Tom James

@tacj.bsky.social

722 Followers 269 Following

Pretty standard really.

Anyway, the value of the humanities and social sciences isn't really marketable skills, it's understanding humans. Which, since we're human, is valuable in itself
I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent-the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house of legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let the legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority ... while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it would make a poor law? And if a law is disliked by as many as one-third is it not likely that you would be better off without it? Robert A. Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress #kindlequotes
Roger McCarthy @rogermccarthy.bsky.social · 6m The one problem being that with the electorate and the media we actually have this means handing over greater powers and resources across great swathes of the country (including mine) to fascists and racists who will not do any of that good stuff they are supposed to.
Anything which is physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo of small minds. Robert A. Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress #kindlequotes
TV with aircraft tracker screensaver app.
Your No Licence Needed status: Expired end of June 2026.
Jack Nicholson Unrealized Napoleon project
Latest transactions Q Upcoming AMNESTY INT UK DD 20 Jul 2026 - € 50.00 SLC RECEIPTS CR 20 Jul 2026 + £ 200.39
MatrixLingo app.
• 4+ years of work experience with Agentic AI Development • 4+ years of experience in Information Technology • 4+ years of work experience with Python (Programming Language) • 4+ years of work experience with React.js
Generally this works well. So well that every piece of software you engage with, whether open-source or proprietary itselt, sits on top of a web of open-source packages. The Financial Times app, for example, rests on top of more than 2,000 other packages. One of those is a tool called axios (fetches data), which depends on a tool called babel (translates code), which depends on Node (a form of the language JavaScript), which depends on the open-source language Python. But there's a risk. When you build on top of Someone Else's Code, it becomes a dependency and dependencies can go stale.
Plaque outside a Wetherspoons in Canary Wharf reading: Of this Range of BUILDINGS Constructed together with the Adjacent Docks At the Expence of public spirited Individuals. Under the Sanction of a provident Legislature And with the liberal Co-operation of the Corporate Body of the CITY of LONDON. For the distinct Purpose Of complete SECURITY and ample ACCOMMODATION (hitherto not afforded) To the SHIPPING and PRODUCE of the WEST INDIES at this walthy PORT. FIRST STONE WAS LAID On Saturday the Twelfth Day of July, A. D. 1800, BY THE CONCURRING HANDS OF RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD LOUGHBOROUGH LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FIRST LORD COMMISSIONER OF HIS MAJESTY'S TREASURX. AND CHANCELLOR OF IS MAJESTYS EXCHEQUER. GEORGE HIBBERT, ESQ. THE CHAIRMAN. AND ROBERT MILLIGAN. ESQ, THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN. OF THE WEST INDIA DOCK COMPANY The two former conspicuous in the Band Of those illustrious Statesmen Who in either Houfe of Parliament. have been zealois to The two latter diftinguifhed among thofe chofen to direct. UNDERTAKING Which, under the favour of GOD. shall contribute STABILITY. INCREASE, and ORNAMENT BRITISH COMMERCE
Today, apprenticeship in England is hamstrung by a levy design that distorts employer incentives, and by a Whitehall system divorced from local labour markets that combines penny-pinching with bureaucratic burdens. Channelling our Jacobean forebears would be a good place for reformers to start.
Police criticise timing of decision on pubs staying open for England match Police chiefs say the government's "late announcement" means forces would have to take officers away from other duties.
Crying puppy.
Head building Tirane.
Noah Smith •.. @Noahp... • 12h O ... When the Iranian regime falls, the UK will be the standard-bearer of global Islamist ideology
An air conditioner unit.
Harry Enfield as a surgeon in the "post surgeons" sketch from Harry and Paul, explaining something in a very specific, surprised and disappointed tone of voice.
200 Pound sterling equals + Follow 21,865.66 Albanian Lek
Location of what3words winter.fuel.allowance in New South Wales.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/b3ab783e-e4d6-494d-b45c-7d58b0fdee7a?syn-25a6b1a6=1 This is one reason for the lingering mistrust among some Labour colleagues. “We were sticking our necks out and standing up for traditional Labour values and Andy was helping facilitate the hard-left takeover,” said one MP. 
Laptop on desk with Nazi memorabilia on the walls.
Word cloud answering the question In a word or two, what would you say has been Labour's biggest failure/achievement in government? There is a single large phrase: Winter Fuel Allowance. And a smaller word: Immigration. Most other words or phrases are not distinguishable. From: https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/1lret60/in_a_word_or_two_what_would_you_say_has_been/
Welsh Senedd 2026 results.
