Henry Mendoza
@vortigan.bsky.social
Moonlighting between here and the Other Place
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Agree. For me the two things that leap out from the report are: okay, what actually *was* the OBR's IT security policy? Did they have one? And also: who was the actual *person* who went 'you can't use the gov dot uk infrastructure or you're not independent?'
The problem with website design is that the head of the OBR is totally ignorant of potential issues i.e. he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
So he doesn't even know that you need a security audit.
In terms of responsibility it's, arguably, whoever created the OBR in the first place?
So he doesn't even know that you need a security audit.
In terms of responsibility it's, arguably, whoever created the OBR in the first place?
December 1, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Agree. For me the two things that leap out from the report are: okay, what actually *was* the OBR's IT security policy? Did they have one? And also: who was the actual *person* who went 'you can't use the gov dot uk infrastructure or you're not independent?'
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
I'm close to 100 per cent sure that the person responsible for the Afghan data breach has been promoted, for the basic reason that 'the government would tell us if they had sacked that person and their silence on it can be read in only one way'.
December 1, 2025 at 5:41 PM
I'm close to 100 per cent sure that the person responsible for the Afghan data breach has been promoted, for the basic reason that 'the government would tell us if they had sacked that person and their silence on it can be read in only one way'.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Is Richard Hughes 'honourable'? Not a clue. But what I do know is time and time again, someone in the British state fucks up, the head of the organisation quits, and the person who actually fucked up stays in the state and gets promoted.
December 1, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Is Richard Hughes 'honourable'? Not a clue. But what I do know is time and time again, someone in the British state fucks up, the head of the organisation quits, and the person who actually fucked up stays in the state and gets promoted.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
A sign that your position is wrong is when you have to caricature the opposing view.
Tech BSky: of course he had to resign, that’s bleeding obvious
Politics BSky: such a shame such an honourbale fellow has decided to go
🤷♂️
Politics BSky: such a shame such an honourbale fellow has decided to go
🤷♂️
December 1, 2025 at 5:40 PM
A sign that your position is wrong is when you have to caricature the opposing view.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Downing Street has self-soothed itself into thinking that the reason why the PIP cuts didn't pass is that they didn't convince the soft left they were 'Labour enough', as opposed to 'they had no plans, could not make an argument for them, and were wildly unpopular with most voters':
Labour’s welfare revolt shows politics always catches up with policy
Benefits system must get better at reducing poverty but these spending cuts will not solve the problem
www.ft.com
November 30, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Downing Street has self-soothed itself into thinking that the reason why the PIP cuts didn't pass is that they didn't convince the soft left they were 'Labour enough', as opposed to 'they had no plans, could not make an argument for them, and were wildly unpopular with most voters':
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Once again doing the "there's nothing Labour about [X]" non-argument, I see. Honestly why are these people so allergic to actually making a proper case for *anything*?
Starmer to launch fresh push for welfare spending reform
Prime minister will risk Labour MPs’ ire by arguing that tackling the spiralling benefits bill is a moral imperative
www.ft.com
November 30, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Once again doing the "there's nothing Labour about [X]" non-argument, I see. Honestly why are these people so allergic to actually making a proper case for *anything*?
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Maybe we should build HS2 in full and increase capacity on the network. It was never just about speed.
Soon-to-be-axed 7am Manchester-London train will still run – but without passengers
Soon-to-be-axed 7am Manchester-London train will still run – but without passengers
Exclusive: Rail regulator pulls Avanti service from timetable from mid-December but it is needed for staff travel
The good news for rail travel between Manchester and London is that a morning train will continue to link England’s biggest cities in under two hours. The bad news: passengers will no longer be able to get onboard.
The rail regulator has axed one of Britain’s fastest and most lucrative intercity services, the 7am Avanti West Coast from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston, as part of a timetable shake-up that will take effect in mid-December. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 29, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Maybe we should build HS2 in full and increase capacity on the network. It was never just about speed.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
A lot of chatter at Westminster at the moment about the fact her performances have improved. They have - but the script is still dreadful.
