Jonathan Simons

@benjaminjriley.bsky.social

Is it ever going to stop being joyful watching United be terrible….latest evidence is that twelve years on, no, it’s still just as joyful

Sam Tighe@stighefootball.bsky.social

Unmistakably clear there, Old Trafford sang for Carrick on repeat until the moment he entered the tunnel, then it switched to vociferous boos for the players trailing in after him. Jeez.

Jonathan Simons reposted

Benjamin Riley

Good morning all. Might I interest you in a long comment on my Substack left by someone named James that in my view accurately and astutely summarizes the evolution of politics surrounding the American education system over the past 20 years? buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/selling-a-...

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.comJames on Cognitive ResonanceMy view is probably a bit idiosyncratic but here goes. I think traditional right-reformers like Pondiscio are now out of step with the conservatives who make policy. We used to have a bit of synergy b...

politics.co.ukDarren Jones: officials repeatedly told me I couldn’t act ‘because of the constitution’ - Politics.co.ukDarren Jones has said he was told “all the time” by officials that there were things he could not do “because of the constitution”. Jones, who served as chief secretary to the prime minister from September 2025 to July 2026, delivered evidence to the House of Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee (Pacac) on […]

Strike day, and the cheerleaders are huddled round a brazier, wearing fingerless gloves, while a grizzly shop steward bawls about class solidarity.

jen ramos-eisen@jenramose.online

NEWS: the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders have unionized and the Cowboys have agreed to recognize the union

Jonathan Simons reposted

Jim Pickard

@pickardje.bsky.social

Durham in the autumn

Jonathan Simons reposted

Tom Griffin

@tcgriffin.bsky.social

This is probably not the ideal way for a senior minister to learn the difference between 'unwritten' and 'uncodified.'

Josh Self@josh.politics.co.uk

🚨 Darren Jones: officials repeatedly told me I couldn’t act ‘because of the constitution’ “I would often reply with, ‘The constitution’s unwritten. So if I decide to do something, it changes. Therefore, why can’t I do it?’” He tried to “abolish the Cabinet Office three times” but was “not allowed”

ft.comMarina mania: super-rich compete for superyacht slotsA shortage of places to park the world’s growing fleet of luxury vessels is driving up prices — and turning marinas into a hot new asset class for investors

The yachts, and the have slots

Josh Spero@joshspero.ft.com

I loved editing this: too many yachts, not enough slots www.ft.com/content/1a93...

bbc.co.ukOur bikes are 'not for jousting,' says Lime after Hackney duelFootage emerged on social media of hundreds of people gathered in east London to watch a bike joust.

Roses are red The Hormuz Strait is for fuel

Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot@bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social

Our bikes are 'not for jousting,' says Lime after Hackney duel

Jonathan Simons reposted

Sam Freedman

@samfr.bsky.social

Astonishing cope here. PISA doesn't measure rote learning, it is not based on the English curriculum. It relies heavily on comprehension and applying knowledge to a new context.

Andy Gibson (@AndyGibsonTV) / InformingBritain.com@informingbritain.com

"GILRUTH: ENGLISH ROTE LEARNING A FACTOR IN LOWER SCOTS PISA SCORES" @AlistairKGrant.bsky.social for @Scotsman.com Jenny Gilruth suggested Scottish pupils trailed England in PISA scores due to Michael Gove's focus on rote learning in English schools. #TheScotsman #TomorrowsPapersToday

Liberal Democrats@libdems.org.uk

Tune into BBC One after the News at 10 or live on BBC iPlayer from 9pm to catch @maxwilkinson.bsky.social on BBC Question Time!

I often think of a former colleague of mine at PF: late 30s, recently married, left us for a high earning job in the private sector, mortgage, lives in leafy SW Lon. Privately educated, my guess is her kids would be too ideally. Husband and she met at Cam. Used to be rock solid Tory. Now votes Lab.

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She’s like one of those BES pen pics that the bot spits out. You’d bet a SW London mortgage / year’s private school fees she voted Tory; under any plausible future governing party, she would be. And yet.

(The other thing I often think about PF is “100 or so very policy engaged and politically aware people, but huh, very VERY few of them want to become MPs, is that an issue, maybe, perhaps….”)

Vice Chancellors: what shall I do about the coming demographic dip and all this spare real estate on my campus? Prosperity Institute: hold my illicitly made hooch

Jacqui Smith: I’m really worried; universities need a proper income stream Alex Norris: I have absolutely nowhere to put these prisoners Andy Burnham and John Healey

We’ve had billion pound bottle jobs, now we’ve got billion pound fraudsters

Their statement drives me crazy it’s so arrogant, so tin eared to the weight and breadth of the judgement against them. And apart from anything else, it literally can’t be irrefutable evidence that has been provided by the club because an investigation has refuted it!

