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Richard Baker

@rchrdbkr.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.8K following 1.3K posts

Composer based in Ceredigion, Wales, UK. Research Fellow @guildhallschool.bsky.social. Weithiau yn Gymraeg. Profile photo: Claire Shovelton Artist website: rchrdbkr.com

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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 10h
Interesting letter in today’s Guardian
theguardian.com
A proportional representation voting system could spell disaster for Labour | Letters
Letter: Gian Lorenzo Spisso says his knowledge of Italian voting systems and British politics leads him to the view that first past the post is the lesser of two evils
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Postcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 21h
We have been to Harrods for a long visit. Saw Esther Rantzen outside filming an interview. Have booked seats to see EVITA on Wed evening. Going to Basildon.
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Kazimir Malevich @kmalevich.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Black Square www.wikiart.org/en/kazimir-malevich…
Black Square
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A fuckup so dumb even NYT homepage/headline writers have no choice but to describe it accurately
As Jack Smith Testifies, a Senator’s Accusation of Perjury Falters

A Republican eager to prove the former special counsel was dishonest appeared to instead demonstrate his own confusion over basic facts.
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Robin C-F @robin.cantrill-fenwick.uk · 28/09/2026
Is "the biggest uplift to the arts in any single parliament in the history of British democracy" in the room with you now, Secretary of State? www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/nandy-i...
artsprofessional.co.uk
Nandy: 'It does my head in that people think I'm a philistine because I'm from Wigan' - Arts Professional
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has spoken out against critics of her support for the arts during her tenure, saying they're "doing a disservice to the whole
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Today, in Russian propaganda:
Schaeffer Marlyse. @Schaef... • 6h
S
• Translated from French Show original
I am a French mother with beautiful children.
I did not give birth to them for them to be sent to the trenches.
French and Russian mothers do not want their children to fight against each other.
We are not enemies.
#RuslandIsNotMyEnemyEls van Veen O
Follow
@veen_els
I'm a Dutch mother with beautiful sons. I did not give birth to my children to be sent into the trenches. Dutch and Russian mums don't want their boys fighting each other. We are not enemies. #RuslandIsNotMyEnemyNadja @EuropaNormal • 9h
• Translated from German Show original
I am a German mother with a beautiful son. I didn't give birth to my child to send him into the trenches. German and Russian mothers do not want their boys to fight against each other. We are not enemies.
#RuslandIsNotMyEnemyDday @DdayohneZiffern • 12h
I'm a German mother with beautiful sons. I did not give birth to my children to be sent into the trenches. German and Russian mums don't want their boys fighting each other. We are not enemies.
#RuslandIsNotMyEnemy
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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Hmm. Last time I checked, I wasn’t the culture secretary.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 27/09/2026
Just for once I'd like one of these "why I quit Britain" pieces to say "I hate poor people and I want to keep all my money, it's all miiiiiine, screw you guys"
static.klipy.com
Mr Rogers' Unexpected Response
ALT: Mr Rogers' Unexpected Response
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András Forgács W @andraswf.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Uh-oh
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Via Wolf Financial:
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Ash @queerash.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I still absolutely don't believe it but Danny Tommo having an almost perfect background for an intelligence asset is so funny
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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I’m sure our intellectual forebears would have been fascinated by the current real-time experiment we appear to be running to answer the question, ‘what happens when you give unlimited power to people without an education in the humanities?
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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Perfection
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 24/09/2026
#OtD 24 Sep 1968 14 men (including five priests and a minister) raided a federal office in Milwaukee, took 10,000 draft cards, and set them on fire with homemade napalm in protest of the Vietnam war. Learn more about opposition to the war in our pod: workingclasshistory.com/2020/09/23/e...
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Tom Clark @tom-clark.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Hard to think of a starker London Vs England story than Council Tax Learnt a lot from helping out on this brand new report — have a look below
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Elise Thomas @elisethomas.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If an individual did this, we'd treat it as a crime. We should treat this as a crime too, and hold OpenAI liable for what its models, under its supervision, did. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
abc.net.au
OpenAI agent hacked Medicare portal, PM says
Anthony Albanese says he has spoken to the Open AI chief executive to express his concern about the incident and the length of time it took the tech company to inform the government of the breach.
