This morning I’ve seen Olly Robbins’s appearance before the select committee described as ‘box office’, while a commentator flagged up another key political moment with the words ‘bring the popcorn’.

That’s one of our main problems right there.

Or in the FT. Because it's a deeply stupid point.

UK nominal GDP has overtaken India, probably temporarily, and driven entirely by exchange rate fluctuations (mostly the fall of the rupee, which has indeed been "sensational").

We have not grown faster than India - quite the opposite.

I mean, is it on a par with Profumo and the Cambridge Spies? I don’t think it is

Shabana Mahmood swears at ‘white liberal’ hecklers over Reform remarks Home secretary accuses protesters of trying to ‘delegitimise’ concerns people have over immigration

Every single piece of evidence in the UK shows that ethnic minorities are nore pro-migratiion than white British people. Ethnic minorities like white British people have mixed pro, balancer and sceptical views but they are more liberal + softer sceptics.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

‘Will they kill us too?’ Murder of leading feminist has chilling effect on Iraq’s activists Yanar Mohammed’s assassination comes amid a number of killings, as fellow campaigners warn women’s rights are going backwards

‘Will they kill us too?’ Murder of leading feminist has chilling effect on Iraq’s activists. Yanar Mohammed’s assassination comes amid a number of killings as fellow campaigners warn women’s rights are going backwards.
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Fun fact that lying UK hack journalists won’t tell you because they hate Labour; Boris Johnson did not pass vetting when Theresa May appointed him Foreign Secretary. #VettingFailure

Am not as dead set against AI as most of Bluesky, but I really do need to wonder who this (from the Tory shadow minister) is actually *for*? I don’t think I know *anyone* who would be comfortable with “the chancellor using AI”, and one would assume Tory target voters will be more firm on this?

Reform's policy would be to return somebody granted refugee status if any ONE of these conditions was met
- came without permission
- overstated before claiming
- OR country is now safe

ie: if valid claim for persecution, country still dangerous, would return eg to Taliban, Iran

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/. https://www.ft.com/content/034361bc-641b-4a73-a3d1-3ee76c4ed573?syn-25a6b1a6=1 One Labour official who knows Starmer well said that while McSweeney, a protégé of Mandelson’s, wanted to send him to Washington, Starmer was never that close to him. “Keir didn’t even really like Mandy, and suspended his judgment as he does so often,” the person said. “At that point, the machine took it [Mandelson’s appointment] as his intention and does what the British state does, which is bend the process to the signal it thinks is being broadcast from the principal.”

An all-time classic entry in the hall of fame 'does the person saying this realise how damning it is?' quotes:

And can I just add… No one at Palantir seems to be able to read or write.

“We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism”

Take out the vapid tautologies and you get:

“We must resist pluralism”

Great tell.

Russian economy is faltering despite oil windfall, Sweden warns Stockholm’s military intelligence head says Moscow is manipulating data to make its economy look better

Exclusive: Sweden has intelligence indicating Russia's systematically manipulating data to fool Ukraine’s western allies into believing its economy has withstood the strain of its war spending & western sanctions, Thomas Nilsson, head of Sweden Military Intelligence, told me & @maxseddon.bsky.social

Russia's greatest disinfo campaign They're not winning the war. And some other thoughts about where we are.

'That Russia is winning the war is the greatest disinformation campaign Putin’s regime has ever launched.' @sianushka.bsky.social
sianushka.substack.com/p/russias-gr...

Feel this old piece is relevant per the Swedish intel revelations linked to at the end of Hetan’s thread

This makes the scale of Rayner's alleged error - for which Reform hauled her over the coals - look like monopoly money

Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez: “Here in Spain, we are approving and advancing a process to regularise half a million immigrants.

“And I want to say to the Right and the Far Right who oppose this: Spain is the daughter of migration and will not become the mother of xenophobia.”

One thing stories like this highlight is how crucial it becomes to be able to have dual nationality when governments are getting nasty about residency requirements. Countries like NL that block dual nationality are basically telling parents they can never safely take the kids to visit grandma.

You can ofc, and many places do, put a sign up to inform customers: "Male staff currently cleaning toilets."
Crucially, it's time-limited and clearly signalled.
Therefore, no, it's not nothing to do with making single-sex spaces mixed-sex full-time. Which is Nadia Whittome's proposal.

ZOHRAN: “TBH, I don’t think too much about how Republicans portray me. The power of an ideology is judged in the worth of its delivery— to be told a city-run grocery store is implausible but $500 MILLION/day to kill ppl in Iran & Lebanon is necessary speaks to a broken politics.”

Old woman here, finding it very odd that somehow taking tax payer money & have it used for the taxpayer good is branded as socialism. I want my money going to infrastructure, services, security, safety nets & other public goods. Why else would we pay taxes? F the greedy robber barons & oligarchs.

It’s cause, not effect. Starmer’s lack of voluble backers is not because he is unpopular, it has same root cause as his unpopularity: there is no such thing as Starmerism, the PM has no real personal achievements to speak of, so there is nothing for anyone to *defend*.

You’re missing the point by several country miles.

None of these are tied to Starmer as a person. They aren’t at risk under another Labour PM.

It’s arguable however that sticking with Starmer and his personal achievements, such as putting the hostile environment on steroids, risks all of them.

Reform do tend to reactively police the boundary on overt racism (of the kind the Mail/Times wouldn't comdone)

As far as İ can tell, neither bonkers nor extreme pandemic/vaccine conspiracies have tended to be deal breakers for candidates. These views more popular among their activists than voters

I guess most newsrooms would guess "has risen steadily since 2023" is right - so would be surprised by "boat crossings have now been falling [when comparing like with like] for over 6 months". It will be harder for reporting to shift public misperceptions if media producers share the misperceptions

I've asked the BBC to correct this news report's mistake in claiming 100,000 small boat arrivals last year
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Could use BBC Verify data to get numbers right + more accurately report the context:eg, that small boat numbers are falling in 2026
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

On my tbr pile, on the strength of this review alone 🙂

Photograph of Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, speaking at a United Nations event in front of the blue UN symbol.

Labour is “weakening legal protections for women and girls” by failing to publish the EHRC guidance on safeguarding the right to single-sex spaces, said Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls.
Phillipson wants to "tone down" the guidance, which would nullify it.

She's certainly illogical. Once a space includes two sexes, it's not single-sex. It may be single-gender. She may feel trans-inclusive spaces are more appropriate, but by definition, they are mixed-sex. This wording should not go on the statute book bcs semantically, it's nonsense.

Cis Mom Harassed by Transphobes After Winning Half-Marathon — Assigned The Great West Race that Anna Harold won bans trans women from competing.

Gender criticals are being blamed for this. Because "transphobia".

No.

The injustice of males competing in women's sport and the high profile examples have made people appalled and hyper vigilant.

I think the fix is obvious.

Pope says ‘world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ amid feud with Trump’s White House Pontiff denounces leaders who invoke religion to justify war, after US bishops offer him support after Vance remarks

Pope Leo XIV: “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

Pope says ‘world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ | Pope Leo XIV | The Guardian

UK-EU events in Brussels today. Optimism in the air that goes beyond more unexpected sunshine.

And back in the UK Reform and Conservatives can only parrot "Brexit betrayal". Really time they were mocked mercilessly for not moving on from 2016.