Working in Scottish politics but somehow still finding the time to tweet about the Labour Party, Generic Nerdy Stuff and, of course, the Kingdom of Strathclyde.
Hen Ogledd
- Tweets 421
- Following 779
- Followers 1,093
- Likes 7,772
Cross party talks on the future of Social Care are going to be "fun" now that the position of the Scottish Government has changed overnight from "massive crisis" to "everything is fine" in response to Burnham's speech.
I have received the first official estimate of the cost to Scotland's pensioners of the Prime Minister's attack on the triple lock.
It will take up to £4bn from Scotland's pensioners. And the Prime Minister plans to use it to pay for social care in England.
Community note
The £4bn is a Scottish Govt extrapolation of UK-wide savings for 2049-50 cash terms per their letter, not money taken from pensioners. UK pensions are reserved; English care spending rises would generate Barnett consequentials for Scotland.
gov.scot/publications/d…
ifs.org.uk/articles/how-w…
heraldscotland.com/news/26595468.…
wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/ar…
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Lincluden Collegiate Church in the north of Dumfries was very beautiful but sadly all the information panels about it were destroyed/covered by foliage.
At first I thought it was a site that was half abandoned, but the only surviving sign says everything was done up in 2014!
September Weekend means a great opportunity for a road trip.
Took the A76 route to Dumfries - and beyond - and ended up on a Keir Hardie pilgrimage in surprisingly sunny Cumnock!
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September Weekend means a great opportunity for a road trip.
Took the A76 route to Dumfries - and beyond - and ended up on a Keir Hardie pilgrimage in surprisingly sunny Cumnock!
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People often forget but rationing is the most socially just option as it means that ordinary people don't get priced out by the free market.
If we must have demand destruction - thanks Trump - then it better be done in a way that allows old folks get to doctor appointments etc.
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Made Welsh Rarebit rather than just grilling cheese on toast and honestly might be one of the best life decisions I've ever made.
(No picture cause you've got to eat it as soon as the cheese is out of the pan!)
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Book 20 of 2026
Le Morte d'Arthur remains my favourite non-Welsh medieval Arthurian text* but the 13th century Parzival is surprisingly funny and actually well-paced!
Also Sir Gawain fights a cursed bed at one point so what's not like?
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Stephen Watt retweeted
Losing Monzo is a big test for the UK's long term prosperity. We cannot keep letting our biggest firms fall into foreign ownership and control. It does matter.
A UK listing must happen and the structural barriers to raising share capital in Britain need to be addressed urgently.
EXCLUSIVE: Monzo, the digital lender which has become one of Britain's biggest consumer banks, is in talks about a sale to Brazil's Nu Holdings which could value it at between £8bn and £10bn, ending the prospect of a near-term IPO of a UK fintech champion. news.sky.com/story/digital-b…
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You know gentrification is in full swing in Govanhill when the Farmfoods has closed!
(The Shawlands still has its Iceland bit it is just not the same!)
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Stephen Watt retweeted
Who owns our economy matters.
83% of new co-ops survive five years, versus 38% of UK businesses overall. They’re more likely to be Living Wage accredited and rooted in overlooked places.
Co-operatives UK’s new report makes the case for giving more people a stake.
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This is very good, and absolutely in the same social-democratic tradition as Labour's universal free admission policy which abolished national museum entrance fees - transforming working class access and participation.
The alternative to AI slop is accessible culture for all.
Never been to the opera before?
Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @MetOpera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Wild to think that when the Aberdeen Craft guilds held pro-Chartist pageant in the 1840s they were channelling a tradition that goes back before the Reformation.
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So I tend to think that with the rise of LLMs human to human interactions are going to become more important not less.
For at least the last few decades all human interaction has been expected to flatten so as to intersect with the digital world 1/3
Can we please bring back THE HUMAN BEING?
I don't want a chatbot.
I don't want 14 menu options.
I don't want to download another app.
I don't want to “visit our help centre”.
I WANT TO SPEAK TO A PERSON.
Surely I cannot be the only one?
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Of course robots talking to robots ain't going to be that useful economically - and unlimited digital correspondence makes email basically useless - so slower ways using actual humans are almost definitely going to make a comeback. 3/4
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The quest for unlimited tokens might have just run up against the fact that we live on a finite planet.
BREAKING: Oracle stock, $ORCL, falls -5% after declaring "force majeure" on a massive data center being built in New Mexico.
Oracle has reportedly made the move in order to shield itself from rapidly rising expenses on the project.
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