This is absolutely it. You can't at the one hand go 'tepid bath of managed decline', then clearly signal who you want as ambassador and then be surprised that the process yields that outcome.
You can actually see the moment Ed Miliband thinks, what's the point burning through whatever political credibility I've got left energetically defending a man who's going to be gone in a matter of weeks.
surely no army in military history has ever been laid low by disease, a famously uncommon problem among people living in enforced close quarters
Telegraph newspaper editorial on Mandelson's appointment in December 2024 versus editorial today
Again, from freebiegate, to Mandleson, to Doyle just a consistent theme of behaviour that would be unacceptable and, frankly, result in a disciplinary in the private sector is just normalised in parliament.
A real, persistent problem for our politics that it is so endemic and normalised.
Related to the UK's EU debate and in particular the national delusion that is exceptionalism like we're going to have the world's best regulations when we don't understand the world.
Big Wet Wipe knows how to make wet wipes that can be removed one at a time but refuses to do so because they make so much money when you pull them out in clumps
Timeline cleanse: I just got on a bus. An elderly woman was trying to pay but her card didn’t work. She was standing flustered by the driver. A boy, maybe 12 or 13 years old, who was queuing to get on said to the bus driver, “sir can I pay for her?” and then went ahead and paid for her
Funny to recall that this government, mired in scandal, policy u-turns and infighting, won a huge majority a little less than two years ago. And while the fiscal inheritance was bad, the bar for improvement was also set incredibly low. It was just so hard to see how you could end up here so quickly.
It's going to be even worse the next time they appoint Peter Mandelson
Honestly just ban social media until the companies can show they’ve got a grip on this.
I’m increasingly not sure democracy can survive the deepfake era.
this sounds kinda like a "who cares" achievement but its a very exciting milestone for rich guys who are extremely invested in a future where robots they control are slavedrivers and prison guards for the rest of the human population
Screenshot of a tweet: God Save Great Britain & @GSGB01 WOW: The NHS has ordered staff not to use the phrase 'It's raining cats & dogs' in fear of upsetting people from other cultures and religion. Britain has gone absolutely
Screenshot of a tweet: @Jenny_1884 The NHS has ordered staff not to use the term "It's raining cats & dogs" as it may offend foreigners. Tough If you don't like it jog on is what I think The NHS needs to get back to concentrating on making people better & not being more concerned about offending
For the love of God, could the "common sense" brigade PLEASE develop some actual COMMON SENSE?!
No, the NHS has not ordered staff not to use the term "it's raining cats and dogs" for fear of either upsetting or offending anyone...
Please engage your brains for a minute🙏
🧵1/15
A rum situation where it is the legal profession which has held firm, whilst the political and justice systems have simply given way.
But you can't pardon a disbarment.
Just sobbed hardest I have since my mom died in 2020.
She missed these trials by a few months.
One of most ruthless cancers. Hard to fathom that maybe she'd still be here.
I feel such a hole inside.
In case you're wondering if we should fund mRNA research instead of another stupid war ... yes.
An Iran-linked group has claimed responsibility for *all* the recent series of arson attacks against British synagogues and Jewish groups – including the ambulance attack.
The story should be bigger full stop. But how is this aspect of it barely mentioned? It seems *bizarre*.
I'm starting to think that 40 years of electing governments based on how little they think the state should do, might be the cause of how little the state can do.
I mean he crossed the line to extremely weird behaviour a very long time ago, but, still:
WHO does that?
fascinated that the PM found out on Tuesday but told neither Cooper nor Jones, who both only found out yesterday it seems? what were no10 doing with the information, if not discussing it with the ministers who oversee the vetting process and the department in question?
Lovely footage of the first bear born in Aragon in more than 50 years, shortly after emerging from hibernation. Part of the slow recovery of brown bears in the Pyrenees. Via Aragón TV.
In my mid teens if someone had said to me “when you are middle aged, the leader of the opposition is a black woman and the leader of the party polling in third is Jewish”, I really would have had a much more optimistic idea of how the future was panning out.
"The most important charecteristic a leader needs is judgement.
On an unrelated note, I needed the FCDO to tell me Peter Mendelson was a bit dodgy and when they allegedly only did so 27 times and without recourse to an explanatory puppet show, I asked no follow up questions whatsoever."
If, as is probably truth of matter, Mandelson was to be appointed Ambassador, come what may, because Trump was a sui generis problem which needed addressing in a sui generis way - a Trump-whisperer - then PM should just say that.
The faultlines are developing from pretending that was not the case.
The significant year on year fall on boat arrivals is broadly unreported by BBC or other media. It has less to do with imminent government changes currently going through than a fall in "push factors" that is Europe-wide
I think it is preferable to have politicians who have, at some point in their lives, lived like a normal person
This the key point. If FCDO did overturn the vetting without telling anyone it was because it had already been announced. Which was a ridiculous thing to do.
"you never know what worse institutions your bad institutions have saved you from" is the story of our age
I like the way the Trump cat is the correct shade of orange.
Yeah it's pathetic to suggest we can fund defence on the back of disability cuts but it's also a flat out lie to suggest we can do it by 'taxing billionaires' - both sets of people arguing for that are incredible irritating and I'd just like them to stfu, please.
You would have thought that the penny would have dropped with politicians of *all parties* that there are no easy answers, that taxes will need to go up and furthermore if you ignore that reality you *still end up being massively unpopular with voters and get punished regardless*
