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amateurfoi.bsky.social

@amateurfoi.bsky.social
262 followers 515 following 1.3K posts

I live in the UK.

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Reposted by @amateurfoi.bsky.social
Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 12h
Noooo Almost two-thirds of the population of chinstrap penguins have disappeared from a remote volcanic island near Antarctica, aerial surveys suggest. The research team say climate change is affecting the birds' food supply and survival www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
World's largest penguin colony hit by climate-driven decline
Climate change is blamed for dramatic decline of chinstrap penguins living on a remote volcanic island.
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Nature @nature.com · 13h
A commonly found gut microbe manufactures a molecule that is capable of slashing cholesterol levels and shrinking plaque in arteries go.nature.com/4ywfNus
go.nature.com
Revealed: How this common gut microbe protects against heart disease
Intestinal bacterium secretes a molecule that reduces cholesterol production, according to a mouse study.
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Fleet Street Fox @fleetstreetfox.bsky.social · 13h
They flew six times straight through a mushroom cloud, absorbing a century of radiation in just 12 minutes. Officials hid the truth to prevent "needless anxiety" - and tracked their blood in secret. Here's What They Don't Want You To Know:👇 whattheydontwantyoutoknow.substack.com/p/nuked-bloo...
whattheydontwantyoutoknow.substack.com
Nuked Blood: 12 Minutes of Hell, and a Lifetime of Cover-Up
They flew six times through a mushroom cloud, absorbed a century of radiation, and were subjected to secret blood tests while officials hid the truth to prevent "needless anxiety"
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Adrian Littlejohn @yorksfella59.bsky.social · 14h
This link is to a piece by @jaymitchinson.bsky.social editor of the @yorkshirepost.co.uk. As with his newspaper, I don't always agree with James, but any opinions they state are always clear, and carefully expressed. And I could not possibly agree more with this! tinyurl.com/34jscxv9 Photo ©BBC
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 15h
US asks Russia for info over the mysterious death at a lab storing bubonic plague bacteria. WHO is investigating reports of a possible lab exposure and 2nd unexplained "pneumonia" case. Russia denies any dangerous pathogen escaped, have not shared samples.
yacnews.com
Russia keeps plague lab samples from WHO as dead technician's mother says 'they destroyed her'
Russia has told the WHO there is no plague case and blamed a "typical" viral infection for a Siberian plague lab technician's death. The WHO is checking reports of a second sick worker, and Trump says...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 13h
Oh joy ....
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Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 19h
EXC - John Healey is planning a major intervention to cut energy bills for poorer households in this month’s budget. Chancellor is working on plans to spend more than £1bn to help energy consumers, increasing the discount given to households on certain benefits www.theguardian.com/money/2026/o...
theguardian.com
Chancellor plans major intervention to help poorer UK households with rising energy bills
Exclusive: Officials working on further radical changes that would change how much energy companies could charge customers
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
“The defence of Putin didn’t surprise me, the defence of Hitler really did” I caught up with Jacob Rees-Mogg on inviting Tucker Carlson into his home to debate whether Britain would be better off if the Nazis had invaded. Not a sentence I ever thought I'd write www.newstatesman.com/politics/pol...
newstatesman.com
“Why would anyone try to defend Hitler?”: Jacob Rees-Mogg on his clash with Tucker Carlson
The Tory grandee believes "you don't win arguments by hiding away"
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Dale Vince @dalevince.com · 06/10/2026
The ‘Iran War’ - is barely 8 months old, but in that time our own homegrown green energy sources (the wind and the sun) have saved us nearly £6 billion. buff.ly/AK0bDXo
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Jonathan O'Callaghan @astrojonny.bsky.social · 14h
Hello quantum gravity experts, I am looking for anyone that can comment on this paper for a story I'm writing: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-08... If that's you, or you know someone, do let me know. jdaoca[at]gmail[dot]com Thanks!
ox.ac.uk
Scientists observe Einstein’s gravity in the quantum world
An international team including Oxford physicists has observed a long-predicted effect of gravity on a falling quantum object for the first time. The study provides an experimental connection between ...
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 22h
Documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests show that parts of the 'simplification drive' have ended up closely reflecting the demands of fertiliser & chemical companies to roll back environmental & health safeguards Insects in EU have declined 75% in 3 decades www.ft.com/content/3c86...
ft.com
Chemical groups succeed in watering down EU pesticide rules
European Commission and leading MEPs side with industry demands for laxer standards
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 15h
Interesting nugget of a story in which the Trade Remedies Authority suggests anti-dumping duties on China, with the EU concerned at the UK as a backdoor around their duties, but downstream users and the now Chinese owned factory object. So... www.ft.com/content/a7af...
ft.com
UK urged to impose tariffs on Chinese chemical at centre of EU trade dispute
Trade watchdog’s findings leave ministers facing tough decision on whether to follow recommendation
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The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 14h
Visitors face compulsory bookings and entry fees for the Great Ocean Road limestone stacks as authorities move to curb overcrowding
thetimes.com
Stacks of cash? Australia to charge tourists to visit Twelve Apostles
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 17h
Badenoch on "Englishness" takes the Conservatives backwards. Me (last year) on what that means and why it's a good thing. The test, as others have said, is whether she continues to tolerate the ethnonationalism/racism of Philp, Lam, Timothy, Hannan, etc.. bylinetimes.com/2025/08/19/r...
bylinetimes.com
Robert Jenrick and the Conservative Party's Embrace of 'Blood and Soil' Nationalism
The British right is adopting an increasingly extreme form of ethnic identity politics, while failing to explain what the rest of us are supposed to be so worried about, argues Jonathan Portes
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Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 17h
NEW - Kemi Badeoch says there will be no inheritance tax to pay ever on a family home. Interested to know how this affects the housing market. Asset-rich pensioners just got a huge (extra) incentive not to downsize.
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 19h
Failures of privatisation. Royal Mail to cut up to 2,500 jobs Foreign-owned RM doesn't meet letter delivery targets even after regulator lowered them. Postage: 1st class, £1.80, 2nd class 91p. When privatized in 2013: 1st class 60p; 2nd class 50p. Poor service at triple price. Customers fleeced.
bbc.co.uk
Royal Mail plans to cut 2,500 head office jobs
The postal service firm wants to cut the head office and other jobs by the end of 2027.