November 29, 2025 at 4:42 PM
A lot of chatter at Westminster at the moment about the fact her performances have improved. They have - but the script is still dreadful.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Under Kemi Badenoch the Conservatives have ceded both the answer to 'what's the lever I pull to get the left out of power' to Reform and are rapidly on their way to ceding 'what's the least nutty option available to me on the right?' to Reform too.
No response from the Conservative party to my questions about this and the post still remains on her account.
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
The Conservative Party's leader in London, Susan Hall, just shared this Islamophobic disinformation about Sadiq Khan, after it was posted on X by a racist troll
November 29, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Under Kemi Badenoch the Conservatives have ceded both the answer to 'what's the lever I pull to get the left out of power' to Reform and are rapidly on their way to ceding 'what's the least nutty option available to me on the right?' to Reform too.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
No response from the Conservative party to my questions about this and the post still remains on her account.
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
The Conservative Party's leader in London, Susan Hall, just shared this Islamophobic disinformation about Sadiq Khan, after it was posted on X by a racist troll
November 28, 2025 at 2:39 PM
No response from the Conservative party to my questions about this and the post still remains on her account.
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
So apparently openly spreading anti-Muslim hate is absolutely fine now
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
It's very far down her list of problems, but there is a reason why every successful party leader has another politician do most of the attack stuff, even when the attack messaging is popular. People agree with the sentiment but they also think the message carrier is a tool.
Badenoch defends calling chancellor 'spineless' in Budget row
The Conservative Party leader says she was
www.bbc.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 10:46 AM
It's very far down her list of problems, but there is a reason why every successful party leader has another politician do most of the attack stuff, even when the attack messaging is popular. People agree with the sentiment but they also think the message carrier is a tool.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
At the risk of turning what will be a selective set of anecdotes into data, a lot of 1960s and 70s working class parents absolutely busted a gut to get their kids to university and were dead proud their kids had become middle class but I suppose they dont count?
November 24, 2025 at 11:58 PM
At the risk of turning what will be a selective set of anecdotes into data, a lot of 1960s and 70s working class parents absolutely busted a gut to get their kids to university and were dead proud their kids had become middle class but I suppose they dont count?
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Glasman: 'We will keep fighting the 1955 general election until you give us the RIGHT answer!'
The newspaper of British Conservativism: 'What a necessary voice!'
The newspaper of British Conservativism: 'What a necessary voice!'
November 24, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Glasman: 'We will keep fighting the 1955 general election until you give us the RIGHT answer!'
The newspaper of British Conservativism: 'What a necessary voice!'
The newspaper of British Conservativism: 'What a necessary voice!'
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Also just utterly wild that the Telegraph is treating this guy like a seer. The man opposes every serious Conservative domestic policy victory!
November 24, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Also just utterly wild that the Telegraph is treating this guy like a seer. The man opposes every serious Conservative domestic policy victory!
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
"My beloved working class" - i.e. the one that exists in his head, but in real life has always rejected this particularly ugly strain of 'you don't deserve commercial television, nice holidays or little luxuries' whenever Labour have taken it to the public.
November 24, 2025 at 11:44 PM
"My beloved working class" - i.e. the one that exists in his head, but in real life has always rejected this particularly ugly strain of 'you don't deserve commercial television, nice holidays or little luxuries' whenever Labour have taken it to the public.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Westminster political commentary repeatedly tells the tale of a a northern industrial working class without *ever* recognising there is a large northern middle class or acknowledging the desirability of class mobility - of people being given opportunities to find better work than their parents.
November 25, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Westminster political commentary repeatedly tells the tale of a a northern industrial working class without *ever* recognising there is a large northern middle class or acknowledging the desirability of class mobility - of people being given opportunities to find better work than their parents.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Glasman has such a sepia-tinted view of class, and zero ability to recognise the way economy and society has changed - in good and bad ways. Precarity, the new working class - there is lots of good thinking about this. To call him a third-rate theorist would be an insult to third-rate theorists.