*stretches out* *wiggles toes* *luxuriates in a Sunday that does not involve multiple trains to Liverpool in a suit for Lab party conference*

An organisation? Charging corporates to sponsor and speak at party conference panels alongside politicians? I’ve never *heard* of such a thing……

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This is such a bullshit story. As proven by the knock down quote from TBI pointing out that this is what every other org does, and DfS’ smoking gun being “an unnamed former TBI staff member said it looked bad”

democracyforsale.substack.comBREAKING: Tony Blair Institute’s $25,000 corporate network “smells like cash for access”Exclusive documents show Tony Blair's think tank offers corporate members such as BP and Uber "networking" at party conferences and "a stronger voice" in policy debates.

New link posted by DfS here: bsky.app/profile/pete...

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social

Deleted previous bluesky on this story as was so full of typos! democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-t...

Sigh indeed. jonathansimons.substack.com/p/making-the...

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social

*bangs head against wall forever* Apparently the way Burnham thinks we get parity of esteem is by saying vocational quals are for non-academic kids.

This man is not economically left wing.

British Voter@britishvoter.bsky.social

I'm a White British non-religious man from Central Devon, in my sixties. My top issue is welfare. In 2024 I didn't vote. Today I'd vote Conservative.

washingtonpost.comOne professor’s AI-assisted output: 200 papers and 14 books this yearAn online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.

Look, we say we want HE and academia to be more productive, but god forbid the man comes up wirh a solution…..

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social

We have to stop using "paper count" as a useful scientific metric. More writing output no longer means more knowledge gained www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Matt Goodwin has entered the chat….

Jonathan Simons reposted

Tom Roberts

@tpgroberts.bsky.social

22 Sept

The complete and total collapse of state function in the face of far right extremists. It is frankly ludicrous that Daniel Thomas continues to be at large given the series of crimes committed which he has literally filmed.

Emma Yeomans@yeomans.bsky.social

Worrying scenes in the Channel today, for all interested in asylum policy and maritime tactics. A small boat from Normandy spent more than 30 hours at sea. Those on board now on their 2nd rescue vessel as Border Force forced to play cat and mouse with far-right activists who have their own boat.

Jonathan Simons reposted

Wonkhe

@wonkhe.bsky.social

21 Sept

NEW on Wonkhe: Annie Bell and Damayanti Chatterjee present new modelling that explores not just the potential for growth in international student numbers, but also whether that growth would be stable buff.ly/vhm0Vdl

18 Sept

30 week or so scan with child no1. The midwife asks us “what are you going to feed them”. I (wittily) say “McDonalds, probably?” Then my wife hits me and I say “we’re going to do formula from day 1”. Honestly, I think the midwife preferred the McDonalds answer.

Alice Lilly@aliceolilly.bsky.social

Few things as guaranteed to send me into absolutely incandescent rage as mean, cruel, and frankly ignorant comments on social media aimed at people who are formula feeding a baby (something for which there can, of course, be a multitude of reasons, none of which are anybody’s business)

10 Sept

Brilliant. Thank goodness HE admissions teams have been alerted to This One Cool Trick

Chris Parr@chrisjparr.bsky.social

Some groans in room at UUK 2026 when Jacqui Smith said the UK continues to be welcoming to international students. She responds by saying that universities need to “get out there and argue the case” for the UK as a destination, particularly compared to some other countries.

politicshome.comTories Draw Up Plans To Give Every Household Civilian Emergency PamphletExclusive: The Conservatives are developing a policy to distribute pamphlets to every UK household advising how to respond to a civilian emergency.

10 Sept

I mean….what? Telling them to duck and cover? What on earth is the point of this. Wildly unproductive, nanny state tastic, very expensive, will be mostly binned unread, and far cheaper distribution mechanisms exist for genuine public information??

Matilda Martin@matildamartin.bsky.social

Exclusive: The Tories are developing a policy to distribute pamphlets to every UK household advising how to respond to a civilian emergency The plans are inspired by countries like Denmark, where the government uses literature to instruct the public on what steps to take within the first 72 hours

The whataboutery around these results is quite something. I am sceptical that a lot of the people picking holes in the data methodology, to undermine England’s success, would be doing so had they shown us plummeting. This is a real public policy triumph, built by school reformers of *all* parties

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social

New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.

View full thread

I can’t work out if it’s worse to be ED Hirsch - lifelong Democrat, condemned to be forever the handmaiden of “right wing reforms”, or Gibb and Gove, genuine givers of educational opportunity from the right destined to be forever undermined by partisan attacks.

