Fifteen minutes before the President announced he was pausing strikes on Iran, somebody moved $500 million in oil futures. Somebody knew. Somebody told them. Or somebody is them.
New piece ↓
open.substack.com/pub/adamkinz...
A small point from the Mandelson/Robbins saga. Refom and many Tories argue for a civil service than can be more easily bent to the will and whims of their elected political masters.
This is precisely what happened here.
"Spanish Flu" says hi.
You can’t complain about sleepwalking into a Reform government if you can’t even take 5 minutes to make an online complaint.
You know what to do.
Our time is short @SaraGonzalesTX . Mass deportations will correct this, worst of the worst won’t. If Plano, Texas, of all places, has this problem, then you can see how there are 100 million illegal aliens in our country. Commence mass deportations . @nicksortor original post: At a park in Plano, TX with my 5-year-old. We are surrounded by foreigners, speaking multiple foreign languages, making it more difficult for my son to make friends. This is my hometown. It’s unrecognizable. I want my country back.
trump's former "commander-at-large" of the border patrol greg bovino says mass deportations, not deporting "worst of the worst" will "correct" places like Plano, Texas having a diverse population
Are there, perhaps, any recent examples of dubious characters with obvious security risks being appointed to the House of Lords?
A lot of people spent days going "OMG OMG OMG popcorn at the ready SiR kEiTh obvs lying; Olly Robbins has the receipts". Now they're like "too clever to get caught, they did it with VIBEZ."
From "Starmer is really bad at politics" straight to "Starmer is Machiavelli reincarnated" - like every week.
Today's winner of the Internet. Congratulations!
I checked this too.
*20 seconds* of Reform logo display.
*No other* party logo displayed.
In local election purdah.
This is not normal. At all.
Is this winning?
SEN. @ossoff.senate.gov : “The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice… Remember — While you pay more for everything, the First Family’s wealth is growing by billions. Because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.”
OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.
Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.
(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)
I don't watch much TV at all. But I watched The Pitt and loved it. Great story-telling and character development. Really enjoyable, and yes, very grateful for the NHS!
This piece is incredibly important. Read the whole thing.
It's going to be even worse the next time they appoint Peter Mandelson
It is possible to think that this whole undignified Mandelson vetting debacle does not reflect well on the PM at all, while also thinking that another leadership contest is literally the last thing anybody needs right now.
“The U.S. has changed, and we must respond.” No hedging. No “our American friends.” Just a clean acknowledgement that the country on the other side of the border is not the country we thought we knew."
Mark Carney-Canada
Traders placed over $1 billion in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on?
Suspicious wagers on the US-Israel war in Iran are creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
Oh.
Boris Johnson failed vetting, yet Theresa May appointed him Foreign Secretary.
Dominic Cummings was never vetted, yet had free access to Government and Number 10.
The vetting process is self evidently farcical.
Yesterday we had a journalist post on Threads to say the press doesn't like Labour and holds Labour to higher standards than other parties.
It confirms what we all knew and see every day.
But shocking that someone in the media bubble actually said it out loud!
Fun fact that lying UK journalistic hacks won’t tell you because they hate Labour: Boris Johnson did not pass vetting when Theresa May appointed him Foreign Secretary. #UKPolitics
“Take a moment to think before you dive in. That’s the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation.”
www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...
“The Far Right and the Right are not shouting because they are winning. They shout because they know their time is coming to an end.”
Pedro Sánchez
Prime Minister of Spain
Steve Bannon pissed his pants on stage at the World Economic Forum, Kash Patel is missing, Pete Kegsbreth is quoting Pulp Fiction as the Bible, RFK, Jr. eats raccoon penis, and Trump keeps using war to milk the markets. No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. Lock them all up.
In the end, Starmer’s in this mess because his overall approach to Trump was to be a suck-up.
Conservative MP Edward Leigh thinks disabled people and pensioners cost too much.
He claims £2350 to pay his Council Tax, and £2500 to pay his energy bills every year
But he isn't disabled or a pensioner, he is on £94,000
He should pay his self and cut the bloody benefit costs
yeah but at least the insider traders are doing great
The concerns I expressed about unanswered questions proved to be unfortunately prophetic.
This week gave us yet another example of the pattern of good news while markets are open, followed by the real news coming as soon as they're closed.
