iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 6h

They also try to puff themselves up, to seem bigger and more scary, like an inflated toad trying to intimidate a predator. They are noisy and aggressive to scare opponents into silence, precisely because they know they are a minority

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 6h

I think this is often driven by media class overcompensation for fear of metropolitan bias: a lack of proper engagement across geography, social class lines leads to a weird caricature of public opinion, as if the radicalised online group must be speaking up for authentic public opinion

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 17h

It was odd to discover how many liberal-left, centrist, conservative right opinion formers did not know how broad the consensus on this question was when the 'can Sunak be English' debate began **18 months** ago already!

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Graeme Downie MP @graemedowniemp.bsky.social · 6h

After launching #PutinTax, I have co-authored a piece with Tom Keatinge @rusi.bsky.social It calls for three actions: 1. What gets measured, gets done 2. Publish an annual assessment 3. A report should include action rusi.org/explore-our-re… We will keep up the campaign.

rusi.org

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 6h

Also, he isn’t even the main Connor Tomlinson to come up on an unprimed Google search and it would be nice if he stayed that way

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 6h

As for this guy, it shows a poor historical understanding for a Catholic to argue for ethnic + religious exclusions for holding public office in the UK. Most Catholics had that knowledge hammered into us as kids. I’ve always taken that as a stark warning not to repeat it for other religions today.

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 6h

Exactly this And to be clear, that would be very different to immigration and small boats, which would come up. There is a whiff of overreach here trying to get as much mileage as they can to promote their extremist viewpoint as being mainstream, before boat numbers fall further and salience drops

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 6h

You hang around in tamer pubs than me. It wouldn’t just be an eyebrow that was raised in many pubs these days at what in many cases would be an attack on people’s families and friends. The number of pubs you could get away with it are definitely much fewer than they were

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 7h

Well I’m three-quarters Irish and only one quarter ‘Saxon’ by ancestry, but I am 100% English and honestly that’s fine by me, and of course fine by a supermajority of English people too Of course I’m conspicuously pale-skinned as well which might have a bearing for these pub bore racists? Possibly?

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 7h

Not only a fringe view currently being aggressively promoted for desperate reasons, it’s not even an interesting talking point as most pub conversations settled this decades ago. Less than 16% support for the (nonsensical in the case of Englishness) race essentialist view. Boring as well as nasty

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Josh Fenton-Glynn MP @joshfg.bsky.social · 8h

The Pinkas memorial in Prague is truly sobering. Every name on the wall is one of the over 77,000 Czech Jews killed in the Holocaust. The names pass through multiple rooms and go up the stairs. Each name written alongside their family was someone with hopes, dreams, hobbies & loved ones. #neveragain

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 19h

I guess it counts as a quirky historical irony that the Isle of Sheppey, the Isle of Sheep, is now one of the palest parts of the UK on this map. Or maybe the Saxons had a prototypical British sense of humour?

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Terrence Higgins Trust @tht.org.uk · 07/10/2026

Last week, our Chief Executive, Richard Angell, was at Labour Party Conference, and this party conference season we've been all over the country speaking to different parties. Wherever we go, our message is the same. Donate now to support our work. tht.org.uk/donate

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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What you need to know about changes to the state pension 👇 The most important one: it will keep rising every single year.

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Graeme Downie MP @graemedowniemp.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

For years, we've rightly focused on the military and political threat posed by Putin's Russia. But there's another cost that receives far less attention. A hidden cost paid by British taxpayers, businesses and public services. It's called the Putin Tax. 🧵

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Luke Pollard MP @lukepollard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If you’re going to promise an iron dome you better make sure it’s not an iron colander.