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The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 15h
Wittington Investments enters definitive agreement to buy UK high street chemists chain from Sycamore Partners
thetimes.com
Boots sold to Canada’s Weston family for $8.9bn
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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 15h
Ah well, that's okay then www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Reform UK clears its own advisers over Channel 4 donations sting
An internal investigation concluded James Orr and Dan Jukes did not break electoral law but said their discussion had been ‘foolish’
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OSINTRadar @osintradar.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
🔻 South Korea sent more than 176,000 tonnes of fuel to Russia in just two months, while sanctioned tankers concealed their destinations, The Guardian reports, citing an investigation.👇 ✅️Follow us for the latest updates
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 15h
Govt's own data shows: Percentage of Estates Paying IHT: As of the 2023–24 tax year, only 4.72% of deaths resulted in an inheritance tax charge. This will only benefit the wealthy
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Steve Rosenberg @bbcstever.bsky.social · 21h
20 years ago today Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia’s most prominent investigative journalists, was murdered. I found no mention of the anniversary in today's Russian newspapers. #ReadingRussia
youtu.be
Russian papers silent on the 20th anniversary of journalist's murder
YouTube video by Steve Rosenberg
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OSINTRadar @osintradar.bsky.social · 16h
🇺🇦 In the skies over Kyiv, a Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29 fighter jet shoots down a Russian Geran-4 jet-powered drone using its 30mm GSh-30-1 onboard cannon. ✅️Follow us for the latest updates
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 16h
From the new Private Eye
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
I can't help but see the Tories as the Knights Who Say "Ni!" from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. All they ever talk about are cuts but they can't see the harm they do .
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
New Benefits and Work guide as figures show huge variations in child DLA to PIP success rates benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/new-ben...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
New Benefits and Work guide as figures show huge variations in child DLA to PIP success rates
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
One short call could prevent PIP claims proceeding benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/one-sho...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
One short call could prevent PIP claims proceeding
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
Face-to-face assessment makes little difference, but switchers do better benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/face-to...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
Face-to-face assessment makes little difference, but switchers do better
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
Guide to life after managed migration benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/guide-t...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
Guide to life after managed migration
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
Call for savage child DLA cuts by Timms review steering group member benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/call-fo...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
Call for savage child DLA cuts by Timms review steering group member
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 19h
Right now is the time to challenge Timms review benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/right-n...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
Right now is the time to challenge Timms review
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
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Reposted by @amateurfoi.bsky.social
Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
If The Times’ political editor didn’t challenge Kemi Badenoch on her banning of @bylinetimes.bsky.social can the newspaper of record just make this simple correction?
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Science Magazine @science.org · 05/10/2026
Exclusive: A new analysis refutes James Watson’s claim that he was the first to recognize the significance of the famed photograph 51. scim.ag/4rTKck8
scim.ag
How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn’t
New analysis refutes James Watson’s claim he was first to recognize significance of famed photograph 51
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Madeleine Cuff @tinymaddie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Could we stop El Niño in its tracks? Maybe, but it might require a lot of pipes... www.newscientist.com/article/2592...
newscientist.com
The most ambitious ideas to save the world from El Niño  | New Scientist
A monster El Niño is brewing in the Pacific Ocean – but there may be ways we can stop the worst impacts from occurring
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Thanks again to @mrjamesob.bsky.social for highlighting Kemi Badenoch's banning of journalists she doesn't approve of, which very few other journalists in the country seem willing to mention for some reason inews.co.uk/opinion/bade...
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Marcus Chown @marcuschown.bsky.social · 21h
Childcare for those earning more than £100,000, an inheritance tax cut for the 4.72 per cent of people that pay it… The Tories are no longer even pretending they give a toss about the majority of people in the UK.
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Political Cartoon Gallery @politicalcartoon.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Morten Morland @mortenmorland.bsky.social on the #IronDome #ToryConference #KemiBadenoch @thetimes – political cartoon gallery in London original-political-cartoon.com
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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 06/10/2025
Announcing @billablehour.bsky.social's very first Halloween T-shirt by the fabulous @soengery.bsky.social. Links in the reply. Also available in extra Goth. As usual, all proceeds go to @savechildrenuk.bsky.social /1
A young woman in a sunlit and bewilderingly inappropriate field, wearing the new Billable Horror T-shirt
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The Tories must think they are in the wrong millennium. Putting them into Govt could well be as bad as having Trump in the USA.
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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The Tories are idiots in thrall to the fossil fuel industry.
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Private Eye Magazine @privateeyenews.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Archer’s resignation from the London mayoral race after it was revealed he lied in court was the thing that got Paul Foot up from his sickbed and contributing again, having first started chronicling Archer’s lies and misdemeanours in 1969. From the Private Eye archive. Issue 992, December 1999.
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
We may need many things but another Thatcher is not one of them
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Spooky Snigdha @snig.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Private Eye on Jeffrey Archer. 2/n
5) SHOPLIFTER

