Sign in

Patrick Owens

@paddyo53.bsky.social
843 followers 331 following 142 posts
PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Patrick Owens
John Crace @mrjohncrace.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
All hail the Kult of Kemi – captain, coach and owner of the Conservatives | John Crace
The Tory leader is now too big for the party to allow her to fail, so everything she does is acclaimed a work of genius
67422
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Andrew Chakhoyan 🇺🇦 @andrewchak.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
For putin’s birthday, they killed Oleksandr, Kyrylo and Serhii, all aged one, and eight-year-old Maksym russians want to murder Ukrainians for daring to exist. For refusing to surrender their freedom, sovereignty, and country to moscow. Ukrainians don’t want to be murdered by russians.
414264
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Ed Davey @eddavey.libdems.org.uk · 07/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch claims the Conservative Party has changed, but people in Spelthorne aren't so convinced. I came to hear their concerns, and it's clear: empty promises won’t make them forget years of Conservative chaos, neglect and failure.
09130
Reposted by Patrick Owens
@AlanWalter @alanwalter.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I’m an RNLI volunteer crew member and I invite her to get on a plane from her hideout in Dubai and say that to my face here in the UK
100864241
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch labels Andy Burnham a 'Paddington Bear Prime Minister'. What is that even supposed to mean?
29865768
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Good thread by Georgina, and an opportunity for me to reiterate what I told a senior civil servant over a year ago: any successful British strategy towards the EU must include staying up-to-date not just with developments within all member states, but with the relationship between those states.
56514
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 07/10/2026
A very happy 50th birthday to our patron Tim Minchin. Thank you for the music, the laughter, and these really lovely words on living, happiness, and finding meaning in the here and now. Happy Birthday, Tim!
824960
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Carole with an e @crwright.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Voyager 1 is running on less memory than a single photo in your camera roll—69 KB. Its data is saved to an 8-track tape & software was developed when "the cloud" was in the sky. NASA sends commands and the old thing answers. And yet your brand new laptop freezes because you opened too many tabs.
892022607
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 06/10/2026
Kane and Unable: my SKETCH of Kemi Badenoch's decision to conduct her broadcast interviews as a tribute to Jeffrey Archer. thecritic.co.uk/kane...

Kemi Badenoch’s broadcast interviews on Tuesday were a touching celebration of someonewhose extravagant boasts and relaxed relationship with reality won the heart of Conservative members. There was also a lot of discussion of Jeffrey Archer.

The Tory leader opened her chat with BBC Breakfast viewers by talking about the bestselling novelist messaging her only the previous day. She would reply with emojis, she said, and we got an image of a somewhat one-sided chat that allowed Archer to allude to his closeness to Top People. Or Badenoch, anyway.

Not, of course, that the Master Storyteller ever felt constrained by the truth. It was a stellar career built on an instinct for what the audience wants to hear, a gift for “inaccurate precis”, and a willingness, when necessary, to simply say things that weren’t true. Sorry, I’ve completely lost track of who I’m writing about.
814934
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Elizabeth Anne, PhD @lacksauthority.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
never the wrong time for this classic
Screenshot of a tweet by @RobbtKraft reading “scientist: "does everyone here know what Watson and Crick discovered?" 
me from back of room: "Rosalind Franklin's notes"”
56119903561
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Andy Sage @andyphilip.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Feels like this really needs tucking in to the BBC coverage somewhere. bsky.app/profile/step...
1246
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Charles Keener @charleskeener.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
611147
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This ancient Greek figure from the 2,500 year-old Douris Cup looks uncannily like someone working on a laptop! 😲 💻 He’s actually writing with a stylus on a hinged wax writing tablet! The technology has changed, the posture has not! 😂 Altes Museum, Berlin 📷 by me
My photo shows detail from an ancient Greek red-figure kylix (drinking cup) of a young man shown in profile seated on a stool facing right. He wears a knee length cloak (himation) over his left shoulder, which is shown in folds around his waist and upper legs. His right shoulder, chest, and arms are bare. His dark hair is short, and he wears a band around his head. He is looking down at an open rectangular wax writing tablet which he is supporting in his left hand above his lap. In his right hand he holds a metal stylus pen poised over the writing tablet. The wooden writing tablet is hinged like a book and, from this angle, resembles a modern laptop. The figure is part of a scene depicting school lessons in ancient Athens, painted by Douris around 480 BC. On display at the Altes Museum in Berlin.
321353324
Reposted by Patrick Owens
South-East London for Europe (Selfe) @selfe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We want OUR #FreedomOfMovement back! #RejoinEU #JoinEU
420782
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Mark Thompson @markreckons.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
He literally set off a bomb in a UK street. If this had been the IRA Pierce would calling for them to be hung, drawn and quartered. This is domestic terrorism pure and simple. A bomb set off to terrorise with the aim of getting a government to change its policy. Literally a textbook definition.
Andrew Pierce

@andrewpierceexc

Follow

A retired engineer who destroyed @SadiqKhan ULEZ camera jailed for 15 years. A ridiculous sentence. No wonder our orisons are overcrowded