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Sarah Owen MP @sarahowen.org.uk · 05/10/2026

It is deeply irresponsible for any politician, let alone a senior Conservative, to peddle the same far-right nonsense about Luton that we see from the likes of Yaxley Lennon and Reform.

theguardian.com

Tory shadow minister claims Luton has ‘no-go zones’ where ‘white people won’t go’

Blake Stephenson tells fringe meeting at Tory conference that the town is ‘a very dangerous place’ with ‘ghettoes’

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Pet Shop Boys @handle.invalid · 05/10/2026

“We suddenly thought maybe if we record it, we’d bring it down to make it more electronic and more intimate.” Neil and Chris explain why it took more than a decade to bring the new version of "A man from the future" to life. The album is out this Friday. wmg.lnk.to/psb-amftf

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 05/10/2026

Saw this at the Proms when they first premiered it 12 years ago, so been waiting a long time to hear it again It was a very intense, powerful & fun piece in that version, so very keen to hear how they’ve developed it further Plenty of lessons for today from Turing himself and what was done to him

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 04/10/2026

Soldier has made repeated stealthy and not so stealthy incursions into the kitchen. So far he’s failed in his objectives, but fortunately has also escaped without burns to his snout, or in triggering cooking related injuries on his accessory humans

Greyhound lying with its head between its paws in the door between the living room and the hall

Greyhound now lying in almost the same position as before, flat on the ground, in the door between the hall and the kitchen

Greyhound standing in the kitchen, commanding control of the access point to an oven roasting beef, despite being repeatedly shooed from said room

Greyhound inspecting work surface where roast beef was, but which has now been moved out of even his reach, onto a high shelf

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 04/10/2026

Do not be fooled. This not an innocent or restful face

A brindle and white greyhound pretending to be at rest while lying on his dinosaur patterned bed, while plotting how to seize control of the beef currently roasting in a very hot oven

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 04/10/2026

It seems we may have acquired a hound with a hitherto undeclared dripping addiction

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 04/10/2026

1974 vintage here. That actually made me wince, for multiple reasons

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 04/10/2026

Finally moving from summer to autumn menus so time for a Sunday roast Opportunity: Sittingbourne’s finest, Swalemill Butchers had ribs of beef on special Risk: It’s the new dog’s first experience of seeing beef roasted & no work surface is greyhound-safe Could get a tad boisterous in here

A very thick, nicely balanced between muscle and fat, red raw rib of beef, sat in its packaging from Swalemill Butchers in Sittingbourne waiting to be cooked for a Sunday roast

The same rib of beef, browned on one side before it goes into the oven for roasting

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Bridget Phillipson MP @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The Tories’ position on pensions is falling apart. A Shadow Cabinet member wants to replace the State Pension as we know it with something that offers 'dramatically less'. Only Labour will protect a rising state pension while building a new National Care Service. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

thetimes.com

Senior Tory privately urged ‘radical’ shake-up of triple lock

In a leaked recording in June, Katie Lam appears to break from Kemi Badenoch’s position, saying an ‘entirely new pension system’ may be needed

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

Sarah’s reaction isn’t surprising. We all know the criteria she uses & that Reform’s constant two-tier refrain reveals rather more about how they see the world than how our police & courts do This incident should have been a much bigger wake-up call to all of us. Instead it was too often downplayed

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."

It does raise this point of two-tiered
justice..

Reform's Sarah Pochin believes the
sentence handed to the 64-year-old who
blew up a ULEZ camera was
disproportionate'.

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

I’m so sorry for you and everyone round there. It must have been very scary. I can tell you my parents over in Falconwood were really shaken up. So many people were, but I know it was hard to talk about sometimes because some responses you’d get were… not exactly quiet, calm or respectful.

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

That should be the bedrock we all stand on I hope Sarah and anyone else who up till now has thought this was just a bit of over-enthusiastic, classic British political passion, and takes the time to look at what actually happened, how close we were to serious injuries or death, and reflects

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

But this isn’t about ULEZ as a political cause célèbre, whatever people’s views. Nor about it being used as a wedge issue by other parties It’s about the fundamental requirement for a united, unshakable, unbreakable stance across all parties in our democracy against using terror as a political tool

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

I was a 2024 London Assembly candidate for this area Anti-ULEZ feelings were running red-hot in some neighbourhoods & across lots of different demographics Threats of violence to me, other canvassers, and Sadiq were more graphic and aggressively over the line than I’ve faced in any other election

