Adam
@adamcobb.bsky.social
Digital marketing type, European politics bore, language enthusiast, one of those gays you hear about, Eurovision nerd, that guy in the window seat. Next trip: 🇪🇸
Full credit to Fiona Hill, formerly of Theresa May's team, for at least having the grace to get off the bloody stage after screwing up spectacularly. Somehow feel McSweeney isn't going to take her lead.
February 8, 2026 at 2:27 PM
Full credit to Fiona Hill, formerly of Theresa May's team, for at least having the grace to get off the bloody stage after screwing up spectacularly. Somehow feel McSweeney isn't going to take her lead.
The drone cameras they’re now using on skiing and sliding events really gives you a sense of the speed these people go at that I’ve never quite had before
February 8, 2026 at 11:34 AM
The drone cameras they’re now using on skiing and sliding events really gives you a sense of the speed these people go at that I’ve never quite had before
Reposted by Adam
Which is why algorithmic social media slides so easily into chatbot post-social media - creators who behave more like machines than people can be disintermediated alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
February 8, 2026 at 8:40 AM
Which is why algorithmic social media slides so easily into chatbot post-social media - creators who behave more like machines than people can be disintermediated alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
I don’t think it’s quite the expiation here but interesting (and terrifying) to read this in the light of @cwarzel.bsky.social’s podcast yesterday which basically concluded that there is a type of person who now thinks only in terms of view counts and the algorithm www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ju...
February 8, 2026 at 8:09 AM
I don’t think it’s quite the expiation here but interesting (and terrifying) to read this in the light of @cwarzel.bsky.social’s podcast yesterday which basically concluded that there is a type of person who now thinks only in terms of view counts and the algorithm www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ju...
Reposted by Adam
This was my personal favourite
February 7, 2026 at 1:28 PM
This was my personal favourite
Left one of your nerdy YouTube videos on pause and quite like that the top of my phone now just has Brian Walden staring at me
February 7, 2026 at 1:25 PM
Left one of your nerdy YouTube videos on pause and quite like that the top of my phone now just has Brian Walden staring at me
In a semi-related note, I wonder if this is partly why being stupidly jacked has become popular among the elites. A bit like suntans in the 20s/30s it’s gone from suggesting you have a hard/manual job to suggesting you have tonnes of leisure time.
and it makes me think about the (non-econ) literature about how physical strength becoming economically devalued have been devastating to working class men's prospects and status.
February 7, 2026 at 8:52 AM
In a semi-related note, I wonder if this is partly why being stupidly jacked has become popular among the elites. A bit like suntans in the 20s/30s it’s gone from suggesting you have a hard/manual job to suggesting you have tonnes of leisure time.
I think the real lesson from this week is never upset Jim Pickard and the FT Politics team. I am adding them all to my Christmas card list just in case.
New on FT website:
Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.
www.ft.com/content/5bba...
Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.
www.ft.com/content/5bba...
Starmer faces questions over visit to Palantir office alongside Mandelson
Former ambassador was also shareholder in lobbying group that counted US tech firm as a client
www.ft.com
February 7, 2026 at 8:30 AM
I think the real lesson from this week is never upset Jim Pickard and the FT Politics team. I am adding them all to my Christmas card list just in case.
This is basically why I find Starmer so puzzling. I’m not trying to suggest that his premiership hasn’t been an utter failure but, over the long arc, the ‘man of public service ’ bit is true. What on earth happened?
Labour MPs & party insiders tell me they’ve never seen Keir Starmer so angry as over Mandelson’s lies about Epstein links.
But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.
But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.
February 6, 2026 at 1:49 PM
This is basically why I find Starmer so puzzling. I’m not trying to suggest that his premiership hasn’t been an utter failure but, over the long arc, the ‘man of public service ’ bit is true. What on earth happened?
