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Will 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈

@willdv2002.bsky.social
140 followers 292 following 31 posts

ESRC Funded PhD student in Politics at Cardiff University, studying electoral reform in Wales (personal account) Research profile: profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/research-sta…

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Reposted by Will 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈
The Onion @theonion.com · 3h
Man Confident He Would’ve Been Brave Enough To Send Thumbs Down Emoji In Cornell Group Chat
Man Confident He Would’ve Been Brave Enough To Send Thumbs Down Emoji In Cornell Group Chat
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Jane Green @profjanegreen.bsky.social · 4h
We (BES colleagues) have just finished a book showing how Brexit crystallised the realignment of the electorate, and how its persistence beyond 2024 depends on whether the parties appeal to the same groups … Seems that’s a ‘yes’ then!
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Alan Renwick @alanrenwick.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Immediate thoughts on Andy Burnham's announcement today of a national commission on electoral reform. Doing this process well will be really important. theconversation.com/if-he-wants-...
theconversation.com
If he wants to secure legitimacy for electoral reform, Andy Burnham must stick to these rules
Involving both the public and all parties in shaping reforms on how they vote will be crucial.
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Electoral reform: “I hear you, I agree with you, and today I am announcing a new national commission on electoral reform.” Biggest opportunity to reform FPP in perhaps a century has now arrived. But long way to go…
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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I mean, any time now would be good. If it's not too much trouble
Headline: "‘Outright racist’ Daniel Thomas will face full force of law over any crimes, says home secretary"
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Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Voters find chatbots both convenient and less stressful than other sources of information" even as they express concern with increased use of AI in daily life. The ease of use and apparent personalization of chatbot responses seems important as an info tool. caucusai.substack.com/p/using-ai-w...
caucusai.substack.com
Using AI, with reservations
New survey data on voters’ trust, perceptions of political bias, and desire to use AI less.
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Chris Rivers @chrisrivers50.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Politics saw the largest year-on-year increase of all A-level subjects in the UK, with entries up 12% this year compared with 2025.It’s still only 3% of all A-levels studied across the UK in 2026 but is one of the fastest-growing A-levels – up 81% in the UK since 2010.
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Reto Mitteregger @indubioproreto.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Not suprising that the Linke got the most votes among younger voters in Berlin. Yet, the size of their vote share among under-35 year-olds is stunning.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
“Where do you get your ideas from, Ms Le Guin?” From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?
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Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · 18/09/2026
FBI Warns ICE Agents Not to Trust Any Woman Willing to Date Them
gizmodo.com
FBI Warns ICE Agents Not to Trust Any Woman Willing to Date Them
ICE officers on dating apps should be wary of tradwives, an FBI memo suggested, as well as any woman whose profile would "appeal" to them.
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Christian Christensen @chrchristensen.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Breaking News: Citizens who are members of Group X won't vote for political parties who make it clear they don't like members of Group X.
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Will 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈 @willdv2002.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Ohh Ohh What A Day
ALT: Ohh Ohh What A Day
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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Reform in Wales having quite a bad day. Announced in the last 5 mins: • Leader Dan Thomas steps down due to "personal reasons" (he was arrested). • Reform MS Sarah Cooper-Lesadd defects to Plaid, saying Reform are "far more interested in division, opposition and headlines than finding solutions"
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NationCymru @nation.cymru · 15/09/2026
Voters in Wales turned out in record numbers for the 2026 Senedd election, but more needs to be done to tackle candidate abuse and misinformation, according to new research from the Electoral Commission ✍️Emily Price
nation.cymru
Record turnout at Senedd election but concerns grow over abuse and misinformation
Emily Price  Voters in Wales turned out in record numbers for the 2026 Senedd election, but more needs to be done to tackle candidate abuse and misinformation, according to new research from the Elect...
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Museum of Twitter @museum-of-twitter.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Mr. Bedtime @InternetHippo

