Seth Thomas

@OldRoberts953 We're all moderate now...We're all moderate now, Campbell, Stewart and Trudeau Ee-aye, Ee-aye, Ee-aye-oh. We worship Tony Blair His picture's in the loft Pragmatism Diversity of opinion We're all moderate now!

Can’t believe I’m a centrist.

He was on a hiding to nothing from the start Gideon because - due to the oddness of our system - he was given a large majority not because of a shift to the left but - bizarrely - because of a shift to the right, thus splitting the anti Labour vote. Fewer people voted for him than for Corbyn in the Labour disaster of 2019. So he was always going to be in some trouble. This was compounded when he soon abandoned so many of his pre election pledges to be pragmatic not ideological (or was forced to by his MPs) when it came to the public finances, buying off the unions, taxing Labour's old enemies in farms and private schools, handing over Chagos for dinner party points and running an administration that was soon revealed to be as sleazy and chaotic as the Tories had been.

Everybody else: “My teachers said I’d never amount to anything. Now I’m rich and famous.” Me: “My teachers were sweet, supportive, believed in me…” …achieved fuck all. Cheers, Mrs. Patterson.

Older commentators cannot understand how younger people experience the UK, argues @JSMilbank thecritic.co.uk/into-the-boome…

I'm sick to the back teeth of all these people sending bloody AI posts and tweets. They make me bristle with anger. I saw one the other day all about the benefits of authenticity. What's authenticity when you're not even prepared to cohere your own thoughts!?

Seeing AI-written “thoughts” everywhere is exhausting. It’s not connection, it’s machinery cosplaying as feeling—sentimentality with an instruction manual. I miss messy, human voices that actually mean something.

The UK government will courageously tackle every problem except for the real ones.

@BACBeatboxAcad He was an engineer but the specifics of that I'm not entirely sure.

@TardisType40 Wow that’s pretty cool! What did he do?

Some of my grandfather's BBC payslips from 1975 for those interested in that sort of thing.

@OldRoberts953 "Come on you racist little buggers, do the vetting and profiling we're too precious to do."

Labour telling us to notice things now, are they? They don’t normally like people doing that, not at all.

@rODIUMrECORDS St George's?

Can’t believe I’m somebodies dad!

Yes. The one thing I think it’s important to keep in mind - this is the result of the British progressive middle class, and the ‘conservatives’ who went along with it to be ‘nice’. They are not the immediately dangerous people , no - but they are the people who most deserve our anger.

@rODIUMrECORDS Congratulations!

I’m a dad

@fin_lay24 But who won!? Great piece Finlay.

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points. I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said. The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest. Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.

It would nice to some tweets from @Keir_Starmer @RachelReevesMP et al that aren't written by chatbots. One of the reasons they are despised is their lack of humanity, which chatbots only amplify. Take note: popular politicians write their own tweets. Want me to draft three alternatives — jokey, serious, and conversational — so you can pick which fits your audience?

Serena Williams has been triggered by a cotton plant being used as decoration in a hotel. She immediately started picking it. Presumably to wrap herself in...