James Ball
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jamesrball.com
James Ball
@jamesrball.com
49K followers 1.1K following 6.6K posts
Tech, policy, politics.
Political editor @ The New World
Fellow @ Demos
PhD researcher @ UCL Laws
newsletter @ techtris

Latest book: The Other Pandemic – How QAnon Contaminated The World. 🏳️‍🌈
https://www.jamesrball.com/
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“California here we come” in the Zohran meme font
November 8, 2025 at 9:50 PM
jamesrball.com
I am *26* in this photo.
26-year-old me in the Washington post newsroom on election day 2012
November 7, 2025 at 7:20 PM
jamesrball.com
Nice to see that media literacy and critical thinking is going to be added to the national curriculum – that was one of the recommendations at the end of Post-Truth, published eight years ago…

news.sky.com/story/bigges...
It’s me holding my book open at the relevant page, hopefully in a “look the recommendation was there” was not a “TOLD YOU SO” way
November 5, 2025 at 9:32 AM
jamesrball.com
I have been advised not to comment.
A handsome and harmless looking black cat in the middle distance is obscured by a very stern looking tuxedo cat staring directly into the camera lens from very nearby.
November 4, 2025 at 2:10 AM
jamesrball.com
A film you’ve seen more than seven times with a gif
Naomi Watts, in a truly horrible bonnet, leans and shouts “fuckabees”
November 1, 2025 at 8:35 PM
jamesrball.com
Just been sent this shot by my catsitter. I am…not sure she’s okay.
A blurred and somewhat deranged looking tuxedo cat stares at the camera, paws on the air, looking agitated.
November 1, 2025 at 2:35 PM
jamesrball.com
Standout from the John le Carré “tradecraft” exhibition in the Bodleian is surely this “to fix” pebble, used to weigh down draft pages that needed work. Might nick that system.
A red-painted pebble with “to fix” scratched onto it, visible in white
November 1, 2025 at 12:43 PM
jamesrball.com
I am absolutely *delighted* by the selection of books in the railway station shop in Huddersfield, which can only be described as……esoteric.
It is a scattered set of library style shelving with a truly weird selection of books that I wish I had time to list here.
October 31, 2025 at 3:28 PM
jamesrball.com
THERE IS NO VICE PRESIDENT LOOPHOLE. IT'S NOT AMBIGUOUS. NO SERIOUS SCHOLAR OR ANALYST THINKS THERE IS A LOOPHOLE. STOP JUST GIVING TRUMP THE PREMISE, FFS.
A BBC headline reads: "Trump does not rule out seeking third term – but says he will not use VP loophole"
October 27, 2025 at 4:22 PM
jamesrball.com
The void hungers.
An eyeless black fluffy maw opens, teeth bared towards the camera (a black cat is yawning but it looks extremely eldritch as most of his face is out of view).
October 27, 2025 at 8:39 AM
jamesrball.com
Just read an article I wrote a couple of weeks into the first Covid lockdown and I’ve really depressed myself.
People have now had a glimpse that their lives are not so secure as they once thought: that through no fault of their own, they could suddenly lose their ability to earn. That usually comes upon us one by one, after an accident or illness, or to local communities as a major employer shuts down. For it to hit a whole nation – indeed, nations across the world – all at once is close to unprecedented in living memory. People’s sense of invulnerability, once penetrated, doesn’t return all at once. It will likely prove impossible to keep the extraordinary measures for furloughed workers in the long term – but other measures extending the state’s safety net might find much less resistance than once they did. Similarly, people who never thought it would be them having to live on the measly £94-a-week offered to the long-term sick or to the unemployed will feel very differently about benefits as they return to work post-coronavirus. Simultaneously, it is much harder to talk about the infallibility of markets and the uselessness of government when most of the UK’s major businesses will only still be standing thanks to government intervention – and when government has had to take huge action at short notice to prevent people losing their homes and missing their bills. The truth is that we simply cannot return to business-as-usual whenever…
October 26, 2025 at 11:17 AM
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the last thing you see before the end
A tuxedo cat with claws outstretched towards the camera / a harbinger of death itself
October 24, 2025 at 9:40 PM
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Since this seems to be surprising people on my WhatsApp groups: the big oval shaped room in the middle of the White House is *not* the Oval Office.

Instead it’s all the way over in the west wing, and you’ve probably never noticed it:
A formal NYT illustration of the White House renovation with a hand drawn addition by me pointing to where the Oval Office actually is.
October 23, 2025 at 1:46 PM
jamesrball.com
I’m often critical of the royals, but I do think it’s great that the Princess of Wales is keeping up a trade alongside her royal duties and her role as a mother.
A van reads “K. MIDDLETON ROOFING”. All work is guaranteed!
October 23, 2025 at 10:12 AM
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Just checked the top of all the major networks’ sites (plus CNN), and all of them – CBS included – are currently leading on No Kings.
October 18, 2025 at 7:11 PM
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Decided to try to work from my sofa instead of my desk, for a Friday change of scenery. Inevitably:
A laptop is perched precariously on the edge of my knee, because a cat had wedged herself between my lap and it
October 17, 2025 at 8:52 AM
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Yup – it’s across seven full pages!
October 15, 2025 at 6:24 PM
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You might think controlling GB News gives you huge influence over UK politics – especially on the right. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as we reveal in this week's issue of @thenewworldmag.bsky.social

Full story: www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-p...
A network/ownership diagram showing a range of organisations controlled by Paul Marshall or his associates, or which receive donations from them
October 15, 2025 at 8:06 AM
jamesrball.com
“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
Pictured is a delivery box containing a brand new Brother mono laser printer. It is the model everyone tells everyone else to buy whenever the issue of printers arises.
October 14, 2025 at 4:53 PM
jamesrball.com
Oh great Donald Trump is running the self-checkout at this shop in Europe now, too?
A sign below a card machine says “kindly split bills for amounts exceeding 50 euros. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
October 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM
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MAKE AMERICA QATAR AGAIN
October 10, 2025 at 4:02 PM
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Feel like this one aged quite well, tbh.
Am I missing something? What exactly has Barack Obama done (yet) to earn the peace prize?
October 9, 2025 at 11:01 PM
jamesrball.com
Labour has a majority of about 150. What is the internal turmoil this person imagines that would lead to a Labour PM voluntarily calling an early election. Because that’s the only way one happens.

Or to put it another way: what are these people smoking?
October 6, 2025 at 4:33 PM
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Reminder: this is to put a canopy on an existing outdoor pub deck. 🙃
Let’s take a look at this application. The application form is 21 pages long, and that’s just the very beginning. It has 26 supporting documents attached to it. Among them is a 16-page proposal document prepared by the consultancy Magenta Planning. There is a six page long form on the Community Infrastructure Levy. There is a 14-page long biodiversity survey and report, prepared by Arbtech, a second consultancy. That’s in turn dwarfed by a 59-page long heritage assessment, produced by Cotswold Archaeology – a third consultancy. And there’s absolutely no guarantee that this application will even succeed.
October 6, 2025 at 1:54 PM
jamesrball.com
*gasp*
“Everyone thought we’d come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren’t,” said a third senior Reform cabinet member in Kent.
October 5, 2025 at 9:03 PM