iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I don't think getting those opt-outs from the EU is an insurmountable task given a) the lack of land borders and CTA with Ireland, an EU member; and b) you can functionally opt out of the Euro indefinitely by simply never letting yourself meet the criteria to join.

But in terms of ensuring rejoin can be sold to the public, I think there's only two opt outs that really matter; Schengen and the Euro.

Yes we're not getting the rebate or the other sweeteners we had back. This is part of why I supported Remain, getting a deal as good as we had is essentially locked off permanently.

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I think people overstate the difficulty of the caveats UK membership would realistically need.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Woke 1 isn't truly over until they bring back the Churchill and Lloyd George one.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

(This isn't intended to be pass agg at Dylan to be clear; completely right that the difference in clicks creates commercial incentives to cover Reform or the Greens more than the Lib Dems. Being able to ignore that in news coverage to a great extent should be the benefit of a public broadcaster.)

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

If only we had some kind of national broadcaster with a hypothecated funding source and a duty to provide balanced coverage in the public interest so it wasn't bound by the same commercial incentives. Alas.

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Reposted by Mike Green

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'd just like to take this opportunity to note my all-consuming hatred of CrossCountry.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Always find it comforting when someone else says they also gave themselves food poisoning in first term.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'd just like to take this opportunity to note my all-consuming hatred of CrossCountry.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

While a more minor issue than the above two, going for 110mph is an odd choice. Makes pathing it on the ECML a bit worse, and again they've just spent TRU money on increasing a short stretch from Colton Junction to 125. And in the longer term they *should* be looking at increasing Hull line speeds.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Worse than that, by installing charging infrastructure in Hull and Tees they're indicating that they're locking in the fact that these won't be electrified for the next 20+ years. In just about any other European country leaving them without wires would be unthinkable.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Don't believe the DfT spin, this is an awful choice for the north. They're spending tons of money on TRU extending platforms to 200m, and then buying 121m trains. Too short to take advantage, but too long to even (inefficiently) double up! www.modernrailways.com/article/alst...

modernrailways.com

Alstom to build 29 battery-electric units for TPE

Alstom wins a £1 billion contract to build and maintain 29x5-car battery-electric units for TransPennine Express with the trains being delivered from 2032.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

At the brave frontiers of ideological innovation we have the Anarcho-Kōdōha.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Among other charges throw s.1 of the Public Order Act 1936 at them.

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12mgs of tar, that's not enough! We demand more tar! More tar!

John Springford @johnspringford.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Reposted by Mike Green

Another data point for 'France, Germany, Italy and the UK have problems they most solve domestically, the rest of Europe is OK'.

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One of those dynamics has a lower inherent structural risk to people who may be vulnerable to controlling or abusive people. And it's not the one where embedding the ability to keep tabs 24/7 is socially acceptable.

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"People can just say no" There is a herd immunity effect here. If sharing by default is socially normalised you are the weird one for refusing to do it - "what do you have to hide" - if it's unusual it's the person asking who's making a weird and unreasonable request.

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Location sharing by default among family doesn't raise my hairs quite as much as among couples, but I do still hate it.

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If you have so little confidence in your metaphor that you feel the need to explain it like this simply do not use it.

Will @willbert94.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Reposted by Mike Green

£80,000 for something that doesn’t even work if it’s too warm at night meaning you have to use AC anyway. Amazing.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Even semantically it's crazy that "it'll be more difficult to get to work" has become the routine interpretation of "exceptional hardship." Nah that's pretty a standard and predictable consequence it's by no means exceptional.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Prime NIMBYism to claim this development "adds no value" when the reason they've managed to achieve a pointless procedural delay is the inclusion of 660 homes for social rent. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Drama as Greater Manchester's tallest tower thrown out after major issue found

The plans for the Regent Retail Park site in Salford will have to be reconsidered by a planning committee

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

State of UK academia: friend's work laptop still has a VGA port.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Sorry FT but the proliferation of half a dozen ever more niche subvariants, like calorie adjusted, would in fact demonstrate that it is a true economic index.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

It's a delusion/conspiracy I think would rapidly disintegrate on contact with events.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Honestly not sure whether it's a collective conspiracy of silence or a collective delusion that has made the default attitude in politics be that a large HE collapse isn't going to be a big deal.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Had to laugh at this bit, which rather exposes the lie that they care. Preferential creditor status, given charges tend to eat up any assets, tends to be pretty worthless.

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"When did you become so interested in voting professor?" "Oh the very moment I turned old."

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Still three problems here: Starmer and Reeves bafflingly backloading a lot of pain towards the end of the Parliament rather than frontloading it, no indication that Burnham's going to make peace and amens with Labour's 2024 socially liberal voters, and as ever events dear boy.

I think the bigger issue remains, with 2 years essentially being wasted, that you need the full term to have a level of positive impact that doesn't result in voters reflecting on the lack of improvement viewing voting in Labour in 2024 as a pointless mistake.

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Jo Kibble (Political Animal) @politicanimal.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I really really don't think Badenoch is suited to the intensity of the scrutiny involved in a GE campaign, she gets easily tripped up on questions of even moderate detail and her immediate response to that is to get mardy with whatever interviewer has had the audacity to ask.

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Reposted by Mike Green

Good thread. I remain of the view that national caps are a good stop-gap measure, but a true devolutionist will aspire to this sort of funding being handed over to strategic authorities with no more ring-fencing than 'design a scheme to keep bus fares down, as targeted or universal as you like'.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Oh it's quite simple really; we just need to turn jet engines into a consumer product everyone buys a couple of per year and then we expand Rolls Royce to employ several million people.

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Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

German fascists simply unable to resist the urge to pointlessly die on the eastern front.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Just saying "3.6" as my answer for anything that's not great, not terrible.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

*Daily Mail Voice:* New front opens in Keir Starmer's War on the Motorist

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

That's an intetesting one to contrast with passports which haven't been frozen and, much as we whine about their cost increases, the system simply works.

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Reposted by Mike Green

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

The reason this was always going to be worse than Qatar is that they at least know they're a shitty little authoritarian slave state and the point of sportswashing is to not portray this. The US is sufficiently arrogant that it won't excercise any self-restraint to protect its reputation.

Mike Green @mikeboy7564.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I do also wish LNER hadn't reduced its Stirling service to just the Highland Chieftain.