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

Kevin Rees was sentenced to 15 years for causing an explosion likely to endanger life after using a homemade bomb to destroy a ULEZ camera in a Sidcup residential street, damaging cars and property up to 100m away with shrapnel near a child's bedroom.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/...

news.met.police.uk/news/man-jaile...

cps.gov.uk/national-news/...
25411116
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Estonia is shifting toward an "active defense"posture:moving more forces&military infrastructure closer to the Russ border,building a fortified border zone,significantly expanding ammunition stocks,developing long-range strike capabilities,strengthening the reserve,air defense,civil defense systems⤵️
424964
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Kirkdale Bookshop @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This is just great www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Wolverhampton dancers reunited 50 years after disco photo
The people captured in a celebrated photograph are reunited nearly 50 years later.
25818
Reposted by Patrick Owens
timoconnorbl.bsky.social @timoconnorbl.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
“Ford Transit: No matter how big the lift, a Transit will shift it” *Run that ad, cowards.*
2297
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Within weeks,the USA is expected to receive its 1st shipment of Belarusian potash in 4yrs following the easing of U.S.sanctions The Belarusian Potash Company loaded 30,000tonnes of granular muriate of potash on to a Marshall Islands-owned ship at Russia’s Bronka port in St Petersburg on September 15
2112540
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Anti-Reform @antireform.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
For a long time I've heard rumours of Reform UK supporting Islamophobes who warn of dangers of Sharia law happily holidaying and buying flats in Dubai which runs under Sharia law If true, they should be forced to wear a T-shirt proclaiming 'I'm a far right hypocrite' meme via We Demand UK
26597168
Reposted by Patrick Owens
24Hours Ukraine @24hoursukraine.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
🇷🇺An approved Communist Party rally in central Moscow did not go as planned. Protesters chanted “Fair elections,” “We want freedom,” “Freedom for political prisoners” and “Down with the Tsar” — referring to Putin. Police detained around 60 people.
22536461390
Reposted by Patrick Owens
The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 05/10/2026
⚡️ Moldova aims to complete EU technical talks by 2028, join bloc by 2030. Moldova has "taken major strides towards membership," the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said at the end of the 10th EU-Moldova Association Council meeting in Brussels.
kyivindependent.com
Moldova aims to complete EU technical talks by 2028, join bloc by 2030
Moldova has "taken major strides towards membership," the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said at the end of the 10th EU-Moldova Association Council meeting in Brussels.
116435
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Caw Yar Bluff @j-leslie3k.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Russians have seen from earlier US and European response that they can commit extreme war crimes and nothing will change. From a strategic point of view not only do war crimes make sense the Russians are practically being encouraged to commit them. This is the war we have created in the modern world
38424
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Since Suella Braverman is trying to exclude many of us from England, here’s my family story from seven years ago to push back against this ethnonationalism This is My England, and Yours: Reclaiming Englishness bylinetimes.com/2019/12/18/t...
bylinetimes.com
This is My England, and Yours: Reclaiming Englishness
Now that English Nationalism has been unleashed, Peter Jukes argues that we must all try to restore England's buried civic tolerance and historic diversity.
21234102
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."
It does raise this point of two-tiered
justice..


