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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 2h

Pet theory that the colonisation of much of the South by Greggs presaged the North's takeover of Britain

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Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · 9h

I meant in the public sphere, not by historians! I find the recent debate in the media to be very unemcumbered by any sense that politics has taken place prior to September 2026.

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Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · 11h

A feature of post-war German democracy has been that the left has traditionally had far more of a firewall to the far left than the center right has had with the far right. The central role of anti-communism in Cold War West Germany created a structural asymmetry that has not been reckoned with.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 11h

Looks like your second home is now ready for you @columnist.bsky.social

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Beyond the scandal engulfing Manchester City, a lot of people in European football need to consider what might happen to investment from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar if further military escalation around Yemen and Iran forces Gulf states to reconsider their strategic priorities

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Die CDU/CSU hat sich in eine solche Hysterie hereingesteigert, daß sie am wenigsten damit klarkommen würde wenn Eralp als Bürgermeisterin statt gleich die Revolution auszurufen eine ziemlich langweilige Kompetenz mit den üblichen gelegentlichen handwerklichen Fehler ausstrahlt.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 29/09/2026

My basic view is that even post-29 (I) you remain a bad run of inflation away from another unhinged president (II) lots of stuff the US has retreated from will be low on the list to re-establish.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

1. These are reasonable points in this thread. 2. This thread overthinks the level of attention to detail that UK (or for that matter EU) voters will expend in debates and electoral campaigns that will be driven by the power of anecdotes, stories and raw emotion

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Krise seit Gründung. Und die Partei, die das Fundament dieses Landes gelegt hat, die es geprägt hat wie keine andere, entzieht sich einfach der Verantwortung und tut so, als könnte es sich in die Kulisse einer Sitcom zurückziehen, in der eine 90er Jahre Persiflage gespielt wird.

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

übernehmen, wenn man immer noch glaubt, man könnte die Linksparteidebatte als Ablenkungsdebatte für Sachsen-Anhalt und MV nehmen. Da wird in der nächsten Woche zum ersten Mal seit Hermann Göring ein Rechtsextremer Paralamentspräsident. Menschen haben Angst, Menschen werden verfolgt und bedroht…

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

die Bundesrepublik zu zerstören. Die positive Bezüge zum NS herstellt und deren Anhänger CDU-Politiker ermorden. I get it, ihr mögt die Linkspartei nicht und ihr mögt auch Berlin nicht. It‘s fine. Es beruht auf Gegenseitigkeit. Aber wie wenig kann man sich der Realität stellen und Verantwortung…

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

die wenige Wochen später die erste Regierungskrise herbeiführte, als sie Frauke Brosius-Geradorf nicht zur Verfassungsrichterin wählen wollten. Was genau wirft die CDU den Berlinern eigtl vor. Während unter ihrer Führung die AfD sich überall verdoppelt hat. Eine Partei, die angetreten ist,…

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Kanzler wurde, weil die Linke im Bundestag dazu bereit war, die Geschäftsordnung zu ändern und einen zweiten Wahlgang zu ermöglichen? Schuld an der misslungenen Wahl war übrigens nicht die Linke, sondern die CDU-Fraktion, die Jens Spahn schon damals nicht im Griff hatte. Eben jene Fraktion …

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

unionsgeführten Länder im Falle einer Bürgermeisterin der Linken mit Finanzmittelentzug. (Yes und ich bin weder Wählerin der Linkspartei noch finde ich unproblematisch, wie die Linke in Berlin aufgestellt ist, aber bitte was?) Darf man die Union mal daran erinnern, dass ihr Bundeskanzler nur…

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Anne Rabe @annerabe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Wisst ihr noch, was für ein Wahnsinn ausbrach, als einige Westdeutsche forderten Sachsen-Anhalt das Geld zu streichen, wenn die Nazis wählen? (Bescheuerter Vorschlag, ja) Die Hölle der wütenden ,Man hat uns alles genommen und ihr werdet es nie verstehen‘-Ossis brach los. Nun drohen die…

