iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by @markpownall.bsky.social

Mark Thompson @markreckons.bsky.social · 23h

Why on earth does this BBC piece on Burnham telling an interviewer the UK security services confirmed Russian interference in the Brexit referendum require a response from a pro Brexit pressure group? It's literally our Prime Minister telling us about election security. It's nothing to do with them.

The prime minister told The Rest is Politics podcast that upon arriving in No 10, he had asked about possible Russian interference in the 2016 vote, adding: "I've had the clear answer that, yes, there was."

"I think we've been too much on the back foot on that actually and we haven't informed people sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas," he added.

Burnham did not provide further details about the type or extent of Moscow's activity during the Brexit referendum.

Britain Unbound, a pro-Brexit campaign group, said Burnham's comments were "another crude attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the decision that the British people made in 2016".

It said that foreign interference in UK elections was "obviously unacceptable" but added: "There is no good reason to believe that Russian intervention influenced the outcome of the referendum in 2016.

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Ada Loves Lace @adaloveslace.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026

Save 'You and Yours' and scrap 'Moral Maze'. #bbcWATO #wato #bbcPM

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Tell me you never used to go to Kings Cross 31 years ago without telling me etc.

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Let me help. The motion goes way beyond criticising Israel (it seeks to replace Israel) and an amendment to protect Jewish members was voted down. You would not know this from Polanski's evasive statement

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's quite hard for Americans to understand that our instinct with anything other than genuinely tragic stories is to take the piss.

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Et tu John Simpson? AfD are 'right-wing anti immigrant's party, while Die Linke are 'far left', followed by interview where Katya Adler rehashed AfD justification for not being called far right. Worrying that 2 such usually good journalists would do this.

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Absolutely this. The social of liberalism of circa 1967 Labour is as important as the Atlee government.

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Tom Watson once described listening to The Clash the night before a select committee hearing where he was going to question Rupert Murdoch. Well, he's definitely Working for the Clampdown now. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Fundamentally the reshuffle has proven a disaster because it made clear that Burnham cared more about factionalism & platitudes about devolution than basic competence

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The ability of the richest & most powerful men in the world to position themselves against "the elite" - a category that excludes the world's richest man, its biggest media magnates, the UK's richest party & the biggest donors in UK history - may be the most effective lie in modern political history

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

#Economics Blue sky, hasn't the Laffer curve been widely debunked? #R4Today

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Charles Fourier @charlesfourier.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Bill Bryson’s words seem appropriate to post right now

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 08/09/2026

Once again, another policing issue appears to boil down to "What do you expect us to do, our jobs?"

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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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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 05/09/2026

There's an argument for calling them masked thugs, because that is factually true. There's an argument for calling them pathetic cosplaying loser incels, also true, and laughing at them damages their tough-guy self image and hurts recruitment. There is no argument for calling them protesters.

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Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Were I the prime minister, right now the chief constable and police & crime commissioner for Kent would be in my office having a meeting strictly without tea or biscuits, and this evening I’d be doing a broadcast reassuring the nation that fascist mobs will not be tolerated on our streets.

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I remember writing about this scandal in, I think, 1984. Might have been the first half of 85. Paul Brown of The Guardian wrote several stories. Disgusting delay and cynical prevarication by successive governments. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

theguardian.com

Nuclear bomb test veterans were victims of one of ‘greatest scandals in Britain’, says ex-defence minister

Exclusive: Tobias Ellwood says he gave MPs inaccurate information in 2018 provided by his department, the MoD

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The Verge @theverge.com · 02/09/2026

As a new Harry Potter trailer makes the rounds, it bears repeating that there’s no way to watch this show without supporting J.K. Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on the trans community.

theverge.com

There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series

You can’t without supporting Rowling’s transphobic bigotry.

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Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The Hoff Crab is neither a crab nor is it David Hasselhoff. It is a Yeti Crab, which is neither a Yeti nor a Crab but a sub-group of Squat Lobsters, which are not lobsters, they're Anomurans, like Mole Crabs, which are neither moles, nor crabs.

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Rob 🏳️‍🌈 @rotster.net · 01/09/2026

Horrifying Section 28+ stuff from the a Labour government. Indescribably harmful.

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fesshole 🧻 @fesshole.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I love my live-at-home adult kids and life's tough for 20-somethings, but please can a stand-up or a charity raise awareness so they get the message it's OK for both of them to go out at the same time and leave Mum and Dad home alone. Please? Just an hour?

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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.

Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”.

The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims.

Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.”

Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive.

In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down.

“We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.”

In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.

