iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

OK, not everything fits neatly on an idealist/realist axis, I can accept that in principle, but show me your own framework in that case otherwise it risks giving off this kind of vibe.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Still, at least all the people urging drastic reductions in migration will congratulate the government for enacting their policy preferences, acknowledge this inevitable trade-off and not make opportunistic attacks on the government for having lost control of the public finances.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"attempting to erect some conservative intellectual scaffolding" is just a great turn of phrase

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Mirvis generally doesn't seem very credible on this issue, his description of the settlers here deliberately ignores the fact that their ultimate aspiration is echoed by the Israeli government and their activities are enabled by the Israeli army

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Even setting aside the synagogue attendance issue here, if you reverse engineer the logic here, it really is that what Israel does barely matters, if at all, its others' responses to that which generate anti-semitism, a position that is inherently absurd.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

A frequent frustration of mine is that when politicians are asked about Musk the questions allow them to hide behind euphemisms whereas what would be revealing would be to read this out verbatim and ask them to comment

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Reminder of the new rules on protests introduced by the previous government (largely to tackle XR-type protests)

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I am a big Bouie appreciator but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the notion that just because engaged commentators process events in real time, shifts in political sentiment among wider public can lag. We see this in the UK where salience of migration doesn't always neatly track the numbers.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Quite funny to read a piece premised on Kemi's recent approval ratings bump being the motor engine which will drag the Tories out of their quagmire, which then goes on to include sentences like this

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Now that is not a name I expected to see in a Democratic primary contest. I guess the voters were not horny for his candidacy.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Even if you accept the core premise, how on earth do you see Russia as being equal. It is a big country with nukes but on every other level, conventional military capabilities, economic heft, innovation potential, social vitality, cultural cache etc it is nowhere near. India seems like better fit.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

The NYT has done a political analysis addendum to its 'British cuisine = boiled mutton' take

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

OK, but what happens to the actual Mediterranean in this scenario? And everything else further south?

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I'm currently in France where the prevailing vibe is

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The fallacy at the heart of Frost's piece is that the UK is somehow going it alone on net zero when other countries are also stepping up their efforts and will continue to do so as the impacts of climate change become increasingly severe, and so by definition, economically damaging.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Bari Weiss, Seth Mandel, Jonathan Greenblatt, Sarah Hurwitz etc your boys have taken a hell of a beating

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Hmm, a government for somewheres rather than anywheres you say?

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Braun should play no role in any Polish government because he is a full-fat fascist whose sole contribution to public life is the generation of hate and as such he should be completely ostracised by all other parties, not because the US government, itself deeply compromised, declares it

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Hannan's going to be furious when he realises that Farage's double by-election is going to cost us taxpayers around half a million quid.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

This seems like an odd provision? What's the rationale?

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I remember it because they presented him with a pickelhaube

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Kemi's latest reality-detatched musings reminded me of this inimitable @stephencollins.bsky.social cartoon

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

My brother was a student at Bristol Uni at the time and recall having this exact interaction with him

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I too would be stunned if a person recorded on tape bragging about sexual assault said something crass about women.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

The overall numbers have stabalised though are still creeping downwards, but the age distribution is not promising

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

If you start from the premise that US and Israeli interests are 100% coterminous then yes, I guess you could say that

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

If you start from the premise that US and Israeli interests are 100% coterminous then yes, I guess you could say that

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Impressive that Kemi has managed to find herself on the wrong side of the Mail on the question of Restore Britain's kosherness

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Yes, that's very plausible. I still remember this specific campaign

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

While I agree with the wider arguments in the piece, this is wrong - America is also suffering economically as a result of the Iran war, inflation is spiking and oil reserves are depleting fast

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

"It seems plausible, to me anyway"

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Can't think of a better example of our national decline than the fact that this turnip has gets to write regularly for the Times

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I can buy that 'anti-racism' has been a factor in some of these cases* but I expect they have lot more commonality with other examples of state failure where race is not an overt factor. Argument that racial dynamics are inherently the critical factor just doesn't add up.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Even if our own useless government won't do anything about this, I hope the people affected sue them to hell and back

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Don't think that this is a helpful parallel, the US has long history of authoritarianism and state violence very closely tied to the enforcement of historical racial hierarchies that MAGA was able to tap into. Not saying 'this could never happen here' but it would be much bigger break with our past

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Did enjoy the quiz and I think broadly fair result. But I found some of the statements complimentary rather than exclusive.

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Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Maybe, though most wards there are now Lib Dem

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