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Jonathan Potts

@uccellolirico.bsky.social
1.3K followers 597 following 2.8K posts

I post mainly about politics, especially immigration and asylum, and the arts, especially music and sometimes poetry. Ex-civil service and volsec. HO Asylum Director 1996-2000, plus ça change.

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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Ashley Wengaf @ashleywengaf.bsky.social · 2h
It's only terrorism if it's committed by non white people. Otherwise it's just sparkling legitimate concerns.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 2h
Reading this article made me cross. It implies BT had tried repeatedly to contact cusomers before threatening to "pause" their Broadband - not true in our case where came out of the blue ("oh sorry, it's a standard letter, doesn't mean we actually did try" they said!). Then three phone calls >>
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Radio 3 vs Classic FM.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 3h
Irregular verb conjugated by Richard Tice: I speak with passion You threaten our safety They are to blame Nothing to do with us, guv #Today
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
And once again I am compelled to ask, how is it that we are able to fly to the Moon, and yet not have invented a self-filling duvet?
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Oh it's #NationalPoetryDay again. With the theme of wonder. I guess poetry involves quite a bit of wondering. Sometimes at wonderful things. Sometimes just .. wondering, when, if, whether, for what. The first poem I got to know, I think, was Blake's Tiger. That is a poem of wonder, and of wondering.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A few years ago, re-engaging with music criticism after a period away, I was astonished to find Michael Tippett demoted to a middle or minor position in British music. There are many of his works that thrill me, none more so than his Quartets. The 3d for me is the pinnacle, its 2nd movement sublime.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The US Right's obsession with beards is very odd. (I recall Ross Perot, 1990s businessman who wouldn't allow his employees to wear beards.) Surely "warriors" are traditionally bearded? Adds to their manliness and menace.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ah, there's the rub
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
They "didn't intend there to be mass arrests". Is this the Govt saying the police have been over-policing? I very much doubt it. They are trying to say "we didn't expect there to be". But that must be untrue. The prospect of large demonstrations and large numbers of arrests was visible from space.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Entertaining thread and comments. Why not have a smile about it all? #BonkersBritain
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The opening movement of Shostakovich's first Violin Concerto is one of the most beautiful things he wrote. I'm listening afresh after a long time away from it.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thinking about the worries some are expressing re over-diagnosis/medicalisation. At sixteen I recognised that I was depressed. A year or two later I had pulled out of it, but it could only have been helpful to have some help with it at the time. For one thing I might have seen patterns that were >>
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Can't remember who the two Matts are, but what Niall says is right of course. The whole foundational concept of the Union is freedom of movement. The EU is not going to "move on" from it - and to what?
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Labour is not opening new safe routes. This latest measure is reopening a route they closed and making it more restrictive. This follows claiming they were opening new community sponsorship and work/study routes which already existed but they made harder to access. It's smoke and mirrors. #r4today
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This week's top annoying misspellings: reign in for rein in back peddling for back pedalling (don't know if these are autocorrect/predictive errors, or just people not thinking about the source of the expression. Neither reigning in nor peddling backwards makes any sense)
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I agree with this post, but really just came to say that the loose and excessive use of "epidemic" is becoming increasingly annoying.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Simon Cox @simonfrcox.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Protests at the housing crisis in Spain after the dramatic eviction of MariCarmen, an 87-year-old woman, from the home in Madrid where she lived for seven decades.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Wyatt Dixon interviewing Claire Elisabeth of Goldship about the brilliant Reunion Jack artwork in Birmingham made from removed and then repurposed nationalist lamppost flags vm.tiktok.com/ZN8r6jCAG/
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Come on down to the Council House for International Day of Birmingham, see the Re-Union Jack ♥️ #OneBrum Goldship have repurposed dozens of dirty & torn polyester flags removed from Birmingham's lamp posts to create a huge Union Jack, adorned with the names of people who have called Birmingham home
Photo of artwork description 
GOLDSHIP Re-Union Jack 2026

Repurposed polyester flags/Mixed media.

