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Amyn Merchant

@amynmerchant.bsky.social
1.8K followers 6.4K following 2.8K posts

Musician, Bookworm, Europhile, Family Man & #AutismParent. All views are personal.

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Reposted by Amyn Merchant
Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 18h
By Braverman’s definition: I am not English (half Armenian) nor is the mother of my kids (parents Welsh). In fact of my kids’ great grandparents — only one is English What do to do, Suella? There are probably 80 or so descendants of my great grandparents which by your benchmark aren’t English
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 7h
Just one of many problems with Braverman's definition of 'pureblood' Englishness (all-English parents/grandparents) is it excludes millions of white, English-speaking people with English-sounding names, who she/everyone would just assume are 'English'. #MudbloodsAreUs
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Outspoken™️ @out5p0ken.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Black folks don’t hang themselves from trees.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 01/10/2026
I recommend people read this to get a sense of the president's grave cognitive impairment. Trump is either unwilling or unable (or maybe both) to answer the questions he's actually asked, so he just rants and raves while the interviewers do their best to provide structure to his random brain firings
time.com
Read TIME’s ‘What Trump Has Built’ Interview Transcript
The U.S. President discussed the war in Iran, press freedom, AI, and more ahead of the midterm elections.
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Richest 1% of Britons owns more wealth than the bottom 70% of the population combined. 50 richest families hold more wealth than the poorest half of the population combined. The concentration of wealth in fewer hands has not provided the necessary economic stimulus. Need redistribution.
leftfootforward.org
This is how the Chancellor can increase the personal allowance and lift millions out of hardship
Sustained economic growth can’t be achieved without a major boost to the purchasing power of the bottom 50% of the population
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Patriotic Millionaires UK @patmillsuk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Our response to Andy Burnham's Labour Party Conference speech 💬 #TaxTheSuperRich
We welcome the Prime Minister's vision to bring hope back to our country and communities.
And we repeat our longstanding message: we're ready to play our part by paying our fair share, so Britain gets the investment it needs to make that vision a reality. 
This country helped to build our success. So millionaires like us must be taxed more. It's our turn to step up first and help build a better future for everyone.
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Nigella Lawson @nigella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Thank YOU. I believe profoundly that the only correct response to pleasure is gratitude rather than guilt
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Naomi Smith @pimlicat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
bestforbritain.org/fundraising/...
bestforbritain.org
Help us Fight to Restore our EU Membership - Best for Britain
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Naomi Smith @pimlicat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Welcome to my daily life, always having to battle tedious doom mongers on our own side, and who get proven wrong again and again. Politics is about the art of the possible, and we campaign day in, day out for something they tell us can’t happen. It will. Believe it, and make it reality. Join me! 🇬🇧🇪🇺
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Burnham speech: An astonishing moment of radicalism and commitment iandunt.substack.com/p/burnham-sp...
iandunt.substack.com
Burnham speech: An astonishing moment of radicalism and commitment
It’s easy to be cynical, but it would be false. Something extraordinary is happening here.
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Russell England @russellengland.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Margaret Owen OBE 94 year old human rights barrister Arrested for "terrorism" for protesting against genocide
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Johannes Franzen @johannesfranzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Incredible stuff.
Commentary|Essay
        