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Stephen Miller can only be sent to the Hague once the US Congress legislates for America to finally sign on to the Rome Statute and accept jurisdiction of the ICC Yet for all their talk of respecting international law, the US Democrats aren't interested and not even the DSA views it as a priority

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The BBC news summary this morning went seamlessly from "critics warn PM scrapping triple lock would be electoral suicide" to "critics ask if PM has nerve to make tough decisions" and I don't think it's a particularly pro Burnham stance to suggest he might not be the entire problem here.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

As a matter of logic you cannot be “hard working” if you rely on the state pension. I hope ministers will keep (start?) explaining that the state pension isn’t paid out of an investment fund but by the contributions of those currently working.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Morning all

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Chrononaut @chrononaut.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

When Bulgarian shipyards were laying off workers in the 1990s many welders went to the UK. UK industries have been spoiled by an endless stream of cheap skilled labor for decades and by now they have no idea what to do in a situation where there's no longer a huge source of immigrant skilled labor.

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Emmanuelle Chaze @emmanuellechaze.com · 28/09/2026

My friend's office is next door, I wasn't sure where she was at the time. Just heard from her and thankfully she is unharmed. What is happening in Kyiv right now is truly horrific. Millions of people are at risk of dying at any time. I'm not quite sure this really comes across, abroad.

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Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My God. This is the center of Kyiv. A civilian building, a historic one, built in the 1850s. Russian terror knows no bounds. They are attacking and killing Ukrainian civilians just because they can. If Russia is not stopped, it will expand its terror and violence.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Next UK politics will get to wrestle with the concept of cyclical labour shortages in key manufacturing skills

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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

There's a few stories here that are interesting, each of which have different levels of challenge in solving, but I think the hardest is service charges, where you can probably do something by improving transparency but even looking at mine communal electricity has doubled since 2024.

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DIE ZEIT @zeit.de · 28/09/2026

Es werde viel über die Berliner Linke gestritten, sagt Grünen-Chef Banaszak. Die Wahlerfolge der AfD dagegen würden nahezu »schulterzuckend« zur Kenntnis genommen.

zeit.de

Felix Banaszak: Banaszak kritisiert »verschobene Maßstäbe« in Debatte um die Linke

Es werde viel über die Berliner Linke gestritten, sagt Grünen-Chef Banaszak. Die Wahlerfolge der AfD dagegen würden nahezu »schulterzuckend« zur Kenntnis genommen.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

..and the government's restrictive measures, although they are intended to make the system more selective, may in fact be having the opposite effect. Once again, bad economics *and* bad politics. ukandeu.ac.uk/the-paradox-...

ukandeu.ac.uk

The paradox of selectivity - UK in a changing Europe

Jonathan Portes analyses how increasingly strict immigration policies may have impacted the overall economc contribution of migrants in the UK. He argues that if the objective is to maximise economic ...

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Good thing that this couldn’t have been predicted almost a year ago <runs bitter victory lap> and the government didn’t just blithely carry on doing the same thing. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/718...

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The average length of Roman-Persian wars was 7-15 years. The average length of Ottoman-Persian wars was 5-10 years. Forever wars are not the exception, they're the norm.

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Ingwar Perowanowitsch @ingwarpero.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

In Hannover hat Belit Onay, der die Innenstadt weitgehend autofrei machen will, die OB-Stickwahl mit 61,5% gewonnen. Die SPD, die damals aus Protest die Koalition platzen ließ, wurde abgestraft. Hannover will die Verkehrswende. Das haben die Menschen eindrucksvoll bewiesen. So so stark💪

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The people trying to pitch the reasons why frontier models will conquer the world remind me of a Ukrainian-Canadian uncle who in the 1980s kept trying to convince my dad that the future was Betamax

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 27/09/2026

The Bluecoat is one of the venues outside the Labour conference security cordon that still hosts quite a lot of fringe events.

