iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ben Ansell

I’m not English by Braverman’s definition. But that’s just fine with me because I wouldn’t want to associate with people who place any kind of significance on an exclusionary definition of national identity.

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John Craig Hammond @johncraighammond.bsky.social · 12h

I am so glad I purchased a Kurt Vonnegut book when I was 16 years old.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 16h

Congrats to everyone involved. What a great team!

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 17h

In this particular case, I am all Kemi

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Since Braverman does not identify as English, its strange for her to insist that she could define for others the rules of an in group that she does not believe she can ever be a member of *and* to believe her intuition should trump a broad sustained consemsus amomg those who do identify as English!

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James Heale @jaheale.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Morgan always worth reading:

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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing

Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Ah… the debate of the next five years of our lives

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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The perfect illustration of how America has gone to war on itself and is now less able to face external challenges.

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Lucy Fisher @lucyfisher.ft.com · 30/09/2026

NEW: There are “strong indications that Iran played a part” in the RAF Fairford incident, Andy Burnham says UK is working w/ US on the matter, which “remains an ongoing, complex & serious police investigation” PM confirms Rubio claim’s claim about role of a state actor www.ft.com/content/bb55...

ft.com

‘Strong indications’ Iran was involved in RAF Fairford incident, says Andy Burnham

Prime minister says UK is working closely with US administration following release of five suspects on bail

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The White House accord on AI that was signed by all the big tech oligarchs today misspells United States as “Unites States.”

Document signed by Trump, Sundar Pichai
Google
Dario Amodei
Anthropic
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta

Greg Brockman
OpenAl

Elon Musk
XAI

Jensen Huang
nvidia

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Florian G. Kern @floriangkern.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🚨Some professional news: in Dec 2026, I’ll be joining @unibirmingham.bsky.social's School of Government & POLSIS as 125th Anniversary Fellow & Associate Professor in Political Science. Such a wonderful opportunity + exciting to meet new students and colleagues. www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2026/un...

birmingham.ac.uk

University of Birmingham appoints more 125th anniversary academics - University of Birmingham

Introducing 10 new 125th Anniversary Fellows and Chairs - outstanding academics who bring expertise in key areas.

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Michael @michaeljsc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Polanski’s “tax the rich” is the same as Badenoch’s “cut benefits”, a one-size-fits-all funding source that appeals to their prejudice but would never generate anything like the money they claim, and prevents them ever having to engage with serious politics

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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

When you have no concept of how people engage with music

nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A bit like net migration figures being lower, the fact that UK economic growth has been higher than expected cuts against the narrative but can’t be ignored forever. Maybe (probably) I was wrong and Labour did have a theory of growth after all.

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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Remarkable that the Telegraph is not screaming this morning about Burnham's pledge of a closer/rejoining EU relationship because Brexit has failed.

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Alan Renwick @alanrenwick.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Immediate thoughts on Andy Burnham's announcement today of a national commission on electoral reform. Doing this process well will be really important. theconversation.com/if-he-wants-...

theconversation.com

If he wants to secure legitimacy for electoral reform, Andy Burnham must stick to these rules

Involving both the public and all parties in shaping reforms on how they vote will be crucial.

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

All this 'well you've forgotten to ask the EU, you won't get your previous deal you know' commentary is so boring and theatrically dispassionate. Everyone knows that.

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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Do we seriously have to do Maoist newspeak every single time an 80 year old posts his idiotic ideas on the internet. It has been AI since before I was even born. Can literally anyone have a shred of dignity.

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The thing about the florid apocalypticism you sometimes encounter on this site is that a lot of people are less horrified by literal civilizational collapse than by the notion that our descendents are just going to keep muddling through and in less than a century nobody will remember us.

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Mark Wallace @wallaceme.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Most striking of all is that this is explicitly a very *pro-politics* speech, a direct rebuttal to the anti-politics that is so widespread. And rightly so: politics can change things, it is an admirable thing to choose to engage in and a duty for us all to step forward and pursue.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Got to say I’m impressed to see some actual political courage. It was the failure on social care that had me write this a year or so back benansell.substack.com/p/profiles-i...

benansell.substack.com

Profiles in Discourage

Labour's punting of social care reflects a bigger problem of indecision

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Those who think AI is going to largely automate white collar jobs in the next couple of years don’t understand the nature of work - @sarahoconnorft.ft.com nails it www.ft.com/content/4aad...

It is not obvious that AI agents could eliminate the need for this type of work, since it involves persuasion, contestation and the exchange of tacit knowledge and experience that is spread across different departments, and often exists inside people's heads rather than in a neatly codified handbook on the intranet.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

'A Department for Education spokesperson said' a tiny word salad of vapid things that did not address the higher education crisis are frankly not worth quoting.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It will never not be wild to me that the Russians attacked Keir Starmer's home, successfully spread falsehoods about Starmer's love life, and this didn't changed British politics and British political elite behaviour *at all*.

