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kjthomson.bsky.social
@kjthomson.bsky.social
49 followers 140 following 1 posts
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mikegalsworthy.bsky.social
The Independent Water Commission confirms
Scotland's water meets high standards, contradicting recent political claims of poor quality.
Is it true that Scotland’s water pollution levels are bad? - Bylines Scotland
The Independent Water Commission confirms Scotland's water meets high standards, contradicting recent political claims of poor quality
bylines.scot
July 24, 2025 at 7:23 PM
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oliver48.bsky.social
"A very important piece in Private Eye. Please read and circulate. It shows exactly how the secret state operates in trying to manufacture consent. Of course it relies on enough people being duped as well as on some witch-hunting McCarthyite scabs who will relay the propaganda."
via Kevin Ovenden
July 14, 2025 at 8:22 AM
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coldwarsteve.bsky.social
July 2, 2025 at 8:42 PM
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supertanskiiii.bsky.social
This is fucking insane. The BBC is adjusting output to “win back” Reform voters while ex-Tory spin doctor, Gibb, sits on its board.

That’s not public service or impartiality - it’s interference.

Bending over for Farage puts the BBC in the gutter with the Daily Mail. bylinetimes.com/2025/06/09/b...
BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output
The Director General Tim Davie and other executives discussed altering BBC “story selection” in order to secure the "trust" of supporters of Nigel Farage’s party
bylinetimes.com
June 9, 2025 at 7:26 PM
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iandunt.bsky.social
Starmer's anti-immigrant speech today wasn't just a moral and political embarrassment. It was also an intellectual embarrassment.

inews.co.uk/opinion/star...
May 12, 2025 at 1:46 PM
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iandunt.bsky.social
Not once have we had a government which is willing to openly state the benefits of immigration to our society and our economy, the way that diversity has made us a wealthier and culturally richer country. Not once. And yet we're constantly told that we've been living in an experiment of no borders.
May 12, 2025 at 8:13 AM
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tanjabueltmann.net
My letter to the Prime Minister. #immigration
Slightly amended so I can fit this here: I am writing to you as an immigrant who chose to make the UK my home. As someone who is now also a British citizen. And as a German-born historian who understands where the complete normalisation of the far right can end. I write to say: For shame! I first came to the UK in the 1990s for a visit with my grandmother. Objectively, much was backwards here. No mixer taps in the bathroom; awful ‘bread’; and strings had to be pulled to switch on lights. But however I felt about this, my own string had been pulled: I loved this Cool Britannia. It was quite possibly then that I decided that the UK was to be my home. When I arrived to settle here permanently, I made a choice: to contribute my skills, my knowledge—all I have to offer—to this country rather than another one. I am deeply disgusted by your comment today that immigration has done ‘incalculable damage’ to the country. This is the language of the far right. It is insulting, hateful & will fuel xenophobia. And it is just wrong. Migration is a normal part of the human existence. None of us would be where we are without it. Open your fridge and you will see migration. Immigrants help make the UK tick every single day, whether we clean toilets in our hospitals or provide care for the elderly; whether we empty our bins or carry out cancer research. We are mothers, sons-in-law, aunts and uncles, friends, neighbours and colleagues. I ask you not tell me that you do not mean me. I know that you do not—at least not primarily—mean a white woman from Europe who has a PhD. But who do you mean? And, much more importantly, who do you think those racists who were engaged in riots on our streets last summer think you mean? Anti-immigration narratives have defined UK policymaking for the best part of two decades. And fundamentally so. They were the key driver in delivering Brexit, for example, and, as such, have directly limited the rights and opportunities of British citizens. This obsessive focus on immigration as the ‘problem’—that is the real problem. And it is consistently delivering poor outcomes for the UK. Instead of tackling this, you are choosing to consolidate it, sowing divisions along the way. You may point me to polling and tell me that this is what voters want. Do they? I am not surprised at all that over 50% of voters might say they want to see immigration reduced if that is the question they are being asked. What we need to know is what they would answer to the question: “Would you like to see immigration reduced? What this would mean for you and your local community is XYZ.” That is not how surveys can ask questions, but governments absolutely can choose to make policy using such a more informed position. Prime Minister, you continue to talk a lot about making the tough choices. But let’s be clear: setting immigrants up as the ‘other’, as a scapegoat—describing us as a threat ‘pulling the country apart’, a ‘squalid chapter’, a risk that might make the UK an ‘island of strangers’—these are not tough choices at all. These are the easy choices. They are the choices that populists make who have no solutions to the real problems a country faces. What I would like to know, Prime Minister, is what you will do when your policies lead to the implosion of the UK’s Higher Education sector. What you will tell communities when they can no longer provide any care for the elderly. The policies you announced today will not solve anything at all. They will have exclusively negative impacts. For those immediately affected; for our communities; and for our economy. Being pro-immigration—it is progressive, yes, but the much more crucial point is that it is also the most pro-UK policy approach that any politician in the country can pursue. And you are choosing to do the opposite. This, Prime Minister, is the real damage—and it will be very calculable indeed. Tanja Bueltmann
May 12, 2025 at 2:46 PM
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peterstefanovic.bsky.social
The UK is facing a desperate shortage of care workers with an already completely overwhelmed social care sector struggling to meet the demand for services. This plan is the very definition of self harm inflicted to chase Reform voters
peterstefanovic.bsky.social Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · May 11
“Can you see a day when you say no care workers should come in from abroad?” - Laura Kuenssberg

“Yes we do and we’re going to change the rules this year to prevent a care worker visa being used to recruit from abroad” - Home Secretary Yvette Cooper

We already have a desperate shortage!
May 11, 2025 at 9:08 AM
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drrachelclarke.com
We have a desperate shortage of care workers. This has a catastrophic effect on the NHS too.

