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Nick

@nicholasjb.bsky.social
612 followers 3.4K following 44 posts

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Reposted by Nick
Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Since the UK Labour (I repeat, Labour) is about to do a most myopic anti-decarbonization move in the name of higher defence spending, worth remembering that electrification and heatpumps are not a trivial way to fight fossil aggressors abroad while supporting people with affordability
Poster heed the cry electrifySend putin away, get a heat pump today
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Timothy Garton Ash @fromtga.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
How to respond to Russian escalation vs Europe & Ukraine… my latest commentary, just gone live… www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The more Putin escalates his attacks on Europe, the more Europe should support Ukraine | Timothy Garton Ash
Moscow’s imperialist strongman believes decadent European democracies can be cowed. Our job is to prove him wrong, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 10/10/2026
Analogue crypto
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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This... the attacks on research funding and foreign students in US universities... all opportunities for us, not being taken.
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Andrew Male @andrewmale.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
How a black dog can banish The Black Dog. After my wife Colette died in 2020 a dog (Nico) was why I got out of bed in the morning, got dressed, left the house, met other people, established a routine (dogs love a routine), and found a way to be in the moment (dogs love that too). Great piece.
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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
She wants to make it harder for those women to settle here.
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maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'Which taxes do you want to raise instead?' should be the default question to anyone who calls for reductions in immigration.
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President Werewolf G. Harding @popeawesomexiii.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
First day as a vampire hunter: This is easy lol First night as a vampire hunter: oh no
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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Will keep boringly saying this (no disrespect to OP): it's not a health surcharge. It's not hypothecated to the NHS; you can't choose not to pay it and thereby eschew healthcare. You could equally call it an education or roads surcharge. It's using the NHS's sanctified status to rip off immigrants.
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
‘We cannot allow race to be reintroduced into our politics. We cannot allow Briton to be set against Briton.’ Bravo Rishi Sunak www.thetimes.com/article/e89d...
thetimes.com
Rishi Sunak: Britishness must not be turned into a DNA test
I worry that the immigration debate is going far beyond arrival numbers
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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
These are thugs being thugs, not legitimate protests
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This by Helen Miller ( @theifs.bsky.social) makes 2 points: - lower migration (as many of us have long said) will be bad news for public finances - OBR doesn't (directly) assess impact of migration *policy* changes - and it should www.ft.com/content/3efb...
ft.com
The OBR needs to give us more clarity on migration
Minor revisions to immigration figures can complicate the government’s fiscal strategy
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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Bill Bryson on the RNLI in "The Road to Little Dribbling : more notes from a small island" (2015)
I had never really stopped to consider what an extraordinary thing the Royal National Lifeboat Institution is. Think about it. A troubled ship calls for help, and eight people - teachers, plumbers, the guy
who runs the pub - drop everything and put to sea, whatever the weather, asking no questions, imperilling their own lives, to try to help strangers. Is there anything more brave and noble than that? The RNLI - I looked this up later - is an organization run by volunteers, supported entirely by public donations. It maintains 233 stations around the coast of Britain and averages twenty-two call-outs per day. It saves 350 lives a year on average.
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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
In Beijing, a think tank at Renmin University recently published an assessment titled
"Thank Trump," which wryly hailed his efforts to hasten the "twilight of an empire," by undermining America's alliances, civil service, scientific institutions, and democratic credibility. In the past two years, the international approval rating of the U.S. has dropped nearly forty points, according to a worldwide survey by the Alliance of Democracies; in multiple polls, China now rates higher than the U.S.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Reform being quite genuinely a foreign plot against the nation is one of those amusing ironies that also makes me sad.
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Rob Delaney @robdelaney.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🚨Christ - Whistleblowers warn the newest version of Claude may lose (take?) control of itself and place *me personally* in a simulation where 1979 Sigourney Weaver wearing her Alien costume (but also Ghostbusters “Zuul” eye makeup for some reason) tazes me in the ass & balls until I starve to death.
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Garvan Walshe @garvanwalshe.org · 09/09/2026
So so the solution to right wing populism is mass immigration…we’ve been doing it all backwards. 🧵
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.
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Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 07/09/2026
Big fan of how Russia can shut down a major UK port for half a day with just 5kg of cocaine and 100 severely divorced men.
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
If someone acts on their 'concerns' by attacking people in their homes and by biting and throwing rocks at cops, no one should assess if those concerns are 'legitimate' or not. That violent behaviour waives any claim to 'legitimacy'. The phrase comes across as justifying violence, not condeming it.
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Neil Goodrich @ngoodrichhsg.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
All joking aside about the response from the Electoral Commission to Reform's blatant admission of law breaking, this is exactly how the far right gains a foothold in democracies. Institutions failing to understand the gravity of the situation and acting accordingly.
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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 02/09/2026
Wrote a thread about what has bugged me in assessments of the Russian threat to the #EU. TL;DR: all assessments that start by assuming current political situation & NATO willingness/capability are fundamentally flawed. Period of maximum danger comes if far right takes power in large EU countries.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Many years ago, I wrote down this bit of a speech Obama gave to an audience in Silicon Valley. Because it absolutely NAILED the difference between government and business.
The final thing I’ll say is that government will never run the way Silicon Valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy. This is a big, diverse country with a lot of interests and a lot of disparate points of view. And part of government’s job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with.

