Orbán concedes. #Hungary

BEIRUT (AP) - Israeli strikes hit several dense commercial and residential areas in central Beirut Wednesday afternoon without warning, hours after a ceasefire was announced in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

@apnews.com

Tweet: Italy's Defence Minister on the consequences of the Iran war for Italy: "I am forced to know things about what could happen in the coming week, and the effects it will have on the economy and our daily lives, that no longer allow me to sleep." [@repubblica]

Politico headline: Brussels says Europeans should consider traveling less to avoid energy shortages EU Commission letter reflects growing fears that the Iran war is sparking an all-out global economic crisis.

Tweet: South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung says he is losing sleep over the global energy crisis, warning the situation is worse than expected and calling for a rapid shift to renewable energy

Not to be too much of a doomer but I feel like we are really not mentally (or practically) prepared for what's coming

From the Wikipedia article 'Stegt flæsk': The dish is especially popular at certain times of the year. Since the 2000s a tradition has emerged of eating stegt flæsk on election nights as a pun on the derogatory term valgflæsk (election pork) used to describe the lofty promises politicians make during their campaigns.[8] Stegt flæsk can also be served with apple compote.[9]

Similarly, why can't we have our own traditional election night dish

Programme page for TV 2's Højskolen

Why is migration policy Denmark's main political export and not Højskolen, a TV show that puts all 12 party leaders together for a 24 hour Big Brother-esque experience in a boarding school

Was the US behind the strike on Iran’s girls’ school? There are mounting indicators that the US is responsible for a strike on a girl’s school in southern Iran - one of the worst mass casualty events of the conflict so far.

Was the US behind the strike on Iran’s girls’ school?
www.channel4.com/news/was-the...

🇫🇷 Incredible acapella Marseillaise after Macron's nuclear speech at Île Longue. Almost makes you want to join the French Foreign Legion.

Guardian headline: Middle East crisis pushes up oil prices - and could drive inflation rises too

Tweet by @Met4CastUK: Significant warmth developing across Europe in the coming days with temperatures >10°C above average for the time of year. With the prospect of a strong El Niño developing by summer, it's plausible summer could be a scorcher.

BBC headline: UK unemployment rate hits near five-year high as wage growth slows

Tweet by @OpiniumResearch: Latest Opinium @ObserverUK poll Keir Starmer's approval rating has fallen to -49, his lowest since becoming Prime Minister. Down 5 points this week. Lower than any rating recorded by May, Johnson or Sunak.

If you were trying to create the ideal conditions for summer riots, I'm not sure you could do much better than this

Not too far off in the end

bsky.app/profile/rory...

A straight fight between Labour and Reform (for second place)

Ed Miliband shaking hands with Gavin Newsom

The year is 2029: Prime Minister Ed Miliband and President Gavin Newsom re-establish UK-US diplomatic relations, ending a two year freeze sparked by former President Trump's unilateral recognition of the Falkland Islands as Argentinian.

UK overseas aid cuts to outstrip those of Trump administration Spending will drop 27% this year from 2024 levels to help fund higher defence budget

Cuts to overseas aid by the UK are set to go further and faster than those made by the Trump administration in the US, as Sir Keir Starmer’s government wrestles with funding pressures

www.ft.com/content/ad52...

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws

Wow!

Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report.

This is a *big* legal win.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

GOAT status

Very Trump of them

Classic moves

Diagram showing massive Labour majority in House of Commons after 2024 UK general election

Imagine winning this majority and then being brought down by a Peter Mandelson scandal in the year of our lord 2026

Agreed - I guess I'm predicting the same order of parties as Caerphilly but closer numbers!

2025 Caerphilly by-election results: 1st, Plaid Cymru (47.4%) (+19) 2nd, Reform (36%) (+34.2) 3rd, Labour (11%) (-34.9)

My prediction for Gorton and Denton is basically that it's a repeat of Caerphilly, but with the Greens instead of Plaid

Normally I wouldn't think Davos was worth paying much attention to, but this year has it all: Macron and his aviator shades. Bart de Wever quoting Gramsci. Mark Carney declaring a new world order. Great stuff.

I mean, it's had quite the start hasn't it?

(I accidentally quote retweeted this on Twitter thinking I was on the Bluesky app before making a hasty retreat, so apologies for the janky screenshot)

Tweet by @APHClarkson: Meanwhile you're seeing a growing number of Right-wing French pundits with links to the French military openly, almost enthusiastically, discussing what France and Europe would need to do in a military confrontation with America There is an underlying strain of anti-Americanism within Europe's Left as well as Right that it won't take much to bring to the surface, even among those close to RN or other Far Right parties.

Anti-Americanism becoming a major theme of next year's French presidential election (for both left and right) would make things very interesting

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Alexander Lukashenko

Ilham Aliyev

That being said...

Saddam Hussein

Muammar Gaddafi

Bashar al Assad

Nicolas Maduro

Terrible few decades to be an authoritarian with a moustache

Feels like it's now only a matter of time before the US tries this with Cuba. And then Greenland?

Feel free to add me on Goodreads because I'm always open to recommendations (and I currently only have a tragic total of 2 friends there)
www.goodreads.com/user/show/12...

Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday was also an unexpected favourite. A fascinating look into the long lost world of pre-WW1 Europe, and a harrowing memoir covering the final days of Austria-Hungary, the continent's descent into nationalism, fascism and two apocalyptic wars

Bookended 2025 nicely with Adam Shatz' The Rebel's Clinic & @hofrench.bsky.social The Second Emancipation, on Fanon & Nkrumah, great but tragic & complex men. Really enjoyed French's use of Nkrumah as central character in wider intertwined stories of decolonisation, Black liberation & world conflict

Goodreads collage of book covers: - The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (Adam Shatz) - A Day in the Life of Abed Salama (Nathan Thrall) - The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism and Global Blackness at High Tide (Howard W French) - White Nights (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) - Pereira Mantains: A Testimony (Antonio Tabucchi) - Guards! Guards! (Terry Pratchett) - Clear (Carys Davies) - The Question of Palestine (Edward Said) - The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European (Stefan Zweig) - Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges) - I Saw Ramallah (Mourid Barghouti) - Wind, Sand and Stars (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) - The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (Yukio Mishima)

My Goodreads 'Year in Books' for 2025. Thirteen in total but my favourite was Nathan Thrall's A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. An incredible, but heartbreaking and infuriating, account of real life in the occupied West Bank. Highly highly recommend, it's a Pulitzer Prize winner for a reason.