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Richard Shilling

@wildeyedtrot.bsky.social
177 followers 642 following 123 posts

Brummie, Londoner and European. NFP accountant, leftie. All views personal

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Reposted by Richard Shilling
David Reid @licklepuma.bsky.social · 11h
Birmingham locals / #avfc fans - can anyone help here?
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Labour was polling a little over 30% when these articles were written. It is genuinely strange that the Conservative Party is not being subjected to the same obituaries by op-ed given its frequent sub-20% polling.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The ability to pour hundreds of millions of pounds into a loss-making TV channel, bent on wrenching British politics sharply to the right, is yet another of the ways in which extreme wealth is trying to remake UK democracy. It needs to be part of any serious conversation about political funding.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I've been a member of the lobby for well over a decade. Not a single one of my lobby colleagues has said a word about the Conservatives banning me from their conferences, without any explanation. Contrast with the US where even Fox News stood in solidarity when Trump banned news outlets he disliked
bylinetimes.com
Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives Block Byline Times From Conference After Condemning Reform for Journalist Ban
The ban comes just weeks after the Conservative leader called Reform's barring of critical journalists from their conference an "authoritarian" attack on the free press
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Rosamundi @rosamundi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I had no idea this was an option.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 26/02/2026
Have I told you the one about the Muscovite who went to buy a toilet in the early 90s?
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Eddie Crouch @eddiecrouch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thanks @LewisAtkinson.bsky.social MP for an important conversation about how we make access to NHS dentistry a higher political priority. With millions facing the choice of paying privately or going without, dental access crisis is not just a healthcare issue, but a cost of living one too.
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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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Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This artwork was created over the past year by a local Birmingham artist collective who wanted to bring unty from discord by repurposing the divisive Nationalist flags into a massive Brummie Reunion Jack. Suffice it to say, the inspiration for Goldship's magnificent work has not taken it well.
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Richard Shilling @wildeyedtrot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The short film is mesmerising and the comments worth a read too
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Rayner is correct: these proposals are economically damaging and politically counterproductive. Pretty clear that view is now almost universal in the Cabinet/Labour Party and the informed public. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
thetimes.com
Angela Rayner condemns Labour’s migrant visa crackdown
Speaking before the party conference, the housing secretary says Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans would affect care workers
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026
Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all
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Nick Garland @npjgarland.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Kind of grimly fascinating as always, coming from the former director of strategy to a Labour PM. There just isn't a future for a centre-left politics that is this hostile to pretty basic progressive values.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Of course, the people wanting to reassert traditional difference are those who 'won' from the old ordering of society: the wealthy, the private school folk, men...
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Christ, it will almost be reassuring if he is MI5 because otherwise we have utterly abdicated responsibility
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It is completely right to treat the far right mobs roaming our streets as a national security issue. Government has been far too complacent about this for over two years now. This is interlinked with failures to regulate social media platforms and the collapse of domestic policing and intelligence.
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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The total weaponisation of the poppy over the last ten years by the right is undoubtedly one of the more unpleasant and depressing elements in our national pantomime. It's become a de facto nationalist symbol.
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Stanandthat @stanandthat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
(chef's kiss)
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
literally thousands of jobs in higher education were cut *last year alone* and there's been almost no media coverage and no government action
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 22/09/2026
Hard to think of a campaigning organisation that did its members more harm than Farmers For Brexit.
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David Quantick @quantick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
@starsandsabers.bsky.social
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 20/09/2026
I don't think we disdain the center-right enough. First, they rode nativist populist tigers to power to get their tax cuts and deregulation; Then, they lost control of their own parties to those tigers; Now, they sit in lucrative jobs as columnists writing about how it's all the left's fault.
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Andy Burnham: 'Over the past decade, Labour has taken a very wrong turn over immigration. By doing so we've enabled the rise in racism and anti-immigrant feeling that has led to disasters like the attacks on the RNLI. That stops now. This is not the UK that I love.' Nah. Kidding. He says nothing.
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
my brilliant colleague @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on the threat from Elon Musk’s X platform www.ft.com/content/f270...
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Time to deport all these fighting age men terrorising our patriotic lifeboat volunteers www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Lifeboat station in Portsmouth forced to temporarily shut after far-right action
RNLI facility had been targeted by activists trying to stop asylum seekers landing in boats from the Channel