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

It wasn’t just social media and online forums where it was downplayed Some mainstream reporting was shockingly soft compared to how it would have been if someone with another cause had used a bomb on a residential street in a middle class suburb. It would have been a main story for weeks or longer

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

It should have been a much bigger wake-up call to the risks of online radicalisation associated with more and more unlikely topics for such inexcusable violence Instead, from too many who should know better, there was excuse-making about using a bomb in a political campaign they supported

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

Because I know the location where it happened so well, it was on the route I used to take to school and I’ve been up and down that road hundreds & hundreds of times, I get that maybe it is more salient to me than many others nationally, but still that is not an excuse for politicians or commentators

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 03/10/2026

FWIW I personally don’t rate the usefulness of these posed canvassing pics, the public don’t care and they are all about party internals and local party rivalries, but… Given that we were so randomly* on brand in our location today, I couldn’t resist *seriously, we’d picked the location weeks ago

Photo of Labour party canvassing team, including local councillors for SheernessDolley Wooster and Hayden Brawn, local MP Kevin McKenna, Milton Regis councillor Tony Winkless and CLP Chair Ben Stanley. Plus a very unimpressed MP’s pet dog doing a standard greyhound “what in the name of all dignity are these humans doing now” look. All stood round the blue Swale Borough style street sign for Hope Street in Sheerness on Sea on the Isle of Sheppey. There is much general awkwardness on display from all involved.

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Pity? He was radicalised, but no. He set off a suburban IED that sent shrapnel into a kid’s bedroom. Not ok. I find this hard to be coldly detached with as the bus I used to get to school on went along Willersley Avenue and I know it too well All for what? Attacking a policy aimed at saving lives

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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This is exactly what I said was their plan earlier today - she just gets the credit for spelling it out torstenbell.substack.com/p/the-future...

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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Katie Lam just said the secret but inevitable bit out loud - Conservatives opposing our reform of the Triple Lock are actually on track to scrap or means test the State Pension www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 01/10/2026

It’s that time again when I don’t manage to watch the first couple of episodes #CelebrityTraitors and all Bluesky discourse stops making sense for the next few weeks

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Alf Dubs @alfdubs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm so very sad to hear of the death of Esther Ranzen who played an important role in reuniting me with Nicky Winton - the man who saved my life. It's so desperately sad that she couldn't choose assisted dying as was her wish.

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Dignity in Dying @dignityindying.org.uk · 30/09/2026

We are deeply saddened by the death of Dame Esther Rantzen. A true force of nature, Dame Esther fought throughout her life for people’s rights, and latterly for dying people who needed more choice and compassion. Our heartfelt condolences are with her family and loved ones.

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Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 30/09/2026

Humanists UK mourns Dame Esther Rantzen (1940–2026) Esther was a great champion of human dignity. She approached her final years with the same fearless determination that defined her career of advocacy, using her own experience to shine a light on the suffering caused by our outdated laws.

Esther Rantzen smiling wearing a blue-and-red feathered fascinator and red coat, with headline text noting her years (1940–2026).

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Ellie Reeves @elliereeves.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

For too long, our water systems have been run for the vested interests of private companies. It isn’t working for customers or the environment. Yesterday’s announcement will end the ban on government ownership of water companies, putting them back into the service of the public.

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Stephen Morgan MP @stephenmorganmp.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Today we are announcing our Good Food Neighbourhoods Programme. Backed by £10million of investment, bringing fresh, affordable produce into neighbourhoods👇🏻

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Heidi Alexander MP @heidialexander.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

As I said in my speech at conference, a train without level boarding is a job you can't take. All new Great British Railways trains will be level boarding, as standard. We’re building a railway that everyone can rely on. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

mirror.co.uk

Rail passengers to benefit from pledge to close train platform gap

EXCLUSIVE: Disabled people, pregnant women and other commuters will have easier and safer rail journeys under plans to close the gap between trains and platforms

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