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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer

@left-sharkey.bsky.social
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Uphold Sister Smudge Thought. He/him.

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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 15h
Worth taking a look at this in general as it's been taken as a way to attack "SNP freebies" by the usual suspects in the press, and Scottish Labour seem like they're going to keep pandering to the right on benefits, based on what Marra said yesterday.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
reporting tribunal cases like this remains genuine journalistic malpractice
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Ben Wray @benwray1989.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New York's DoorDash wage theft crack down is seriously impressive. Not only have they used the platform's data against them, they've punished DoorDash with a serious penalty, while creating a new worker-led compliance system for real-time accountability.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
real "bulking out your article that's still under the word count" ten minutes before it's due" energy here
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Euan @euan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
it doesn’t matter if there’s one or two tiers of local government or 32 or 6 or 160 councils if they’re all underfunded and lacking in meaningful revenue-raising powers
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Euan @euan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
this is the key point for me really, if the Scottish Government is going to expend significant time and political capital on local government reform, why would it not start with the part that everyone, including them, agrees isn’t working
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
sort of think that the worst consequences of the rationalist and skeptic movements in the UK & US were because there ended up being a lot of people (mostly but not exclusively men) who were sure that since they *understood* common cognitive biases that they were therefore inoculated from them
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A still from The Simpsons episode "Bart The Fink": a large, bald man in a brightly patterned orange shirt and white suit is sitting on a wicker chair and holding a fan.
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Here’s a funny new version of th crowding-out argument. In the old days, we were told fiscal tightening was needed to solve the problem of weak private investment. Now, we are told tightening is needed because private investment is so strong. Austerity: always the answer! www.ft.com/content/d96c...
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Interesting stuff in total, though expected: targeting can be useful in a wider universal framework, as long as it's designed well. What is worth pointing out here is what's often claimed about means-testing from some corners - that it leads to *better* outcomes - isn't evident at all
povertyinequality.scot
Universal and Targeted Approaches to Tackling Poverty: Key Messages from the Poverty and Inequality Commission - Poverty & Inequality Commission
September 2026 The Poverty and Inequality Commission (PIC) has today published a review of evidence on universal, targeted and combined approaches, and
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
if if this isn't just fluff and they really believe it, that does bode really badly for the upcoming "public service reform"
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"if I was Scottish Labour leader, I would simply become relevant"
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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I don't think it's good we've gotten ourselves to a place in the UK where local democracy is seen as needless frippery which is a barrier to economic success which can only be overcome by having a powerful Executive Mayor who, totally against our political norms, faces no in-term scrutiny
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Allan Faulds @afaulds.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Viewers in Scotland may recall the articles ahead of 2015 to the effect of "now for the first time, Jimmy McLabourMP is having to knock doors and talk to voters" because for so long you didn't need to bother, which is a great reminder how FPTP is not in fact a guarantor of an active local champion
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
yet again, beyond all the other problems, the massive elephant in the room that gets ignored with this kind of plan from Senior Labour Sources is the second most popular unionist party in Scotland being Reform (and they weren't far off being first)
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RDCK98 @comradekenobi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A lot of oil and gas figures want the job security of public sector workers, without the corresponding ownership model
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
The reason why stuff like this always turns into the meta-debate about academic freedom or free speech is precisely because the actual work does not stand on the merits.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I like how we've moved from "don't speak ill of the dead", to "don't speak ill of critics of the dead", thanks to the Worst People In Journalism
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Euan @euan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I bet when the Samaritans released that guide to media reporting on suicide they didn’t think its main use would be justifying the media driving people to suicide, but if they’d thought realistically about the British media for more than 5 seconds I’m sure they would have
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
"but seeing what they'll do unbribed, there's no occasion to"
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I have, for my sins, not read any Ostrom yet but I think the biggest "what the fuck do people see in this?" reaction I've had to any academic work is the original tragedy of the commons paper
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A lot of the modern right-wing discourse about rights often turns out to be "I should never have to see someone in public whose existence makes me uncomfortable" and you can't really run a society like that without going to some dark places very quickly
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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
We also need to see a more serious approach to industrial policy than counterpoising funding universities or manufacturing, which has been a trope in recent discussions. The two are in fact highly linked, particularly in modern high value-added technologically advanced sectors.
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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Any agenda for a new more regionally equal prosperous Britain would have to address the crisis facing universities.
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sja @sam-ja.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
i'd recommend people read the response from an LGBTQ+ cancer charity to last year's EHRC proposed guidance - been thinking a lot about this particular section ever since i first read it (full response here outpatients.org.uk/2025/06/26/e...)
Screenshot of article reading: 
"The suggestion that transgender people should only be accommodated in side rooms is unfeasible. As anyone in healthcare knows, available side rooms are a rare commodity. If their use was mandated for all transgender patients it would largely be unenforceable. It is necessary to consider the broad variety of people who require side rooms and their availability across the NHS. As per NHS Estates documents, increased floor area, capital cost, management, and staffing issues also need to be considered. If a redrafted single-sex accommodation policy aligns with the EHRC’s Code of Practice, we feel that it could leave transgender people without reliable accommodation options, putting their clinical outcomes at risk."Quote from article
'“Let us take the example of Joelle, a trans woman who died of an eminently treatable cancer after waiting for eight days on a general ward, because clinicians could not agree whether she should be placed on a men’s ward or a women’s ward. The delay in treatment cost her her life.”