Labour’s decision to close the care worker visa scheme for overseas recruitment is appalling, kneejerk politics that - yet again - will penalise the most vulnerable.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
UK care homes face ban on overseas recruitment under migration plans
Yvette Cooper to announce proposals to reduce net migration in response to growing pressure from Reform UK
www.theguardian.com
May 11, 2025 at 9:41 AM
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tanjabueltmann.net
In fact: fewer immigrants make things worse!

As I’ve noted many times before: in all this time of IMMIGRATION splashed across front pages etc, the one thing we have not had is an informed national conversation about immigration. And we won’t get that now either. So this cycle continues …
May 3, 2025 at 10:12 AM
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tanjabueltmann.net
Essentially *all* research and expert assessments show that this does not work. It will not counter Farage, but literally push votes towards Reform.

It genuinely is impossible to overstate how profoundly stupid and strategically illiterate this decision is.

You cannot out-Reform Reform.
bloomberg.com Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · May 3
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing tougher measures on immigration to stem a record flow of arrivals across the English Channel and stave off the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after it made sweeping gains in this week’s local elections.
Starmer Plots Harder Line on Migration to Counter Farage Threat
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing tougher measures on immigration to stem a record flow of arrivals across the English Channel and stave off the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party after it made sweeping gains in this week’s local elections.
bloom.bg
May 3, 2025 at 8:00 AM
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chrisgpackham.bsky.social
Blair says net zero is "doomed to fail" – but to abandon a rapid green transition away from fossil fuels is to sentence millions to certain death . And he knows it .

12 days left to sign my petition to ban fossil fuel ads – please sign govpetition.uk/700024
April 30, 2025 at 7:02 PM
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weegingerdug.bsky.social
My latest blog piece. The Scottish media's personality disorder. The strange inability of the Scottish media to recognise Scottish success stories

weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2025/04/03/t...
The Scottish media’s personality disorder
If the Labour government wanted to know why so many people are claiming sickness and disability benefits for anxiety and depression, all they need to do is to cast an eye over the handiwork of thei…
weegingerdug.wordpress.com
April 3, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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tanjabueltmann.net
I have not seen such a blatant anti-immigrant statement based on falsehoods, pitting people against people, in some time. Statement made by Keir Starmer at today’s immigration summit.
“There is little that strikes working people as more unfair than watching illegal migration drive down their wages, their terms and their conditions,” he added.
March 31, 2025 at 6:27 PM
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iandunt.bsky.social
Ukraine was just knifed in the back.

Essential reading on yesterday's deal

open.substack.com/pub/phillips...
Ukraine Was Just Knifed In The Back
And The Ukrainians Know It
open.substack.com
March 26, 2025 at 7:45 AM
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peteralanross.bsky.social
I went to Orkney and visited the grave of George Mackay Brown. I hope you enjoy reading it, as I enjoyed writing it. Please consider sharing, and perhaps even subscribing so that my work will be emailed to you whenever I post. It's free. smallfinds.substack.com/p/small-find...
Small Finds #4
At the grave of George Mackay Brown
smallfinds.substack.com
March 21, 2025 at 8:40 AM
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aiannucci.bsky.social
If anyone can show me how you grow the economy by targeting people who need assistance to wash below their waist, please reply.
March 19, 2025 at 8:08 AM
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georgemonbiot.bsky.social
This country is awash with money. The very rich are rich beyond imagination. So when Starmer wants to stay within his arbitrary fiscal rules, who does he decide to take money from? The very rich? No, from people with disabilities who depend on benefits for the bare minimum of a decent life.
March 18, 2025 at 6:36 AM
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ledbydonkeys.org
Thousands of people are ditching Tesla. Here’s one of them with a message you can see from space.

Location: Black Rock Sands, Wales, UK

Led By Donkeys is 100% funded by small donations.
March 17, 2025 at 6:15 PM
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zoejardiniere.bsky.social
We have got to stop kidding ourselves that appeasing Trump & trying to please him gains us any leverage, any guarantees, any reliable favour.

Trump has chosen Putin and the oligarchy. We must cancel his state visit. @ukstoptrump.bsky.social
March 3, 2025 at 10:43 AM
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edmorrish.bsky.social
"say what you like about nigel farage, but he has a habit of grabbing people's attention!!" squeal reporters. no; he has a habit of grabbing YOUR attention because you are lazy and stupid and bad at your jobs
March 3, 2025 at 11:16 AM
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implausibleblog.bsky.social
Sky News, "Ukrainians are ready for anything, even the loss of US support"

"They are turning to Europe, hoping their European partners can step up and fill that void"

Ukrainians preferring the stability of Europe to the chaos of the US under Trump

Why isn't the UK preferring Europe to the US?
March 1, 2025 at 9:24 PM
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danigaravelli.bsky.social
I’m not normally a BBC basher but it’s *still* referring to what happened in the White House yesterday as a “shouting match”, a “ spat” and a “row”. We all watched it. That’s not an accurate depiction of events.
March 1, 2025 at 11:25 AM