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James

@semaj96.bsky.social
50 followers 147 following 35 posts
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Reposted by James
Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The reason *everyone* should care about this - whatever their politics - is that nobody is safe from having an uncontrolled mob descending on the hotel they are staying at. And that's what is becoming permissible by the lack of a robust response.
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headfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 09/09/2026
similarly for zelda i look at link running around realistic grass and rock textures in 4k Hyrule Field and beyond the jokes my main thought is a new zelda game would *never* look like this. it is an aesthetic that would not be considered were it not a remake. you must see the Progress on the screen
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headfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 04/08/2026
every single nintendo direct is written like its advertising the first video game ever made. in this “game of strategy” you can choose to attack with swords [8 second clip of a guy attacking with a sword] or with spells [8 second clip of a guy attacking with a spell]
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
image of Naomi Campbell saying '[sniffling] you are all so ugly'
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Will Cooling @willcooling.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I do think we have to start looking a lot more cynically at people who talk a good game when they're paid to do so, but don't when they're being paid to do something else.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This, in turn, leads to the "Good luck saying that in a fish shop in Derby!" trope, where private-schooled pundits sneer at the idea that working class people could care about, say, Palestine, climate or trans rights, rather than the right wing monolith they see all day on we-love-fascism-dot-com.
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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
New in the Ulsterisation of UK national life. If the authorities don't confront far right paramilitaries in part of the state, expect this sort of group in other parts of the state to want a piece of the same action.
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sasha baker @sasha98.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The experience of being a leftist in 2026 is continually being forced into a position of becoming among the staunchest defenders of the status quo, which you do not believe in at all, while its supposed proponents try to smash it with hammers and yell at you for standing in the way
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
do they just think that if they try very hard to avoid taking a hard stand for the next few years, and if the right lose at the ballot box, all the evil just somehow dissipates?
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Lou Morgan @lmorgan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
BBC report on the radio makes a point of saying the mood was “intimidating but not hostile” in Dover this morning, right before describing the massed men wearing balaclavas and blocking key infrastructure as shouting “Whose streets? Our streets.” I dunno, lads: sounds intimidating AND hostile to me
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Neil Mackay @neilmackay.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Who would ever have thought that the BBC’s political editor would put out a single source claim that was both false and also great propaganda for Reform…
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onlycans @onlycans.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
just stop oil protesters got five years in jail for *planning* to do this to the M25.
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HK @hkesvani.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
A really good point! I'm unfortunately old enough to remember when misinformation was apparently the greatest threat to civilisation and that it was a civic duty to take out a newspaper subscription. Now, it's apparently good and fine to live every day having to navigate and decipher lies
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
what is Andy Burnham’s theory of why Keir Starmer failed? does he have one?
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 15/07/2026
[boldly] I just don't think the British government needs to have Shabana Mahmood in it, I think we managed fine without her and we can just keep going without her, it's fine, Andy Burnham doesn't need to find a space for her in cabinet, there are other MPs
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
congratulations to the green party
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Eric Ansley Díaz 🏳️‍🌈 @geekboyeric.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
RIP Bonnie Tyler. And RIP Tandi Iman Dupree. This remains the best stage entrance by a drag queen of all time, even some 25 years later, and the best use of Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” ever. youtu.be/IHQA5vqn6rw?...
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Decent Man Keir Starmer latest:
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HK @hkesvani.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Everyone is impressed with Zohran being able to deflect and diffuse obviously bad faith questions, and while hes a skilled speaker, it does strike me that the main answer really is to tell the interviewer that the world doesn't revolve around them
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Lorde please, it’s not my birthday
Email from Lorde with the title ‘Happy birthday Virgin’
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Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 24/06/2026
++BREAKING++ Leading climate scientists in the UK have written to senior editors in broadcast media - and OFCOM and IPSO: "To express our concern about recent media coverage of extreme weather, climate change and net-zero and to urge you…to inform public audiences of the scientific links"
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Not to be "it's all Cameron's fault" but even Brexit aside, he chose a tax position that necessitated large cuts, spending departments recognised those were largely unachievable, and so cut infrastructure and capital spending, and now, a decade and a half on, we've lost expertise and nothing works.
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Burnham not having a plan now after the disaster of Starmer not having a plan is a real ‘first as tragedy, second as farce’ although considering we all have to live here, it’s just tragedy tragedy tragedy forever
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
It seems that several commentators have set themselves a challenge: to write a thread or article expressing disbelief as to why Starmer was so loathed without mentioning his stances on AI, Black Lives Matter, Gaza, trans rights, and then dismiss that loathing as the hysteria of out-of-touch elites.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I’m not sure exactly when it happened but at some point political reporting ceased to be about covering politicians and their ideas and turned into a sort of daily horoscope on what ‘the markets’ think about absolutely every single political decision
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
it’s wild that this was only three weeks in, they pretty much imploded on the launchpad
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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
so a friend on a mailing list I've been on forever said he couldn't understand why so many people had wanted Starmer to stand down when he was obviously so much better than those who came before. I did my best to explain
Starmer is not only incapable of making difficult decisions, he seems not to understand it's his job. I've had it from multiple sources that he gets angry when officials decline to say which course of action is better, even though sometimes it's not clear which is better, it's a trade off, or all options have risks. This is why there is no coherence to our immigration or tax policies.