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👻 🎃 🦇 Bela Lughosti's Dad 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸 @belalugosisdad.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Danny Tommo has been nicked for criminal damage and reckless endangerment, and for some reason the only outlet reporting it so far is the Sun.
thesun.co.uk
Far-right activist Danny Tommo arrested a day after 'slashing migrant boat'
FAR-right activist Danny Tommo has been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life, according to a video he posted this evening. Tommo is Tommy Robinson’s right-hand man …
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Nick Davies @njdavies.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Great to hear the PM say “We are going to be much prouder in standing up for our values and the rule of law” re foreign information warfare. I wonder if he or the Home Secretary might consider doing the same when it comes to masked vigilantes shutting down infrastructure and harassing the RNLI
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Cllr Dr Alex Powell @apowelllaw.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
So, just to be clear, Daniel Thomas was: 1- Carrying a knife contrary to section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 2- Used that knife to commit criminal damage (Criminal Damage act 1971) 3- likely engaged in the criminal offense of endangering Life at Sea (Merchant Shipping Act 1995)
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Kevin Thurston @del-boy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This needs stopped. Hard.
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Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Started watching Sky’s War Game last night where Michael Gove is the PM during the Russian attack and I’m afraid it is just very difficult to watch it without thinking of this, one of the great cartoons ever published
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 22/09/2026
just waiting for some AI headbanger to suggest creating little child robots to fill the schools www.ft.com/content/5b01...
ft.com
London’s schools are running out of children
Councils want more powers to repurpose buildings and fend off academies
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Back in the late 1780s the more conspiracy minded anti-federalists fixated on the idea of a new national capitol because they feared it would become an armed compound from which unaccountable and tyrannical leaders would rule the nation with an iron fist.
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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Simon Jenkins is right to note that the three other nations of the UK have different relations with England. But the problem is the same: they have a sense of their place in the modern world in a way that England doesn't.
theguardian.com
Slowly then all at once: this emboldened Celtic alliance could spell the end of the UK | Simon Jenkins
It’s something akin to a quiet earthquake: home nations jointly declaring their wish to be freed from English domination. A big move needs a big response, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
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Mike Parker @mikeparker.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
On last night's BBC1 evening news, the report on the Piddington 'referendum' did not include a single voice in opposition to it. For an organisation that has defended its platforming of extremists for years as 'balance', it showed at best a glaring inconsistency, at worst something much darker.
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Heather Burns @heatherburnstech.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Regular reminder that JG Ballard’s final novel, “Kingdom Come” (2006), is about a far-right English town which creates their own militarised breakaway state in a shopping mall, where they worship the gods of St George and consumerism. Old JG wrote it as tongue-in-cheek satire. At the time.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Ed Sheeran vs Ed Miliband, the new realignment.
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Alan Sepinwall @sepinwall.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Around the 10th anniversary of Fleabag, I looked at the way the show turned the audience into one of its most important characters:
whatsalanwatching.com
Fleabag needed us even more than we needed her
10 years ago, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's masterpiece changed the way we looked at fictional characters looking at us
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Jeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This has got ‘limited series’ written all over it. In fake Cyrillic text.
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Aaron Aardvark @laughinglemon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
An excellent article from @anticapitalistmusings.com By coincidence, I've just received a copy of Anton Jäger's "Hyperpolitics", along with "Power and the People: A History of British Energy" by Arthur Downing
simonpearson1.substack.com
After Capitalist Realism
Capitalism no longer needs to persuade us that it represents reality. Increasingly, it survives by making reality difficult to hold still.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 14/09/2026
Westminster’s time is coming to an end, say first ministers of UK’s Celtic nations
theguardian.com
Westminster’s time is coming to an end, say first ministers of UK’s Celtic nations
Leaders in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland discuss independence and call for constitutional change at summit Westminster’s time is coming to an end, the first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have said at a landmark summit aimed at putting the UK’s Celtic nations on the path to independence referendums. The Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth; the Scottish National party leader, John Swinney; Sinn Féin’s vice-president, Michelle O’Neill, and the president and leader of the opposition in Ireland, Mary Lou McDonald, met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a memorandum of understanding recognising that “the political landscape across these islands is changing”. Continue reading...
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Dr Jo Edge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @hagenilda.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Hi, #UCU. UCU's Anti-casualisation committee are running an Equality & Anticas webinar on 23rd September, at 12.30pm and 5pm. Come and hear from chair Ben Pope, and speakers Suzi Toole, Andy Ward and Kevin Daws. Links to register and more info in linked post. Please share and pass to contacts!
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Party that wants to retrospectively change rules so as to remove migrants also says retrospective rules on party funding are "dictatorship tactics".
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Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?" www.wired.com/story/one-of...
wired.com
One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’
Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.