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The original reporting of what happened in Portsmouth was a joke. This is just a hate mob that has been whipped up who are now targeting the RNLI. Throw the book at them.
independent.co.uk
RNLI closes Portsmouth lifeboat station after huge anti-migrant protests
RNLI volunteers were branded ‘traitors’ after bringing migrants ashore
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So who is condemning this? Will journalists be pushing politicians to explain how these are 'legitimate concerns'?
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Adam Cohen (My Personal Views Only) @axidentaliberal.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The cost of diesel fuel has increased by nearly 100% since Trump attacked Iran “What we’ve done” is lost 18 troops, injured 813 more, spent about $35 billion and depleted our munitions-while conceding the Strait of Hormuz and crippling our economy And STILL we don’t have Iran’s nuclear material
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 16/09/2026
I'm sorry, but what on *Earth* is that quote from Lisa Nandy? Who does Labour think its voters are? Does anyone in the party have any kind of theory of how they win the next election that isn't just slammjng the "appease racists" button over and over again until it starts working?
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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Asking for tax handouts while turning record [unearned war] profits during a #climateemergency takes staggering audacity – even by the fossil fuel industry’s standards" 1/2 www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Scrap windfall tax on oil and gas firms early, North Sea industry urges
Labour should replace levy in 2027 rather than 2030 as energy bills are poised to surge over the winter, says lobby group
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sianushka.bsky.social @sianushka.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
!!!!!
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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Political Satirical @politicalsatirical.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
#awks for the wrong doers who screamed blue murder.
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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes
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Julien Hoez @julienhoez.eu · 13/09/2026
#Croydon people: share this around
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Patrick Ness @patricknessbooks.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I ran a marathon to raise money for MSF. Attacks on MSF and RNLI and Amnesty are what fascists literally do. They want to devalue all humane effort, all care for fellow man. These are dangerous, dangerous times.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I wrote this quickly at a bus stop and didn't realize it would go viral, or else I would have worded it better. But the point is that the media is too credulous about AI killing everyone in 10 years (how?) when climate change is killing people now and will only get worse (we know exactly how).
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Stella @stella-b.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
If all the sensible people sent an envelope to this address their obscene donations would be spent.
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It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband; son of a man who had to flee the Nazis: I'm Jewish BBC News: 😠 are you, though? You're doing it wrong Fascist Daniel Thomas, in between attacking teenage cricketers and rnli volunteers: I'm Christian BBC News: 😊
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Spooky Old Mark Monro | He/Him 🌈 @thatidiotmonro.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Need to harness the power of Bluesky, so reposts are appreciated. If anyone here, or anyone you know attends Bangor University (the Welsh one) and needs a room for the upcoming year, get in touch. One of my son's housemates has dropped out at the last minute, so their house is one short.
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Raffi Melkonian @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Honestly, as a sometimes tort defense lawyer, I would suggest less public comments about your prior knowledge of your own products' dangerousness.
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Labour party members have selected the council leader, Sagal Abdi-Wali, to be the party's candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, from a shortlist of three local councillors. She grew up in Camden, after coming to the UK as a young child refugee, over 35 years ago
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Politico: "The latest Private Eye pulls various data together to suggest the Rachel Reeves agricultural inheritance tax changes might be having the intended impact: pushing tax-avoiders out of farmland and making it more affordable for real farmers." (Cont.)
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)
You cannot conduct a fair match when one side is playing with a ball and the other with bombs and, if democracy is to survive, it must be conducted according to definite and recognised rule. One of them is that no political party should resort to any weapon other than reason and argument. The introduction of private armies, as I see it, strikes at the root of democracy. I know it is contended that the Blackshirts are not armed and, therefore, are not an army, but I do not think that argument can be upheld. … Uniformed men in military formation suggest, and are meant to suggest, the idea of force. It is no argument to reply that at this or that demonstration no force is intended. It is an inescapable fact that a uniform in politics symbolises force, to be used either now or in the future.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the police and Home Office seem to be incapable of an appropriate response to the threat of far-right activity and violence."
nicklowles.substack.com
Did Kent Police ignore a 999 call?
Contrary to their public statement, HOPE not hate can exclusively reveal that Kent Police were tipped off about the Patriot Platform mobilisation – and seemingly did not act on the information.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This very much includes the civil service which seems entirely passive in coordinating any response to public disorder.
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Jay Zedbee @jayzedbee.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
theres genuinely a way to be an authoritarian bastard home secretary that you can use to rebuff far-right agitation, and i genuinely think mahmood is incapable of making use of it because shes just not very good
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South-East London for Europe (Selfe) @selfe.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
If no other picture survives Reform UK conference this year, let it be this one. It is a teachable moment. #ReformAssault #Fascism
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