Screenshot of a web app called UK STV Constituency Mapper. It has a map showing part of South East England with various constituencies selected and some yet to be filled in.
Alongside this policy agenda would come a wholesale reconfiguration of government. Not civil-service retraining, but a new cadre of workforce, with the specialist technical skills necessary to do systemic change. Departments effectively run by ministers not exclusively from the ranks of Parliament if they have the necessary experience and capability in change management, with special provision for them to be accountable.
Martin Luther with a speech bubble as if he were saying the quoted post.
Palantir's technology has had a very variable impact on hospital productivity Additional operations, click on bar to see trust name* Bar chart of the additional patients undergoing procedures in hospital theatres since FDP adoption by NHS trust showing Palantir's technology has had a very variable impact on hospital productivity Chart showing a bunch of hospitals with many seeing additional operations overall, but a third of hospitals seeing a decline.
In the bullseye of history: Why we literate intellectuals feel that this wave of technological change is so much more momentous than, say, the coming of mass production or of electric power. The sense of unprecedented rupture is itself an old story—what’s new is how often... 1/
In fact, the Manhattan Project as a comparator is a very strange one, because if you take the Manhattan Project seriously — beyond just a kind of reference to big bangs and lots of money — we find that atomic bombs have not been used in war since 1945, and that the generation of electricity through atomic power has not in fact been that significant. We could easily have lived without nuclear power in the world. What is the story that's been told?
Share of electricity generation in Sweden
lan Dunt • @iandunt.bsky.social X Very impressed by Burnham on that Question Time panel. He said various things I disagreed with of course, but presentationally he's striking: Empathetic, articulate, emotionally and intellectually engaged, with a sense of authenticity. 10:28 AM • Jun 5, 2026 • Everybody can reply
A Canadian warship on the Thames.
least £30 billion, Spain and Portugal have demonstrated how you can massively enhance energy security and enjoy some of the cheapest power prices in Europe with a commitment to renewables and the right market design.
A plate of sea bass on a pile of carrots, fried peppers, green beans, asparagus, and steamed leeks.
Alongside this policy agenda would come a wholesale reconfiguration of government. Not civil-service retraining, but a new cadre of worktorce, with the specialist technical skills necessary to do systemic change. Departments effectively run by ministers not exclusively from the ranks of Parliament if they have the necessary experience and capability in change management, with special provision for them to be accountable.
Andrew Winton 3 DAYS AGO The new owner says WH Smith's high street is broken. That was the plan. A structurally declining chain attracts only the buyer whose profit does not depend on saving it. The chief executive installed to run the former WHSmith high street stores calls the business almost completely broken and blames the previous owner. It is a tidy narrative. It is also the strategy working as designed, not a buyer caught out by what he found. Start with who sold what. The seller was WHSmith plc, the listed group, which kept the profitable travel shops in airports, stations and hospitals and disposed of the declining high street arm of around 450 stores. The buyer was Modella Capital, a small distressed retail specialist with net assets of roughly £12.8 million. It renamed the shops TG Jones. It has form: its purchases of Claire's Accessories and The Original Factory Shop both ended in administration. The complaint that the stores were starved of investment is true and beside the point. The dilapidation was never concealed. It was mocked in the press for years, and the seller's camp says every bidder had full access to the books. A buyer does not stumble by accident into shops with
Jeremy Irons in Margin Call saying "Please, speak you might to a young child, or a golden retriever".
lan Dunt @IanDunt Follow Power suits Starmer, as expected. Looks comfortable, relaxed, in charge. Doesn't have that hint of frustration and anxiety he had as opposition leader. 13:06 • 06 Jul 24 • 817K Views 339 Reposts 184 Quotes 5,428 Likes
5: The Bureaucratic Ascendency Bureaucracy is a bad European system of government, created by the use of permanent public officials, a system that does not, should not, and cannot exist in England.... Palmerston to Qucen Victoria, 1837 Ibe bureaucratic quality of social and political organisation in Australia colours the whole pattern of social relations. It arises partly from the
Odo Proudfoot shouting "ProudFEET" at Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings.
How the deal addresses this: The treaty includes a clause preventing Mauritius from allowing other powers to use the outer islands without UK agreement. That's the actual mechanism. The deal trades nominal sovereignty (which the UK was on track to lose anyway, on this view) for a contractual veto over who else gets to operate in the archipelago — which sovereignty alone wouldn't have given them once Mauritius prevailed.
