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Matt Severn

@mattsevern.bsky.social
956 followers 709 following 4.8K posts

LibDem councillor, social enterprise manager, former bookseller, Dad, husband, Christian, non league fan x2 clubs, strategy gamer, very amateur HEMA fighter, SF&F reader, 4 x Parliamentary candidate. Mostly found in Cumbria and North Lancashire.

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Reposted by Matt Severn
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2h
OpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company’s culture is ‘broken’
theguardian.com
OpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company’s culture is ‘broken’
David Robinson joins other insiders in urging industry to take more care over rapidly developing technology A safety leader at OpenAI has quit the company, warning that its culture was broken and that AI firms were not “being nearly careful enough” about developing the technology. David Robinson, who led the writing of safety reports that accompanied the ChatGPT developer’s product releases, explained his resignation in an essay headlined, “I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken”. Continue reading...
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Kevin McKenna MP @kevinmckenna.co.uk · 2h
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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Stephen C. Rea @stevierea.bsky.social · 3h
The “ceasefire” will be one year old next week. Since then, Israeli strikes have killed more than 1400 Gazans
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 8h
Really painful read from @sportingintel.bsky.social on the darkest aspect of sportswashing: how some Man City fans turned to horrible abuse and threats because he dared to report on their club's finances. www.dailymail.com/sport/footba...
dailymail.com
NICK HARRIS: The truth about all the ugly tactics Man City used on me
It's 2020 and I'm sat at a hospice window. Behind it, paralysed due to terminal brain cancer is my wife Helen. My phone rings: 'Your address has just been posted on Twitter by a City fan, making threa...
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 15h
The kids using “Brexit” and “AI” as insults makes me think the kids are pretty great, actually
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ironeconomist.bsky.social @ironeconomist.bsky.social · 10h
In the simplest and most reductive way, the Uk political class seems to have resolved to pay 4% of gdp a year to investors to avoid raising taxes by 2% if gdp a year. It sounds mental when you put it like that but that’s actually the situation.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 13h
Oh boy:
ft.com
Healey set to delay difficult choices with ‘breathing space’ UK Budget
Chancellor expected to focus statement on targeted help for households and businesses rather than tax rises on the scale of recent budgets
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CRAAAAAAAIG 🎃💀👻 @craiging619.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
But the club isn't run by the government... right?
static.klipy.com
Bart Simpson: What an Odd Thing to Say
Alt: Bart Simpson: What an Odd Thing to Say
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patrickcherry @patrickcherry.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
On this Peter Oborne column in @bylinetimes.bsky.social September issue, I can certainly 100% agree. The World Tonight and the Midnight news cut by BBC News does feel like a bereavement. Comments on Rajan, and Mishal Hussain - yes, quite right. BBC, beloved, but heading in the wrong direction.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 02/10/2026
You know, I'm beginning to think positioning ourselves as the world's shopping centre might not have been the best idea.
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Paul McNamara @mpaulmcnamara.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Helpful diagram of Man City’s finances. Not entirely sure it’s helpful to the transparency argument
Spaghetti type diagram
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
And yet, only yesterday - after the biggest cheating scandal in professional sports history was revealed - we saw the UK Prime Minister saying he didn't want the Abu Dhabi royal family to sell up. And we know why. Just as we know why Boris Johnson pressurised the PL to allow MBS to buy Newcastle.
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You cannot run a league successfully, fairly and with integrity if you have owners who believe themselves to be above the law. Especially if some of them actually are.
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"UAE officials caution that a negative outcome could damage improved relations with the UK, according to two people familiar with the matter." Man City's owners continue to make the case for preventing countries, heads of state or their proxies from owning clubs. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Manchester City Verdict Hangs Over UK’s Relations With Emiratis
Prime Minister Andy Burnham faces an awkward moment when a commission finally rules on the Premier League club’s legal saga.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
And, as I wrote over a year ago, this kind of ethnographical skull-measuring will always lead to outright racism and - in the attempt - utter absurdity. www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...
When, this week, the Telegraph printed a rabidly scaremongering report that “White British people will be a minority in 40 years”, they clarified this cohort as “the white British share of the population — defined as people who do not have an immigrant parent”. 

