Trump's cronies getting rich while Americans pay the price? It's Maga's worst nightmare Maga wanted to 'drain the swamp' and smash the elite in Washington

Not everyone is losing money from the chaos emanating from the White House. Read the full column here: inews.co.uk/opinion/trum...

My latest for @theipaper.com is on the allegations that insider trading has taken place betting on Trump’s pronouncements:

My first appearance on Politics Live was on This Day! Hayfever gives me a tickly cough rather than a snuffle - I was focusing so hard not having a coughing fit live air I had no idea what topic we were on. I had tears streaming down my face and had to signal to a producer to take the camera off me

Nightmare!

So far Olly Robbins has dropped govt in it x 3 - that Cabinet Office suggested Mandelson might not even need vetting, that No 10 pressured him to get on with it, that publicly rejecting M on vetting grounds wd be v awkward - & himself in it on maybe 1 (dsn't sound like he recorded much of this...

Looks like the bus that got Ollie Robbins is coming back round for a drive past Downing Street.

Robbins says no stipulation from No.10 that he should be vetted, and nothing said his appointment was subject to vetting - and FCDO had to insist, prior to Robbins appointment, that vetting took place (following row with Cabinet Office)

For me the start of Spring in Westminster is when the plane trees dump all their pollen in a huge cloud - today! I don’t get hayfever normally but remember once in a BBC interview in the park having to assure them that I was weeping due to the pollen, not the pension deficit…

“Who first suggested to the Prime Minister that Mandelson should be appointed as our ambassador to the United States, or was it just his own idea?”

A good question from Julian Lewis MP. Which the PM simply didn’t answer.

Rather the principle is that if you are, that is a You problem not something the institution needs to or will be required to change.

Also extra weird since they don't have Bovril

I came across someone using it conversationally on socials this morning!

For RFK, apparently so

Some suggestions Bob Dylan invented it to make the Mighty Quinn rhyme

How did it come about that while we say “not everyone’s cup of tea”, the Americans say “cup of meat”? Is that what they’ve been drinking since the unfortunate events in Boston Harbour?

Spat at, threatened and kidnapped: British Jews tell of rising antisemitism British Jews have described to BBC Panorama how they are experiencing a rise in antisemitism.

Spat at, threatened and kidnapped: British Jews tell of rising antisemitism

Really looking forward to this - his previous film, Enys Men, was wonderfully weird.

A woman drinking from a takeaway coffee cup as large as her with the caption "Bay I have a Monday sized cup of coffee to go please"

New university free speech complaints system to come into force this year Universities could face fines of £500,000 or 2% of their income if they are found to have failed to protect free speech.

According to @hepi-news.bsky.social polling: www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/u...) while 70% of students agree that 'universities should never limit free speech', 50% want at least one political party banned from campus. 🤷

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:

Admittedly it did crash into the barriers and fall over shortly before the finish line.

Fittingly, you were making stuff up then, just as you are making slurs up now.

Calling your state “Democratic people’s republic” while advocating and implementing totalitarian autocracy under Juche ≠ stating freedom and democracy are preferable to other systems while not advocating totalitarian autocracy. Pretty obviously.

A display of a well preserved object resembling a bucket, with a triangular handle and rough, decayed texture. The object is mounted upright in a glass case within a modern museum setting.

A Neolithic well bucket made of lime bast and a willow handle, dating back some 7000 years ago.
Lime bast fibre is a strong and flexible inner bark of a lime (linden) tree that was, for example, used to make textiles or ropes.
Found in a well in Eythra, dating 5100-5000 BC. 🧵1/2

📷 me

Sure - but as my point was that it’s not about what they call themselves but what they advocate, the example holds.

"Warsaw and Kyiv are Russian cities. The question is not whether they need to be taken or not (they do).The question is the price."

Therefore, it is obvious that imperial Russia can only be stopped physically - by destroying Russian occupiers in such numbers that they are unable to advance further

They only had a right to bear arms, not the whole outfit.

Bears of very little brain.

Look, we never hear anyone there saying they’re unhappy…

Fair points, though Mosley for example argued against the concept of an Opposition as inherently counter-productive. In the modern day, someone like Curtis Yarvin explicitly argues against democracy as a system.