Dr Patrick O'Brien
Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Oxford Brookes. Research: judges, judging, and public law.
Also @patrickcobrien@mastodon.ie; patrickcobrien@twitter.com
- Agree with Sunder. Starmer's language terrible but highly unlikely that was a deliberate reference to Powell's speech. A lot of the language and tone of the white paper itself regarding immigration and immigrants is also awful.
- I find it bizarre that this is now parked at “did the PM consciously reference Powell” when “the PM did a speech that sounded like the one Powell got cancelled for in 1968” and “the discourse standards of 1968 were apparently much higher than those of 2025” are just as troubling.
- That a KC with a human rights law background accidentally did a Powell is, if anything *more* damning.
- One problem I haven't seen canvassed much in this context is an analogue of the uncanny valley problem. When someone is detectably using AI to send emails or something, I emotionally disengage. I'm a human and I have no interest in talking to software. I think this is innate bsky.app/profile/link...
- There are all sorts of instrumental reasons why AI is going to screw up education, but at a more fundamental level I think everyone is upset with everyone else because ultimately even assessed work (and assessing that work) is a form of human communication. On a human level, AI feels like betrayal.
- They conkered them, obviously; Jesus Christ do I have to do everything around here
- That is nuts, but technically conkers are horse chestnuts, so keep it close to your chest...
- Why wouldn't I use a car to critically engage with relevant literature?
- This is what Tracy Chapman was singing about: high octane lit crit.
- Correct. The claim that Starmer was “echoing” Powell only makes sense if you decouple the words from their meaning and message, which in Powell’s case was predicting mass racial violence.
- Why Starmer’s “island of strangers” remark owed more to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone than Enoch Powell. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...
- This is nonsense. He literally used the words "squalid experiment" to describe immigration. He talked about "incalculable damage". I'm glad someone somewhere in Labour comms is panicking and backtracking, but the language was *in itself* terrible: blowing dog whistles and lobbing red meat to racists
- It is also - though this is hardly the point - absolutely nothing to do with Putnam, who was talking about stuff like technological change and political trust over decades in the US.
- Missed the bit of Putnam's fairly gentle book about social change where he started foaming at the mouth about foreigners.
- Why Starmer’s “island of strangers” remark owed more to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone than Enoch Powell. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...
- I'm giving a talk in a few months to some children's publishing and bookselling bods. If you could say one thing to a capitive audience of publishers and booksellers, what would YOU say? #KidLitUK (Dm me if it's something you'd rather not say out loud...)
- Young adult (or just age 12+) books that are just *funny*, not sombre or issue-led. In my local Waterstones there’s nothing my 13yo is interested in. In fact I think it was my complaint about this a couple of years ago that led me to follow you on Twitter!
- Second this vigorously: more funny stuff, less dark stuff. Kids aren’t able for it. The world is dark enough right now.
