Daniel Owen
LightNews LightNews
banner
danieljowen.bsky.social
Daniel Owen
@danieljowen.bsky.social
450 followers 320 following 2K posts
Yes, I know you didn't specifically ask for my opinion. But here I am anyway.
He/him
North Devon, UK
🧡
Posts Replies Media Videos
danieljowen.bsky.social
Nordic pagans famously lack warrior ethos.
A Viking warrior, carrying a shield and wielding a hatchet menacingly while pulling a scary angry face. He has a long beard.
November 12, 2025 at 3:36 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Keir Starmer today.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Captain Renault from Casablanca: "I'm shocked! Shocked to find there is racism in British politics."
November 11, 2025 at 2:45 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
I've been saying for many years that the BBC would never be thanked for all the attention and screen time it has given Farage. Farage would have been an obscure figure on the political fringe without the BBC. He will always repay them with attacks and mistrust.
From The Guardian UK news liveblog: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed the BBC “has been institutionally biased for decades” as he appeared at a press conference in central London. Farage also said he had spoken with his ally Donald Trump on Friday after concerns were raised about the way a speech by the US president was edited for Panorama. The Reform UK leader said: I actually spoke to the president on Friday. He just said to me: ‘Is this how you treat your best ally?’ It’s quite a powerful comment So there’s been too much going for too long. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has some more of Farage’s comments in his UK politics live blog. Photo of Nigel Farage speaking to an audience. He is standing at a lectern with the Reform UK logo on it, and the same logo is on the backdrop behind him. The photo caption reads: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage delivers a speech on small businesses in central London. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
November 10, 2025 at 1:07 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
"Blimey."
From the BBC sitcom W1A, Tracey Pritchard (played by Monica Dolan), Neil Reid (David Westhead) and Anna Rampton (Sarah Parish) sitting at a meeting table, all looking very doubtful about what's just been said.
November 7, 2025 at 11:34 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
In the year to March 2025, 262 prisoners were accidentally released. Do they all get banner headlines, Parliamentary attention and a massive manhunt, or is it all (again) about performative racism to win over Reform voters?
BBC News headline: LIVE - Police 'urgently' searching for Algerian man mistakenly released from prison last week.
November 5, 2025 at 2:29 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
I think it's great to see Labour being punished for its drift to the far right, and also great to see parties challenging the toxic rhetoric on immigration and asylum prospering as a result.

But this (graph) and first-past-the-post are a recipe for disaster.
Bar graph from pollster FindOutNow, showing voting intention if a general election was called tomorrow. Reform UK 32% Greens 17% Conservatives 16% Labour 16% Liberal Democrats 12% Other 3% SNP 2% Plaid Cymru 1%
October 31, 2025 at 3:13 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
I'm also not convinced by Peston's take on Rachel Reeves here, about the bar for resignation being lowered. I don't think the bar is determined by the personal material gain. I think it's about ministers breaking rules that everyone else has to follow.
From The Guardian: "Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says he thinks it is a mistake for the Conservatives to be saying Rachel Reeves should have to resign over the rental licence error. He explains why in a post on social media. Here is an extract. Kemi Badenoch’s call for Starmer to sack Reeves, for failing to register her family home when she rented it on moving to Downing Street, lowers the bar quite significantly for sackable offences by ministers. I am not certain all her shadow cabinet colleagues will thank her. The point is that there is a clear distinction between Rayner’s failure to take stamp duty advice and Reeves’s failure to register her home with the council for rent. In the case of Rayner, there was the potential for very large personal material gain. Her dismissal was inevitable … Badenoch is apparently saying that almost all cock ups in a minister’s personal life should disqualify them from holding public office. Would that stipulation really give the British people the public servants they deserve, or perhaps simply deter anyone with common sense from going into politics?"
October 30, 2025 at 11:07 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Yes, but now they're furious and wet.