Re-Union Jack is an ongoing community art project conceived by GoldShip, the creative duo of textile sculptor Clare Elisabeth and event producer Sam Shipman.

Repurposing dozens of dirty and torn polyester flags removed from Birmingham's lamp posts, Clare and Sam, alongside countless contributors from the wider community, pieced them together to create a huge Union Jack.

The flag was then transformed over several months by countless more contributors into a visual celebration of the people and stories that have helped shape the West Midlands. Across its surface are the names of influential Midlanders, spanning from the Anglo-Saxon Beorma, after whom Birmingham takes its name, through to the present day. Each has a connection to migration, immigration or the positive influence of people who have made the West Midlands their home.

Together, these names reflect the region's extraordinary history as a vibrant melting pot of cultures, ideas, talent and communities - and the positive contribution that migration has made to its identity.

The flag has since been signed in black by many of the people whose names feature upon it as a collective endorsement of its message of unity, inclusion and community.Photo of huge Union (Jack) Flag on lighting truss in the hall of the Council House. 
It's glorious and bears many names upon it of the people of Birmingham 
Each has a connection to migration, immigration or the positive influence of people who have made the West Midlands their home.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25/09/2026
Failures at Manston asylum centre linked to decisions at Number 10, inquiry hears
theguardian.com
Failures at Manston asylum centre linked to decisions at Number 10, inquiry hears
KC says Number 10 ‘clearly did play a decisionmaking role’ in pausing sending small boat arrivals on to hotels which led to terrible overcrowding A catalogue of failures including racism, use of force and chronic overcrowding at a Home Office processing site for small boat arrivals were linked to decisions made at the highest level of government, an independent inquiry heard on Friday. The Manston independent inquiry was commissioned by the current government to look at multiple problems under the previous government between 1 June and 22 November 2022 at the facility in Kent, where small boat arrivals are processed. Continue reading...
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
James Butler @piercepenniless.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
When was the last time our Secretary of State for Culture displayed anything approaching this degree of public enthusiasm for our world-class arts industry? Has she been seen anywhere? Given impending charter renewal... did she even bother to visit a single prom?
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Some of the replies are great fun
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The four-by-seven metre flag artwork was sewn and glued by a small team led by Claire, who usually works with vintage fabrics Signatures on the art piece include a descendant of Industrial Revolution pioneer James Watt, as well as members of Birmingham reggae bands Steel Pulse & UB40 #ReunionJack🇬🇧
birminghammail.co.uk
City artist against 'division' makes huge Union flag from tatty lamppost flags
An artist has made a massive Union flag in response to flag-raising groups such as Raise the Colours
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So glad to see Walter remembered in this post. I knew him slightly when I was a young adult learning the recorder. He was an important scholar-practitioner of the harpsichord and recorder, editor of early music manuscripts, champion of adult music education, composer, a wise, kind and gentle man.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The maximum sentence for criminal damage with intent to endanger life, is imprisonment for life.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
UK politicians have spent much of the last 70 years fighting the European integration of their worst fears while the EU developed into the organisation that they claimed to want. Not helped by some appallingly bad commentary from the misinformed.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Alasdair Mackenzie @alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Danny Tommo“ arrested for criminal damage and reckless endangerment
searchlightmagazine.com
Danny Tommo arrested for criminal damage and reckless endangerment | Searchlight
Patriot Platform boss Danny Tommo has tonight been arrested on suspicion of serious criminal offences committed on Tuesday in the Channel
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I think national or geographical identity is something anyone can decide for themselves in good faith. Many of us nowadays feel multiple identities. I've not migrated from the South of England, but I identify as British, a Londoner and a European in more or less that order. I don't feel English >>
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A reflection: in the case of any other incident of national concern, Ministers would be scrabbling to devise new criminal offences, "urgently tighten the law" and would already have announced this. Telling that they have not, indeed have simply delegated the response to the local bobbies.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Chris Mason pronouncing "attribute", the verb, as if it were "attribute", the noun. #BBCNews