Second, he's reframing the deal as a hard-nosed national security calculation. His logic runs roughly like this: the 2019 ICJ opinion has created legal and diplomatic uncertainty around the UK's position in Chagos. That uncertainty is itself a strategic vulnerability. If the UK simply ignores the opinion and clings to the status quo, it risks Mauritius taking further legal action, allies becoming reluctant to cooperate, and — crucially — Mauritius potentially inviting a hostile power (the implication is China) to establish its own presence on one of the other islands in the archipelago. That's what he means by "another state building a whopping huge listening post on the neighbouring island." So the deal, in his telling, isn't about complying with the ICJ — it's about using a negotiated settlement to lock in long-term, uncontested control of Diego Garcia and prevent any rival power from gaining a foothold nearby. Pay the lease, secure the base for decades, and shut the door on geopolitical competitors getting near it. The closing line — "we'll just have to see how things pan out" — is a slightly wry acknowledgement that this is a bet on the future, and the proof will be in whether the arrangement actually holds and delivers the security benefits he's claiming.
Old guy from the "I'll guess I die" meme.
Hermer says that the UK's decision to hand the islands back to Mauritius and pay more than £100mn a year to lease back the UK-US military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, is not "some slavish devotion to an advisory opinion" from the International Court of Justice, which said in 2019 that the UK's separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was unlawful. Instead, it is driven by national security concerns. Chagos is "in an incredibly important position on the globe from a geopolitical, strategic, defence perspective, national security perspective. If you want to make sure not only that it is locked in for the foreseeable future, but that you can't, for example, get another state building a whopping huge listening post on the neighbouring island... you need to think through all the steps that flow from this advisory opinion and work out what's in the UK's best interest."
There are growing calls to make information on outcomes far more accessible, so applicants know what they are getting. "Students often get more information when buying a new phone than when signing up for a degree," says Sir David Behan, who led a government review into higher education regulation in 2024.
After 13 years working on building sites, Daniel Dimitrov sees the business degree he is pursuing as the path to starting his own company. The Bulgarian chuckles that "the government pays to invest in me" through the student loan system. But he does not plan to be in Britain to worry about paying it off: "My future is in Asia."
That’s illegal people can’t do that
By paying more than it had to, the navy left itself with a surplus of captains and admirals on half-pay and without a command at any given time. That surplus, though, was to prove useful. Because any captain at sea would be aware that if he failed to do his duty, a replacement was ready and raring to go. Duncan Weldon Blood and Treasure: The Economics of Conflict from the Vikings to Ukraine #kindlequotes
In 1953, a visiting American academic, attending a dinner party at a British university, was surprised to hear 'an eminent man of the left to say-in utter seriousness-that the British Constitution was "as nearly perfect as any human institution could be" . He was even more surprised that "No one even thought it amusing"! Vernon Bogdanor Beyond Brexit: Towards a British Constitution #kindlequotes
In 1953, a visiting American academic, attending a dinner party at a British university, was surprised to hear 'an eminent man of the left to say-in utter seriousness-that the British Constitution was "as nearly perfect as any human institution could be" . He was even more surprised that "No one even thought it amusing"! Vernon Bogdanor Beyond Brexit: Towards a British Constitution #kindlequotes
When we persuaded the police in England's big cities to focus on cutting muggings-there was an epidemic of them in 2001-2-they reluctantly agreed, but said that as they moved police officers from other duties onto this agenda, other crime types would get worse. Their assumption was, at least implicitly, that they were working at maximum efficiency, so prioritizing one crime would adversely affect others. There was no reason to believe this was true. After all, at the time, a police officer in London made on average only five arrests a year. In any case, we agreed to check. Nothing of the sort happened. The good news was, in the places where mugging fell fastest, other crime types fell too. Michael Barber How to Run A Government: So that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don't Go Crazy #kindlequotes
To every single person who watches WWE and supports that company, fuck you.
Google Search of Can I borrow your umbrella? with result AI Overview Yes, you can borrow my umbrella, especially if you are in London today (March 30, 2026), where it is currently light rain with a 20% chance of precipitation at 4 PM. It's always best to be prepared for the 20% chance of rain throughout the day.
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Plan SIGMA, depicting various options for energy generation in the UK, with a picture of the Gigachad.
Recent General Elections have thrown into doubt the continuing validity of the "first past the post" system of voting. As voting preferences spread more widely it provides distorted results. The democratic case for examining this is growing, although changes would come with distinct drawbacks. Should Members of Parliament who defect to a different Party be compelled to face a by-election? Constitutionally, no - as they are deemed to be elected as individuals. But, in the real world, they are elected as representatives of a political Party. So - yes: logic and common decency suggest they must face the electorate again in a by-election.
Screenshot of the "Feed Eggs" game from the Tim Robinson sketch show where he's playing the game at work.