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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 31/08/2026

Conservative policy: - Demand criminals get long sentences - Don't build prisons to house them - Oppose early release of prisoners - Cut prisons budgets so that fewer people are rehabilitated 👍

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Christina Maslen @christinamaslen.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Textures and patterns of a Callanish stone for #StandingStoneSunday

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Amanda Mull @amandamull.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Lotta people this weekend are gonna have a karaoke mic in their hand when they find out that Dolly was a SINGER singer and even the songs she made sound easy are very hard. Keep your head on a swivel.

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

If early release can be altered so as to exempt homicide offences, it should be. Prisoners who have caused the gravest harm should be among the last to benefit from the overcrowding crisis. But carving out exceptions for individual prisoners in response to media campaigns is weak and unprincipled.

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Tanita Tikaram @tanitatikaram.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Sometimes I think about how Michael Gove was able to dismiss the Tories £ 10 billion PPE waste & industrial scale corruption as an ‘ honest ‘ error & UK media said ‘ Oh that sounds credible ‘ 🙄 & the story disappeared after 2 days .

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

As an aside, those politicians who created the current crisis - increasing prison sentences for tabloid applause while cutting prisons and courts to the bone - may want to quietly reflect on their culpability, instead of running for the megaphone in an unedifying fumble for clicks.

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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

No, the riots in Thetford aren't a reasonable protest that sadly escalated into violence. The violence was the point from the start. The reasons for the 'protest' were not reasonable, fair or valid. Stop making racist violence seem 'OK'. Just stop.

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

'Anti-immigration protests', 'disorder' jeez, the reporting of the racist pogroms in Thetford on #R4Today is positively Orwellian. 'Reasonable concerns' bollocks too. Timid journalism accepting the narrative of the far right.

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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I have enormous sympathy with people angry that the political vandalism of our prison system is forcing the (even earlier) release of prisoners. It is a scandal. But deciding who does and does not get released on the basis of the volume of public outcry at their crime is the road to madness.

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Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Heavens above, what a sound. A fantastic, otherworldly slice of whimsical gorgeousness. We all know it's basically the hymn God Be In My Head with different lyrics, but that's fine. We could all use a bit of god in our heads from time to time. Or whatever Steve & Plonk were on.-

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Northern & proud 👊 @gazlancs.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

French forces held a fierce defensive perimeter around Dunkirk and lost 18,000 souls. 40,000 became POWs. Without their resolve we wouldn’t have our nation’s story. It’s estimated 20-60k French resistance fighters died during the war. These fuckers really are vile bastards 😡😡

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Daniel Álvarez @dalvarez-01.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

A wonderful slab preserving hundreds of ammonites of different sizes. #Paleontology #Fossils #Ammonites

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Alan Baxter @alanbaxter.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

You can kill a French vampire with a baguette. It's a painstaking process but it works.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I genuinely cannot understand how the Labour government has now had two, genuinely cultured prime ministers who both looked at Lisa Nandy’s record there and went “I’m pleased with this. I want this to continue.”

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Andy Burnham opts to keep Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary. A big mistake

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Caitlin Moran @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Andy Burnham - I wish you the absolute best of British luck. I hope you have a plan, I hope you know how to make it work, I hope people help you, & I hope it makes this country feel, well, hopeful again. We MUST have passed Peak Despair now. The future SHOULD feel exciting, and different. God speed

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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 01/08/2024

I’d like to see Matt Bellamy jamming with Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding for ten minutes before the main gig, as a sort of a Muse/Boosh.

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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

It’s odd how often you hear people arguing for dialogue, common-ground & consensus seeking, when historically the best policy is often utterly destroying vile ideas, humiliating their proponents, liberating their adherents & salting the earth so that they never seep out of a putrid morass ever again

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Punk Rock History @punkrockhistory.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

47 years ago today The B-52's is the debut album of the American band The B-52s, released on this day in 1979, includes the singles Planet Clair and Rock Lobster #punk #punks #punkrock #newwave #theb52s #history #punkrockhistory #otd

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TJM @tjmarsden.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Starting to want to elevate this from a mere pillar of the Go Outside! platform to something more like a religious edict. Thou shalt not complain about a noise that hath been present for longer than thou hast been.

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Kolina Koltai @koltai.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I watched The Sheep Detectives last night and I was unprepared for how much I found myself crying. It's so cute and wholesome.

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Sack her, bin her policies, eject her into the outer darkness. The worst case of Home Office brain I’ve ever seen

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markpownall.bsky.social @markpownall.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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Stella Creasy MP @stellacreasy.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Winning in Makerfield - when many said Labour couldn’t - and beating Reform gives us all hope. Now Labour must show what we stand for, why it matters and how we make it happen.

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Two of the most important biomedical breakthroughs came from science of the Gila lizard venom (GLP-1s) and yogurt (CRISPR genome editing). "The system that turned that lizard into a medicine is now being dismantled." gift link nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...

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