James Gillespie
Technology, geopolitics, films / affil. @adamsmith.org @rusi.bsky.social / ex HM Treasury policy wonk / Swiftie
"Liberal cultist"/"MAGA intelligentsia"
"Smug provocateur drunk on his own arguments"
- As James Bond once said of Auric Goldfinger (another gold-obsessed plutocrat who owned golf courses): he's quite mad, you know.
- It's an interesting strategic dilemma. Being on the ticket for a party will get you a lot of votes just through brand recognition or unthinking loyalty, but sometimes the party brand can be a drag for particular candidates. You probably need to approach it on a case-by-case basis.
- Extraordinary for an MP to be this blunt about his leader on the floor of the House. Badenoch's authority is draining.
- Roth gets things wrong here. The complaints have not led to the authoritarian push, the failure of universities to seriously address these issues has.
- Repeatedly, liberals have sounded the alarm about Trump, only to keep doing the things which fuel support for him. This is true not just in academia, but in government (see Biden's failure to control immigration) and other institutions.
- This is some God-tier trolling 💀
- Kneecap going full Karen and threatening to sue people who want them dropped from the Glasto lineup is a very amusing plot twist
- I’m outraged that Coachella invited Kneecap to perform this year. Their music is fucken shite.
- People were like "meh meh meh, only idiots buy Hawk Tuah coin - I'm smart and invest in the stock market" and now look
- Tell me you don't understand what an administrative stay is without telling me
- X raised equity earlier this month at a $32bn valuation, so clearly the market is a lot closer to what xAI has paid than the "$6 billion at most"
- This Trump/Vance-Zelensky press conference is a new low for the Trump administration. It'll play well with MAGA, but the majority of Americans (including Republican voters) support Ukraine. People will watch and cringe at how their president and VP are behaving on the world stage.
- I don't really follow the NFL, so perhaps someone can enlighten me... if Philly win today do they actually get a superb owl? Will it get along with their eagle? I'll see myself out... 🏈🦉🦅
- Democrats, of course, have made no such suggestion about the current Supreme Court and have accepted its judgments with equanimity and grace 🫠🫠🫠
- A take to get both sides raging: US aid spending should remain at the current level (0.9% of GDP), but USAID should be brought under the State Department (as the Trump admin is reportedly considering). Aid should be more carefully aligned to geopolitical objectives.
- The influence of Curtis Yarvin is vastly overstated. Talking about him like he's some MAGA guru makes for a nice NYT "democracy is imperilled" piece, but I don't think you can find a single GOP policy that he's inspired.
- The most Yarvin-esque belief held by Republicans is probably the unitary executive theory of presidential power. But this predates Yarvin by, well, decades.
- Was wondering what had happened to YK-ATA (which was rumoured to have crashed whilst carrying Assad, before he was revealed to be in Russia). Well, it seems that the plane ended up at Russia's Khmeimim Air Base in Syria. Assad has since confirmed that he left the country via this base.
- The apparent rapid loss of altitude and sharp turns near Homs may have been an illusion caused by GPS jamming.
- 1450 is the 97th percentile. That's comfortably in UCLA territory, especially as an in state applicant.
- Lmao, Dunt blocked me for this
- Badenoch's main weakness has always been her judgment. In particular, she picks the wrong fights. She often seems more interested in winning individual arguments, even ones that don't really matter, than winning an election.
- The post wasn't exactly in the Xmas spirit, but are we seriously saying that if you aren't put up in a hotel and don't get your sheets laundered daily then you're not being treated like a human being? The social contract is broken when illegal immigrants get better support than Americans in need.
- Truly unprecedented levels of cope
- There's a case for making Starmer politician of the year, but it's not the fawning nonsense above. He arguably deserves the title simply because he managed to become PM in a landslide win without anyone particularly liking him. He neutralised Labour's weaknesses with dishonesty and blandness.
- I'm not a fan of Nigel Farage, but there's a stronger case for making him politician of the year. Starmer couldn't have achieved his landslide without Reform taking votes from the Tories. And Farage's success has shifted the Overton window, whereas Starmer lacks a clear narrative for his government.
- They should make a modern day Scrooge, but in this version he'll be a vegan, card-carrying member of the Green Party and at the end he'll repent by buying a Porsche and adopting the carnivore diet
- Since I’ve been away, Nationwide have rebranded their logo to Pac-Man eating a house
- Asma al-Assad is reportedly London bound, if a Russian court approves her request to leave the country
- This is still an unconfirmed story at the moment. But as she's a British citizen, the UK is the obvious place for her to go if she doesn't want to stay in Moscow. The possibility of her fleeing to London is something the government will very likely have been planning for.
- Like, who is saying that, though?🤷♂️