Reposted by Adam
If you listen to Blair now, he sounds like someone doing an impersonation of Blair - he's Flanderised himself - but even if you listen to 1996 Blair, he sounds much more mannered and artificial than he did to us in 1996, which is because we've changed, not because the 30 year old recording has.
February 6, 2026 at 11:04 AM
If you listen to Blair now, he sounds like someone doing an impersonation of Blair - he's Flanderised himself - but even if you listen to 1996 Blair, he sounds much more mannered and artificial than he did to us in 1996, which is because we've changed, not because the 30 year old recording has.
A bog standard Starmer speech is probably the closest to a ‘normal’ person giving a speech we get and look how those go down. Mamdani is as polished and packaged as Blair was, it’s just that he and his team is one of the few to have noticed that it’s 2026 not 1996.
(seen a bunch of people sharing this/talking in general about how "normal" Mamdani is but imo this doesn't show a normal person, but an *exceptionally* skilled communicator - a normal person wouldn't react like that to having a speech interrupted by a child! give him his due!)
Child at the podium: “A woo woo woo.”
Mamdani: That’s how I felt when we came up with this plan. Together, we will expand the idea of what is possible in our city—and what sounds and noises we can make at a press conference.
Mamdani: That’s how I felt when we came up with this plan. Together, we will expand the idea of what is possible in our city—and what sounds and noises we can make at a press conference.
February 6, 2026 at 10:31 AM
A bog standard Starmer speech is probably the closest to a ‘normal’ person giving a speech we get and look how those go down. Mamdani is as polished and packaged as Blair was, it’s just that he and his team is one of the few to have noticed that it’s 2026 not 1996.
This new Sky News thing where they show vertical video reports on a screen in the studio is insane
February 5, 2026 at 11:03 PM
This new Sky News thing where they show vertical video reports on a screen in the studio is insane
I never met him and if I did, it’s only because I used to hang out with Robert Maxwell is quite the excuse.
Mandelson's firm, General Counsel, covered-up Mandelson's relationship with Epstein.
Here's Global Counsel's CEO and co-founder, preparing to tell the press that Mandelson barely knew Jeffrey Epstein.
Who did he check that line with?
Jeffrey Epstein.
Here's Global Counsel's CEO and co-founder, preparing to tell the press that Mandelson barely knew Jeffrey Epstein.
Who did he check that line with?
Jeffrey Epstein.
February 5, 2026 at 1:43 PM
I never met him and if I did, it’s only because I used to hang out with Robert Maxwell is quite the excuse.
Reposted by Adam
It's the Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds for 2026 - no official mechanism to get someone to stop podcasting, so appointing them to paid crown role will have to do
February 5, 2026 at 12:13 PM
It's the Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds for 2026 - no official mechanism to get someone to stop podcasting, so appointing them to paid crown role will have to do
This isn’t nearly at that level but I went to an incredibly fancy gym in Singapore over the summer and you see how it happens. Didn’t bring toiletries? Oh they’re all there, here’s your towel, we’ve planned the workout for you, here’s some hair wax! You can stop doing so much thinking.
If you talk with the most down-to-earth, level-headed multi-millionaires, you see it taking form: So much invisible friction has been removed from their lives in ways great & small that they don't even see, so with best intentions they feel like they can still relate to common folks, but they can't.
If you have a billion dollars or more, you are evil. You don't start out as evil, so it's not like only evil people ever get a billion dollars; it's just that being a billionaire forced you to make a choice, be evil or change how you do things and stop being a billionaire. Billionaires choose evil.
February 4, 2026 at 6:33 PM
This isn’t nearly at that level but I went to an incredibly fancy gym in Singapore over the summer and you see how it happens. Didn’t bring toiletries? Oh they’re all there, here’s your towel, we’ve planned the workout for you, here’s some hair wax! You can stop doing so much thinking.
Reposted by Adam
It's important to balance the bad with the good. youtu.be/EWO1-WE4oNw?...
