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

A very handy briefing on Trump, Ukraine and trade by the super talented @jackkessler.bsky.social in his first Substack. Have a peek open.substack.com/pub/jackkess...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Book writing is 60% excruciatingly hard and lonely work, 35% of existential self-hatred, and 5% of rare, glorious moments when all you can think is 'this is so fascinating, I am so happy and grateful I get to do this‘. But honestly, the sh*t one has to endure to get to those 5 %.

submitted 2 days ago • 24 comments

Just sent out a free post on the real meaning of the Trump-Zelensky press conference. Trump admitted he was trying to do Putin’s dirty work and force a bad ceasefire on Ukraine. And Zelensky refused to simply shut up and do what the enemies of freedom wanted. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

submitted 4 days ago • 25 comments

A former White House lawyer under Nixon writes:

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

The EU has been one of the biggest pillars of US economic and political strength and strategy for decades. They pushed the whole idea in the first place! How come some crooked weirdo fantasist gets to blow all that up? 🤷‍♂️

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

“What governments have understood, albeit sotto voce, is that there is not a single social or economic problem that severe future restrictions on immigration would solve. And many that it would create or exacerbate.” open.substack.com/pub/davidaar...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

You reminder that the tendency of #Ostdeutchland to vote authoritarian nationalist at #bundestagswahl is nothing to do with Russian occupation, selfish West after 1990 etc

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

My prediction is that this will do nothing to stop the endless “why is the far right winning TikTok/Gen Z” stories.the fact the Greens crush Reform among under 25s in every poll here doesn’t stop the endless “why is Farage winning young people?” stories

submitted 10 days ago • 18 comments

Hard to describe what it's like being in Kyiv, surrounded by brilliant, unshakeable, brave Ukranians, and reading Trump's comments. The free world deserves a better leader, the hill deserves a better city upon it, and these people deserve better friends.

submitted 12 days ago • 12 comments

I think people are missing the reality of the growing US-Russian alliance under Putin and Trump. Its not going to force a ceasefire on Ukraine, it will be to help Russia try to win the war. The US is now an active enemy of freedom.

submitted 12 days ago • 27 comments

Anti-liberalism is a curse. Whether it’s the far left or the current ordure of Trump. A critique of right libertarianism that ignores the social advances made through the liberal/social democratic alliance is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So read this. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/a...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

The question to ask any anti-immigration person is, “Which hospital do you want to close first? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

All populism is about now is thinking up and then implementing the most harmful and asinine policies imaginable.

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

My proposal for this grey February Monday is that political reporters should be abolished. They're far too addicted to the psychodrama, they don't have expertise in any policy areas, they bigfoot their expert colleagues on any story that involves an MP, and this creates too noise and little light.

submitted 30 days ago • 33 comments

This is, by some distance, the most unforgivably stupidest thing the government is doing. An easily sellable proposal, which would actually help Brits, and unlocks meaningful negotiation. Irrational and anti-growth.

submitted 31 days ago • 209 comments

This shit drives me up the wall. 1. Elon Musk isn't the first, tenth, or ten thousandth person to suggest digitising more government processes - and those other people threw fewer Sieg Heils per annum. 2. The reason govt. digitisation happens slowly is that it's expensive, disruptive, and hard.

submitted 31 days ago • 22 comments

Superb

submitted 36 days ago • 2 comments

The interesting thing about this is that it relies on a slogan rather than a definition. Control is a power relationship. Power is always limited when the other party is stronger. Taking back control means that you are strong enough to do so. That the UK had that strength was a delusion.

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

The problem is that it is working as it should. It’s impossible for an FTA to replicate membership. This was the central category error in Brexit. Improvements in the margins are worth having, but they don’t change the reality of being a third country.

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Still the most essential (and sanest) commentator on Brexit.

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

A breathtakingly brilliant piece by Edward Docx. Absolutely magnificent. What a writer. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

submitted 43 days ago • 49 comments

Can someone print this up in poster size and deliver to Number 10 please? www.ft.com/content/44b2...

submitted 43 days ago • 19 comments

This is a very good point. There was isolationist [low immigration, protectionist, interventionist] Brexit and there was buccaneering free trade, deregulation Brexit. Both could not be agreed on and sold at the same time.

submitted 48 days ago • 15 comments

The “growth plan” for Brexit was that it would “unleash” UK from the “shackles” of EU. And therein is the clue why there has been no growth. The plan was no more substantial than vivid words deployed in some newspaper column or political speech. Flimsy boosterish rhetoric, and nothing more.

submitted 48 days ago • 1 comment

It really is difficult to fully comprehend the shamelessness of MPs who did nothing on an issue for 14 long years when their party was in government only to express moral outrage on that same issue months into a new government. These people are everything that’s wrong with our politics.

submitted 56 days ago • 23 comments

A reminder. Musk's influence may be down to his money, but it is the influence of a courtier. Read Hilary Mantel to find out what can happen to courtiers.

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

And free to read at this link!

submitted 58 days ago • 37 comments

As Anne Appelbaum put it, “Instead they lie constantly, repeatedly, in order to pollute the public sphere and convince people that nothing can be known or understood.” open.substack.com/pub/anneappl...

submitted 59 days ago • 0 comments

As Anne Appelbaum put it, “Instead they lie constantly, repeatedly, in order to pollute the public sphere and convince people that nothing can be known or understood.” open.substack.com/pub/anneappl...

submitted 59 days ago • 0 comments

I think there's widespread agreement in UK politics that there needs to be "change" and we're not immune from populists bearing glib incorrect answers. But virtually none on what that actually means in realistic, practical terms. And not a huge amount of appetite to discuss it seriously.

submitted 60 days ago • 7 comments

You would never guess from Nigel Biggar being ennobled, and Niall Ferguson being knighted, that there has been a revolution in how imperial historians actually talk about British imperial history. Christmas sympathy to the hundreds of historians out there doing actual nuanced work. Don't give up.

submitted 71 days ago • 15 comments

As bad as Badenoch is, she is better than this piece of shit.

submitted 72 days ago • 65 comments

This thread is excellent

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

This is a terrible example of "party brain" at work. The question isn't "how do you beat Reform?" - which would be a wholly illegitimate way to make this decision. It's "how do we stop foreign (& indeed domestic) money from subverting our democracy?" That's much bigger than the fate of one party

submitted 74 days ago • 29 comments

While @robertjenrickmp.bsky.social's proposal to deport Douglas Murray, Tommy Robinson and a number of Daily Telegraph/Spectator columnists may sound appealing, I fear it would almost certainly fall foul of the ECHR.

submitted 74 days ago • 18 comments

1. I enjoyed reading this from @davidsonofaaron.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/davidaar... It shows that the politics of nostalgia is class politics. The working class get to live in their 'poor but happy' utopia', whilst the middle classes get the benefits of progress.

submitted 74 days ago • 1 comment

This is about the difference between political fear and political courage. Fear loses every time.

submitted 85 days ago • 0 comments