I stepped away from my computer for a moment. When I returned, it was building something. I did not ask it to do this. We're not ready for what's coming

(picture of windows 3d pipes screen saver)
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/09/2026
A trans man in the UK has been banned in the workplace restrooms after he was forced to use the women's restrooms to comply with the new EHRC guidance. The women complained because he is visibly male and so they told him he can't use any bathroom.
A screenshot of a Reddit post from the r/LegalAdviceUK subreddit by user Dijstraanon, titled "FtM transgender facing two different issues at work? England."
The post text reads:
"Brother in law is trans FtM and presents fully as a man. He's now facing an impossible situation at work with his employer telling him that due to recent legislation he must use the toilet of his birth gender. BUT several female colleagues have raised a grievance about him using their gendered toilet.
His employer has told him that he cannot use the toilet while he is at work until they sort it out and cannot give him a timeframe to do so. They do [cut off] have disabled separate toilets.
In the mean time one of his female colleagues has accused him of sexual harassment because he was used their gendered toilet. His menstrual cycle meant he needed to use the toilet.
He's been with the employer for just over 5 years but only in this location for 18 months. The location is mainly male with just a handful of females, and his workshop only has male toilets.
I do not know how to support him and as he's not in a union there is no one to turn too right now."
The post has an orange "Comments Moderated" tag, 169 upvotes, and 134 comments.
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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I've talked to the Reform councillor in Portsmouth who had to explain to a masked vigilante mob outside the city's Marriott hotel that a group of young men who had arrived on a coach were not asylum seekers but an U21 cricket team from Pakistan. He called it a “massively unfortunate incident”.
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bort @crushbort.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
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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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Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'
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Europe Elects @europeelects.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Germany: Saxony-Anhalt regional parliament election 🇩🇪 🇪🇺 In 1998, 25% of voters under 26 backed the far-right DVU (Infratest dimap exit poll). The AfD (ESN) won this same age group in 2016 — also with 25%. Explore the data: europeelects.eu/2026/08/30/ge
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
One of the interesting aspects of all this footage is it reveals that parties/strategists firmly believe that opinion polls can be used for significant political advantage.
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Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The S4C public-service Welsh-language news managed to get through a whole interview feature and article on the same trans person denied healthcare without mentioning "biological sex" or a 29-year-old's lost breastfeeding opportunities, btw The BBC specifically is making a choice here
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Europe Elects @europeelects.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Iceland: EU membership negotiations referendum 🇮🇸 Polls suggest that the race between 'Yes' and 'No' is too close to call. Explore: europeelects.eu/2026/08/28/election…
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András Tóth-Czifra @minczifra.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
'cause you've seen blue skies through the tears of your eyes and you realise you're going home Smooth sailing, Tim! What an awful week.
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Boner Vivant @dougtilley.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Rest in peace to one of the best to ever do it.
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Newyddion S4C @newyddion.s4c.cymru · 26/08/2026
💔 Mae’r actor Tim Curry, oedd yn adnabyddus am ymddangos mewn ffilmiau fel The Rocky Horror Picture Show a Home Alone 2, wedi marw yn 80 oed
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Electoral Reform Society @electoralreform.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
In New Zealand, a political storm over the voting system threatened the Prime Minister’s leadership. electoral-reform.org.uk/questioning-...
electoral-reform.org.uk
Questioning New Zealand’s proportional system led to questions about the prime minister’s position
New Zealand heads to the polls on November 7 and as a country with similar political traditions to the UK, it is always worth looking at what is happening. The parties that loosely mak
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Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
If you think this is not a problem, bc mail voting may not favor Democrats, or bc it's too late to affect voting, or any other argument related to the actual voting, you're missing the point. The point isn't to affect the results of the election, it's to create the conditions for contesting them.
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
“if we don’t stand up for the free speech of racists, it puts everyone’s free speech in danger.” - guy who only ever talks about free speech when it’s racism
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Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Seeing the Venn diagram of transphobes and defenders of race science is the least surprising thing this weekend. Maybe this helps illuminate the stupidity and danger of “it’s just biology” arguments around gender and sex.