Leaving aside how garbled that formulation is — there are millions of non-white Brits who meet that definition perfectly — it carried with it a parallel consequence. I myself do not have an immigrant parent.

In fact, every single pale and freckled ancestor of mine since 1800, Irish farmers to a soul, was born and raised in something called the United Kingdom. This is true for a large number of Irish people in the North. And since the late Prince Philip was himself a Greek immigrant, it gives me great pleasure to point out that they’d settled on a definition of ‘White British’ which includes Gerry Adams but excludes King Charles III.
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Catio Miles @catiomiles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
National identity debates in a global world is so 1930s.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 02/10/2026
“We can do as many crimes as we want so long as we say it was software and pay for a few PACs” is an absolutely insane way to run a society.
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Daniel @deargodwhaat.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Famously this was a tactic beloved by the Stasi, right
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ironeconomist.bsky.social @ironeconomist.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It’s Armageddon in the rates markets and on one has even noticed.
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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Greens slip into fifth place in our poll tracker, while Reform are only two points off third place. Two parties that dominated discourse in 2025 on their way down
Chart showing polls since 2024. Latest average:

Labour 27
Reform 22
Con 20
Lib Dem 11
Green 10
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Tom Gordon MP @tomgordonld.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We talk about fairness, yet our answer is to give the same increase to every pensioner, treating the one choosing between heating and eating exactly the same as the one with millions in the bank. I can see no moral or fiscal case for above inflation rises for millionaires.
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Tom Gordon MP @tomgordonld.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
That money should go where it's needed most - to everyone in poverty, not just one group. It could help fund free personal care, a policy that would disproportionately benefit older people.
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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Manchester City cheated Premier League rules, the Commission found. Did it also cheat HMRC? We've examined the decision and leaked Mancini documents. We think City likely failed to pay £12m in tax. There should be a criminal investigation. Thread:
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Ros @hurricaneros.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Jesus Christ. This is insane. Tennessee woman on death row taken to hospital after surviving two lethal injections www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Tennessee woman on death row taken to hospital after surviving two lethal injections
Christa Pike, sentenced to death over 1995 murder, was heard snoring 40 minutes after lethal doses administered, witnesses said
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
as a satire on so-called late stage capitalism how could one beat investors pouring a trillion into a company offering to wipe out humankind
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Gravekeeper Failure 🪦 @ptrtlrwrts.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
That's why it's massively important in a general sense to preserve, promote, and allow creative people the conditions they need to thrive, even if in many cases there's no immediate (or potentially at all) return on that 'investment'.
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is astonishing and wildly improper behaviour from a member of the House of Lords, albeit one on sabbatical.
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Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
the most important story in the world keeps getting a bit important-er
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are really good reasons *not* to do it, but both this Labour government and the last are hamstrung by the inability to just clearly state 'Donald Trump is bad and has bad consequences'.
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Tomas Hirst @tomashirstecon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My fear is we may ultimately all go mad watching British politics contort itself into a pretzel to avoid a couple of pence on the basic rate of income tax.
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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Your regular reminder that the basic rate on income tax has not been raised since 1975, the last time a Healey was Chancellor.
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Martin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"The purpose of these schemes was found to have been to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million." That is an absolutely massive sporting fraud. www.premierleague.com/en/news/4727...
premierleague.com
Premier League Statement: Manchester City FC
An independent Commission has found Manchester City FC guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period, and the majority of charges in relation to its failure to co-operate with the League’s investigation.
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Matt Severn @mattsevern.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We finally forged The One Ring from the JRR Tolkien book “Don’t Forge The One Ring”
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Marwood @marwoodlennox.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How much better private pensions are for that generation versus those coming later is a point commonly missed by most people who comment on the triple lock.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