November 25, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Glasman has such a sepia-tinted view of class, and zero ability to recognise the way economy and society has changed - in good and bad ways. Precarity, the new working class - there is lots of good thinking about this. To call him a third-rate theorist would be an insult to third-rate theorists.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Zarah Sultana’s strong bid to claim the Conquest’s Second Law trophy from “British pro-Europeans, 2017-9” is getting out of control.
BREAKING | Another MP quits crisis stricken Your Party in blow for Corbyn and Sultana
Another MP quits crisis stricken Your Party in blow for Corbyn and Sultana
Iqbal Mohamed’s departure comes just one week after Adnan Hussain pulled out of the Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana-led project
www.independent.co.uk
November 21, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Zarah Sultana’s strong bid to claim the Conquest’s Second Law trophy from “British pro-Europeans, 2017-9” is getting out of control.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
It's a sad world where getting arrested for protesting Apartheid doesn't buy you lifetime immunity against accusations of racial insensitivity/incompetence.
November 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
It's a sad world where getting arrested for protesting Apartheid doesn't buy you lifetime immunity against accusations of racial insensitivity/incompetence.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Likewise how Corbyn can see Cable Street and other examples of standing up to fascists - including and particularly when they directly threaten Jews - as part of his own antiracist lineage and also ignore or even echo antisemitic tropes himself in critiquing capitalism or imperialism.
November 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Likewise how Corbyn can see Cable Street and other examples of standing up to fascists - including and particularly when they directly threaten Jews - as part of his own antiracist lineage and also ignore or even echo antisemitic tropes himself in critiquing capitalism or imperialism.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
That Starmer was for example willing to take antisemitism in the party seriously, racism against people who the Labour right see as a model minority, while simultaneously disregarding egregious evidence of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia within that faction, is par for the course, unfortunately.
November 19, 2025 at 2:48 PM
That Starmer was for example willing to take antisemitism in the party seriously, racism against people who the Labour right see as a model minority, while simultaneously disregarding egregious evidence of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia within that faction, is par for the course, unfortunately.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
The fact that both Corbyn and Starmer have at various times in their careers and in different ways engaged in anti-racist acts which were also entirely in keeping with their political projects and professional objectives does not discredit those instances but it does not give them a pass!
November 19, 2025 at 2:38 PM
The fact that both Corbyn and Starmer have at various times in their careers and in different ways engaged in anti-racist acts which were also entirely in keeping with their political projects and professional objectives does not discredit those instances but it does not give them a pass!
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
I suppose the difference is Starmer’s social media team are actively producing this type of content (e.g. images of dehumanised Black and Brown people as stand-ins for illegals immigrants) rather than he himself offhandedly condoning someone else for producing it but there is the same root.
November 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I suppose the difference is Starmer’s social media team are actively producing this type of content (e.g. images of dehumanised Black and Brown people as stand-ins for illegals immigrants) rather than he himself offhandedly condoning someone else for producing it but there is the same root.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
The issues with racism in Labour under Corbyn and Starmer are of a piece with each other and this is a really good example of how: complete inability to recognise a racist trope on social media when its deployment advances your own political agenda.
To be clear, if you think that 'objecting to someone who looks at this mural and goes "can't see the problem" is some kind of smear, congratulations, you are a racist!
November 19, 2025 at 2:21 PM
The issues with racism in Labour under Corbyn and Starmer are of a piece with each other and this is a really good example of how: complete inability to recognise a racist trope on social media when its deployment advances your own political agenda.
Reposted by Henry Mendoza
Excellent thread by Dion on this.
The issues with racism in Labour under Corbyn and Starmer are of a piece with each other and this is a really good example of how: complete inability to recognise a racist trope on social media when its deployment advances your own political agenda.
To be clear, if you think that 'objecting to someone who looks at this mural and goes "can't see the problem" is some kind of smear, congratulations, you are a racist!
November 21, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Excellent thread by Dion on this.