BBC News headline: Rain falling but people still furious
October 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Classic both-sidesing from the @nytimes.com. In a few months it will be "Critics are outraged over Trump's demolition of the White House to make way for a 40-storey resort and casino. Others say Washington needed something bold and new."
A Pile of Rubble: After 123 Years, the East Wing Is Gone Critics are outraged over President Trump’s demolition of the East Wing to make way for his $300 million ballroom. Others say it was time for change.
October 24, 2025 at 3:34 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
This is the kind of blow that will knock Wednesday into the middle of next week.
Sheffield Wednesday deducted 12 points after filing for administration
October 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Here's The Guardian (along with everyone else) assuming that because Reform didn't win, immigration wasn't an important issue - rather than the more obvious conclusion that it was a direct rejection of the Ref/Con/Lab approach to immigration.
Immigration had grabbed headlines during the byelection. Migration is not a devolved issue, and only about 3% of the people in the area were not born in the UK, but Reform made much of a vow to end what it called Labour and Plaid’s “mass immigration agenda”. However, the result suggests the people of Caerphilly may have been more concerned about issues that Labour in Wales does have control of, such as health and education.
October 24, 2025 at 8:04 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
“I am satisfied that there are no serious or compelling reasons to grant you settlement and you must return to Rome within 28 days. Whilst this may involve a degree of disruption in family life this is considered to be proportionate to the legitimate aim of maintaining effective immigration control”
A photo from AFP of Yvette Cooper reading into a microphone at a wooden lectern. She is dressed in black with a black beret-like hat. A Catholic priest (or official) in white robes with a black collar is standing behind her, looking at the lectern.
October 23, 2025 at 11:47 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Breaking news alert, live coverage, banner headline - BBC News thinks it's a really huge deal that King Charles is praying with the Pope. What do they think is going to happen?
Two images from the original Ghostbusters movie, with the four ghostbusters standing in a row firing proton beams from their particle throwers, with a caption across the middle that says "Don't cross the streams... it would be bad."
October 23, 2025 at 10:23 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
We hate The Guardian's nonsense and yet, apparently, we're addicted to it.
The 'distracted boyfriend' meme where the boyfriend is "Bluesky", the girlfriend "actual world events" and the woman distracting the bloke's attention is "Emma Beddington's bread knife".
October 20, 2025 at 11:32 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
"Half the internet is fucked because of us but that's no reason for us to communicate clearly when we could just spout a load of incomprehensible tech bullshit."
We have identified a potential root cause - Amazon Web Services We've just had an update from Amazon Web Services, which says: "We have identified a potential root cause for error rates for the DynamoDB APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region." "We are working on multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery." As a reminder, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud computing division, and its infrastructure underpins millions of large companies' websites and platforms.
October 20, 2025 at 9:35 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Rosie has decided that she lives on my desk now. Which sounds adorable but is actually quite annoying, especially when I'm trying to work.
My cat, Rosie, who is a black/tortoiseshell, sitting on my desk. In front of her is my computer keyboard and behind her, partially obscured by her head, is the computer monitor, which is switched off.
October 20, 2025 at 7:59 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Here are two other crime stories in the national news today. One of these people is identified by his former career. His nationality, ethnicity and immigration status are never mentioned. He is treated as an individual, not representative of any wider group. The other one, not so much.
Two news stories, one above the other, from The Guardian. "Former Premier League referee David Coote admits making indecent image of child." "Afghan man jailed for five year for TikTok threat to kill Nigel Farage."
October 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Yesterday, I wrote a poem about how nothing rhymes with the word "sanctuary" (long story, don't ask).
Factually I sat and tried to think of words that rhyme with “sanctuary” with my friend, Mary. I said: “Thank you Mary for your many suggestions, which are actuary quite helpful. Like ‘cassowary’. And ‘budgetary’. Although it’s hard to think of a very satisfactuary way of putting them in one poem with common imageuary, but I’m sure it will come to me, graduary and eventuary.” Mary ignored me and went back to her dictionary.