O UT of parliament and broke, he flew to Canada in 1975 to give evidence against the men who had defrauded him. Worried about his slightly scruffy appearance, he swiped three suits from Simpsons store in downtown Toronto without paying for them. He was held by store detectives, handed over to the police and only released when they confirmed that he was a prosecution witness in the fraud trial.

This unsavoury incident was known for years to several British newspapers. All were deflected by Archer from publishing the story by the time-honoured device of lying. "I was not involved in this incident," Archer wrote to me in his own handwriting in 1987. Eleven years later, he admitted in the Evening Standard that he had been involved in the incident, but was not prepared to admit it "to a Left-wing journalist with a campaign against me".

6) FANTASIST

A RCHER spent the years from the fraud trial in 1974 writing awful political pot-boilers and making the fortune of which he had always dreamed.

A decade of relentless sucking up to Margaret Thatcher and her circle brought him the deputy chairmanship of the Tory party, from which high office he promptly advised the unemployed to "get up off your backsides". By April 1986 the Eye could report that Thatcher had relegated her dashing deputy chairman to "harmless functions such as school prize-givings" and had succeeded for a time in muzzling him. But at the end of one tour, in Cornwall, he could not resist telling a gaggle of admiring journalists and young Tories of a terrorist attempt to assassinate him during the tour.

As evidence Archer cited the discovery of an explosive device on the road his car was due to pass on, the switching of his car to an unmarked police car, sniffer dogs used in his hotel to hunt for explosives, and the deployment of 40 police officers at Archer's meeting in Totnes. The Eye (635, 18 April 1986) reported that at least one sceptical hack submitted Archer's story to the unusual proce…7) PLAGIARIST

TOR did all those school prize-givings turn out to NOR be as "harmless" as Thatcher hoped. In 1983, Archer judged a short story competition run by a local magazine in Cambridge. He unhesitatingly awarded first prize to Kathleen Burnett, who had submitted a story about the ostensible thoughts of a woman, who turns out to be a cat.