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Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Was instructive hearing an ex-judge explain on the BBC Gwleidydda pod recently how much more harshly they (and any "co-conspirators") would be treated now under anti-terror laws. Burning down an RAF facility treated more leniently *between the two world wars*
bbc.co.uk
Opera explores RAF base arson and Welsh nationalism
A new opera looks at a key moment in the Welsh nationalist movement, and how it garnered support.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 13/09/2026
This is a major escalation - Russian drone attacks on trains right at the Polish border
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Richard Baker @rchrdbkr.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Don’t think it’s eligible for an Pulitzer, alas, but I hope this photo wins lots of awards: (Photo Credit Tony Maxwell/PA)
President Connolly of Ireland giving majestic side-eye to POTUS DJT during what looks like a very uncomfortable visit to Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin yesterday
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The plot thickens…
lemonde.fr
Sam Altman annonce qu’OpenAI n’entrera pas en Bourse en 2026, en raison des inquiétudes liés à la sécurité de l’intelligence artificielle
« Au vu de tout ce qui se passe en matière de sécurité, le moment serait mal choisi pour entrer en Bourse, et nous ne ressentons pas de pression en ce sens », a déclaré le patron de la société créatri...
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I’m just a person on my fucking knees begging the government to use its absolutely massive majority to do something extremely fucking popular: save our democracy.
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Myriah Williams @myriahwilliams.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Casaf rholbren wyd gennyf "To me you are the most vile rolling pin" Need a laugh? Here's Dafydd ap Gwilym's "Cywydd y Gal", in which the poet castigates his penis for its bad behavior. (choose Poem 85 for full text and translation) dafyddapgwilym.net/eng/3win.htm #medievalsky
A copy of Dafydd ap Gwilym's poem to his penis, in National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 49, fol. 101v. The latter part of the poem has been struck out with a single angled line.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is absolute madness Labour - and I’d say what’s left of the centre right - is an existential battle against oligarchy But it hasn’t a clue that it is
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I think a lot of things go wrong when we mistake programming metaphors for how the computer works. You might have object-oriented programming but it is only one computer; it's just a way of keeping track of how the program works. Similarly, we'd think about AI differently if rather than "agents"...
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Burns.
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Jane Coaston @janecoaston.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This piece was fascinating, getting at a point I'd never considered: bin-Laden's entire concept about what 9/11 would do to America was just... wrong. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
Bin Laden was equally clear about how he thought terrorism would yield his desired result. In a March 1997 CNN interview with Peter Bergen, he spoke of transferring “the battle into the United States.” In a May 2000 speech, he told supporters that the war would henceforth be waged “against the United States, in the United States.” Americans, he observed to ABC’s John Miller in 1998, cannot tolerate pain, and will react to attacks not by fighting back and blaming al‑Qaeda, but instead by asking “what their government has done that forced us to defend ourselves.” In a November 2001 interview, he hinted at a theory of political change in America: Its citizens should “take the same stand that they did previously,” when they protested the Vietnam War and the presidents who waged it.
Nelly Lahoud, a professor at the Army War College and the author of the definitive book on the Abbottabad documents, told me this political pipe dream was bin Laden’s whole plan: “to replicate the anti–Vietnam War movement of the United States, to get the American public to put pressure on the U.S. government to withdraw its forces from the Middle East.” The documents reveal a man and an organization blindsided by the American reaction to the September 11 attacks. Bin Laden and his associates “didn’t think that the United States would respond by waging war,” Lahoud said. He did not contemplate or plan for the long-term occupation of Afghanistan, nor did he expect the methodical killing of his operatives in a campaign that lasted years.
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Jeremy Benson @jembenson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
'What impact do you think the Big Bang had on British history?'
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 09/09/2026
#OtD 9 Sep 1934 over 100k Londoners flooded Hyde Park to protest a rally by fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Mostly was drowned out by the anti-fascist locals, who then chased the police-protected Nazis out of the park. More about the fight in the 40s: workingclasshistory.com/2020/02/17/e...
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Leftback @leftback.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Really struggling with Pakistan's U19 cricket team coaches having to confirm their particulars with a Reform councillor to get him to disperse the mob gathered outside their hotel. We're in a very bad place and we're doing nothing about it.
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Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 10/09/2026
The evidence is clear: countries with lower NEET rates than the UK get there almost entirely through higher rates of post-18 education. In these countries, more young people stay in education for longer and often combine it with work.
Comparison of OECD countries’ differences from the UK in 2024 for 18–24‑year‑old participation in education or work
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 10/09/2026
Absolutely fascinating watching the confusion in England as to why masked men are allowed to march wherever they want and intimidate whoever they feel like while the police and politicians do nothing. *waves from Northern Ireland*
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