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I could quote pretty much this entire article by @mjrobbins.com on the bizarre psychology of the AI apocalypse freaks, but you should just read it instead. Such a relief to see someone express my feelings so eloquently. martinrobbins.substack.com/p/the-ai-apo...

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The entire post by Shipman is a datapoint for how large swathes of UK news media are now dependent on getting clicks from Americans

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Can the Conservatives really not find anyone that can generate a sense of trust among voters it is losing to the LibDems?

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I bet no one in Westminster had potential nationalisation of TalkTalk on their crisis bingo card when Andy Burnham walked into Downing Street

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Professor Daniele Albertazzi @dralbertazziuk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Chasing-Vannacci Watch", new instalment. The new "anti-burqa" ban introduced by Meloni by decree also includes "compulsory language classes" for parents of foreign pupils who face severe difficulties integrating into the school system. So all they need to do is learn Italian right?

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Thorsten Mense @mense.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

In dem Papier ist übrigens auch die Rede von „belastenden Ausländern“ mit Aufenthaltsrecht und „nicht-assimilierten Staatsangehörigen“, die ebenfalls vertrieben werden sollen. Es ist ein Plan für eine ethnische Säuberung.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Kirsti, an architect - directly affected - on her MP not appearing to understand that protecting [only] care workers would mean forcing out vets, architects, chefs and many others (but perhaps unwittingly for most MPs + ministers who have not spotted this) bsky.app/profile/heri...

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

One of the maddest posts I've seen

Nick Buckley MBE

Danny Tommo. To be convicted of criminal damage - the owner of the boat must be identified. If not, then Tommo might own the boat and is just damaging his own property. None of the above matters. He was arrested for being anti illegal migration. The government and establishment are terrified of the English people. We are beginning to roar. What comes next will change the country forever - good or bad.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Honest Bob going full on populist here.

Robert Jenrick

NEW: A father of two has been jailed for 2 YEARS after throwing a plastic bottle and swearing at police at an illegal migrant protest in Portsmouth.

What he did was wrong. But his sentence is obviously two-tier.

Why is the British state punishing protestors harder than illegal migrants who break into our county and commit appalling crimes?

Why do judges apply the principle of deterrence when sentencing protestors, and not to the illegal migrants who are terrorising women and girls across our country?

For context:

Maqbil Dhaheri arrived on a small boat and was sentenced in April 2026 for sexually assaulting a nurse.

He escaped prison with a 12 month community order.

Hussein Almiyyahi arrived in a small boat in April 2024 and was sentenced in May 2026 for four counts of sexual assaulting three women.

He was sentenced to 12 months in prison.

Tadi Alemeyeha arrived in July 2025 and was sentenced in February 2026 for sexually assaulting a woman and then threatening to keep her silent.

He was sentenced for 18 months.

This is why the British state has a legitimacy crisis.

It exerts far more effort suppressing people's concerns about immigration than actually fixing it.

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blubball.bsky.social @blubball.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Many inside the CDU misunderstand the Brandmauer as a tool that protects the Greens and SPD, when it actually protects the CDU.

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Andreas Püttmann @puettmann.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Die Vernunft findet in Sachen demokratischer #Brandmauer immer noch eine solide Mehrheit in der Bevölkerung, aller Propaganda Rechtsradikaler und ihrer konservativen Steigbügelhalter zum Trotz.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If the CDU/CSU views it as a means to blackmail the SPD and Greens rather than as a principled stand against Fascism then the Brandmauer with the AfD has ceased to exist already

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The return of local bank branches, and the UK might have to introduce the kind of in person infrastructure for any state related interactions like passport applications and the like that Germany still has up to a point with Bürgeramt

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Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is a poor take that suggests Owen Jones doesn't know much about Russia in the 1990s, including Russia-US or wider Russia-West relations in the 1990s. By giving only one part of the story, he is repeating the Russian political elite's self-serving line that it was all the West's fault. Long 🧵

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