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Samuel Pepys @samuelpepys.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
By and by comes my wife by coach well home, and having got a good fowl ready for supper against her coming, we eat heartily, and so with great content and ease to our own bed, there nothing appearing so to our content as to be at our own home, after being abroad awhile.
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
If so some eason you do choose to work for free (for example, for a charity, or to support a small local enterprise), consider sending them an invoice for your usual fee, and mark it void. That way, they'll know the value of what you're giving them.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Does anyone say "I'll see myself out" in real life? #Archers
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Good to hear Malcolm Arnold's The Padstow Lifeboat on #BBCRadio3 just now ...
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It does feel like the BlueSky catchment is broadening. Maybe my bubble was especially closeted at first, but this is about the third time recently I've come across a - what shall I say? - very right wing user in the wild
Skeet by a BlueSky user suggesting the British electorate did not vote for "demographic change"
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
James @studiousbadger.eurosky.social · 18/09/2026
A century earlier, on 18th Jan 1881 the 'Visiter' ran ashore off Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire. No local boat could be launched due to the violence of the storm, so the Whitby lifeboat was brought OVERLAND 6 miles to the bay itself. Through 7ft snowdrifts 200 men cleared the way by hand.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
How stupid do you have to be to be a Minister in this Labour Government? Why yes, locking up the parents of delinquent children is sure to stop those kids from comitting more crimes. Cutting family benefits and fining parents, oh yes that's also bound to curb criminal tendencies. Brilliant stuff.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Every time I go shopping, I lose money - they never buy anything from me in return. I'd be better off not shopping, even if there are things I need there, like food, toothpaste, garden tools ...
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Under Reform UK, kindless will be outlawed, empathy and compassion will be crimes
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Reposted by Jonathan Potts
M a r c u s 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Let him miss lectures, do drugs and shag in peace ffs
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is very funny. Although at the time despicable and destructive. Anyway Tom's found his natural home now, a big global corporation ...
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A hopeless mess. Home Sec a la Starmer starts sounding tough on fascists a week too late. Then says she understands the anxiety caused by her stupid decision to warehouse asylum applicants near a village with more than the standard quotient of idiots, and ... ? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
‘Outright racist’ Daniel Thomas will face full force of law over any crimes, says home secretary
Shabana Mahmood says she wants to distinguish between far-right extremism and legitimate local concerns over asylum sites
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Not much news on #Today it seems. All I've heard about either side of the sport is an obscure beef in the Church of England, a debate about political t-shirts, and a new dramatisation of Middlemarch. Back on Radio 3 now.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I don't have a view on the Church of England's choices for inter-faith awards, but I'm unimpressed by the guy from Nottingham going on about misogyny when his Church continues to shilly shally about the worth of its LGBTQ+ members.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Protesting" "against" a group of people, as distinct from (say) the concept of immigration or policies about immigration is one step short of terrorism, and this appalling story makes the link very clearly. There should be no right to protest against a community of people.
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Saw this and thought it was about the #Archers (it's actually about Canada vs US)
Quote tweet about (in this case) a nation seeking a new trading partner after falling out with another
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Given the weakness of many UK regulators, I wouldn't put too much hope in State regulation of AI #R4Today
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Language observatory: "guardrails" - ubiquitous and ?fairly recent jargon for safeguards, limits
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Jonathan Potts @uccellolirico.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This evening's listening: Hartmann's Violin Concerto, imbued with passion and protest. The protest is against Nazism. open.spotify.com/track/2pSarC...
open.spotify.com
Concerto funebre: II. Adagio
Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Alina Ibragimova, Britten Sinfonia · Hartmann: Concerto funebre; Violin Sonatas & Suites · Song · 2007
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