So sometimes I talk to CEOs, they come in and they start telling me about leadership, and here’s how we do things. And I say, well, if all I was doing was making a widget or producing an app, and I didn’t have to worry about whether poor people could afford the widget, or I didn’t have to worry about whether the app had some unintended consequences then I think those suggestions are terrific.

That's not, by the way, to say that there aren't huge efficiencies and improvements that have to be made.

But the reason I say this is sometimes we get, I think, in the scientific community, the tech community, the entrepreneurial community, the sense of we just have to blow up the system, or create this parallel society and culture because government is inherently wrecked.

No, it's not inherently wrecked; it's just government has to care for, for example, veterans who come home. That's not on your balance sheet, that's on our collective balance sheet, because we have a sacred duty to take care of those veterans. And that's hard and it's messy, and we're building up legacy systems that we can't just blow up.
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Stephen McGann @stephenmcgann.uk · 27/08/2026
Sometimes, in the middle of all the grime, technology does something beautiful. It's the app that gives you the reverse of addiction. It makes you look up. Makes you stop to listen on a walk. It makes you observe the things around you, and care about them. It is a public good.
ft.com
Have you discovered the magic of Merlin?
[FREE TO READ] A free app has propelled birdwatching into the mainstream, offering a portal to a hidden world
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Philippe Auclair @philippeauclair.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
To anyone who does not live in Paris but visits the city at regular intervals (as I do), the transformation has been staggering: Paris has been reclaimed from cars. It can be done, and could be done in London too. It is all about political will and taking the risk of being unpopular - for a while.
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Adrian Hiel @adrianhiel.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Solar eats everything. And it is glorious.
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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
We don't appreciate how great it is to have free art galleries in this country. You can just wander in to so many places and have the most relaxing time away from life's stresses, and it doesn't cost a penny. You don't even have to be an art fan to find the peace in that.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
ICYMI: Were there two origins of life? And was the Last Universal Common Ancestor not truly alive at all but half-rock? These are questions raised in work by Bill Martin & colleagues, which I covered for @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/life...
scientificamerican.com
Life’s ‘last universal common ancestor’ may predate life itself
A groundbreaking study hints at a hazy boundary between “life” and “non-life,” as well as two distinct origins of biology on Earth
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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 24/08/2026
The daily global average sea surface temperature has just reached its highest level on record, per C3S. "The timing of the record is particularly notable. Global ocean temperatures are typically highest in March and April, following the austral summer, yet this record has been reached in August."
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/08/2026
If you just happened to pick this week to start yelling about the importance of academic freedom, I sure hope you did more than watch silently for the past 18 months as the Trump administration assaulted everything from mRNA vaccine research to gender studies to the very idea of having universities.
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Jon Featonby @jonfeatonby.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
My @refugeecouncil.bsky.social colleague Imran Hussain has a letter in the Guardian today following up on Andy Burnham's pledge on ending rough sleeping. He highlights the importance of addressing the role that the Home Office has in making refugees homeless in the first place to meet that goal.
Text of the letter: he prime minister’s pledge to end rough sleeping is admirable, and he’s right about the importance of catching people “long before they hit the pavement”. But to succeed, the he must confront the Home Office’s role in creating homelessness. Last year, around 21,000 households in England needed homelessness help after eviction from Home Office accommodation.

Research by the Refugee Council and others has highlighted how delayed documentation, inadequate support and too little time to find accommodation leave refugees facing homelessness and destitution within weeks of a being given leave to stay in the UK.