October 14, 2025 at 10:23 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
No, BBC News, you absolute fucking idiots, having a physical copy of your cyber attack contingency plan does not mean "going back to pen and paper". It just means having a printed document that isn't stored on the systems that you will lose access to if you are attacked.
BBC News story: Cyber attack contingency plans should be put on paper, firms told Joe Tidy Cyber correspondent, BBC World Service People should plan for potential cyber-attacks by going back to pen and paper, according to the latest advice. The government has written to chief executives across the country strongly recommending that they should have physical copies of their plans at the ready as a precaution.
October 14, 2025 at 8:38 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Henry is about 35cm tall and weighs 7.5kg.
A BMI calculator showing that an adult male with a height of 35cm and a weight of 7.5kg has a BMI of 61.2, which is classified as obese.
October 2, 2025 at 9:54 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Paging fountain pen Bluesky. This is a Nahvalur Original Plus that I bought last year. The rubber bit of the vac-filler plunger has become dislodged and no longer forms a seal (and so the vac filler mechanism no longer works). Any idea how to fix it?
A close-up photo of part of the barrel of a fountain pen. It is mostly clear plastic, with some blue and green swirls on it. Through the clear plastic you can make out the round rubber seal that forms a key part of the vacuum-filling mechanism of this pen. It is supposed to be horizontal, forming a seal inside the upper part of the barrel so that it creates vacuum pressure as you press the plunger down, which is released at the bottom of the barrel, sucking ink into the pen. (This is a terrible explanation of how vac-filling works, but it's the best I can come up with for the purposes of this alt text).
October 1, 2025 at 5:25 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Here's a suggestion for me from LinkedIn today.

I have never worked in healthcare and have no relevant training.

And I live in Devon.

LinkedIn keeps asking me if I want to start paying for this bollocks.
Suggestion from LinkedIn: "Follow NHS Ayrshire and Arran to see open roles and company insights."
September 30, 2025 at 1:45 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Keir Starmer finally discovers a Reform policy he disagrees with.
The Casablanca 'shocked to find gambling' meme, but the caption has Captain Renault saying, "I am shocked! Shocked to find there is racism and immorality going on here."
September 28, 2025 at 12:21 PM
danieljowen.bsky.social
Oh, so this is where you all are.
The front of a cafe, on an English urban street, called The Blue Sky Cafe. It has what looks like a hand painted sign above the window, across the full width of the cafe frontage, with Blue Sky Cafe painted in big all caps lettering in white on a blue background, with a yellow-orange sun to the left and white fluffy clouds dotted around the words.
September 27, 2025 at 10:40 AM
danieljowen.bsky.social
This, from Starmer today, is as repugnant as is it dishonest. Repeating the dangerous lies of the far-right condemns the country to years of chaos and decline under Reform, with policy focused on inflicting misery and suffering, to the benefit of absolutely no one.
That as well as the economy, the state is being run in their interests. And that does mean we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror and recognise where we’ve allowed our parties to shy away from people’s concerns. And let the politics of purity patronise people. Now you will all have issues in your own countries. But in Britain, it’s illegal migration. And I suspect that may be the same in a number of other countries. For too many years, it’s been too easy for people to come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally. Because, frankly, we have been squeamish about saying things that are clearly true. It’s not just that it is not compassionate, left-wing politics to rely on labour that exploits foreign workers and undercuts fair wages. But the simple fact that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We do need to know who is in our country. Our immigration system does need to be fair if we want to maintain that binding contract that our politics is built on. Otherwise, it undermines trust. Undermines people’s faith that we are on their side and their belief that the state can and will work for them. And that is why today I am announcing this Government will make a new, free of charge, digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this parliament. Let me spell that out. You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that. Because decent, pragmatic, fair-minded people - they want us to tackle the issues that they see around them. And of course the truth is, we won’t solve our problems if we don’t also take on the root causes.
September 26, 2025 at 11:54 AM