AI and the crisis of the author
        

By Anchit Sathi

September 4, 2026
Read this issue

Editor’s note (September 21, 2026): We have removed this essay. AI was used in its preparation. The TLS editorial guidelines prohibit the use of AI in the writing and editing process. The author states that he was unaware of the policy.
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ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 29/09/2026
A galactic house of mirrors 🌌🪞 Webb has captured this spectacular view of the galaxy cluster MACS J0454.1-0300. Its gravity is warping & multiplying the images of background galaxies, which appear like they have stepped into a house of mirrors! Read more 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪
A massive galaxy cluster, made of many golden elliptical galaxies with the largest, brightest one in the centre. Heavily distorted orange galaxies appear all around the cluster, the largest concentrated in a large arc around the cluster's centre; these are images of very distant galaxies, created by gravitational lensing. A few galaxies are large and bluish-white in colour; bright, nearby stars are the same colour. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Furtak, S. Fujimoto
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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Google earth has updated its satellite images of Gaza. The destruction is almost incomprehensible.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My immediate reaction is to wonder why the laughing cow is breaking up with me.
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TheBossRoss 🧶 @thebossross.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Chris Mason joins us now with an adorable kitten he claims Nigel Farage rescued from a house fire..." Cartoon: @jonesycartoons3.bsky.social (UK) #BBC #BBCbias
A BBC news reader with a background image of Chris Mason holding a kitten into the camera.
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Amyn Merchant @amynmerchant.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
@pimlicat.bsky.social @sturdyalex.bsky.social @mrkennycampbell.bsky.social @quietriotpod.bsky.social This may be of interest to you?
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Jaz @jaz.sh · 27/09/2026
Okay so I've built a new Atlas, this time it lets you explore the conversations on Bluesky over the past 7 days graphically. It should update every ~6 hours and help you navigate the information environment that exists on here. I've learned a LOT about what people do here today... atlas.jazco.dev
atlas.jazco.dev
Atlas
A living map of what Bluesky is talking about: the past week's conversations, grouped into topics and regions and rebuilt every six hours.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The response when progressive policies that help millions of people are proposed... "How will you pay for it?" The response when the richest 1% ask for tax cuts, or banks ask for bailouts, or defense contractors ask for more contracts... "How much do you need?" It doesn't have to be this way.
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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Google has started updating satellite images of Gaza. Holocaust. (📸 Barry Andrews MEP, European Parliament)
A single building is left standing amidst utter carnage. Every single building has been levelled across a few square miles pictures. Google maps identified one pile of rubble as a school.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 27/09/2026
They're also working with the Trump administration to remove AI regulation and obtain military contracts.
motherjones.com
Rest assured: AI companies say they're investigating tens of thousands of rogue bot incidents
They're also working with the Trump administration to remove AI regulation and obtain military contracts.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Also under current proposals they won't be allowed to be social care workers after 2028. Ministers still don't seem to understand their own plan.
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"In order to deliver the PM's promise to save social care we need a permanent class of indentured migrant workers without labour rights".
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Gillian Martin @gillmartin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
U.S. ENDS PARTICIPATION IN UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL AND WILL NOT SEEK A FUTURE SEAT. The United States is withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council and does not plan to seek another term on the body. The sh@thole president has spoken
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Guardian reports Rayner's continued defence of migrants care workers from in Cabinet. Seems to have won that argument for care workers with No 10 + Home Office Big unknown: will anyone protect 250k non-care workers (chefs, vets, architects) from being thrown out www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Angela Rayner stands by attack on care worker visa reforms ahead of Labour conference
Housing secretary says Home Office moved goalposts with ‘disruptive’ change to permanent residence rules
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
you guys broke watergate
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Sir Basil @sirbasil.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Hugely wealthy git who donated £3.2m to the LEAVE campaign which succeeded in damaging Britain moans that taxes will need to rise
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"At least six babies in Pennsylvania have been born infected with measles, with two so sick they had to be admitted to intensive care. Congenital measles is a disease that’s rarely, if ever, seen in the U.S..." www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
nbcnews.com
America had wiped out measles. Now babies are infected at birth.
Congenital measles has rarely been seen in the U.S. That’s changing as vaccination declines and more pregnant women become infected.
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 26/09/2026
not often I'd recommend a 25-post thread, but:
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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 26/09/2026
I disagree with much of this by @modernlockey.bsky.social, but I think the points he makes tell us something interesting about the shortcomings of the Starmer project and the problems that Labour faces today.
futureoftheleft.substack.com
What is politics for?
Do we still live in a material world?
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 26/09/2026
Incredible: another Ukrainian famine is unfolding, this time in Russian-occupied Oleshky. The remaining inhabitants of what used to be a thriving small city, now down to about 6000 people, are blockaded by Russian forces and cut off from food and water. www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Oleshky: Eating garden weeds to survive in Russian-occupied city cut off from food and water