Reform's Sarah Pochin believes the
sentence handed to the 64-year-old who
blew up a ULEZ camera was
disproportionate'.
2882547924
Reposted by Patrick Owens
warriorseamstress.bsky.social @warriorseamstress.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Putin is not the first dictator to hide out underground, indeed, there’s plenty of historical parallels for it. Stalin was paranoid about his security and spent a good bit of time in a bunker... For a dictator, psychological isolation tends to lead to physical one. Or is it the other way around?"
118339
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The ability to pour hundreds of millions of pounds into a loss-making TV channel, bent on wrenching British politics sharply to the right, is yet another of the ways in which extreme wealth is trying to remake UK democracy. It needs to be part of any serious conversation about political funding.
541902772
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This can't be talked about enough. "President Donald Trump's move to cut most of the US funding towards foreign humanitarian aid could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal." www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Trump's aid cut risks causing 14 million deaths, report finds
The figure from the Lancet, a leading medical journal, includes 700,000 child deaths globally a year.
9229148
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"I should just point out that we don't have any Lib Dems on the panel as they only have 71 MPs, but Suella Braverman is here because Reform have 8 MPs"
1142489784
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In bragging about the power of genetics, Donald Trump always trots out his uncle's job to piggyback on his higher IQ. But he never mentions his own father's dementia/Alzheimer's, which got so bad that the family had a fake office for him to pretend to go to work in and sign blank pieces of paper.
712316
Reposted by Patrick Owens
William Dalrymple @willdalrymple.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Final Episode in our @EmpirePodUK Stalin series: Stalin: A Poisonous Legacy With the remarkable Fiona Hill
1203
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
In (one of) my happy place(s) (Carry On, Jeeves - short stories from 1925)
'If half of what he has written is true, said Florence, your uncle's youth must have been perfectly appalling. The moment we began to read he plunged straight into a most scandalous story of how he and my father were thrown out of a music-hall in 1887!'
‘Why?'
‘I decline to tell you why'
It must have been something pretty bad. It took a lot to make them chuck people out of music-halls in 1887.
512013
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I've been blocked from attending Conservative Party conference. Just a few weeks after Badenoch blasted Reform for doing the same thing... bylinetimes.com/2026/09/30/k...
bylinetimes.com
Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives Block Byline Times From Conference After Condemning Reform for Journalist Ban
The ban comes just weeks after the Conservative leader called Reform's barring of critical journalists from their conference an "authoritarian" attack on the free press
29452204
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Putin: "Russia cannot run around the world begging for handouts with an outstretched hand. First, because it is humiliating. Second, because no one will give us anything. And third, we do not need it. Russia’s financial system and economy are doing well. The main thing is not to make any mistakes."
1716134
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Ben Coates @bencoates1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
it honestly blows my mind that the same country which does King’s Day and Carnival and epic World Cup celebrations thinks *this* is a perfectly fine way to celebrate your 29th birthday 🤯
5241
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
STOP calling Israel The world's ONLY Jewish state It's a nation state therefore there's only one like every other nation state Unless you don't actually think Jews are a nation In which case what are you talking about
8548
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Luxury retailers want taxpayers to fund a 20% tax break for foreign tourists. They paid consultancy Cebr to claim this will raise £2.6bn for the UK. That convinced Sadiq Khan and Kemi Badenoch. But it's false: a free lunch. Four basic errors mask a £600m loss. Thread:
6499226
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Ash Oro @ashoro.co.uk · 28/09/2026
So this is the UK in 2026? Actively wishing desperate poor people to die, and not hiding it. Putting it all out in public for people to see... How do we even come back from this? How do we deradicalise and deprogram a proportion of an entire population to return their humanity and empathy?
145614
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Stephen Moran. @moranstephen1000.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
An Israeli Foreign Ministry official just openly called for a terror attack on Ireland. This is the kind of sub Russian barbaric scum of the earth that Zionists really are. Anyone who still in any way supports their continued genocidal, ethnic cleansing and war crimes please unfollow me
1411984
Reposted by Patrick Owens
The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 28/09/2026
⚡️Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi liberates 3 more settlements, inflicts 2,000 Russian losses, 3rd Army Corps announces The villages of Ridkodub, Nove, and Katerynivka were liberated amid newly-reported territorial gains of 51 square kilometers.
kyivindependent.com
Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi liberates 3 more settlements, inflicts 2,000 Russian losses, 3rd Army Corps announces
The villages of Ridkodub, Nove, and Katerynivka were liberated amid newly-reported territorial gains of 51 square kilometers.
323431
Reposted by Patrick Owens
JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Here's a mad idea: when you have a 150-seat majority why not break manifesto commitments you think are ridiculous and then let the electorate decide in three years' time whether you were right to do so?
37510
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Ruth Deyermond @ruthdeyermond.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is a poor take that suggests Owen Jones doesn't know much about Russia in the 1990s, including Russia-US or wider Russia-West relations in the 1990s. By giving only one part of the story, he is repeating the Russian political elite's self-serving line that it was all the West's fault. Long 🧵
41662250
Reposted by Patrick Owens
The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 25/09/2026
⚡️ EU defense fund unblocked, and with it new support for Ukraine. "That’s good news for Ukraine and bad news for Russia," said the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, after EU countries agreed on how to unblock new money for Ukraine.
kyivindependent.com
EU defense fund unblocked, and with it new support for Ukraine
"That’s good news for Ukraine and bad news for Russia," said the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas, after EU countries agreed on how to unblock new money for Ukraine.
524952
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The mayoral discourse in Berlin continues to be *utterly* unhinged. If the AfD had topped the polls the narrative would be “finally the people have been heard!” but since the Left won, it’s all “Queer Islamofascists and Woke are trying to conquer us with, er, affordable rents!”
191011207
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"I can’t..." "You can. You’ve held on this long. You can do it now. You’re a strong woman." Ukrainian combat medics carried out a complex evacuation of an injured resident of frontline Kindrativka. Because of the dangerous situation, reaching her by regular transport was too risky,
526965
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A new trailer for Alex Gibney's documentary about Elon Musk was just released. gizmodo.com/elon-musk-do...
361306517
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Yesterday I went mildly viral on Twitter/“X” for the first time in a long while - and my god, so many men on there are deeply Not Okay. I'm 99% off Twitter, but kept my account to stop the username being stolen. Then I posted that thread about Mars. What happened next will not surprise you. 1/
5667
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Philip Stephens @philipstephens.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Much better if everyone just shut up about these voter intention polls
1103
Reposted by Patrick Owens
Institute for Public Policy Research @ippr.org · 24/09/2026
Cutting benefits doesn’t get people into work. If you want to reduce the benefits bill, you need to focus relentlessly on the barriers to work.
13214