doing nothing - but points to some ways forward. V short thread 🔽 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

An absolute masterclass in how the UK media platforms and normalises far right politics. This is how Farage wins.

submitted 13 days ago • 183 comments

Don't tell me this is not a move towards censorship through tariffs. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

Find this really interesting. Previous legal attempts have been made by councils (eg Stoke) to do this on planning grounds and failed. But I suspect it doesn’t matter because it’s win-win. Legal action keeps the story alive and if you lose, you can blame govt/judiciary www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

submitted 13 days ago • 7 comments

They're in mid-lurch.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

It is a little weird to me countries aren’t more aggressively, formally trying to take advantage of the U.S. science brain drain. Once in a lifetime opportunity to buy low on Non-Dumbass Americans with PhDs who just wanna look into microscopes and quietly cure ass cancer as our country eats shit.

submitted 14 days ago • 1289 comments

This remains imho the wrong strategy. Reform voters will always push for more. And Farage is justified when he keeps putting immigration at the centre of his campaign. Labour needs to attack Farage where he is weak, instead of following his narratives.

submitted 15 days ago • 75 comments

Listening again to Simon Jack interviewing Darren Grimes (Reform UK Party Ltd) and Tony Travers (LSE) I hear the usual couple of sensible questions from Jack, the predictable tired realities from Travers and uninterrupted, unchallenged crap from Grimes. Impartialty? The fight for truth? #r4today

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

Farage has been an elected representative for 21 of the last 26 years. His party won the first UK national election of 2019. Mocking him is fine - I do it a lot - but we have to take him seriously. #r4today

submitted 15 days ago • 4 comments