Get Lucky by Daft Punk on a mechanical organ
YouTube video by The Mechanical Music Man
youtu.be
February 4, 2026 at 12:26 PM
It's important to balance the bad with the good. youtu.be/EWO1-WE4oNw?...
This details at £141 for 1.5 hours. How do I launch a UK version?
February 1, 2026 at 9:44 PM
This details at £141 for 1.5 hours. How do I launch a UK version?
There’s really quite a lot of ‘we’re in a far off place and this is MAD why are we even here??’ in the coverage of Starmer’s visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo that you really wouldn’t get if he’d gone to Washington, New York and Ottawa.
February 1, 2026 at 9:28 PM
There’s really quite a lot of ‘we’re in a far off place and this is MAD why are we even here??’ in the coverage of Starmer’s visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo that you really wouldn’t get if he’d gone to Washington, New York and Ottawa.
This is basically why I miss Eddie Mair. He was excellent at letting people show themselves up without going full Paxman. Even THAT Boris Johnson interview works because it’s mostly reasonable questions until the climax.
The Sultana/Jones interview is IMO Exhibit A on why, on TV*, I think soft questions are underrated. She comes across so much worse with Jones just softly going 'let's talk about ideas' than most politicians do with the 'be berated live on BBC One on Sunday' round.
*broadly defining TV interviews
*broadly defining TV interviews
“Anti imperialism means confronting empire which is why we should leave NATO“ is obviously nonsense and I doubt she could explain or defend it. She’s also noticeably struggled even when sympathetic reporters like Owen Jones try to engage her on economics
January 28, 2026 at 7:42 PM
This is basically why I miss Eddie Mair. He was excellent at letting people show themselves up without going full Paxman. Even THAT Boris Johnson interview works because it’s mostly reasonable questions until the climax.
Someone in my hotel appears to have set up an impromptu karaoke session in a nearby room
January 27, 2026 at 11:28 PM
Someone in my hotel appears to have set up an impromptu karaoke session in a nearby room
The 2010s on the internet everybody!
It was like 5,000 14 year olds trying to analyse media and some of them were dumb! Which is fine! And then turned in a mutually assured destruction industrial complex by bored journalists and YouTubers who decided it was important
January 25, 2026 at 10:38 PM
The 2010s on the internet everybody!
This is a good thread. I think another major problem is Twitter and similar platforms encourage and require endless in/out group switching. It can all look baffling to newcomers who can see EVERYTHING, the temptation to play to the gallery is huge and people always forget they’re in public.
I think Phoebe is right here tbh, the preachiness was off putting to many people, regardless of the politics, which to a minor extent fed the opposite
It's very first-thoughts but: different people were put off by 2010s social-justice sanctimony for different reasons. That it was so off-putting in sensibility cannot have helped matters, but also, plenty overlooked it and did not swing right.
January 25, 2026 at 10:33 PM
This is a good thread. I think another major problem is Twitter and similar platforms encourage and require endless in/out group switching. It can all look baffling to newcomers who can see EVERYTHING, the temptation to play to the gallery is huge and people always forget they’re in public.
Reposted by Adam
crisis across the Chinese military as officers attempt to live on their actual salaries.
January 25, 2026 at 5:16 AM
crisis across the Chinese military as officers attempt to live on their actual salaries.
People basically learned the wrong lesson from ‘defund the police’. That backfired because the average person’s response was ‘wait, if someone tries to rob me and I call 911, there would be no answer?’. ICE does not have that problem.
YouGov is out with a new poll after ICE killed another person in Minnesota today. Abolishing ICE is now +5 among all adults, and **+12 among independents**
substack.com/@gelliottmor...
substack.com/@gelliottmor...
January 25, 2026 at 8:09 AM
People basically learned the wrong lesson from ‘defund the police’. That backfired because the average person’s response was ‘wait, if someone tries to rob me and I call 911, there would be no answer?’. ICE does not have that problem.