Samira Shackle

Amazing that it's only 3 months since I did my last quarterly filing for Making Tax Digital and yet I can't remember a single thing about how to use FreeAgent or what steps I took to put the stupid filing together, so will have to entirely relearn the process. Excited to do this quarterly forever

Re the Sally Rooney news, I was looking up data on arrests under terrorism legislation the other day, and hadn't quite realised how utterly bonkers the effect of the Palestine Action prohibition had been. That big purple spike is basically all PA-related arrests.

Hat's off and well done to 11EOD. This piece by @samirashackle.bsky.social is one of the best I've ever read about modern #UXO response in densely-populated areas www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

The everyday sort of courage - just getting on with the job of defusing 80 year old bombs and other explosive threats.

Every year UK bomb disposal teams respond to an average of 2500 call outs. 2000 of those are related to unexploded munitions from WW2. My latest piece tells the story of two sizeable bombs found in a single day in Devon earlier this year www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Fascinating, sad, gripping story by @maxdaly.bsky.social about his friend Duncan and his experience of being cuckooed www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

I am once again drawing your attention to some interesting research from Steve Akehurst and Persuasion UK

This is one of the saddest stories I've worked on. Luna Wong died by suicide 10 months after coming to the UK for boarding school. Her death exposes a series of safeguarding gaps. If this affected British children, I can't help but feel there would be more outcry www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

I'm having to read this story in little snippets, as it's so distressing -- more incredible reporting by @samirashackle.bsky.social who is doing the best work exploring the treatment of international pupils and students in the UK at the moment.

A heartbreaking story by @samirashackle.bsky.social of Luna Wong, a young Hongkonger whose parents hoped that by sending her to boarding school in the UK she could recover from her mental health problems. She took her own life less than a year later www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Britain's citizen's of nowhere - @samirashackle.bsky.social on the UK citizens made stateless www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/...

‘This is playing into his hands’/‘this will allow him to play the martyr card’/‘this will help with his fundraising’ are all really bad takes. Criminals should be arrested and charged with crimes.

Finally

Great to hear the PM say “We are going to be much prouder in standing up for our values and the rule of law” re foreign information warfare. I wonder if he or the Home Secretary might consider doing the same when it comes to masked vigilantes shutting down infrastructure and harassing the RNLI

Extraordinary.

If this doesn’t lead to prosecutions I genuinely don’t know what will.

Why has this live-streaming serial criminal not been arrested?

Shocking thread.

Thousands of university jobs lost too, and barely a peep either.

my brilliant colleague @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on the threat from Elon Musk’s X platform www.ft.com/content/f270...

This is awful.

Not to be too on the nose here but can you imagine if a bunch of Muslims rocked up outside of a newspaper office like this, despite being far more justified in doing so

How has this been allowed to continue and escalate like this?

Please share amongst your network of new writers!

Incidents like this have happened with increasing regularity over the past couple of years, with many triggered by local misinformation about the arrival of non-white people at hotels But it has also happened elsewhere, including a church gathering in a park and a Scout trip to an activity centre

I laughed out loud at this.

One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.

is this a serious question? i feel like i'm on drugs, nothing makes any damn sense

Even leaving any politics at all aside: as general rule, no state can allow a group of masked men to be able to close down critical infrastructure. This is basic stuff.

I find this kind of thing so deeply worrying.

Robinson is far from alone. Had police on talking about the ‘peaceful protesters’ and, so far, Labour’s response to Dover and Portsmouth has been to talk about understanding the protesters These are literal street fascists!

2) and 3) are intimately linked, in that the BBC (the organisation that really matters in the modern environment) treats 'claims by rival parties' as the operating frame for how it covers everything. The failure from Labour and the Conservatives to say 'this stuff is bad' is really, really bad.

I simply do not understand what's going on in Labour that renders its leaders incapable of finding a TV camera and speaking out against street violence. Even if you assume they agree about immigration, violence is wrong, unpopular AND against the interests of any even vaguely left wing govt.

We are currently clean on OPSEC!

Not the main point of the doc but the guy from JL Partners comes off TERRIBLY.

The decline of apex predator, the 'Fake Sheikh', has led to much laxer behaviour among its traditional prey.

Usually undercover docs struggle to get a smoking gun but the Channel 4 Reform one they’re just like “hey, I’ve got some really good suggestions for how we could break the law together - we have a lot of experience of this because of all the other crimes we committed”

A liberal is a conservative who just got mugged by the police

It took me a fortnight but I made the Substack newsletter! PRESS ACCESS: tips and advice for journalists who want to break into the industry but don’t see people who look like them there. Subscribe for free: open.substack.com/pub/frances336

A very clear exanple of a national media outlet always looking for an UP/spike/high headline (with immigration down, asylum down, boats down, hotels down). Settlement at +5 years is up after 2021-24 migration peak www.thetimes.com/article/7f2a...

Wowee this bleak

This seeks to use social housing to create a hierarchy of types of British citizen. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...