-Dr Roz Savage, MP'
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
when it comes framed exactly like this, you kind of get the idea that this is not quite the reckoning with his own bigotry that it is being portrayed as (and, of course, that anyone treating this account as honest is, at best, being naive)
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The continued political silence over the spread of these anti-migrant, anti-refugee pogroms in the UK is a disgrace. This one has been going on for three nights in a row now and the Home Secretary and Prime Minister haven't said a single word about it www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Norfolk police arrest two men after officers injured during unrest over asylum plans
Homes of people believed to be asylum seekers attacked during two nights of violence in Thetford
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
It is extremely clear by now that the groups organising these things have lists of names and addresses that get circulated, to be targets for violence. There is no other reason for these lists except to cause harm.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
yet again would note that quite a few people in the anti-trans movement despise the social model of disability precisely because it adds an element of social construction to a protected characteristic
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Just as a coda: the O'Reilly case is pretty parallel and interesting if you wanna read more (www.varsity.co.uk/news/26105 + 21percent.org?p=1035), and I think losing the position is about appropriate punishment for his sins so in an ideal world we'd leave Arday alone now by my reckoning.
varsity.co.uk
Plagiarising professor stays in post and threatens student journalists
More than twelve pages of an article published under O’Reilly's name had been lifted almost word for word from two essays by one of his students
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Not sure re 4 (surely it's a bit on Arday too!) but (1)-(3) are pretty clearly true. I personally think they were all immediately clear from the way this first broke on Cofnas' blog; he was explicitly just paying attention cos of the racial politics of the matter, and had compelling evidence of (1).
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I do rather wish we could have had some more robust journalism in the topic BEFORE the every crank toilet monitor in the country were legally empowered, but alas
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I’d recommend everyone watch this - it’s rather cheering to watch our media discover that an incompetent crank runs our national equality regulator
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
the teens hanging out at McDonald's have changed a little
Two very large gull chicks in a McDonald's car park
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
poupée sesame, poupée de son
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Malc Seventyfour @malcseventyfour.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Really happy to be able to preserve these titles. Folks, if you have a collection of disks or tapes, do have a look through them to see if there’s anything that might need preserving. Hard to believe, but these sat on my shelf for 20 years before I realised how rare they were.
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Bill @stillbill.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
[Guy who never goes outside voice] Damn it's crazy how irrelevant outside is these days
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
there's the principle of charity and there's being a mark and if trying to sort out the difference in practice scares you then I've got an amazing investment opportunity for you
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Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
men only want one thing, and it's a world where time drifts slowly and music carries you away. to be set adrift by the timeless pleasures of tubular bells. to order Pure Moods, call the number on your screen, or send check or money order for the amount shown, plus shipping and handling.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The average newspaper article on any single benefit in the UK: 1) starts by framing the entirety of state benefit spending as an insurmountable cost 2) stacks the deck to compare the highest possible award with the lowest possible wage 3) downplays the actual situation for those claiming
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
another piece of slight of hand seen here is mentioning the cost of the entire benefits bill - covering a whole range of forms of support - whilst discussing one smaller part of it, without mentioning the overall cost of that part as context.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The initial source appears to be this Times piece, which is a) paywalled and b) still deeply disingenuous in the way it's framed and discussed, if other related reporting from the Sun and LBC are correct.
thetimes.com
Teenagers on Pip paid £100 a week more than those working part-time
More than two thirds of 16 and 17-year-olds on the benefit’s upper tier claim for mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, receiving up to £194 a week
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I was also on JSA for a few months (a fair few years back by now), and though everyone involved was pretty reasonable - sympathetic work coach, etc - nothing I actually did there improved my employability or helped me get a job.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
guess I ought to finish Suzerain
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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
It’s a rip-off price, the vendor is toxic, and it seems the software doesnt deliver: www.ft.com/content/cbd1... Palantir tool has not cut hospital discharge delays, study says
ft.com
Palantir tool has not cut hospital discharge delays, study says
Think-tank’s findings likely to add to calls for audit of NHS England claims around Federated Data Platform
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
next series of bake off is going to be wild
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
the editorial stance of the Guardian is that there is a climate crisis, that countries like the UK need to do more to reduce emissions & pay for adaptation for poorer countries that are most at risk. The environment desk reports with that understanding; somehow it goes missing for domestic politics.
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
all this is making me wish Scrapheap Challenge was still going
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Re-elect Sister Smudge for Secretary-Treasurer @left-sharkey.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
unions and reps aren't perfect, but I would beg people to try that option if they can before doing anything like this
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