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s also a really bad alignment of incentives. The obvious answer to a lot of UK policy problems is: you need to raise taxes. If you say ‘well, you need to raise broad based taxes’ you risk losing access to politicians as an institution and, very basically, make yourself harder to hire as a Spad.

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Morgan Jones @morganj0nes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In Renewal, Steve discusses some testing Persuasion has done on the electoral appeal of this approach. renewal.org.uk/blog/the-cas...

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

Final point on this. There’s nothing new to HO wanting lower numbers and HMT wanting higher numbers. Was ever thus (eg May vs Osborne). What is more surprising is that Mahmood never gets asked about this and the relative silence of Govt ministers (other than Rayner) on positive side of immigration.

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

This is *not* the result of "the success of Mahmood's reforms", but of earlier measures/other factors. Her proposals could make it considerably *worse* in future years. A few other points linked below.. archive.ph/0psJ8

Falling migration numbers could cost the chancellor as much as £7bn in fiscal headroom as he writes his first budget, The Times has been told.

Government insiders believe that John Healey, who already faced an uphill battle to balance the books next month, is likely to have an even bigger challenge after immigration significantly undershot projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated last month that the success of Shabana Mahmood’s reforms, which have seen net migration cut to the low hundreds of thousands, could cost Healey some £4bn.

Labour sources familiar with the budget process, however, said that the figure was now closer to £6.5bn. The OBR’s migration forecasts have been consistently higher than real numbers in recent years.

Treasury officials, who have long expected Mahmood’s reforms to cause a hit to headroom, described the number as “pure speculation” but did not deny that Healey would have to contend with a larger funding gap than expected because of falling migration

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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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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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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Some unintended consequences I suspect the rise of AI agents will create: 1. Restaurants that only take reservations by hand written letter, or more likely, don't take them at all. 2. Gigs where you can only buy tickets in person. 3. Businesses that operate without websites.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 26/09/2026

I do wonder sometimes if certain people in Labour have ever met the modern working class. I know in reality they have, but it never feels like it. Working people are overwhelmingly literate now! Most know people of other races! Many have gay friends or family! Some worry about climate change!

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is a great thread from Jack. I’ll just add that it would be nice for one governing party in the UK to be comfortable with what the modern UK looks and not constantly harking back to an imagined past. The nostalgia is suffocating.

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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 26/09/2026

For all his faults, Blair understood that this sentimentality is toxic for Labour's prospects and it is what made him so effective. You have to reinvent social democracy anew again and again and again, rather than hanker for the politics of yesteryear if you want to win and make lasting change.

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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 26/09/2026

As for the claim that Shor has a robust theory, but Inglehart had a sketch: it shows a failure to engage with work that might diagnose Labour's problems today. If you depend on pundits, you will only ever have a superficial understanding. New Labour had Anthony Giddens for god's sake!

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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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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Danny Tommo, Amodei, Man City fair play Piddington, Macklemore, Dolly ain’t alive no more Netanyahu’s iron dome, Meg and Harry coming home New cat, Clavicular COVID CONSCIOUS LESBIAN BAR 🎶 we didn’t start the fire 🎶

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Anna Clarke @annaclarke.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Help to Buy is back! Or rather, a new version - more tightly targeted and less likely to overinflate the housing market. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Andy Burnham announces new homes scheme for first-time buyers

Exclusive: Policy initiative for England will help more young people on to property ladder, prime minister tells Guardian

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

These enormously complex, badly rushed settlement proposals fell apart during consultation on many fronts yet remain v poorly understood - in media, in parliament, in government itself. There remains a big risk that the Burnham government gets the new policy wrong www.easterneye.biz/andy-burnham...

easterneye.biz

Can Burnham find a new balance on immigration?

'Fair rules should protect more than just care workers'

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Will Lloyd @willoyd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I’ve spent a few weeks asking some very intelligent people whether Britain is resilient - can it get back up after being whacked in the face - and the short answer is no, not really. It also seems like a few whacks in the face are quite likely in the future. www.ft.com/content/ba80...

ft.com

How resilient is Britain?

As climate and geopolitical risks cast doubt on the UK’s ability to cope in a crisis, leaders are turning from ‘just in time’ to ‘just in case’ as a governing philosophy

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Every piece I read from the ex-Starmer crew has the same flavour- a bleeding over of their distaste for other more socially liberal colleagues in the Labour Party, which has been retro-fitted into an entire explanation for how politics should work, even as it failed when actually tested.

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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Anyways: the basic failure of Starmerism was that it was A) predicted on a theory which doesnt work in the modern era and was hard to deliver B) Told its core base to fuck off culturally. That was the vibe failure: something you actively created and sought.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

As a Crystal Palace fan I can’t help worrying that we will have the 2025 FA Cup stripped from us in the basis that we were playing Manchester City in the final.

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