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Reposted by Dermot O’Riordan

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 13h

We're repeatedly told that asylum seekers pose a threat to the good people of our country... Reading about the threatening and violent treatment of elderly and open minded locals in Crowborough I get the impression that the real threat comes from closer to home. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

On Facebook and other platforms, people
who are known to support the asylum
seekers have been threatened with acid
attacks, petrol bombs and rape. The dossier.
which has been seen by the Guardian, also
claims that several local businesses have
been threatened by far-right agitators, along
with a church where some asylum seekers
worship. One man was punched in the throat
after he held up a "Love Thy Neighbour"
sign, while an elderly couple were falsely
accused of supporting sex offenders. In yet
another case, a 92-year-old church volunteer
was reportedly woken at 3am for two nights
in a row by a man standing outside her
home, shining a torch through her window
and shouting abuse

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Duchess Gemma 🐠🕷️🇪🇺 @gemmagould.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo, shared a YouTube livestream of the boat from the Channel." fucks sake BBC not once do you mention 1. he had a knife 2. he slashed the boat with said knife 3. he committed criminal acts live on camera do fucking better

bbc.co.uk

Dozens of migrants taken to Dover after more than 30 hours at sea

Protesters had earlier gathered in Gosport after an initial report that the small boat would be brought further west.

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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

It’s time for a zero tolerance crack down on far right thugs. They’re costing the taxpayer, soaking up police resources, intimidating peaceful communities & delaying the measures that are reducing the asylum backlog & its cost. Enough is enough. End the menace. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...

theguardian.com

Far-right activist Daniel Thomas slashes dinghy in Channel with blade while rescue worker onboard

Thomas called followers to protest against arrival of asylum seekers in Gosport, but Border Force instead transported them to Dover

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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

BBC report fails to mention "Tommo" slashing a dinghy (!) Not beating the Reform Party propaganda allegations www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Migrants taken to Dover after more than 30 hours at sea

Protesters gathered in Gosport after initial reports the small boat would be brought further west.

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Jason Karsh @jkarsh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

BTW, this is just pure tin-pot dictator shit. There’s no nuance here, no 4D chess. This is purely the stuff of rogue nations that are threatening to become terrorist states.

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Simon Gosden @simongosden.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Man who lives abroad to avoid paying tax says WHAT?

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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

my brilliant colleague @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on the threat from Elon Musk’s X platform www.ft.com/content/f270...

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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Very nice to hear a sane voice from Piddington. Serious respect to this woman, who is apparently already being othered by more bigoted villagers.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Should have guessed that the thing that would eventually kill off the right's interest in grammar schools would be non-white kids doing too well in the 11+.

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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes

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Alison Booth @alidancer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Gillian Tett enters the chat... 8/5/26 in the FT...

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The balaclava blackshirted thugs are a result of a decade of politicians, tabloids and the broadcast media telling racists they have "legitimate concerns." The normalisation of actual fascism rhetoric and action has led to this and is a far greater "legitimate concern" than any migrant on a boat.

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 09/09/2026

The alarms are all flashing red.

Screenshot of a thread on X by user Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) detailing his resignation from Anthropic.
The first post reads: "I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below."
The second post reads: "Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing."
The third post reads: "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger."

Screenshot continuing the thread on X by Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess).
The first post reads: "A common response is 'if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?' At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first - they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk."
The second post reads: "Accepting this race and entering the 'endgame' is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company's Slack. Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available."
The third post reads: "I am optimistic about the potential for coordination. Warning shots like the Hugging Face attack have made pacing agreements between U.S. labs more viable. I don’t feel like we’re on track to prevent a global race, which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities."
The fourth post reads: "If you are a lab researcher, I urge you to consider what the next few years will actually feel like. Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind? Should you put your head down because 'it’s happening anyway' - or take this moment to call for different conditions?"

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The richest man in the world expressing ever-stronger support for white supremacy SHOULD be understood as a profound political crisis. But our political and media system continues to discredit itself by carefully avoiding any fact it cannot sufficiently normalize.

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Imagine an American president lying about 9/11. Actually, you don’t have to.

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Best for Britain @bestforbritain.org · 08/09/2026

Spot on 🎯

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Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 @brexitbin.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Until governments start treating fascists as the enemy instead of courting them as potential voters, nothing will change.

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John O’Shea @politicalhackuk.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Dear BBC. Yes. That's the point of assembling a flash mob of hundreds of blokes in black and wearing balaclavas.

BBC Newscast asking - were Dover anti-migrant protests intimidating? With a background picture of hundreds of men in black walking down one side of a dual carriageway.

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Even leaving any politics at all aside: as general rule, no state can allow a group of masked men to be able to close down critical infrastructure. This is basic stuff.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

100% this. I knew there'd be stuff he would suck at, but I - naively - assumed he got the importance of speaking out on stuff like this. Lesson there, possibly.

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Paul Hebden @paulhebden.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

What a ridiculous question. Once again the BBC drives a nail into it's own coffin.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Here @stephenkb.bsky.social seeks to remind the Labour government, old & new, that the point + purpose of recognising "legitimate concerns" about immigration was to understand how to differentiate these from *illegitimate concerns* rooted in intimidation + xenophobia www.ft.com/content/2279...

ft.com

Labour’s muddled migration policy won’t stop thuggery

A government that can’t distinguish between ‘legitimate concerns’ and open racism is only making things worse

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Dr Stylite @columnist.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I find it baffling that Labour does not seem to get this. By equivocating on such a core issue, they’re making their own voters unsure about the core values of the party / government and hence more susceptible to voting for someone else.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I want the Prime Minister to look into a TV camera and say the RNLI are heroes, that we do not change policy by street violence in this country, and that he expects any criminal action to face the full force of the law. That's it. That's all he has to do.

