Profile avatar
fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social
Nobody very important. Ferrets, greyhounds, poorly thought-through opinions. Englishman living in rural Northern Ireland. he/him
6,723 posts 823 followers 826 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 14 Comments 36

People celebrate Luigi Mangione for essentially the same reason people celebrate Daniel Penny and the society that produces the former will produce a lot more of the latter.

submitted 10 hours ago • 6 comments

I'm not having Fraser Nelson playing dumb on the rise of racism on the right after years spent printing Murray, Liddle, Taki and Shriver. I literally had a DM row with him years ago where I said this would happen.

submitted 15 hours ago • 51 comments

Really important and moving account of state failure in this weekend's @financialtimes.com that is free to read for all here:

submitted 14 hours ago • 21 comments

think what grates most about Fraser Nelson's "a dramatic shift? of MY Overton window?" shtick is that those of us who kept talking about the Spectator's dangerous slide to the right were treated as hysterical, not able to see the humour in shock jocks, etc etc, when we were just clearly right!

submitted 14 hours ago • 31 comments

Fascinated by Lisa Nandy’s theory of being DCMS Secretary.

submitted 1 day ago • 10 comments

Not the most obviously bonkers bit, but "Conservatives are the guardians of western civilisation" is part of how they got here. Believing you have a monopoly on virtue is a great way of not pruning lunatics from your ranks and failing to realise when you have gone deeply, deeply weird.

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

I actually agree with the thesis that a stable democracy generally requires buy-in from conservative forces, as for whatever reason they don't seem to have a good record of actually disappearing. But I don't know what to do about that in a world where they are in fact no longer buying into democracy

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

To be fair, pretty much all his acquaintances are on the hard right, whose defining feature is that they're too cowardly to stand up to Donald Trump.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Planning deregulation advocates take note.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Gosh there it is, just south of where the Godstone sinkhole opened up, "entrance to subterranean sand pit". Mapping the this mine is going to be key now, there is recent housing in the area.

submitted 1 day ago • 19 comments

I think this is unduly optimistic about regulation. Regulations which disadvantage larger or established operators versus smaller entrants promote growth, but blanket regulations produce costs and those are easier for larger operators to bear. The big AI companies have tried to game this already.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

It’s time for the Milk Hotel to choose a side

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

what exactly would progressive activists and reform voters get together to campaign for?

submitted 1 day ago • 9 comments

This is why I really have no time for the "behind the scenes, Republicans say yadda yadda yadda." This is a public-facing business. If you tell a reporter you don't want to vote "aye" then you vote "aye," who cares?

submitted 2 days ago • 40 comments