👇A thing which is really striking once you see it is that people visibly think that the words “triple lock” means “all pensions”, from the people who think scrapping it means “no pension” to the people who start ranting about boomers on cruises.
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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
American Liberals and Leftists should not be surprised if America faces a lot of scepticism even after Trump is gone from Canadians, Europe and the rest of the world as long as Democrats and DSA preach norms of international law they refuse to implement towards their own country
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David Herdson @davidherdson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Politically, the best option would be to keep the name of the 'triple lock' but change the formula - say, to the middle of the three components rather than the top one. Too many people will confuse 'scrapping the triple lock' with 'scrapping increases' or even 'scrapping the pension'.
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Deaves @deavesm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The worse Trump gets, the more the journalist need to take him seriously gets ever more outlandish. He just made it up! He probably hadn’t even been briefed on it!
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LGA Liberal Democrat Group @libdemlocalgov.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Congratulations to Liberal Democrat Councillor Lucy Nethsingha who is one of this year's County Councils Network Vice-Chairs. The Liberal Democrats are now the second largest party at the County Councils Network having overtaking the Conservatives. www.countycouncilsnetwork.org.uk/news/new-pol...
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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Healy on ITV just now saying we have a system which asks "how much are you entitled to" and that's absolutely not true, the welfare system in the UK has loads of conditionality to look for and find work, it's so weird Labour keep pretending otherwise
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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
You came into power and raised the cost of employing people, especially for entry level jobs and have been non-stop talking about how amazing AI is to boost productivity, which in reality comes through reducing entry level roles, and now have decided the cause of youth unemployment is welfare
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Leonardo Carella @leonardocarella.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
More generally, in Western Europe we’ve collectively decided that if we ignore Russian hybrid influence operations hard enough, Putin is just going to get bored and move on.
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jon christian @jonchristian.net · 28/09/2026
Somehow "the guy who buys struggling publications and fills them with fake journalists that publish thousands of articles of AI slop to overwhelm google? turns out he goes way back with Ghislaine Maxwell, the collaborator of Jeffrey Epstein" feels like the ultimate and most exhausting 2026 sentence
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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think the problem with the approach to re-industrialisation is summed up by a policy to support an industry with feasibly only one major purchaser (the British government)
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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Coupled with the facts we are moving to an age of automation, and Britain simply cannot compete with the labour intense production methods in countries like India and China, I don't think industrialisation will offer the same sort of mass employment it did in the 20th century
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 28/09/2026
Labour is a party disappointed by the people who vote for it and by the economy of the country it's running. thecritic.co.uk/the-...
And how will it do that? Healey, it turns out, has the kind of idea of work you’d expect from a man who has been active in politics since 1986. There were a lot of references to the coalmining heritage of his constituency, and even the more modern work he talked about was hard, manly toil like pipe-fitting, the sort of thing that involves bulging forearms and mucky overalls. Aside from his wife, the one woman he mentioned was Reeves, and she’s just lost her job.

It’s far from clear that the Chancellor has a handle on what the more modern bits of the economy look like. There are a million young people out of work, he said, and the solution he pointed to was shipbuilding apprenticeships. Do this year’s unemployed graduates actually want to go into shipbuilding? Are there enough ships for them to build? His first job, he said, was washing glasses at a pub, exactly the kind of work that has disappeared in the face of minimum wage and tax rises. On artificial intelligence, which has destro
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Still, it's extremely difficult to predict how tech will interact with arts businesses Take US novel sales, which had been declining for decades up to 2020. Would anyone have anticipated that short-form video apps like TikTok would reverse this trend and send book sales soaring?
a graph of recreational book sales
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Perhaps the best evidence for AI-driven arts job loss is that all digital arts industries are losing jobs while most live arts still chug along Sectors like graphic design, streaming, & movie recording have experienced historically unusual job loss since ChatGPT's launch
a graph showing job losses of between 20-5% in all digital arts and gains of 15% in most live arts
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Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 28/09/2026
What is happening is not that AI-generated cultural goods are replacing human-made cultural goods; what is happening is that capital is flowing out of the production of cultural goods *entirely,* making us all poorer for it.
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