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.
Telegraph newspaper editorial on Mandelson's appointment in December 2024 versus editorial today
Reform UK's energy prize winners, Wigan-based Raymond and June Dibble "are the very same couple who nominated Lee Moffitt to become the Wigan branch chair of Reform UK."
Moffitt appears in the publicity video posted by Farage of their miraculous win. Fancy that!
bylinetimes.com/2026/04/13/r....
BBC News leading all its bulletins on demands by former Government advisor Lord Robertson for more defence spending, without at any point mentioning his current paid senior role for US defence lobbyists
The Telegraph just gave a convicted criminal a two-page spread to explain why he's pumping £4 million into Reform UK. They tucked his criminal record away in the small print. So as a former financial crime specialist I’ll do their job for them👇
As always: the actual Goverment has to work in concert with allies for maximum impact rather than immediately post responses to world events.
Once upon a time opposition party's got this
"Matthew Goodwin has been paid a salary of up to €10,000 a month [from Hungary's state-funded MCC], according to leaked documents obtained by Hungarian investigative journalists Direkt36 and reported by the Good Law Project"
That could all end if Orbán loses...
open.substack.com/pub/democrac...
So, about those Eid prayers in London...
"What's the highest thing in Trafalgar Square?"
"Nelson's column, innit?"
"And the highest thing on the column?"
"Nelson."
"And on Nelson?"
"His hat."
"And the highest thing on his hat?"
"That bit that sticks up."
1/8
“Whether it be Farage flying to the USA to call for sanctions that would hammer Britain’s economy, or his party treasurer jetting off to Nicaragua to do business with people sanctioned by the British state, they’re incapable of acting in the national interest.”
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
This is an extraordinary saga that Sunder is pursuing indefatigably. The BBC has repeatedly tried to excuse itself from responsibility for allowing Nigel Farage to lie egregiously about immigration without challenge. It is illustrative of a much wider malaise & so very important. Thank you, Sunder.
This is exactly why so many transparency campaigners are calling for crypto donations to be banned
Connecting the dots
1. Netanyahu saying "we won" yesterday
2. Trump saying "we won" today
3. Countries that have refused to get involved express "readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait."
1/
www.gov.uk/government/n...
In case you need it, the UK allowing the US to use UK bases to target Iranian missile sites targeting international commercial shipping is based on a joint statement by the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia...
Nigel Farage has called Welsh people “Foreign speakers” in a Cameo video.
I hate to break it to you Mr Farage, but if you read a history book you would realise English is more foreign in the UK than Welsh.
Big credit to the Guardian for breaking this story: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i...
NEW: Nigel Farage has sold videos in which he endorsed a neo-Nazi event, repeated extremist slogans and supported a man convicted over his involvement in a far-right riot - @direthoughts.com & @michaelgoodier.bsky.social report
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i...
"The War in Iran was started by WOKES!"
Colin from Portsmouth says that the war is a ruse by carbon neutral lobbyists to put up the price of oil so we all start investing in green energy.
They're basically losing their minds over traditions that were invented around the time ABBA released Take A Chance on Me
Yeah this would be tacky if it came from some over-excited outrider but from the official party account it’s grim.
does Kemi Badenoch not understand that September is 6 months away - government is right to wait to see what happens before further straining public finances - me for @instituteforgovernment.org.uk on the energy crisis www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/rach... #PMQs
Dear everyone,
As per the post from the Bodleian librarian below, AI bots and scrapers are putting just about every website under great pressure, British History Online included.
A lot of excellent tech staff are working hard to keep everything working, but outages and siruptions are inevitable.
Green and cream graphic with a dark green border and the Feeding Britain logo in the top right corner. The heading reads “A Statement from Feeding Britain.” The text explains that the UK Government committed to ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels from food banks and that recent figures show progress toward that goal. It notes that after more than a decade of annual increases in food bank use, there have now been two successive years of reductions, suggesting the country may be turning the tide on hunger. The statement emphasises that policies which increase poorer households’ incomes and invest in local services can help people stretch their money further and lead to sustained reductions in food bank use. It concludes with data showing that between 2023 and 2025 there was an 18.3% reduction, equal to 592,279 fewer emergency food parcels distributed by Trussell food banks.
A statement from Andrew Forsey, Director of Feeding Britain, following the release of Trussell's latest figures on emergency food parcels across the UK.
@trusselluk.bsky.social
it’s imperative these shameless buffoons not be allowed to wriggle out of this www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
But, rather than receiving a formal invite to meet Trump, Farage was in fact invited to Mar-a-Lago by a member of the club, according to multiple people briefed on the matter They said Farage had hoped he would be able to catch Trump for a conversation as the US president was scheduled to travel to Mar-a-Lago that evening. However, Trump had a change in his itinerary and decided to stay instead in Doral, about an hour`s drive away The Reform leader's failure to secure an audience with the US president underscores a weakening of ties between the two populist leaders who famously formed a close friendship in the vears before and after the 2016
Massive humiliation for Farage, who tipped off the UK press that he was flying to Florida to have dinner with Trump... only for Trump to decide he had more interesting things to do when Nigel arrived.
Today we have a double debunk:
1. A debunk of the idea that 67 dog breeds are being banned in Britain
2. A debunk of what the usual suspects are saying online (because they are so tediously predictable!🙄)
🧵1/21
Knocking Off Time, Salford Docks, painting by Tom Dodson (1911-91).
“The sky over Tehran is black. Like the night sky…” a friend
“i cannot breath, I am breathing through a wet towel”. My mum
10.000.000 people are being choked to death. Tehran is surrounded by mountains. There is very little wind.
Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes.
A monochrome ‘spot the mistake’ scene featuring a postman cycling along a lane besides a half timbered thatched cottage
An observation test for your inner 8-year-old.
Can you spot 12 deliberate mistakes?
From Treasure magazine, 1965
Official answers coming soon
(Even if you don’t reply, could you please ‘like’ or share this one?)
