iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 21h

Admittedly I’m biased but this doesn’t seem like the sort of conversation we need to be having in London

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Ian Kikuchi @curatorian.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Having now had twenty-odd years of social media depleting our stocks of sanity, like overfishing North Sea cod, I think now might be a good time for a strict social media quota for about 20 years or so, to let stocks recover.

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Generation Rent @generationrent.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Generation Rent has welcomed Prime Minister Andy Burnham's speech to Labour Conference announcing that councils will be given the power to take control of empty homes and homes in disrepair to convert them into council housing.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 22/09/2026

Maybe we should have arrested this guy for blocking ports.

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sianushka.bsky.social @sianushka.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Asylum seeking people don’t have the freedom to work, they don’t even have the freedom to shop using cash or choose where to shop, in temp accommodation they don’t have the freedom to cook or choose their own food - honestly this headline is batshit

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Do some of these people make their billions because of, or despite, a catastrophic lack of self-awareness?

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Another £36m for Farage from another crypto billionaire (the one who previously gave him £5m). UK politics - and the UK itself - is being bought.

theguardian.com

Christopher Harborne matches £36m Reform donation of Ben Zelo

Party leader, Nigel Farage, says he is humbled by the contributions from cryptocurrency billionaires

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FrancesCrook@bsky.social @francescrook.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

No one should have so much money they can give away £36m, never mind a convicted criminal

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

An entire politics and worldview animated by a lively terror that somewhere, somebody might be eating a free cheese sandwich

Sharron Davies HoL MBE O
@sharrond62
x.com
Accept they're not free really are they? The cost the tax payer, when giving children a breakfast can be achieved for 50p at home. The cost to the tax payer is far far higher per breakfast than
50p

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

You can’t. Lesson also applies to the funding of London’s councils, many of which were hammered by the last funding formula.

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This story is a perfect example of how broken reporting of the mobs roaming Britain's streets now is - and the political response. What would have been the appropriate response if this hadn't been a sports team? Trash the hotel? Force them out into the street? What about other people staying there?

bbc.co.uk

Group entered hotel of Pakistan cricketers mistaken for migrants

Protesters congregated at a Portsmouth hotel after false rumours that a coach of migrants had arrived.

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

We’ve seen this movie before. It ends with homelessness, Temporary Accommodation costs crippling local councils, renters in severe financial hardship. That this can be done without huge social damage is the politics of wishful thinking.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 09/09/2026

Also, why is this basically written up as "quirky crowd make an embarrassing mistake" and not "violent racists form mob because Asian people use hotel"?

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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the roving uniformed thuggish gangs in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.

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David Beech @davidbeech.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Radio 4 Today presenter Anna Foster saying the protesters looked very much like Fascism and 🙌 for actually calling it what it is.

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The Arthur C. Clarke Award @clarkeaward.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Some scams are easier to spot than others. That said, we get these semi-regularly and they are only getting more focused and custom-tailored, so be careful writers! And, no, we didn’t reply, but it was super-tempting.

Text from a scam email message which reads:

Hi Arthur C. Clarke,

I recently came across 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 25th Anniversary Edition, and wanted to reach out.

I’ve been connecting with authors whose books are available to readers but may not be reaching as many new audiences as they could.

I’m curious how has your experience been with book visibility and reaching new readers? And have you considered exploring new ways to promote your book or expand its reach to additional platforms?

I’d genuinely be interested in hearing your thoughts and experience.

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 02/09/2026

‘Across London, the number of families in temporary accommodation is 73,000, more than twice the number in 2011 – an estimated 210,000 people in all, nearly half of them children.’ @jamesmeek.bsky.social on London’s housing crisis: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

lrb.co.uk

James Meek · ‘What kind of people do they think we are?’: On Social Housing

Now that Southwark has become desirable, the patches of neglect are placeholders for the chains and high-end outlets the...

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Dan Waterfield @danwaterfield.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Apocalyptically bad idea. You don’t want people doing care work who don’t want to do it and resent the people they’re caring for. It also privileges those able to volunteer, whether able bodied or lacking their own care responsibilities.

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Damn. The world has lost a truly fantastic person and we can’t really afford that in the year 2026.

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Well I for one am astonished that a party run by multimillionaires and funded by billionaires wants to slash welfare to the bone and force people on benefits to work for nothing ... so that they can cut taxes for the rich www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

theguardian.com

Jenrick says Reform would make long-term benefits claimants clean up high streets – UK politics live

Party’s ‘welfare to work’ policy would force long-term claimants to do community work or face losing benefits

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Not often do I retweet Andrew Neil approvingly - but Jason Arday was a mutable, imperfect, and ultimately fragile human being. We can all change. We can all atone and improve. Until we can't - with the great big full stop of death My first ever comment on Jason Arday: RIP

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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 14/08/2026

Cambridge University should have known better, Fleet Street should have known better, the people hungrily absorbing every bit of news about it, making newsrooms feel like they had to keep going with it as a story, should have known better, horrible horrible horrible

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Fairly sure UK’s productivity crisis entirely explained by the fact that any interaction (with public or private institution) requiring contact with actual human takes two hours. Everyone in the country is in the queue to resolve a problem with everyone else in the country.

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Thangam Debbonaire @thangamdebbonaire.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

This is what happens when asylum seekers are demonised. Absolute shame of it. If we like to think of ourselves as “tolerant” (awful word - for people fleeing conflict? We “tolerate” them?) country, there should be zero tolerance for such attacks. I hope the 100 are arrested asap.