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Joe Phillips @polpsychjoe.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This feels like a particularly insidious indicator of an unwinding social fabric. The hollowing out of American democracy and ascendancy of far right grifters is leading important social actors to think they don’t even have to pretend to follow basic norms anymore.
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Charlotte Garden @charlottegarden.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Here's the paper - the abstract suggests that students who outsource their homework to AI later do worse on exams (which makes sense!) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Generative AI Learning Penalty: Evidence from Chinese Secondary Education
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative AI affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine
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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 19/08/2026
Woah.
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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Britain's violently racist legacy media, abetted by social media, have successfully brainwashed the public into racist beliefs.
theguardian.com
Public in England and Wales wrongly think most killers are minority ethnic
Research from King’s College London finds that Reform voters’ perceptions were furthest from the truth
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Look, put simply, people should not be comfortable saying that in public and the way to fix society runs directly through making them afraid to say it again.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I wish media outlets would describe Nathan Cofnas as a racist rather than a "self-defined race realist" which doesn't mean anything to most people. His writing meets any definition of racism however narrowly and cautiously drawn.
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Harry Taylor @harrytaylor.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Astonishing. The Press Association understands Essex Police did not tell Nigel Farage, or any other Clacton candidate, not to attend the count. This is after after his and Reform UK's claim Essex Police advised him against it due to a "credible threat".
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Will 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍🌈 @willdv2002.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Photo from friend with a better camera than I but it's happening!!
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Little piece from me for @arguablymag.bsky.social on why we Westminster electoral reform is more plausible now than it has been for generations www.arguably.uk/p/electoral-...
arguably.uk
Electoral reform has never been closer
The three key ingredients are now in place
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European Journal of Political Research @ejprjournal.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
65:3 🐟️ Sore losers? 😓 @katharinalawall.bsky.social, @katerinamichalaki.bsky.social & @mtsakiris.bsky.social use survey experiments after major U.S. elections to test whether reminding people of a party's loss, and their reactions to it 🤬, impacts their supportability 📣
buff.ly
Angry losers? The (null) effects of feeling electoral loss on anti-democratic attitudes | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core
Angry losers? The (null) effects of feeling electoral loss on anti-democratic attitudes - Volume 65 Issue 3
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
if you're reading all these articles as they come out and assuming the story is "these models are escaping containment and causing danger" and not "this is a PR campaign by companies desperate to build hype" I think you are very silly.
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Euan @euan.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
as we saw with Charlie Kirk it’s extremely notable that no fans of Rod Liddle include any of their favourite quotes from him in their tributes
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Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Our polling of Greater Manchester ahead of Thursday’s by-election shows Bev Craig holding a clear lead. First preference results: 🌹 LAB 39%
⏩ REF 19%
🟢 GREEN 14%
🌳 CON 12%
🔶 LIB DEM 8%
🔵 RESTORE 8%
⚪️ IND 1% N = 1,003 | Fieldwork 11-23/7
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I bet there’s been lots of reporting of this.
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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 21/07/2026
There are *5.7* effective parties in this damned two-party system!
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Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 21/07/2026
coalition builder final boss
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
One of Truss's worst legacies is to give the lobby an obsession with small moves in gilt prices.
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Yours in negritude, Ryan K. Smith @mewefree.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Two people tried to enter a screening of The Odyssey without buying tickets after hiding inside a miniature model of the Trojan Horse. 😂😂😂
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Leonardo Carella @leonardocarella.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
🗳️ Electoral Reform Alert 🗳️ Yesterday, the Italian Lower House approved a new electoral reform, now headed to the Senate. This would be the fifth major reform of the electoral system in Italy since 1993, and it could bring an even more radical right-wing party into the next government coalition. (1)
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