iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

One thing that really struck me during my book research is just how many big contentious topics of British politics (the voting system, Brexit, the organisation of the armed forces, social cohesion) ultimately lead back to one topic that still gets far too little attention:the future of the union.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 28/09/2026

Remember, Jenrick is not stupid. He's a trained lawyer, he knows the difference between police and court bail. He's just a turd.

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Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife.com · 28/09/2026

When it comes to road safety, cities have two choices: Adapt kids to traffic: keep them indoors and drive them everywhere. Or adapt traffic to kids: make streets safe enough to move as autonomous members of society. The choice says a lot about the kind of city we want to build. youtu.be/O_WjWRmQwtg

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

These groups need to be proscribed immediately. They are a threat to public order and the rule of law.

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voegizug @voegizug.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Für wen Diktatoren eben so schwärmen. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu · 23/09/2026

Hungary has taken important steps to strengthen the rule of law and protect the Union’s financial interests. And reforms deliver results. Today, we are proposing to unlock €4.2 billion and reopen the doors of Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe to Hungarian students and researchers.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

But, but, don’t social media companies insist they are “mere conduits” (hence not legally responsible) for their content? So, that’s as in “mere conduits” who insist, back by the US government, that they they have the right to choose what people see?

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Die adligen Rittergutsbesitzer werden zT von der Bauernschaft als Elite toleriert, weil das Grenzland ist, das historisch gesehen ein stets angefochtenes Kolonialdeutschland war, in dem eine „wir“ gegen „sie“-Politik tiefe Wurzel hat.

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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

All of this would not be happening had Britain (a) remained, (b) exited to a Norway-type position.

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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

20 September 1939 | Dutch Jewish boy, Joseph Jacob Pinto, was born in Amsterdam. He was deported to #Auschwitz from Westerbork in October 1942. He was murdered in a gas chamber with his sister Sientje. --- The first gas chambers near Auschwitz II-Birkenau: youtu.be/Rr6lF75fDmU

Vintage black and white portrait of two young children, one with curly hair and one with straight hair, both wearing sweaters.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It’s going to be hard for the AfD to swallow too!

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The only tech bro I know, who made millions x10 from one algorithm, told me 18 months ago that if people had to pay the commercial price of AI, nobody would. He compared it to the “railway mania” of Britain in the 1840s, which destroyed vast capital … as described by AI itself…

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Honoured to be a panellist at this celebration. He once showed me (a mere undergrad) *in the original M/S of The Castle*, which I was allowed to hold for a few seconds (!) the point where Kafka shifts from the 1st to 3rd, then goes back to alter the rest… @questingvole.bsky.social

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Soll auch die Leitlinie für alle soziale Medien sein. Die Gesetze, die es Meta usw davon befreien, für das, woraus sie Geld machen, zu Haften, stammen aus 1991-6 - wo fast keiner auch nur E-Mails schickte.

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 13/09/2026

Good job the entire stock market is not perched on AI now the teenage boys running it have decided it's a massive nuclear bomb and they don't know how to turn it off *Taps ear piece*

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Nick Cohen @nickcohen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

“Never in British political history has so much money been donated by so few” Piece from me on a question that isn’t asked often enough: What does the crypto industry want in return for the extraordinary sums it is giving Farage?

nickcohen.substack.com

Never has a British politician received so much from so few

What crypto wants from Farage

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

this gets madder in the biy I've cut, but i quite like the mental image of the MPC sending a crack team to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on pain of unemployment

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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

So the ‘negotiation’ involves blowing smoke up Putin’s arse, asking him what he wants then attacking Ukraine for refusing to concede it. Never forget the huge swathe of UK media & political figures who celebrated Trump’s ascent while claiming to care about Ukraine. Absolute heels, the lot of them.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

JMW Turner painted this vision of the future blasting unstoppably out of a singularity, at the height of the “Railway Mania” in 1840s Britain … but in reality…

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Armin Wolf @arminwolf.at · 13/09/2026

„The Greatest“ - Was sagt uns sein Social Media-Account über Donald Trump: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/u...

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Telegraph says pensioners are vital. Translation: the old sit on property wealth obtained by sheer luck, boozing and cruising themselves stupid, while young people can’t pay the rent, and people in their 30s with (or wanting) kids can’t afford a family home.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

9 1/2 years ago, I was going from lodge to lodge of Oxford colleges, with a bunch of posters under my arm, trying to drum up some kind of audience for the launch of this book at Blackwell’s Oxford. Amazon.de right now. Unbelievable.

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

🔴 More than 80% of all the donations ever received by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK have come from just two cryptocurrency billionaires, new Democracy for Sale analysis reveals. “If that isn’t a massive corruption risk I don’t know what is.” democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-8...

democracyforsale.substack.com

BREAKING: 80% of Reform’s funding comes from two crypto billionaires

“If that isn't a massive corruption risk I don't know what is.”