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A policy so brain-numbingly stupid- legally, financially, practically and morally- it would collapse at the first contact with reality. Social policy by AI hallucination

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Neil Goodrich @ngoodrichhsg.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

An area of housing policy that Andy Burnham could make a significant and immediate difference to people's live is unfreezing the Local Housing Allowance rates and reintroducing the link between real rents and LHA. www.crisis.org.uk/media/00pnzl...

crisis.org.uk

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Urban street transformed into a safe activity space for kids. A play street on #playday Turns out to be true that if you build it, they will come

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Very much looking forward to celebrating #playday2026 tomorrow in the north Paddington street I used to live in. City kids need safe places to play, and Ashmore Road play street is a welcome addition

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

It’s hard to tell art from reality these days.

A group of people enjoys a sunny, vintage-style family picnic on a grassy lakeshore, complete with red-and-white checkered blankets, a basket, children playing, and a woman serving a cake decorated with an atomic symbol, largely unbothered as a massive, fiery mushroom cloud rises menacingly over the water in the background.

Beachgoers relax casually on a sandy shore, with a shirtless man sitting in the foreground and a group of women lounging on towels, appearing unfazed while an enormous, dramatic wildfire billows thick smoke and orange flames high into the sky across the water in the background.

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Memoirs of a survivor - Doris Lessing Circe/Song of Achilles- Madeleine Miller The Cazalet Chronicles- Elizabeth Jane Howard Winds of War/War and Remembrance - Herman Wouk The Ministry of the Future- Kim Stanley Robinson Ducks, Newburyport -Lucy Ellman

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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Seen a few people saying rough sleeping policy isn’t aimed at median public concern. Quite apart from any policy/moral imperative it really is - rough sleeping comes up time again in focus groups as one of the most visible signs of Broken Britain and community decline!

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Generation Rent @generationrent.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

BREAKING: Angela Rayner has been appointed as the new Secretary of State for Housing, the department which oversees private renting policy. We look forward to working with her to make sure all renters have the secure and affordable home they need. www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

standard.co.uk

Andy Burnham picks John Healey for Chancellor as Angela Rayner makes big comeback

Mr Burnham has appointed senior Cabinet ministers to deliver ‘the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years’

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Helen Barnard @helenbarnard.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Excellent research today from @jrf-uk.bsky.social shows how PM's promise to reduce welfare spending by tackling drivers can work: - Every 100,000 extra people in work reduces UC spend by £700m/year. - Hit 80% employment rate target & reduce UC spend by £10bn/year www.jrf.org.uk/social-secur...

jrf.org.uk

How to reduce pressure on welfare spend in a popular and lasting way

The new prime minister wants to reduce social security spend by tackling underlying causes of need, not with blunt cuts. This would be popular and effective.

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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is a politician who understands that this is not an indulgence, it's an investment. Every public space where you can have fun and not spend any money is probably more of a crimebuster than 100 cops.

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Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

What I hope everyone reading this story actually takes away from it is that a household with two people each earning £38k are in the richest 20 per cent of the population.

thetimes.com

More than 100,000 households in social housing are in richest 20%

Andy Burnham promises to expand social housing when he moves into No 10, but questions have arisen over whether it should be a lifetime entitlement

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

When the BNP won a single council seat in 1993 it was a national news story for days. Horror. Condemnation. Now an even more far right party is getting 11% across a whole county and it's just normal.

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I think if you’re the CEO of an extremely politically exposed firm in the public eye and you agree to take this kind of pay increase at this moment, you’re essentially demonstrating that you are not up to the job.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Once you start mass removal of citizenship on political grounds you've stopped functioning as a viable democratic state. But that was always where this agenda was heading.

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Paddy Duffy @paddyduffy.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

RIP to Sam Neill, a brilliant actor who said what needed to be said about the excesses of Big Salted Caramel

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Neil Goodrich @ngoodrichhsg.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Local Housing Allowance rates don't tend to get a lot of press because they're a bit technical. However, they have been deliberately kept low by policy decisions over multiple governments. That is having a severe impact on the financially vulnerable. www.crisis.org.uk/media/00pnzl...

crisis.org.uk

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Exactly this. A policy which will either push up personal housing subsidy and reduce work incentives for low income working tenants or (if housing benefit is held down) hugely intensify poverty. We’ve been returning to this argument periodically since the 80s. It’s still nuts.

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I hear Ed Balls is a Blairite now, Father.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 29/06/2026

It's a weekday, it's after 10pm, so Shabana Mahmood is doing her thing *yet again*. Yet another incredibly punitive policy aimed at people recognised as legitimate refugees, in the service of some political game I honestly can't work out. What's she actually trying to accomplish here?

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Karen Buck @queensparkkaren.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Plenty to reflect on here and in the Estelle Morris report, in the context of renewed emphasis on regional inequality. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that London has the highest youth unemployment in the country.

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John McTernan @johnmct.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The case for Ed Miliband as CX. The planet is burning. Labour doesn’t need a “balanced ticket” - it needs to lead.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I will continue to die on the hill marked "it would be completely mad for a PM with 400 seats and 3 years left in a government term to call an early election which is all but certain to weaken his party." www.arguably.uk/p/dont-be-a-...

arguably.uk

Don’t be a bottler, Burnham

The next PM should learn from Gordon Brown’s mistake and call an early election

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