He publicly dubbed the story "in the tradition of Somerset Maugham" (one of whose stories Jeffrey Archer had already plagiarised). Early in 1989, Mrs Burnett happened to read Jeffrey Archer's latest collection of short stories, A Twist in The Tale, which included a tale with a twist, namely the ostensible thoughts of a woman who turned out to be a cat. She wrote angrily to Archer and his publisher, but was reminded by Lord Mishcon, Archer's lawyer, that there was no law against stealing an idea. Moreover, Archer implied that she had agreed to the plagiarism whereas in fact he had only offered to publish her story under her name.

8) PERJURER

E VEN before Mrs Burnett discovered the plagiarism, Archer had been forced out of office once again. His decision to send an aide to pay off a prostitute who claimed that Archer had picked her up in Shepherds Market and bought sex from her was plastered all over the front of the News of the World.

Archer resigned as Tory deputy chairman and sued the Daily Star for libel. Somehow he managed to convince a jury a) that he had never met the prostitute (though two journalists remembered him saying he had); b) that he had never had sex with her (though she identified him as a client, and another client, a solicitor, had seen him hiring her; c) that he had agreed to pay her thousands of pounds because he felt sorry for her; and d) that he was a faithful husband with a faithful wife (though his affair with Andrina Colquhoun had been widely publicised in the gossip columns). Despite numerous articles in the Eye pouring scorn on these fantasies, it was 12 years before they were even partially ex…
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EUwatch 🇪🇺 @euwatch.live · 06/10/2026
‘No more Viktor Orbán: EU plans 15-year probation period for new member states
theguardian.com
‘No more Viktor Orbán: EU plans 15-year probation period for new member states
Enlargement commissioner Marta Kos outlines proposed safeguards to protect EU from undemocratic leaders The European Commission wants to ensure there is no repeat Viktor Orbán among the next generation of EU member states, as it set out plans to prepare for the bloc’s enlargement into eastern Europe in the next few years. In an interview with the Guardian and other European newspapers, the EU commissioner for enlargement, Marta Kos, outlined proposals for special safeguards to protect the bloc from leaders who could flout democratic values and hold hostage decision making, a pattern of behaviour exemplified for many by the former Hungarian prime minister. Continue reading...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 06/10/2026
Reform MP raises concerns about second homes – then buys one for £800,000
theguardian.com
Reform MP raises concerns about second homes – then buys one for £800,000
Sarah Pochin bought Anglesey property two days after writing to minister about impact of second home ownership on rural communities A Reform UK MP bought an £800,000 second home on a picturesque Welsh island two days after raising concerns in parliament about the impact of second homes on rural communities. Sarah Pochin completed the purchase of a Grade-II listed property on the southern coast of Anglesey (Ynys Môn). Continue reading...
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
To put this into context, a single US Patriot battery can cost $1bn Politics latest: Tories deny 'Britannia Shield' is the same as 'Iron Dome' - as they liken it to a brand name norskluftvern.com/2026/03/09/p...
norskluftvern.com
Patriot Missile Defense System: Cost Analysis and Performance Comparison
The Western World’s Backbone Air Defense at a Crossroads Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors cost $4.2 million per unit based on the FY2025 Army budget request, positioning the system as the most widely…
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Bellingcat has become aware of an individual contacting people via Telegram and WhatsApp from a UK number, naming themselves "Antony Kevin", claiming to work for Bellingcat, and asking for assistance recruiting journalists and analysts working on Syria, in particular Damascus and Idlib.
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amateurfoi.bsky.social @amateurfoi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
There are quite a few businesses in the UK that could learn something from this.
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Oliver @oliver48.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Denmark has built so much wind power that its grid now regularly produces more than the country can consume, and on the windiest days the wholesale price of electricity falls below zero." via Amazing Maps
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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Archer came and spoke to my school in the 1980s. Charm personified. Bragged at length about his many achievements and then... something bizarre happened. 1/3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Jeffrey Archer obituary
Politician and best-selling author whose career was mired in scandal and disgrace.
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