The BBC has spoken to residents in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky who say they are being "constantly shelled".
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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Small boat crossings account for ca 3% of total net migration to the UK. Watch GB NEWS or Talk or listen to Farage and Co and you'd think it was the majority.
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Paul Eric @pauleric70.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
In 1985, Carl Sagan told Congress that continuing to burn fossil fuels will increase global temperature, cause climate change, melt glaciers and ice sheets, and cause sea level rise. Imagine if we had listened to him them.😒😒😒😪
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Referring to the Chinese president, the host asked “If you were president, would you throw him a big dinner?” “I would not be throwing him a dinner,” Trump declared. “I’d get him a McDonald’s hamburger.” 😂 www.mediaite.com/media/tv/jak...
mediaite.com
Jake Tapper Digs Up Clip of Trump Mocking Obama-Xi State Dinner: ‘Get Down To Work’
CNN’s Jake Tapper aired an old clip of President Donald Trump blasting then-President Barack Obama for hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner in 2015.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
my legit goal with the Untitled History Podcast is to replicate what I had as a kid the first time I discovered In Our Time on the radio. I want people to listen WITHOUT caring about what the topic is. To feel that magic, and thrill, of just trusting it will be interesting. And learning cool stuff.
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Amyn Merchant @amynmerchant.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Subscribed because of this.
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Amyn Merchant @amynmerchant.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@quietriotpod.bsky.social A contender for Grin And Share It, perhaps?
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.
theintercept.com
DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.
In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
What’s in those cookies, Harrison?🤔
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Anand Menon @anandmenon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Angela Rayner condemns Labour’s migrant visa crackdown www.thetimes.com/article/385b...
thetimes.com
Angela Rayner condemns Labour’s migrant visa crackdown
Speaking before the party conference, the housing secretary says Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans would affect care workers
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Amyn Merchant @amynmerchant.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@brokenbottleboy.bsky.social
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Adrian Littlejohn @yorksfella59.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Did the BBC use this heart-rending court sketch to try to portray the thug sympathetically? For me, it didn't work... I just pissed myself laughing 🤣 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Daniel Thomas pleads not guilty after dinghy slashed in Channel
Daniel Thomas is accused of criminal damage after a video appeared to show him slashing at a dinghy.
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Philip Eil @phileil.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"cognitive surrender" is such an amazing -- and haunting -- term. My vote for @merriam-webster.com's word/phrase of the year.
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Spooky Snigdha @snig.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
With the news brilliant singer songwriter Michael Kiwanuka is recovering from a stroke, remember to "Act FAST" and call 999 if you suspect someone has had a stroke. F = Face weakness. A = Arm weakness. S = Speech problems. T = Time to call 999. Don't delay. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...
theguardian.com
‘Everyone can relate to pain and struggle. So I’m sharing mine’: Michael Kiwanuka on life after his devastating stroke
The Mercury prize winner hasn’t been able to go home since falling ill last summer. In his only interview, he opens up about the ‘poignancy’ of finally releasing the new album his stroke shelved
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Marcus Chown @marcuschown.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Every year, HMRC, by its own estimates, fails to collect 46.8 billion of tax. See webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/202606... How about hiring more people to retrieve this avoided tax before suggesting funding defence by cutting welfare to the poorest and most vulnerable? Just saying.
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Ben Goldsborough MP @bengoldsborough.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
SEND support cannot stop at 16. We rightly talk about giving children with SEND the best start, but what happens next matters too. Sense College Aldeby is doing brilliant work helping young adults with complex needs build independence. I’ll keep shouting about it.
Ben meeting with Emily Hancock from Sense Aldeby.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Have the BBC forgotten how to do proper reporting? The arrest isn't "over video", it's over the dinghy slashing.
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Biggie @biggienotsmalls.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Should be reposted every month....
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026
Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Mind-blowing story in Private Eye about how the Telegraph's chief reporter reached out to James Orr (or meant to) after the Channel 4 donation revelations


...within hours of journalists on either the *Guardian* or *Sunday Times* contacting Reform for comment on the same stories ahead of them publishing their own investigations. Reform deputy leader Richard Tice and his fiancée, supposed journalist Isabel Oakeshott, even crowed online about their spoiler tactics.

Not that the *Telegraph* doesn't do its own leg work when reporting on Reform. After James Orr, the party's head of policy, had to resign after a sting by *Channel 4 News* (see "*Right Orr Wrong*, p14"), *Telegraph* chief reporter Rob Mendick texted Orr: "I was hoping to talk to you entirely on background," he schmoozed. "You must be feeling very bruised and I totally Appreciate [sic] the sensitivities. I suspect you deserve better and I wanted to see how I can put the record straight in some way." Alas, instead of the Reformer and Cambridge theologian, Mendick messaged someone else, who shared it with the *Eye*!
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