There are other reasons for the UK government not to award or continue Palantir contracts but this statement of intent by its CEO must surely be decisive?
13.03.2026 06:41
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There are other reasons for the UK government not to award or continue Palantir contracts but this statement of intent by its CEO must surely be decisive?
We have awarded these people contracts in the Ministry of Defence. What the fuck are we doing.
I have watched 6 hours of a DOGE bro deposition. The whole thing, start to finish. It's a fascinating, and horrifying, look at the people who caused so much damage, didn't really achieve anything at all, while still being so sure they are right. Here's what they said: www.404media.co/i-watched-6-...
Today I am voting against the government’s plans to restrict jury trials in England and Wales.
I desperately want victims to have swift access to justice. But the evidence is clear: the courts backlog was caused by chronic underfunding of our criminal justice system, not jury trials. [1/2]
Thousands of lawyers urge Keir Starmer to rethink plans to cut jury trials
Love this! 👇
How knitting can help you kick harmful habits www.bbc.com/future/artic... by @eabrown18.bsky.social
One of my children (in medicine) doing research on using knitting as an affordable, accessible, scaleable and community building mental health intervention!
#TeamKnitting! 🧶
Can anyone explain to me what the Blue Labour justification for this is? Who out there will vote Labour because Mahmood prevented a Sudanese Chevening Scholar? And to be honest, why won’t the PM simply overrule her?
Perfect summary of Reform's hypocrisy.
We need a lot more accountability like this.
The sound you made when Alex said “Pete Hegseth” was perfect.
If we survive this, I really hope parents take a long look at how they are teaching empathy to their children. It's so obvious that that is the missing ingredient in huge chunks of the population, amplified by social media algorithms and cultural rewards for reactions rather than thoughtfulness.
Jonathan Karl is the Chief Washington Correspondent for ABC News, & when you listen carefully you can hear his very loud point, calmly made, that the US president takes time out to take random media calls & has unfiltered, unchecked chats with them. Listen to this:
This is what Badenoch, Farage, the Murdoch press, and Paul Marshall's stable of GB News weirdos want us to get behind, and you know what I'm good, thanks...
Vote Labour, get Tory policies
"would otherwise receive immediate access to welfare and social housing" is BS.
Correct: "after 5 years working in a care home, would be eligible to apply for welfare and social housing on the same basis as the rest of us."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Deliberately misleading/disingenous.
Sun headline about £500k compensation for migrants, discussing human rights, and public outcry over payouts.
Did you see this headline?
Did you feel the requisite anger and rage at asylum seekers that The Sun was asking of you?
Did you maybe blame Starmer because.... um... it was probably his fault🤷♀️
Would you like to know the reality behind the headline?
Course you would!😜
Let's take a look
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Green MP Ellie Chowns on the elections bill last night: "It is really quite extraordinary that the Thailand-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne has been allowed to donate £9 million to Reform UK. I notice that its Members are still not here" (2/3rds of the way into the debate)
No, Shabana Mahmood, people seeing failing state support and crumbing infrastructure don't have either legitimate concerns or a legitimate grievance against immigrants, refugees or asylum seekers.
They have a legitimate grievance against governments.
This is very exciting!
Today's by-election is another illustration of the problems with FPTP.
The result may tell us less about what voters want to happen than whether they can game the system effectively to stop a result most *don't* want.
The electoral system should not be an obstacle that voters have to work around.
I love hand writing letters. It’s kind of meditative. I recently visited the “Love Letters” exhibit at the National Archives in Kew (UK), and the exhibit plus the little shop had lots to encourage visitors to write more letters.
The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.
Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.
This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling.
If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is one of the delayed complications of measles and affects up to 1 in 600 unvaccinated children who’ve had measles. It occurs without warning an average of 7 years after infection and can occur decades later. There is no cure and it is almost always fatal.
Screen shot from Paul Embery’s X account: Respect to this police officer. Confronted by radicals demanding the arrest of a Christian preacher on the grounds that Whitechapel "is a Muslim area" she was calm and professional and gave them short shrift. Let's see more of this from the police. Has a video of a woman police officer talking to a group of Muslim men
This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too!
The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression.
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Screenshot of tweet by Conor Tomlinson calling out Goodwin
Screenshot of tweet by Conor Tomlinson calling out Goodwin
Screenshot of tweet by Conor Tomlinson calling out Goodwin
😬Not the best look for Reform’s Gorton & Denton candidate Matt Goodwin
White supremacist far right activist says
“you've appeared on our podcasts, had dinner with us, had us write for your Substack, and sought our advice on how to write your social media posts”
Tad awkward😬
Agree with all this except honestly I'm less optimistic that anything will ever be done to prevent more harm. People in power simply don't care. It's only girls, whatever.
Big tech is deeply hostile to women and, ofc, #banthepervertglasses
- as.ft.com/r/da4838c6-4...
NEW
How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence
How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir
By me, at FT
www.ft.com/content/5207...
Revealed: 80% of Reform’s funding comes from Tory donors. The Nerve. Photograph of Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage (centre) stands with his “shadow cabinet” (l-r): Zia Yusuf, “shadow home secretary,” “shadow chancellor” Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice, “shadow deputy prime minister”, Suella Braverman, “shadow education secretary”, 17 February 2026
Follow the money: 80% of Reform’s funding comes from Tory donors, we can exclusively reveal
The majority of the money behind Farage’s movement was being supplied by Conservative interests even before the defection of so many high-profile figures from the party, writes @charlienotold.bsky.social
Yes really fun. Once you remember the square pattern it’s really quick to make them. The sewing in ends and sewing together is the challenging bit!
Back of a crocheted granny square cardigan. Cardigan has dozens of different mixed colour squares with black outline.
Front of a crocheted granny square cardigan with arms folded. Cardigan has dozens of different mixed colour squares, with black outline and black edging.
February’s crochet project complete. Quite quick to make once you know the square pattern. Pattern available from www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4... I made mine a bit longer. Great for using up scraps of yarn 🧶 #crochet