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Exactly 9 years ago I warned that Germany really should have thought (and urgently needed to start thinking) more deeply and honestly about “reunification”. A lot of people said I was overdoing it. Well… www.zeit.de/politik/2026...

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Mixed first morning of life as a UK pensioner 😬 lost the #1 spot in 🇮🇪Ireland. #2 now. 😢Looks like 18 weeks at the top there is our lot; but the top broadsheet in 🇩🇪: www.zeit.de/politik/2026...

zeit.de

James Hawes: »Im Westen wird die AfD nicht regieren«

Schon lange vor der Teilung hätten sich West und Ost fundamental unterschieden. Aber die Deutschen, sagt der britische Germanist James Hawes, wollten das nicht wahrhaben.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Nine years ago today (says Facebook). Jesus, time just flies away…

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The UK needs to rethink the “elite youth ghetto” residential university model. Those who drove university expansion in the 1960s had almost all been to public schools and/or Oxbridge, hence saw this model as natural. It is, in fact, virtually unknown outside the UK and its former colonies.

fenews.co.uk

University 365: Does the UK Need to Rethink the University Model? | FE News

| University 365: Does the UK Need to Rethink the University Model?

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Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 07/09/2026

Remember, governments only do a Red Tape Challenge when they are completely desperate.

UK'S HEALEY: WILL CONVENE MAJOR REGULATORS TO IDENTIFY WHERE THEY ARE HOLDING BRITISH BUSINESS BACK

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The fatal turn was Kohl’s crazily hasty “reunification”. The idea that the ex-DDR should without any preparation unite with the BRD (and thus join the EEC) was based entirely on Prussian-skewed (Treitschkean) ethno-nationalist German history (which, of course, isn’t the real story at all).

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

In Deutschland heißt das heute: die Wirklichkeit erkennen, dass man 2 trillionen € (amerikanisch gesprochen) einfach weggeworfen hat, in der Wahn, es würde sich zusammen wachsen, was eigentlich nie zusammen gehörte.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Sorry to be a bore about this, but I still can’t do better than Lord Mansfield on the Gordon Riots. There’s a very good reason that cry of populist is “first we kill the lawyers”…

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Giles MacDonogh @gilesmacdonogh.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Perhaps we should bear in mind this morning that the AfD is the equivalent of the Reform party here, which only a few weeks ago was topping the polls. The AfD is obviously fully supported by Moscow, but it is also encouraged by Trump's Washington, which we appease.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Aber das eigentlich eigentliche Problem: es wächst nicht zusammen, was ja nur durch die militärische Übermacht Preußens zusammengefügt war.

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Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 07/09/2026

Big fan of how Russia can shut down a major UK port for half a day with just 5kg of cocaine and 100 severely divorced men.

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Arthur Snell @snellarthur.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Moronic BBC presenter saying “parties have an obligation to work with AFD“ whilst apparently unaware that 1, most ppl voted against AFD, 2, “obligation” works in both directions: AFD policies make them unacceptable to all mainstream parties, so they can’t get coalition partners.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Fazit: man sollte endlich zur Einsicht kommen, dass das, was Max Weber „Ostelbien“ nannte eben ein im Grunde verschiedenes Land ist. Schade um die c.2000,000,000,000 (!) Euro, die im Wahn der „Wiedervereinigung“ nutzlos vom Westen nach Osten verflossen sind!

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Es wächst nicht zusammen, was eigentlich nie zusammen gehörte und nur durch die rein militärische Übermacht Preußens „geeinigt“ wurde. Siehe:

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I say again: hear the words of Lord Mansfield about the Gordon rioters…

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Here is Lord Mansfield concerning the trial of the rabid 18th century populist Lord Gordon. As true now as it was then.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

www.zeit.de/politik/2026... „Im Westen haben AfD-Wähler Angst, dass zu viele Fremde kommen. Im Osten haben sie Angst vor dem eigenen Verschwinden. Und die AfD verspricht ihnen nicht weniger als eine Wiedergeburt.“

zeit.de

Altmark in Sachsen-Anhalt: »Wir Ossis fühlen uns auch als Verlierer, obwohl hier alles okay ist«

Das Land ist endlos, wild und leer. Von der AfD erwarten die Leute dort eine Art Wiedergeburt. Im Norden Sachsen-Anhalts zeigt sich, wie einsam ein Bundesland sein kann.

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Ed, as I’ve been trying to tell people for years, the subterranean agenda of Brexit - ever since birth in the early 90s - was always to make the UK the de facto 51st state of a Republican America…

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Rob Sherry 🇪🇺🇬🇧🇳🇱 @robsherry.co.uk · 03/09/2026

Literally all age groups agree….Brexit was a shit idea! Stop listening to Farage, Labours Red lines or the Tories. Not one of them will get a better deal

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James Hawes @jameshawes.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

If you are in Dublin at the end of September…

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Iain Roberts @slowbikeiain.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The answer is no - there should not be a referendum. Nothing to do with water. Just because having a referendum to decide standard government policy opens the gates to referendum on almost anything, and most policy matters should be decided by elected representatives.

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