Starmer refuses to meet MPs unless it's absolutely unavoidable. He doesn't like ministers who promote their own ideas but doesn't seem to have any of his own. He has utterly failed to articulate how he wants to change the country or what he thinks his government is for. 

He has presided over policies that have taken rights from protestors, migrants, refugees and trans people. He has made speeches and pursued immigration reforms intended to impress the far right, who are never going to vote for him, while alienating his own voters.

He has seemed entirely disinterested in the fact the higher education system - which is a competitive advantage, a major export industry and a huge plank of regional economies, all at once - is collapsing. 
And on multiple occasions when coked up racist thugs have been committing acts of violence and mass civil disorder on our streets, he has been, at best, reluctant to get in front of a camera and say these people are racist thugs who will be punished by the full force of the law. Pensioners who support the Palestinians, by contrast, he is happy to throw away the key.

Oh, and there's the small matter of last month's election results which suggest that under his leadership Labour is genuinely on course for extinction as a party less than two years after winning a huge majority.

Obviously this government's politics is much closer to mine than any of the Tory administrations since 2010, but measured in terms of ability to actually do many of the jobs that being prime minister involves - making decisions, managing his MPs, articulating a vision and then moving Britain towards it, running the fucking government - I think it is entirely possible to argue that Starmer is worse than any of his immediate predecessors except Truss.   

Andy Burnham is, to put it mildly, a deeply flawed politician. It's possible this gets us nowhere. But I find it extremely hard to envision how rolling the dice could make things worse.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 22/06/2026
Starmer saying the next PM will inherit a country that is 'fairer' than the one he inherited 2 years ago. In the one Starmer inherited, trans people could use public toilets.
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for NGOs: “Regrettably, Sir Keir Starmer will be remembered alongside Boris Johnson as the second Prime Minister to slash the UK aid budget in this decade: the deepest ever cuts to UK aid." It has left the world's poorest more vulnerable, they say.
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Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Goodbye and good riddance to the most anti LGBTQ PM of my lifetime. Lives were ruined for absolutely no benefit, and now an entire marginalised group is going to suffer a generation desperately trying to claw back their hard won rights thanks so him.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 22/06/2026
If you think Keir Starmer is a 'decent' person, you need to speak to the many, many minorities his government has targeted mercilessly. You can't speak to all of them, however, because many of them are dead because of choices Keir Starmer's government made
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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
In his time in office Starmer has overseen the largest rollback of migrants, trans and disabled rights in arguably a generation. He has gone further than the previous Conservative government on hostile policies and the demonisation and discrimination of marginalised groups.
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Labour factionalism is a deep illness
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Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
i'm getting a bit annoyed with this "starmer didn't do anything" narrative ❌️ sweeping changes to the immigration system ❌️ biggest asylum reforms in 70 years functionally ending refugee status ❌️ moved from a reasonably tolerant regime to the most trans-hostile developed democracy
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
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Paolo Sandro @paolosandro.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
An outstanding critical analysis of the CoA's decision to uphold the ban on PA. It also rightly indicates that, far from restoring 'constitutional balance', the UKSC under Lord Reed's presidency has carried out a reactionary judicial project that turns the constitutional role of courts on its head
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
just astonishing that Starmer won’t do anything in response to this, even out of sheer self-interest
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Adam J. Morris @lonestarball.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
I just learned that the creator of Widow’s Bay is the person who was dressed as the Babadook at the adults drinking Halloween party
The Babadook costume at the grown-ups drinking wine Halloween party tweet
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Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
the ehrc says its just following the law, politicians say their following the ehrc, the courts say they're following the will of parliament a great circle of cowardice, of having someone else, do the violence, of maintaining your self-image as a good person
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
“the Labour Party I joined” mate you joined Labour under Keir Starmer in the 2020s, those mines, shipyards and factories were already long gone
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
The target Labour voter, as @duncanrobinson.bsky.social has pointed out, is someone who was born in the 1950s, worked in a manual occupation, married young, bought their council house in the 80s and died during the COVID pandemic
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
this can be applied to the u16 social media ban, the palestine action proscription and the ehrc guidance
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Marie Gardiner @mariegardiner.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
We have squeezed children out of spaces in actual life by cutting funding for everything they might want to do to socialise, and now we're taking away their last free social space, as well as a bunch of wholesome stuff like videos that help you learn an instrument, or write, or draw, or whatever.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
70% of Australian parents say their kids still have social media accounts. The kids clearly find the ban daft and evade it. The state looks like an ass. And this is what we’re aspiring to? www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06...
abc.net.au
Why young people say the social media ban is not working six months on
Research suggests many under-16s are still active on social media platforms. BTN High explores why and tests the accuracy of popular technology used to estimate age.
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Kieran Hurley @kieranhurley.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Remember when Starmer was like "government that weighs less heavily on people's lives" and now he's like "if you're under 18 you cannot have screentime before bed or we will send your parents to jail" or something
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
hopelessly unfit to meet the present moment
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
the 16 and 17 year olds understand technology better than the government, so this will achieve nothing
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James @semaj96.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
feels like he doesn’t understand why Starmer has failed or any of the details of the last two years at all, genuinely astonishing that someone of this calibre is somehow Labour’s Final Hope
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