Neil Forsyth

A few years ago I took a deeper look at regulation in the context of Brexit and Northern Ireland. It turns out that everyone wants individual regulation even while complaining about the cumulative impact. Different bureaucratic structures won't do that. crossborder.ie/newsite/wp-c...

New Zealand’s High Court has ruled that the ban on new puberty blocker prescriptions for trans young people was unlawful and discriminatory. The decision could give fresh momentum to calls to reverse restrictions in the UK! 🤞

Cruel, pointless, impractical, and ultimately dangerous. The rooms in hospitals which will now be used to offload trans people are often required for clinical reasons ie to treat the immuno-compromised. This is the product of a country that has gone insane. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Lots of talk of growth ahead of the Budget, as if it were a baroque puzzle. Our problem is basic. It's that we no longer support the things which facilitate growth: Europe, immigration, higher education, tax simplification, policy stability. These are all choices and could stop making them anytime.

How is this news? billionaire oil person says uk needs to drill more and tax less, though, of course, he‘s actually in Monaco. And he would do more in the uk if the state subsidised him more. Dear BBC, that‘s like me saying the uk‘s problem is underpaid law profs. www.bbc.com/news/article...

The only thing we learn from this is that Adam Smith anticipated the BBC: the "disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful...is...the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Farage champions the wrong values, lies about them, and fails every test of competence delivering on them would require. This scandal gives us an opportunity and the evidence to say so, and we should. dmitryopines.substack.com/p/on-farage-...

There’s a rich and rather horrible irony in the fact of a newspaper, suggesting that being dishonest is inherent in Blackness, itself being caught out in dishonesty, says Jo Maugham https://goodlaw.social/96dx

In 2026, there is no longer any lab leak hypothesis you can state consistently with the available evidence. Despite this, it has been the dominant media narrative for six years. Read my new data-driven investigation: www.protagonist-science.com/p/biased-med...

A Cambridge professor is dead after facing extraordinary scrutiny over alleged PhD errors. The Times, Telegraph and Mail published 111 articles about Jason Arday. Edward Higgs asks what lay behind this campaign when other plagiarism cases attracted far less attention.

Dr Arday’s tragic death was the direct, foreseeable result of press harrassment, with racism playing a key role We're asking the prime minister to commission an immediate public inquiry ito ensure we never see a tragic death like Dr Arday's again goodlaw.social/n1ck

Broke the thread somehow. Sorry. Longer form thoughts here: dmitryopines.substack.com/p/listening-...

I think this is brilliant on the issues around the fall of Jason Arday. Thank you, Jason Okundaye.

Two years ago I was treated for prostate cancer. Probably 90% of the staff had non-British ethnic origins. They were all brilliant, hard working, supportive, skilled. I have no idea how long they or their families have lived here. I don't care. I am just grateful

feels bad that the guy who was chief of staff to the Prime Minister not a decade ago is now associating himself with an extreme right party! feels very bad!

How are things in Belfast? Are the people with Legitimate Concerns about paedophilia attacking unionist politicians’ homes in response to the Donaldson verdict? They aren’t? How strange. Their Concerns seemed so Legitimate when they were burning foreigners out of their homes a few weeks back.

Hot podium guy is, tbf to him, ageing well. Here he is in 2019 (first major appearance), July 2022, October 2022 and today.

Brexit alone certainly didn't do for Starmer, but it's a major aggravating factor. If his position on the EU had been very different these last two years, he would not now be Googling removals firms. When it comes to prime ministers, Brexit's the closest thing to a guaranteed job-killer.

God I love this country. We're just so ridiculous.

The Farage effect. A losers’ charter. Everything gets worse and costs more when prejudice is turned into policy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The EHRC trans code explained: What it does, how it works and what happens next iandunt.substack.com/p/the-ehrc-t...

New post out: "How to beat Reform" Using exclusive polling I look at what attack lines work best on Reform, which of their voters are most likely to defect, and the potential for tactical voting. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/h...

A) This a properly brilliant piece of investigative journalism by BBC & @hopenot.bsky.social Huge kudos to all involved for doing the job the UK police & CPS failed to do: naming the alleged spymaster & clearly showing Kremlin’s role. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

After the events in Belfast over the last two nights, the BBC’s recent behaviour looks even more reckless www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-bbcs-t...

Good article. Two murders - of a brown person by a white person, and vice versa - with striking similarities. The law treated them equally, as it should. The media - and the politicians stoking anger at "two tier policing" - did not. 1/

Condemning riots isn't enough. We need policy action, including an immediate appraisal of X as a vehicle for coordinating far-right disorder. And we need political leadership, to challenge white nationalism as an idea, not to validate it daily and then complain when it turns violent.

This has nothing to do with stopping crime. It is to do with a global far-right movement, coordinated on X, organised by some of the most powerful men in the world from Silicon Valley to the White House inews.co.uk/opinion/fara...

I think we all know what the new direction for Doctor Who should be.

The way the entire British media is suddenly discussing 'two tier policing' as if it is a real thing worth seriously debating, rather than the obvious far-right white supremacist fantasy it has always been, is very alarming

I can excuse @iaindale.bsky.social's ignorance here. Just because anyone with a very basic economics education should recognise the lump of labour fallacy doesn't mean he should. But the arrogance combined with the absolutely deliberate refusal to think is quite remarkable.

There's some welcome bits and pieces in that EHRC guidance, particularly on clubs and associations being able to remain trans-inclusive, but in general it's a mess. Imagine having to make a major financial decision on the basis of the endless, hyper-anxious impenetrable drivel in that document.

So, you won't find much sympathy here for Sunak's last budget recklessly reducing national insurance or Starmer failing to take the opportunity of a huge majority. But are these really failings equal to reducing the country to a political nervous breakdown as per 2016 - 2022? No.

Boris prioritised the economy not people. www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-destr...

I’ve been hearing so much anger and disappointment from frontline workers about the BBC investigation into fraudulent asylum claims. One of the most damning responses has come from one of the experts they interviewed, solicitor Ana Gonzalez. It’s really worth reading her response in full:

Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, I repeat Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, this is unpreced— <wait my producer is just whispering something in my ear> Apparently this is precedented

LOL.

The section that the Guardian censored… By Prof Judith Butler

Not sharing that article, but the Worcester LGBT piece by the BBC is up there with the most irresponsible and unethical reporting I have ever seen. I am not defending the activities of individuals named in the story, but with no idea of extent the risk of harm to genuine claimants is huge.

Quite a flex to turn up at the presidential palace, get him to confirm you as prime minister, call him unfit to serve with no moral authority, tell him to resign, and then pose for a picture

Regret to inform everyone that Peter Magyar beat the world’s smartest illiberal populist in large measure by working incredibly hard for 2 straight years, meaning the rest of us are just going to have to get off our asses and do shit rather than just complaining.

I will miss the goldfinches (and the occasional greenfinch) in the summer, but I will follow the RSPB's advice. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today’s @stephenkb.bsky.social newsletter is great - better transport links are an accelerator of regional growth not a *cause* of it. You can’t field of dreams a transit system because you don’t know what you’re designing it *for* giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...