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Andy Scollick @andyscollick.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Thank you @gilltav.bsky.social for reminding us all of the Police response in 2021 👇 when some 40 environmental activists of Insulate Britain blocked the Port of Dover: 39 arrests. Compare that to yesterday when 200-400 fascist paramilitaries intimidated Dover town and blocked the Port: 0 arrests.

bbc.com

Port of Dover: Arrests made as Insulate Britain blocks port

Queues form at Europe's busiest ferry terminal as Insulate Britain shift their protest from the M25.

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Nick Robinson on Today is literally talking about ‘legitimate concerns’ after second night of organised men dressed in black - sorry ‘protesters’ - mobilising en masse in another littoral town. This is how street fascism is normalised

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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

FWIW I don’t think masked thugs on the street has anything to do with fiscal policy missteps. It’s the softpawing of the extreme right and the tacit acceptance of norm breaches around xenophobia that have emboldened people onto the street. This is why the “legitimate concerns” frame is so dangerous.

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Gavin Deichen @gdeichen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

That is the weirdest thing about the whole affair - it's obviously not spontaneous. Why do the police feel the need to make themselves sound ridiculous?

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

If "legitimate concerns" were considered to excuse illegitimate methods, then nobody from Just Stop Oil or Palestine Action would have been arrested. So we know it doesn't. In fact that phrase is only ever used in one context. Only in that context is uniformed mob intimidation "peaceful protest"

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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Seems the difference between ‘protestors’ and ‘terrorists’ is that protestors wear balaclavas while terrorists hold placards.

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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

😬

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David Clark @david-k-clark.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

No arrests. When environmentalists block roads to protest about climate change, they are prosecuted and jailed. When masked fascists do it to promote race hate, they are allowed to go home without a fuss. How about that for two-tier policing?

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Thomas I-G @thomasig.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This was clearly not an act of spontaneity. Dozens and dozens of men travelling down, all wearing black, all wearing masks is anything but a spontaneous protest. An infuriating response.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I simply do not understand what's going on in Labour that renders its leaders incapable of finding a TV camera and speaking out against street violence. Even if you assume they agree about immigration, violence is wrong, unpopular AND against the interests of any even vaguely left wing govt.

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Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Not that many years since a popular position in right-wing British politics was calling for the police to use significant force to remove protesters blocking roads Of course, that was when environmentalists were doing it

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Ed Davey @eddavey.libdems.org.uk · 03/09/2026

This is racism, straight out of the Trump playbook. Reform are trying to turn our great country into a franchise of Trump's America. There are countless British patriots who came here from overseas, many of them refugees we proudly welcomed. That's the kind of country we are.

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Simon Nixon @nixonsimon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Amazing. It seems that plagiarism is only a problem for The Times when black people do it

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Alistair King @alistairking.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Struggling to work out why Jenrick would single out these three Commonwealth countries rather than, say, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, whose citizens have exactly the same rights. It’s a head-scratcher.

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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Burnham drops support for political funding cap aimed at curbing mega-donors. Reportedly, favours a cap at £500k. How many people have £500k to buy influence? A game only the super-rich, big corporations/unions can play. Can't end political corruption without banning all political donations.

theguardian.com

Burnham drops support for political funding cap aimed at curbing mega-donors

PM said he would set bar at £500k, but trade unions say funding reforms could undermine their ability to donate to Labour

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Shane McKee @shaneir.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Three special ladies. Wonderful.

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Laura Chapin @laurachapin.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Like Jimmy Carter, Dolly Parton is proof that being kind and loving to everyone, while rejecting hatred and bigotry, is a choice, regardless of where you were born or how you grew up.

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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

On holiday in Ireland she just joined in with a local group - just for pleasure with her typical warm generosity #BeMoreLikeDolly www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqdK...

youtube.com

Coat of Many Colours - Dolly Parton, Ireland 1990

YouTube video by CR's Video Vaults

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Dr Kim Shepherd @drkimshepherd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

This isn't about children. This is part of far right agenda of patriarchy. Of returning women to being property. Of preventing women divorcing abusive men This is misogyny by weak, inadequate, mediocre men who need the subservience and obedience of women to lie to themselves that they are "manly"

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Dermot O’Riordan @dermotor.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Good opinion piece by @marydixonwoods.bsky.social et al on shakey evidence for AI, eg ambient voice technology. A bit of “evidence” is doctors who’ve tried it eg in private practice & asking “When can we have it in NHS as it makes me more efficient?” www.bmj.com/content/394/...

bmj.com

AI might help the NHS—but we need to build the evidence

Accelerated rollout of AI should be matched by transparent, credible evaluation, supported by the right infrastructure NHS England’s announcement of an accelerated rollout of AI1 promises a beguiling...

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This is an inappropriate, credulous & politically biased BBC headline. The claims about savings will be sharply contested. News reports should not imclude what reads as an ediorial endorsememt in the headline www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/08/2026

Absolutely vile framing from the @nytimes.com. Why doesn’t this leave behind hard questions for the media that hounded him? Or the global right-wing that gleefully turned a local matter into an international incident?

“Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring”

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 14/08/2026

Cambridge University should have known better, Fleet Street should have known better, the people hungrily absorbing every bit of news about it, making newsrooms feel like they had to keep going with it as a story, should have known better, horrible horrible horrible

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852dude @852dude.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Bro. People are cool as fuck.

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