All that is to say, there’s a golden opportunity for Lab to not do stupid things; to build on the good stuff we have in England (which the Francis review confirmed); to make the changes that definitely do need to be made, and to ignore people who have been wrong on this since 2010 or even earlier.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social

View full thread

I meet governments and school leaders all over the world who are learning from the English reforms. Of course they’re not perfect, and I’ve certainly learned loads which tells me if I were ever to be in power, there’s some stuff I’d do differently (and would change in England now too)

But we have an honest to goodness UK comparison here from Scotland and Wales which shows if you go the way that mimetic alternatives suggest, that it ends up bad for pupils. Again, this isn’t a right or left thing. It’s a genuine “what works” vs “what sounds good”

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social

There is nothing right wing about a model of schooling which focusses on knowledge rich curriculum, evidence based teacher training, school (or trust) autonomy, and good assessment (not coursework). Some of the best schl leaders and thinkers I know are lifelong Lab voters, and execute this stuff.

6 Sept

Trump closing the Straits of Hormuz might actually be a winning strategy…..

KetAnthropic JoshAI@ketanjoshi.co

The amount of oil use avoided by EVs in China in the first half of 2026 is the same as the amount of oil USED BY THE ENTIRE UK www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chi...

6 Sept

Interesting and disturbing thread. Makes the point that, with this level of coordination and planning, supposedly all in secret, if this group had been armed they would have completely overwhelmed police (inc special branch) and security services; only army and special forces could have engaged.

Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social

Another compilation video from yesterday's fascist paramilitary 'storm' action in #Dover town and at the Port of Dover. #FarRight Some national security-related observations below.

5 Sept

I love these. A man with no mortgage at all, that has to borrow money for the basics, who voted Starmer and thinks the economy has improved massively, but would now vote Tory. Wild.

British Voter@britishvoter.bsky.social

I'm a Black African Anglican man from Thirsk and Malton, aged 28. My top issue is the cost of living. In 2024 I voted Labour. Today I'd vote Conservative.

timeout.comAndy Burham reveals his top three pubs in London‘I don’t think there’s a pub in London I’ve not been in.’

4 Sept

It’s giving real

Peter Watts@peterwatts.bsky.social

Andy Burnham's top three London pubs have dropped www.timeout.com/london/news/...

2 Sept

PM was unbelievably nervous there and it showed. He needs a far less staccato delivery and to know his attack lines off the top of his head, rather than looking down to read them every few words. Turns out PMQs is hard and you can’t vibe it.

2 Sept

This is also true though. Why on earth Kemi Badenoch accepted the opportunity to relitigate the Truss budget and how senior various junior ministers were at the time, who knows bsky.app/profile/adri...

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theguardian.comMore public control is only way to grow UK economy, Burnham to tell MPsExclusive: Prime minister wants to ‘bring back hope’ by tackling cost of living as MPs call for electoral reform

This must be true. Because we had stellar growth throughout the 70s, and terrible growth in the 90s and 00s until the global financial crisis.

Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social

EXC - Andy Burnham will drive home his pledge to bring more essential services back into public control, telling MPs that it will be the only way to grow the economy. Burnham will finally address the house tomorrow - six weeks since he became PM. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Not *a* way. Not even *the best way, in my (misguided) opinion*. The *only* way. Commanding heights of the economy and nationalised public services. Totally reflective of the UK economy and working class precarity in 2026.

I can’t believe people are talking smack on the skills wallet, a terribly named policy admittedly but one that has got literal four party approval (the Tories and Lab both introduced the LLE, and it’s more or less what Reform have proposed in their new paper on apprenticeships and training)

Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social

Before long, the people of Surrey will talk of little else but which counting system is best for STV and how they'd use their skill wallets

It’s just adult learning funding, with two tweaks: a left-coded one which is to encourage your employer to put funds into it; and a right-coded one which is individual tax incentives to add more in, and making it sound like a personal budget. Small change. Sounds big. All party support. Genius.

washingtonpost.comWhy ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ is set to be a cultural juggernautA market intelligence firm estimates “GTA VI” has already received about 4.6 million preorders.

29 Aug

This is a mind blowing paragraph: “Box office blockbusters like “The Odyssey” take weeks to hit $1 billion. “GTA V” famously did it in three days. Analyst firm Newzoo projects the new game could generate between $3.3 billion and $5.2 billion by the end of *its launch week* in November.”

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

“Grand Theft Auto VI” is about to be the biggest pop media event of the year, if not the decade. The data backs this up. Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates “GTA VI” has already received about 4.6 million preorders.

ft.comHealey to shelve his own defence spending target of 3% of GDP by 2030Chancellor resigned as defence secretary in June over what he saw as inadequate ambition for military spending by Sir Keir Starmer’s government

28 Aug

I hope Rachel Reeves makes an excoriating speech from the backbenches telling him that he’s threatening his country’s safety and that the first duty of any government is defence of the realm

Jim Pickard@pickardje.bsky.social

Chancellor John Healey will shelve his own target of spending 3 per cent of Britain’s GDP on defence by 2030 when he presents his first Budget in October, with tough decisions on how to fund the military pushed down the track. www.ft.com/content/fc92...