Current plans making refugee status more precarious, putting refugees in thousands of pounds of debt and further restricting asylum support will only worsen this. Until the Home Office stops pushing refugees on to the streets, ending rough sleeping will be out of reach.
Imran Hussain
Refugee Council
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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
If people are posting less, or fewer are posting, try following more people to fill your timeline up. It's highly unlikely that you already followed all the people you will like. Repost more. Recommend people to others more. Also over follow as this helps others find their people.
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Rhianna Pratchett @rhi.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
❤️❤️❤️
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Constant Screaming @ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Each of these cancers have been, historically, a near guarantee of an awful, painful, slow, miserable death. There is good news and we should share it.
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Andrew Fisher @fisherandrew79.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Britain's self-defeating crackdown on migration, pt.1 "official figures showed that the sharp decline in international recruits following a visa crackdown has not been offset by more British workers entering the sector. Instead, the number of UK staff has also fallen." inews.co.uk/news/politic...
inews.co.uk
Crackdown on migrant carers 'must be scrapped' after numbers plummet by 75,000
The number of international recruits hired into care jobs has plunged - and this has not been offset by British workers entering the sector
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The 15 things on list before seeing Avengers: Domesday Bede Gildas Life of Alfred Morte d‘Arthur Anglo-Saxon Chronicle History of the Franks Two Lives of Charlemagne Bayeaux Tapestry Geoffrey of Monmouth Henry of Huntingdon Julian of Norwich Magna Carta Maitland Stubbs’ Charters 1066 and All That
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The Anti-Christ Brosnahan @chrisbrosnahan.com · 09/08/2026
"You're blocking out the music of humanity"
The Irritating gentleman painting by Berthold Woltze, with a woman in a victorian train, being annoyed by a man leaning over the seat behind her, except she's now wearing headphones.
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Terence Eden @edent.tel · 09/08/2026
100% this. I travelled through Europe by train recently and it is so heartening to see solar panels on fields and windmills peppering the hills. Progress demands that we actually do something rather than just bemoan that nothing is being done.
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Don't listen to what people say. Watch what they do. Almost all MPs' and civil servants' kids will go to uni. They don't think your kids should. There's a reason for that.
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ironeconomist.bsky.social @ironeconomist.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
We talk often of the causality from low birth rates to aging population but I think this paper makes a terrifying plausible case that the causality might be two way. Once you have a population that has too many old people it further crowds young people out of economic success!
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Memnon of Rhodes @johngage1.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
3/ Why “legitimate concerns” made me vote for Hitler & the Nazis was the sort of thing u used to hear from pensioners of a certain age in Germany & Austria.
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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Always worth remembering that - despite the disproportionate media coverage and vocal supporters - most Brits fucking hate Reform.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
A gangster speaks.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
It seems really clear that by 2028, we're going to have an empty SPR, substantial munitions shortages, greater strategic challenges, a larger national debt and substantially higher bond rates which will massively constrain future administrations.
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DC🕊🌍🔥🌱 @dcminx.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
How did Elon Musk help Russia’s digital goals? Russia’s strategy was to stoke fear and fracture European unity. By calling the Ceuta crisis “absolutely an invasion” and comparing migrants to a zombie swarm, Musk mainstreamed Moscow’s panic narrative to hundreds of millions.
aljazeera.com
Spain deploys military to Ceuta after migrant surge: What we know
At least 34 people reported killed trying to cross into the Spanish enclave bordering Morocco.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I’m not sure whether this is just a psychological difference or AI bros fundamentally don’t understand the nature of an artistic experience, but: I don’t want a personalised film/book/podcast. I want to see/read/hear the same one as everyone else, so I can read reviews or discuss it with my friends
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Darth Putin @darthputinkgb.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Kremlin released pic of Prez visiting Black Sea Fleet flag ship for Russian Navy Day.
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 27/07/2026
Yes! I wrote this in July of last year talking about the inevitable self-defeating nature of being a massive tool. www.explaintrade.com/resources/tr...
Deals with the Devil

A devastatingly handsome and disarmingly humble trade geek recently wrote a book about how often trade policy tends to be politics first, economics a distant seventh. You should buy two copies for each of your pets. 

One aspect of trade policy becoming political is that the popularity of a country and its national leader abroad can give those they are negotiating with more or less political space to do deals with them.  

Any trade deal requires making concessions that are going to piss some people in your country off. If I lower a tariff, the companies who enjoyed tariff protection are going to complain loudly about it. 

The less the average voter in your country trusts or likes a foreign leader, the less patience they have for tolerating your making politically painful concessions to them in order to get a deal across the line. 

The Trump administration’s rather bellicose America-first rhetoric and general posture is actively limiting the political space other leaders have to make deals. The most obvious example of this is of course Canada, where proximity to Trump cost the opposition leader a double digit lead in the polls and propelled Mark Carney into power on the back of an ‘elbows up’ message. 

As a general rule, you want to avoid making fighting you a political slam dunk for foreign politicians - and unfortunately for Trump’s trade policy goals, in many places it is.
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